Dangerous Duo
I want to begin today by telling you about my father. He was a hard working man all of his life. He worked hard to support his family. He was a faithful husband. He was a loving, consistent example of what a man of God should be. He is not only my father but he was and is my mentor. We don’t get to see each other very often any more but I still love and respect him deeply. I can only hope that the young men in his church where he pastors are taking the time to benefit from his influence.
I am now 38 years old. I have found that at 38 I still can benefit from having a mentor. That man for the past 5 years has been my pastor. No matter how old I get, I hope that I will always have somebody that I can look up to and model my life after, somebody who has modeled their life after Christ.
The concept of having a Christian mentor in your life is a biblical one. The Apostle Paul taught us to follow his example in verses such as 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9. Jesus taught this as well. One such passage is Luke 6:39-40.
There are three things that I want for us to learn from this short passage today. I want us first to consider the ditch. Secondly, I want us to consider the dangerous duo. Dangerous duo, sounds exciting doesn’t it? Finally we will see the Deliverer. Thank God for the Deliverer.
So let’s begin with the ditch. What is a ditch? You may think of a ditch as a hole, a pit, a low place or a gutter. You may think of it as a place where water runs off and gathers when it rains or you wash your car. You might realize it is the place where the down and out sleep or the place that your television or refrigerator ends up after it has bounced out of the back of the trailer you were hauling it in and it gets hit by a semi. If you want to think on the darker side you might see it as the place where murderers dump the bodies of their victims, or hunters dump their deer carcasses. In the reality of life, it is the place of the drunk, the addict, the alcoholic or the party girl. It’s the place of the girl who gives herself to her boyfriend to prove her love only to find out that he really didn’t love her. It’s the place of the Christian teenager who rebels against mom and dad and goes off to find their place in a godless world. It’s often a place of hunger, disease, fear, doubt and hopelessness. Do you get the idea? The ditch is a place to be avoided at all costs. It’s self-inflicted. God sends nobody there, it is man’s own choice. Ask the prodigal son that Luke writes about in his book, he spent some time there. Ask Lot, who in a drunken stupor committed incest with his daughters. Ask Noah who was drunken and naked before his sons. He was in the ditch.
But now let’s talk about the dangerous duo. Jesus warns us about this pair. He described them as the blind leading the blind. The physical analogy that I see goes like this. A blind man is tapping his way along with white cane in hand. To his waste is tied a rope, perhaps 15 or 20 feet long. At the end of the rope is a second man being led along. The first man comes to an open manhole cover and falls into it. The second man, feeling the rope go taunt begins to run screaming Wait for me, wait for me! This is indeed a dangerous duo.
But then I consider some of today’s dangerous duos. In the lead are today’s mentors. The pop-stars, the movie stars, the rappers, the television personalities that make up today’s culture. And in tow are the young people of America. And as they plunge over the cliff, down into the open manhole cover, into the ditches of life, America’s young people run head long after them. While the young people see the glitz and glamour, the bling-bling of their lifestyles, they fail to see the empty lives. The divorce, disease, single-parent homes, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and yes, sometimes even murder. The ditches surely must be deep because the bodies just keep piling up. Filling up with aborted babies, throw-away kids from a generation taught by society that everything’s OK as long as it feels good. The blind are leading the blind. It’s a dangerous duo.
Oh but there is good news. Yes there’s a ditch and yes there are many dangerous duos out there but praise God there’s a Deliverer. There is one who will get you out of the ditch and keep your feet on the right road. Psalm 37:23 tells us that the footsteps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Proverbs 3:6 tells us In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. Psalm 40:2 tells us He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
The Pharisees had what I would call the pyramid of misery and that is what is eluded to in verse 40. Each disciple would try to out-do his master. To climb higher up the pyramid was to make more rules, enslave more people to those rules, thereby gaining more power over the people and making them even more miserable. Appear more pious and self-righteous than your master had been and you would climb up this pyramid. This was the method of the Pharisee, but nobody ever got out of the ditch this way.
But we have a deliverer. A mentor, one we can follow. We will never be greater than He but we can become like Him. He says so here in our passage of scripture. He uses the word PERFECT. Paul in Col. 1:28 said that as a preacher it was his job to preach and to warn every man so that he could present them PERFECT one day before Christ. In Ephesians 4:13 the word PERFECT means that we are to become unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Christ is our measuring stick. To become PERFECT means to become as He is.
Let’s consider for a moment Christ our example. In righteousness He was PERFECT. He was without sin. He did no wrong. The Bible tells us He was tempted in every way yet He was without sin. No man I’ll ever follow will ever be able to say that. Ladies, no woman you’ll ever look up to will ever be able to make that claim. But Christ was PERFECT.
He was perfect in His example of surrender. He fully and completely surrendered to His Father’s will. If there were ever any doubt as to His complete humanity it should be dispelled by the Garden of Gethsemane. There as sweat drops of blood fell from His face He prayed Father let this cup pass from me. In other words, Father, if there’s any other way, if there’s another way to get this thing done then show it to me now. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Father, since I know this is the only way, I surrender to your will. We can’t look at others around us today for an example. So many today don’t have the guts to follow God’s leading in their lives. They’ll laugh and mock your decision to serve God. They’ll try to talk you out of it saying that it’s just not logical. But if Christ is your example you can fully surrender and do His will.
Jesus Christ was the PERFECT example of what it meant to be a servant. Yes He taught a great lesson when He took off His robe, picked up a towel and some water and began to wash His disciples’ feet. But in light of the cross, that experience was nothing. There on the cross He truly became man’s deliverer. Suffering shame and humiliation He took upon Himself the sin of all mankind that He might save mankind, that He might be a guide to the blind. A light in the darkness, to lift the hopeless out of the pit of despair. To save those who were destined for misery in this life as well as in the life to come. He was Jesus Christ, Savior, Deliverer. And He asks that we follow Him.
Will you follow Him today? The Word of God demands an answer. Jesus is waiting to hear from you. Joshua’s words ring out through all of time “Choose ye today whom you will serve” Will the blind continue to lead the blind? I pray not. Will you go on following the traditions and the fads of those who’s lives are nothing but empty hollow shells or will you choose Jesus? The choice is yours but either way when you leave today you will choose one or the other. There is no maybe. There is no later. There is only the present and the answer is either yes or no. Who will you serve?
