08.23.2015 What it looks like to be a Follower of Christ: Messy

08-23-2015 from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Lord, thank You for Your grace and goodness and kindness. You are faithful – allow our hearts to be open to You and free from distraction. Allow me to share Your word in humility and grace, that we might draw closer to You.
Matthew 13:24 He presented them with another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a person who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 When the plants sprouted and bore grain, then the weeds also appeared. 27 So the slaves of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the weeds come from?’ 28 He said, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the slaves replied, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, since in gathering the weeds you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, but then gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
Jesus is addressing the reality of what it looks like to be a follower of Christ. The first word that comes to mind is ‘messy’.
Following Christ will always take place in a fallen world, tangled up with evil.
He is describing the reality of the Christian life. It would be nice if we could separate ourselves from evil and all the bad in our world. It would be easier to be a good Christian if we didn’t have to deal with (people).
If everyone in your church and family always responded like Jesus, it would be much easier to be a good Christian, but the reality is that is not the way it is.
To follow Jesus, we have to get our hands and feet dirty – and at times that mess and dirt will be brought into the church.
Metaphorically, we want our church to be nice and clean – but the reality is, it won’t ever get there. There is a proverb – where there is no ox, the manger is clean, but much increase comes with the strength of the ox.
A nice clean barn does not have an ox – but what good is it.
The gospel is to a lost and broken world, and that brings mess and dirt into the community.
Israel – had decided to have a clean barn – and what they did – they would build these boundary markers around their community – religiously – to keep any dirt out. And Jesus come and spends most of his ministry knocking down those walls.
Others are saying – No gentile can be part of our salvation – but Jesus is breaking down that wall.
Do you want a messy church or a clean one – not building – but church – the people.
Jesus explains the parable a little later – the field is the world and we are planted in that world – and there is evil all around us until the end.
Kingdom work and growth takes place only in that reality.
We cannot pull ourselves out of it. He has planted us here in this world. For those of us living in this world – “In the world, but not of the world” – we are to not be like the world.
To be in the world – learning to connect with outsiders relationally. One way is to connect with outsiders relationally – with the ‘weeds’ growing up around us.
The second way is by being salt and light in the world – influencing our world for Christ.
Third – we do this by proclaiming the gospel story. And performing the gospel – it is not just doing good things – word and deed – but it is to be proclaimed and performed – like that analogy I gave from the theory of Everything – that guy who played Stephen Hawking – he nailed it. When Jesus talks about us living the gospel – that is what they are talking about. Don’t you want them to say that about you – you nailed it! You are a great representation of Jesus. That has to take place everywhere we go.
Are you looking like Jesus when Conflict comes up in your regular life? Are people thinking – that is what Jesus would do if He worked this job? Is that what He would look like in that relational conflict?
All of us have opportunities to be in the world. They may vary based on your job or community – but we all have some opportunities to perform and proclaim the gospel and to have influence in relationships. It may vary – but ask God to reveal those opportunities to you – where you have them in everyday life. Ask God to open your eyes to those opportunities – and ask God to prepare you and make you available when those opportunities are revealed – and then to take advantage of them to proclaim and perform the gospel.
A little thing that might help you – write down Places, People, and activities –
Write – what places do I inhabit? Neighborhood, jobs, families – extended families – Grocery store - - and think – in those places, where might there be opportunities and how might I create opportunities in that realm.
People – think through – who of the people I know really need this?
Activities – think – what things can I initiate and do in my circumstances that will allow me to bring Christ into that situation. That might mean adding some things.
Being IN the world – but not OF the world – there will be a temptation to conform to the world – it is all mixed up and we can’t get away from it..
Overt ways – ways we dive in head first – and Covert ways – ways we don’t recognize – the ones that trap us. Two examples – financial stress – survival to growth – sometimes – financial stress is caused by things that are out of our control. Something happens that we had nothing to do with – or someone else does things that are detrimental to our lives. Sometimes we are in financial distress because we have chosen a living standard we can’t maintain. And in that way, we have taken on the world’s value system. Without knowing it – it sucks us right in.
