Jesus had essentially one sermon. Everything He did and said revolved around that one message which was "the kingdom of God is at hand." He reminded those who exercised power of any kind on earth that they did not have the last word.
He informed them that with His coming and in His person ... God was about to do something refreshing and radical ... something which would be liberating and which would challenge old ways of doing and thinking about things. Jesus came to call the powers that be into question and put them on notice that business as they had been doing it, business as they knew it, business as usual, was no longer acceptable.
Thus, every miracle He performed established His supremacy over forces and systems which till that point believed they had the last word regarding the human predicament. Every time Jesus healed a sick person He demonstrated that sickness and disease do not have ultimate control of the body because
God's promise, God's deliverance, God's power and God's comfort were present in Jesus. Every time He rebuked a demon He demonstrated that we do not live in fear of either the unknown or of evil because there is no evil power in hell, or earth, or sky which can keep one of God's children down. Every time He calmed a storm, every time He multiplied a piece of bread, every time He walked on a wave of water, He showed that nature was not in control, He was.
Every time He chose to reinterpret a religious tradition He showed that even the law and the prophets found their fulfillment in Him. Jesus came to declare that a new day was dawning, that God was already at work, and that business as usual, priorities as usual, living as usual was no longer acceptable.
The Pharisees, with their vested interests, came to Jesus to ask Him about this new kingdom that would change every familiar thing. Whether in the church or in the community, those with vested interests in keeping things as they have always been are always the ones most concerned about change. After all, those with vested interests believe that they personally have the most to lose by change. The Pharisees came to Jesus to inquire about this new kingdom. When would it come? How would it come? What would be the signs of its coming? Jesus informed them that the kingdom would come in the same way that the rain fell from heaven in the days of Noah and the fire fell from heaven in the days of Lot. The kingdom would not come without warning because God always gives His children a warning. But people would not pay attention to the warning that was given. For if there was one thing clear about Noah and Lot it was that nobody took them seriously. Nobody believed what Noah said about the flood.
And so all the while Noah was building the ark and preparing for the flood,
all the while that God was speaking to Noah, all the while Noah preached God's message of repentance, righteousness and judgment, the people ate and drank, they married and were given in marriage. They did business as usual even as the flood came and destroyed them all.
The situation surrounding the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was even more critical. Throughout biblical history the names of Sodom and Gomorrah have been associated with every kind of immorality. The sins of these two notorious cities was so hideous and so many and so abhorrent to God that they stirred the wrath of a righteous God ... and the destruction of these two cities became imminent.
The people of Sodom and Gomorrah had become hopelessly mired in their transgressions. Sin is an addictive habit, and it is possible to become so controlled by it that but for the blood of Jesus a person becomes irretrievably lost and bound. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah had done wrong for so long that they believed that they could get away with doing wrong forever. However, there comes a time, when heaven's patience with wrongdoing refuses to be tried any longer. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah continued doing business as usual, eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, not believing that time was running out for them.
The plan for solving the Sodom and Gomorrah problem was revealed to Abraham, God's friend. Abraham said to the Lord, "I know that Sodom and Gomorrah are wicked places deserving divine wrath, but there are some good people there. Will You destroy the city if I can find fifty righteous people there?" Let us never forget that every Sodom and Gomorrah has some good people. God's friends are found everywhere, even in Sodom and Gomorrah. A preacher once said that even in the worst of churches God has an angel or two in the membership who truly love the Lord, love the church, and who will try to work with the preacher. Even in the most corrupt situations there are always one or two good people, and we wonder what they are doing there. They are there because God is never left without a witness even in the most hopeless situations. I believe it is safe to say that even in the best places there are always one or two who don't want to see things progress. Listen, we are either going to progress or we are going to regress. Nothing, I repeat nothing, ever stays the same.
