Meeting the Challenge
1 Chronicles 12:23-40 (32)
* Consider the word,”challenge” with me. What comes to your mind when you hear this word? Does it “challenge you” a little? Candidly, I had only to look in one dictionary and discovered this word had almost 2 dozen meanings and can be used as 3 or 4 parts of speech. Simply, it can be a noun, verb, or adjective (and quite likely an adverb).
* We recognized that to be challenged (in any form) carries a meaning some kind of test, some level of difficulty, or even a fight. Candidly, a challenge requires us to reach down a little deeper in ourselves to see if we have “what it takes” to respond to the level which is required.
* For the quarterback whose team is 2 points behind with one minute on the clock the question becomes, “Can he rise to the challenge of managing a drive to put his team in field goal range?” To the runner who finds himself a hundred yard behind in the mile run, “has he saved enough energy to give the kick and make up the difference?” To the family who has experience an untimely death, “Can they raise to the challenge of making the transition or will they stay locked up in grief?”
* The questions are many and the challenges are difficult for us. If you own a business and you see if faltering or failing, can you or will you raise your level of competence, effort, and energy to overcome the fall? I think you probably will. Do you remember the old Army slogan? “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” This is meeting the challenge.
* The word “Challenge” seems to leave us a little short when we consider the 21st century church and the 21st century culture (in America). For any discerning mind, it is evident that our culture is decaying before our very eyes. People (and not just ‘young people’) are exhibiting lifestyles which fly in the face of God’s behavioral design for us. We can list every action which God calls a sin and know that we are witnesses of those actions because we live in the midst of a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
* It is into this culture that the gospel of Jesus is needed. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whoever hears my voice & will open the door, I will come in, have dinner with him, and he with me.” What an invitation! But like the parable of the great banquet which Jesus told, the invitations must be extended by HIS servants (that’s you and me). People need to receive an invitation; however, today the challenge is to offer an invitation in a way that it will be favorably received.
* Consider this; when you get an invitation to a wedding, would you automatically go? Suppose you have had trouble with the brother of the bride or maybe (ladies) the groom was your first love and broke your heart or maybe you just didn’t KNOW the family.
* Today, as believers and as a church, we face this kind of a challenge. It is not a challenge simply to invite people to church, but more specifically, we are to invite people to Jesus. From our Old Testament text consider what we have to do to meet this challenge today.
1. My approach as the church. – Last week, we spoke of the Christendom impact on the church. Sadly, this has cause many different approaches to the church. Some people believe that it’s “my church” and should serve me. And if it doesn’t serve ‘me’, I’ll either get the pastor and/or staff fired (so we can get a “real” leader) or I’ll go somewhere else. The Biblical flaws in this mentality are too many to mention. Jesus saved us, made us into a family, and gave us a task to do. How should we approach this task?
a. To Prepare – Are you prepared to not “have a minister” but to “be a minister?” Look at our text and discover from verse 24-37 and see that by my count over 300,000 men are enlisted and what are they doing? It says they are “lined up in battle formation.” One of the issues of the modern day church is that we are no longer in battle formation; in fact, we have attempted to take the battle from the fight. When you have a conflict (and we have one between God and Satan) and one side makes the determination not to fight, the other side wins by default. So the question becomes “how can we prepare to do our part for His church?”
* Make sure you are a part of the army. You will never be a part of any team by osmosis. You must make a conscious decision to join. Some here have, quite likely, never made that decision. To be a part of the team called the ‘church’ requires us to make a decision to trust Christ. Only He can forgive our sins, give us a new life, and place us on the team.
* Make sure you are not AWOL. Every member of the team has a specific assignment to accomplish. The soldiers in our story were found in the right place. This fall many of the “team members” have indeed been AWOL (in this church)! Can you imagine a baseball player vacationing in the Bahamas when his ball team is playing in Atlanta? Truth is, in order to be found ‘faithful’ you have to be found!
* Make sure you have the necessary knowledge to be successful- One of the things that the straight talking, stiff face Nick Saban speaks about often (at least in public) is being successful. It is not unspiritual to desire to be successful in the church because success in the church is defined by our obedience which precedes our producing of fruit. We must prepare.
b. To Pledge – Can you believe I used the word pledge in a Baptist church? Somewhere in an obscure Baptist document is the 11th commandment which states “Thou Shalt Not Pledge.” In verse 29 we discover a disturbing reference that to this time a majority from the house of Benjamin were pledged to the previous leader, Saul.
