The Next Step 5-6-07
Somewhere this morning a young man is standing holding on to the back of a pew with moist hands and a heavy heart. For quite awhile now he has struggled with a decision that he is about to make. He feels the calling of the Holy Spirit and while he isn’t sure he knows everything he should, he does know that he needs Jesus Christ in his life. In some Church somewhere in just a few minutes he will make that decision. Somehow, I pray, he will release the back of that pew and he’ll make his way up front and make a public profession of his faith in Jesus Christ. While for most of us this happened long ago and is today just a memory of our youth, we still sit here today with more in common with this frightened young man than we would probably like to admit. His very salvation hangs on his decision this morning to take the next step, for many of us the fate of our Christian maturity depends this morning on our willingness to take the next step. This journey of Christianity is a never ending, filled with hills and valleys, rain and sunshine, disappointment and despair, joy and peace. It is a lifetime of deciding to take that next step or allowing ourselves to stagnate in fear of what may lay ahead. We must be constantly deciding to move ahead or we must again face the empty feeling of hearing the last few words of an invitation hymn that we were just to afraid to respond to. Did you have many of those Sundays as a child? I know I had a few Sundays before I went forward where I had honestly intended to make a decision for Christ but was just unable or unwilling to do so. I know that feeling of despair that comes with knowing “ I lost my chance, I’ll have to wait until next week.” I know the inner feeling of both cowardice and failure that accompanied my inability to stand up and profess that which I knew in my heart to be true.
Most of us have been there and that’s O.K., as long as we don’t spend our lives there, stuck in a permanent limbo, unwilling to take the next step.
We must be willing to take that next step; many will ask what is the next step; For each of us its different because we are all in different places in our Christian walk. But as long as we profess Christ we must realize there is always that next step that we must not only accept but that we must pursue. For some it is easily recognized and prepared for, on the other hand many simply don’t seem to know what the next step is and for them it may very well be pursuing a closer relationship with God so that He may reveal it to them.
Sometimes we act as though Christianity ends at baptism, we rejoice after working with a non-believer for months and months as he finally accepts Christ and obediently follows in baptism. And then somehow we consider that the process is complete and accomplished, but baptism is not the final step it is merely one of the first steps. Christianity is a marathon that we cannot complete, and that we must never quit. We must run this race for all we are worth knowing we cannot finish, but rather relying on the blood of Jesus Christ to make up the difference from where we stand to the finish line. He does not command me to win the race he only requires me to take the next step. Grace will do the rest.
I often think of Christianity as a man on foot chasing a train. The train moves at such a speed that it is always getting further and further ahead of the man, it seems more and more distant each time the runner lifts his head trying to catch a glimpse of the ever more distant train. Our salvation does not count on us ever catching the train, only on our willingness to take the next step in the pursuit of the train. Those who are condemned are not those unable to catch the train but rather those who decide to forget the train and wander off another way.
Noah professed obedience when he said, “yes Lord I will build you an ark” yet it was not that profession that saved Noah and his family. His salvation from the flood was a direct result of his building of the ark. Our profession of faith is the first step, however if it is the only step you ever take, you will not survive the floodwaters of this life. You must continually take the next step.
Whatever that may be, it will always require faith and include risk, it always requires us to place ourselves even more firmly into the hands of God. But once we do we will always receive the peace and joy that comes from experiencing that closeness with Him.
I am reminded of a scene that we all see repeated every summer. It’s the toddler at the swimming pool learning to jump into dads arms, you’ve seen it, dad is in the pool trying to coax the toddler “go ahead and jump” trying to reassure the child that dad will catch them. I can remember the hesitation and anxiousness on the part of the toddler, those feet going up and down going nowhere. Finally after much coaxing the child jumps into the loving arms of Dad who barely lets the child get wet at all. This scene is repeated over and over and soon becomes a game with the child jumping with a new found confidence into dads loving embrace. Seems so simple to watch a child take that physical next step, yet it remains so scary for us as adults to sometimes do it spiritually. We must continually remind ourselves that it is only when we are willing to take that next step that we able to find a new level of confidence with our Heavenly Father. When we fail to we rob ourselves of an intimacy with the Lord that only taking next step can provide. It doesn’t matter how stagnate we have grown in our Christian walk we are never more than just one step away from a closer intimacy with him than we have ever known.
If we will just dare to take that next step.