Abraham could not find fifty righteous people so he asked God if the cities could be spared for the sake of forty-five. A few people who really love God can go a long way toward redeeming any situation. When Abraham couldn't find forty-five, he went in search of forty. When he couldn't find forty, he searched for thirty; and when he couldn't find thirty, he searched for twenty.
Not only could he not find twenty, he couldn't even find ten. All the while the people of Sodom and Gomorrah continued to do business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. All this time as Abraham negotiated with God ... not on his own behalf ... but on behalf of the people of those towns; all the time he sought for a representative number of righteous persons so that the city could be saved from destruction, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah continued doing business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. Word must have gotten around about what Abraham was doing. He could not have conducted the extensive search that he did without people being alerted, and yet they chose to conduct themselves as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. They were on the very eve of destruction. You would have thought that being forewarned they would have been forearmed, and yet they chose to do business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
On the eve of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, two angels dressed as men came to visit Lot, the only righteous friend of God in Sodom. A group of inhabitants of Sodom, acting their usual vile selves, tried to attack them but were struck blind. That next morning the angels told Lot and his family to flee the town and not to look back.
Even as they fled, and even as fire fell from heaven, in spite of their repeated warnings, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah still conducted business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
To be sure, the story of doom is not a very pleasant one. God's work of judgment can be frightening. But as frightening as God's judgment can be, the work of sin is even more frightening. Drug addiction is frightening. Alcoholism is frightening. Violence in the home which produces battered children, battered wives, and battered husbands is frightening. Pornography is frightening. Incest is frightening. Little children being snatched off the streets is frightening. The necessity for being constantly on guard everywhere we go is frightening. Hardly feeling safe even in our homes is frightening. More frightening than the judgment of God which redeems and restores balance is the destructive work of sin.
What is the response of the church as it exists in the midst of the work of sin?
Often it's simply business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling,
planting and building, and that's all.
With nuclear holocaust a possibility, we may be facing the eve of our own destruction. What is the Church doing? Business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, building and planting. The possibility of war and the actuality of crime, racism, sexism, classism, inadequate housing for the poor, eroding systems of public education, hunger, poverty, and expensive health care face us every day.
Our churches must be our voice in the wider community. We must be the wayfaring voice which cries in the wilderness of hostility and indifference to represent the cause and broker the interests of those whom the demonic systems of this world have bound and hold captive. Our churches must not only safeguard our spiritual life but our economic, political, social, and cultural life as well.
But what do we as churches ... as preachers and as members ... spend the greater part of our time doing? Business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, building and planting. and that's all.
Some of us are more concerned about keeping things just like they've always been, more concerned about spending the holy bank account, more concerned about where the money is coming from, more concerned that someone is going change something or spend something do something that makes us uncomfortable than we are about those people in Denton county who are lost and going to hell.
We're so concerned about maintaining business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, building and planting…
Some of us are lost in some business of the church, some ministry of the church where we can exercise a little power and control with some other folks whose thinking is just like ours, where we can work to make things comfortable for ourselves, away from the mainstream of the church's life and the mission given to it by Christ. What are we doing at our church gatherings where we plot and plan and campaign by secret phone meetings which we are devoted to? Business as usual ... eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, and that's all. Go to some of our big church meetings, our big gatherings and conventions and while the world is going to hell in a handbasket, what are we doing? Business as usual, eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, and that's all.
Those who were lost in the days of Noah and Lot were not only lost because of the activities in which they were engaged. There's nothing wrong with eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, per se. Their main problem was they became so engrossed in what they were doing that they failed to take note of what God was saying to them through Abraham and Lot and what God was doing in their midst through Noah. We can become so consumed in doing our own thing life's daily routines, so lost in our own agenda that we forget that beyond us there is a divine agenda. If our agendas are going to have any ultimate meaning, they must be brought in line with God's agenda.
Business as usual is no longer acceptable when God's work of judgment is upon us. Business as usual is no longer acceptable when injustice reigns and wickedness abounds. Business as usual is no longer acceptable when Jesus has declared that the kingdom of God is at hand.