Scheduling. Survival mode – because our schedules are jam-packed. There are seasons in life where that is reality – there is nothing you can do about a big project at work and you have to devote a lot of time to it – that is just life. But sometimes our schedules are packed because we have bought into the world’s mentality of ‘you need to do everything’ – and we base our value and identity on this.
Children’s schedule – we would be terrible parents if we didn’t have them in everything! We buy in – it sneaks in.
There are so many ways – I have only mentioned a few.
This week and next week – looking at how Jesus was called a ‘friend of sinners’ =-
Luke 5: 27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” he said to him. 28 And he got up and followed him, leaving everything behind.

29 Then Levi gave a great banquet in his house for Jesus, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them.
Levi is Matthew – He was a tax collector – known for being unclean, traitors – totally despised, shunned and excommunicated from their religious community – they were put out of their tribe because of their actions. It is not like today when people might dislike lawyers – it was nothing like that – they were excommunicated from their community.
Jesus’ gospel presentation to Levi: Follow Me!
That is the call to Levi. We can make mistakes because we call people to other things in our gospel presentations. – We call them to say a prayer – to come to church – to hold to certain views and beliefs – to avoid certain behaviors and to do others. But the gospel call is a call to follow Jesus. It is a decision that a person must make when he hears a story of Jesus – how He came to earth – was raised on the third day – and then making a decision to follow Him and live your life as Jesus would if He were you.
What is interesting – Matthew/Levi left everything by those two words. He basically left his way of earning an income. There was no going back to that lucrative job of tax-collecting. It was a no-doubt conversion. You know when it seems someone becomes a Christian but then it doesn’t seem to have stuck? People follow Jesus without leaving anything – and I don’t think that is possible – There is a lot of stuff about our lives before we come to Christ that we should leave.
Yes, Jesus takes us as we are – but He doesn’t leave us there. He never leaves us there. In all the gospel stories – He delivers transformation.
Matthew – as a result of Jesus’ call – throws a party – because of JOY – it was not a strategic move on Matthew’s part – He is a tax-collector and sinner. Like in High School – Jocks/Freaks/Band people/the smart people – Then there were the cool people. I was in that group (lots of laughter) – and the people who didn’t fit who formed their own group. And that was Matthew – the tax-collectors and sinners.
He was excommunicated from his religious faith and this great religious teacher calls him to follow.
And Matthew is just – WOW! Leaves everything. I wonder if we don’t have radical conversions because we fail to ask people to follow Jesus. Is that what you are doing? Are you following Jesus? Are you calling others to do the same?
30 But the Pharisees and their experts in the law complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Eating – when they shared a meal with someone – you have to understand the radical nature of that event. Sharing a meal with an individual means you accept that person as a full participant in your tribe or religious sect. You may have a work lunch. You are not accepting them into your life.
It’s Just Lunch – is some type of dating site – and it is not supposed to mean anything – but in Jesus’ day – it meant EVERYTHING> What does it look like for us.
He goes on:
31 Jesus answered them, “Those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus – I think he is being sarcastic and a bit of a play on words – AS IF they were healthy! Riiiight.
We have a great picture of repentance with Matthew – turning to the good – away from the life of destruction.
What do we think of when we think of repentance? Stopping the bad. Repentance – when it is mentioned in Luke is with joy and celebration – a focus on following Jesus on the good that is there - and the natural result – I’m not a tax collector anymore. Same with Zaccheus – Jesus wants me – so I need to give back what I have stolen.
I think our gospel has become moralistic and therapeutic rather than a call to follow Jesus. Moralistic – don’t do this or that – and therapeutic – God will fix you. But that is not the gospel. The gospel is that God became Man – his whole plan is about becoming one of us so we can have a relationship with Him that is wholly unique – equal in one sense. Not just to create creatures He could love, but could life up into an equalness – “I am not afraid to call you brother” – there is a sense that it is not just the Big God and the little us.
I have heard it described as a benevolent invasion. How do we learn to do that?