Paul did it when he left Judaism for Christianity on the road to Damascus, When Paul was expelled for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ in Pisidian Antioch, he took that “next step” to Iconium where they made plans to stone him because of the Gospel. He had to flee for his life, from Iconium he took the “next step” to Lystra where they dragged him outside the city, stoned him and left him for dead. After taking the Gospel to Derbe, Paul’s next step was to return to each of those towns where he was forced to flee, where he had been stoned and left for dead and preach to them again the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul was a man of many “next steps.” I am sure that he would tell you that with each beating he felt an ever-more intimate relationship with the Lord. And while this “next step” does not always come easy nor is it without its price we are promised much reward for what we suffer for his name, in Luke 18:29-30 it reads:
"I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.
You can rest assured; that which you risk when you take that step pales in comparison to what you have been promised, even if you have to risk it all, its worth the risk.
Not every example of taking the next step is in the Bible, many are stories of people today, just like you and me.
Taking the next step may be stepping forward to teach a Sunday school class, it may mean accepting the challenge of leadership in the church, it might mean going door to door handing out tracts about the gospel, it might mean leaving your job and home and caring for the needy in Sudan. Your next step will be a call from God not a suggestion or impulse by man.
I think the most common answer you will get from a group of Christians when you ask them where is God calling you next, what is your next step, the most common answer in most groups will be an honest “I don’t know”
And for those people, the ones who honestly don’t know, the answer is the easiest. If you don’t know what the next step is in your Christian life, then it is obviously to pursue a closer relationship with the Lord so that he may reveal to you that next step. So how do you pursue a closer relationship with the Lord, by going to him in prayer, by studying his word and asking him constantly for guidance in your life and then taking the time to learn to recognize his answers. Pursuing a relationship with God takes time and energy. Time that some people just can’t seem to find in the frantic pace of their daily lives. How often have we said, “I would like to spend more time in prayer and study but I just don’t have the time.”
I want you to imagine that you are able to go and visit an old friend that you haven’t been able to visit with in a long time. As long as we are just imagining lets say because of your great wealth you are able to take this old friend a million dollars in cash and just give it to him; a million dollars cash in a suitcase, and then after a good visit you are about to start the long drive home and you mention to your old friend that you could really use an extra 20 dollars for the trip home and now imagine at this point the old friend tells you that he just doesn’t have an extra twenty to spare. How are you going to feel about that old friend?
Well I want to remind you this morning that God provided each of you free of charge every second of your life that you have enjoyed on this earth and every second you continue to spend here is entirely at his pleasure. Every second you have he has given you. What are you doing with your time that is so important that we have so little left over for God?
All this important time your spending, how much of it will affect you eternal security. Tell me how will the outcome of next week’s episode of the “American Idol” affect your eternal destiny. Taking the next step sometimes can be placing priorities in our lives that are real and have real meaning. I don’t care what you have to walk away from in order to make time for a personal relationship with God. Not only should we have time for God but that time should come above everything else. Jesus made that quite clear in his teaching in Matthew 10:37-39
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Even the cost of our own lives is not to high a price to pay to take the next step.
I don’t believe that most of us will be asked to lay down our lives in order to take the next step. We may all fantasize about dying for Christ, and I am sure that in those fantasies we bravely proclaim our allegiance to Christ as we are executed for the advancement of the kingdom.
Most of us, if we were asked, would proudly proclaim that we would gladly surrender our lives for the cross should that ever become necessary.
I wonder when we make such bold statements if we truly believe them or if we are just hoping that others might believe such things about us. I wonder what God thinks about such bold talk. I have to believe that He thinks us to be rather full of ourselves. I imagine that He might find it difficult to believe that we would die for Him when we seem so reluctant most of the time to just live for Him. If we are going to claim that we are bold enough to die for Him should we not at least be prepared in our daily lives just to live for Him.
We may imagine ourselves full of resolve bravely laying down our lives for the cross, but reality be known I imagine most of us, if ever placed in that life or death situation, would live to fill our hands with tears as we hear our rooster crow and we weep in the realization of our own weakness, much as the Apostle Peter did early that morning he denied knowing Jesus in order to save his own wretched life.
I don’t know if I would have the courage, the faith and the resolve to die for Jesus, personally I hope it never comes to that, I do pray however for the wisdom and strength to live for Jesus each and every day of my life. Lord give us the vision and strength to take that next step.
Somewhere this morning that young man stands as the invitation is being played, his sweaty hands grasping the pew in front of him, his heart says yes but his fears say no, his eternal destiny rests with his ability to take the next step.
We stand this morning O’God on the edge of eternity
In front of us lays the great unknown, full of fear and risk. I pray O’God that you will give me the strength, sink or swim, come heaven or come hell, Lord Jesus catch me if you will. Either way O’Master give me the strength to take that next step.