It may not be obvious, just as it was not obvious in biblical times. After all, Jesus had only a few fishermen, a few women, some children, several influential patrons, and some common people following him. But those few were all he needed to turn the world upside down, or right side up as we mentioned a few weeks ago.
The world after Jesus is different than the world before Him. It has been redeemed. Humanity is different than it was before Jesus. We've been liberated.
We as individuals are different after Jesus comes into our lives. We've been saved. That's what the kingdom of God is .... saved individuals who are part of a liberated humanity and a redeemed new world to come. And the redemption takes place in the midst of those who are content to eat and drink, buy and sell, and plant and build themselves into eternal damnation.
As the church, we must do more than just take care of our usual business celebrating our annual days. We must do more than just worship the holy bank account.
We must do more than just play politics and jockey for position with each other and with the pastor. We are called to do more than eat chicken and drink punch.
We are called to do more than buy and sell tickets. We are called to do more than plant our usual ideas and build our usual programs.
Jesus has called us to be the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world."
We are called to be ambassadors of the Christ who said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, He has sent Me to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4;18-19).
We are called to be ambassadors of Jesus, who said, "Whoever would be great among you shall be the servant" (Mark 10:43); and "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least ... ye did it unto me ... Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least, ye did it not unto me" (Matt. 25:40, 43, KJV). We are called to be ambassadors of Christ, who said, "...you love one another, just as I have loved you" (John 15:12) and "...the kingdom of God is in you" (Luke 17:21, KJV).
It's easy to become so caught up in eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building ... our business as we usually do it ... that we stop doing or even forget to ask what God wants and wills for our lives. That is why all children of God need to stop and study themselves every now and then ... take inventory of their lives and the things to which they have devoted themselves and ask, "Lord, am I doing what you want me to do?"
Some of us have doing whatever it is we're doing for a long time. We've been thinking the same thoughts a long time and we have become comfortable. Maybe we've become too comfortable because we've even stopped asking God's direction.
That's why we need to ask, "Lord, am I still doing what you want me to do."
People tell me I'm good at what I do. I've been recognized and I've received rewards for what I do. But "Lord, am I doing what You want me to do, the way You want me to do it?"
Perhaps I will be accepted by those whose goals and whose visions are as shallow as mine, but "Lord, am I doing what You want me to do?" Like Peter and John, I can stay too close to the shore fishing in the shallows, but I know that you want me to launch out into broader avenues of service and discover a deeper depth and a higher height in You. That is why I need to continue to ask, "Lord, am I doing what You want me to do?"
There is only one way to be saved from the trap of business as usual and that is by surrendering our total lives to the unusual business of doing God's will. Doing God's will is not easy.
Noah did it and found himself being laughed at for building a boat in the middle of the desert. But it took that experience to teach Noah that God always comes out a winner at the finish line.
Abraham did it and found himself being tested on Mt. Moriah, but Mt. Moriah showed him, like nothing else could, that God will provide.
Lot did it and had to flee with his family and friends as fire came down upon Sodom. But it was only as Lot fled that he learned the lesson that the prophet Isaiah would one day articulate: "Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusteth in Thee" (Isaiah 26:3, KJV).
Jesus did it and found himself on a cross, but it took a Calvary to demonstrate that there is no resurrection without crucifixion.
Peter did it and found himself in prison, but it took prison to show him that God can open doors that no one can shut.
Paul did it and found himself with a thorn in the flesh, but it took the thorn to show him that God's grace was sufficient.
John did it and found himself on Patmos, but it took Patmos for him to see a new heaven and the new earth, the new Jerusalem.
Long ago Noah said it and meant it.
Long ago Abraham said it and meant it.
Long ago Jesus said it and meant it.
George Stebbins said it and meant it.
You and I are going to have to say it and mean it too.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter; I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
