Get Uncomfortable Series

How’s your bucket list? Remember, we’re dealing with some of the items the Bible teaches are important for us to tend to before we kick the bucket! That means investing in what matters, and figuring out what’s true. Today we add a new item.

Remember also that we’re working on projects that will culminate on Feb. 26, Kick the Bucket Sunday. Each week, I hear more about small groups, SS classes, and others who are working on some project that will have eternal consequences. We want to have the news of those projects all shared as we celebrate on Feb 26.

I want to add a 3rd bucket list item today, and to get to it, I want to begin with an important part of our history. It’s always good to understand how we got here, right?

Sock monkeys. What other icon better characterizes Rockford than those floppy skinny things many of us played with as children?

It all started with a Swedish immigrant named John Nelson in 1852 who got off the train in Rockford because there was a cholera outbreak in Chicago. Nelson partnered with William Burson and introduced the knitting industry to Rockford.

On September 15, 1880, the Nelson Knitting Company formed, producing "Celebrated Rockford Seamless Hosiery," and selling socks that would become known as “Rockfords” – a sturdy work sock worn by farmers and factory workers. It was 1932 when the Nelson company added a red heel to the sock, and the rest is sock monkey history. Those monkeys became one of the top 100 influential toys of the past century. It all goes back to a sock that was the first of its kind – seamless, and knitted. It was more comfortable.

Have you ever considered how much effort we put into our comfort? This morning we have multiple thousands of dollars of equipment working just to keep this room a certain temperature. We’re using a sound system so that you can listen and I can speak more comfortably. You’re sitting on a carefully designed seat, with padding for your backside, positioned in a way that helps you to see.

You’re wearing clothing that is made with your comfort in mind. We spend a lot of our resources just to be comfortable.

I’m not disparaging it. But I am saying that until we add “Get uncomfortable” to our list of things to do while we still have time, we’ve left something out of life that we’re supposed to do. In fact, you can’t read the words of Jesus and leave with the idea that following Him is about being comfortable.

Today, around the world, and in the US, people are meeting to worship under the name of Eastern Orthodox or Russian Orthodox traditions. Most of those will be worship services where the people stand for the entire time. I’m not suggesting we make that our normal routine, but I’d like you to get a feel for it this morning, with a purpose. Everyone stand, please. If that’s physically difficult for you, please don’t sweat it – even the EOC people are allowed to sit if standing is too much on someone. And if you really want to get the point here, try standing on one foot!

As early as the 3rd century, groups of people arose who were convicted they needed to do something to be very holy. Asceticism, it’s called – denying oneself pleasures and comforts in the name of being close to God. So, groups of men who called themselves “monks” separated from society to concentrate on holiness. More extreme examples of them renounced everything in life that could be viewed as a pleasure. They figured that any kind of comfort or pleasure is a distraction that interferes with your relationship with God, so, they made themselves uncomfortable on purpose. Some of the more extreme examples believed that the more uncomfortable you are, the more holy you are. So, for them, uncomfortable meant godliness. Period.

I’m not advocating that this morning. But, I do want us to leave here committed to doing things that need to be done, even though they may not be easy. So, really, “get uncomfortable” will be a listing of a few ways Scripture shows us to do what needs to be done, even when it’s hard.

The first one, and the real foundation for this kind of thinking is because of what Jesus said.

Luke 9:23-24

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

Take up your cross

(Deny yourself for the sake something greater)

Crucifixion was a means of execution adopted and developed by the Romans for over 400 years. It was meant to be horrible in every way imaginable – humiliating, painful, terrifying, and drawn out. Sometimes, people might survive on a cross for up to 4 days before finally dying. One common practice, by the time of Jesus, was to force the condemned person to carry the patibulum, the crosspiece from the top, to the place where he’d be killed. There might be appeals and a reprieve up to that moment. But once a person took up the patibulum, there was no turning back. He was as good as dead from that point on.