* Candidly, we are all pledged to something or someone on some level. We think nothing of pledging our lives to mortgages, personal loans, car loans, credit cards, and other legal note. In fact, you don’t pledge you do go without. Have you ever considered that the same principle applies to us in spiritual terms? Coming to Christ is about pledging our lives to Him because He first pledged His life to us.
* Do you know in Biblical terms what a “pledge” is? Put it in context (verse 38), we prepare by “lining up in battle formation and we pledge by making a “wholehearted determination.” The KJV calls it a “perfect heart” which means a “complete” heart. IN other words, they held nothing back. This is what is needed to meet the challenge of the day.
* This week I had a friend to email me a link to the Grace Church in Nashville which reinforced the truth that we have a challenge if we are to reach America and the world for Christ. Their pastor is named Lindell Cooley. In the beginning of his present series, he brings to his people the criticism and challenge which we face, & he does it with solid facts. (clip)
c. To Participate –The word for us could be to “participate and cooperate”. HCSB says they were of “one mind,” in other words they were united to the point of participating together. They pledged to fight together because of their wholehearted determination (or their perfect hearts) and they participated because they were one mind (or one heart)! What a call for the modern day church! Unity! Nothing causes people to cease their participation and commitment as much as lack of a unified purpose. This is why Satan strikes at the unity of God’s people and attempts to divide them. Do you remember that old pop song, “United we stand, divided we fall, and if our back should ever be against the wall, we’ll be together, together you and I.” Wow! This means that we are of such united heart and soul that ‘nothing’ can separate us, not trouble, not disagreement, and not outside attack. If we are to ‘meet the challenge, as God’s people (the church), we must prepare for spiritual battle, pledge our lives to see it through, and participate in a work greater than us.
2. My actions toward the culture (people). – Please remember the word which I read to you last week, “We are now an unchurched culture.” People do not respond to absolute truth today the way they did in the 50’s, they do not respond to the church like they did back then, nor do they respond to the gospel like they did back then. The church no longer has the home court advantage. It’s like we’re in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy says, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” On Friday night, two of our deacons and I sat and talked with Dr. Joe Godfrey, head of ALCAP, he was saying that things are so developing in this culture that the 2nd coming of Christ is close at hand! If that’s so, don’t you know one that that lost?
* Our actions toward our lost culture will determine whether our friends, classmates, family members, and other have eternal punishment or life.
a. To Connect – Take a look at our 1 Chronicles passage and see that the Men of Issachar ‘understood the times.” Too many preachers and people who know Christ scream that to “connect with people” is to compromise the gospel. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus always connected with people. He spent quality time with His disciples for many reasons. We like to hammer on the fact that “He poured Himself into their lives” which is absolutely true, but we miss the fact that when He hung out with the fishermen and tax collector, He was getting a human handle on how they thought, what they understood, and thus how to communicate with them. Here is the question: Are we truly interested enough in people to want to help them find a relationship with God through Jesus? Do we love Him enough to want to share Him with those around us? This is commonly called “Life-Style” evangelism, but I call it “New Testament Evangelism.” Think about it: in Acts 2 something was going on in the life of the believers which cause to people to take a look. In fact the Holy Spirit miraculously took care of language and cultural barriers on that day. In Acts 16, when the Jailer was about to end His life, Paul and Silas stopped him. The guard, having observed these two under terrible conditions, fell down under conviction and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” In fact, everywhere you look in the New Testament, you’ll discover people being connected with before they are converted. The challenge is not simply getting people to pray a prayer and be baptized; the real challenge is to make a disciple.
b. To Counter – Our text says, those men “knew what to do.” Why did they “know what to do?” It is because they understood the culture. And understanding the culture sis essential to leading people to faith. Please take a look at the culture in our country and understand that everything this culture promotes is contrary to what the word of God teaches. We have to “do what Jesus did” which is in a loving, but firm fashion counter the claims of this culture. This is a difficult, but needed assignment.
c. To Convey – The gospel of Christ is GOOD NEWS! For years, the mantra was to tell the world what we are against. It’s true that by God’s word we are against sinful lifestyles, but may I suggest that we need to convey the gospel, the good news, and the great story of Jesus Christ. We need to invite people to come on an incredible journey & come to know God.
* People are on a journey, in fact, life is a journey. Because of modern day thinking (right or wrong) is so anti-Bible, and anti-Church, and anti-Christian, very few make a snap decision the first time they encounter the gospel to follow Christ. Let me offer an illustration of this journey (Bridge).
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