GPS
Matthew 7:13-16, 21-23
How many of you use a GPS device when you’re driving? When we were driving home from Atlanta a few years ago, it was lunchtime and so we pulled off the highway to pick up some Subway sandwiches. And the moment I turned, the GPS said, “recalculating.” The New Year is a season of recalculating, to get us to make course corrections in our journey of faith. What we find in the journey of life is that it’s easy to make a wrong turn and get off the God path or to get off in the Rest Area and stay there longer, spiritually speaking, than you intended. That’s why The New Year is so important for us because it’s about recalculating our lives.
Everybody here is on a path. The question we have to ask is what path are we on? Our Scripture today warns there is a path that seems right to people but leads to death. Now anytime you discover you’re on a wrong road, you try as quickly as possible to make a U turn to get on the right course. In the Bible, we call that repentance which means to turn and go in the opposite direction you were headed. This time of year we call it a New Year’s Resolution.
The Lord says this, “We are saved by faith.” The problem is we have equated belief with faith, and they are not the same thing. To believe is to perceive a certain truth to be real. A lot of us believe a lot of things: like exercise is essential for a healthy life but far fewer people actively pursue that belief. It’s more than just joining a health club, it’s going there to work out. I did a wedding of the assistant general manager of the health club where I have worked out for the last 15 years and he told me that 60% of their members never come to the health club. Now they belong, which means they believe that exercise is essential for a healthy life but they never go and pursue an active, healthy life by working out. Belief is a noun but faith is a verb. What we believe does not become faith until we actively pursue our beliefs and stick with them. We are saved by our faith not our beliefs. And yet, so often belief does not become faith. This is why it is so easy to get off track on our journey because we have equated belief with faith.
Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” In this passage, the false prophets are religious people. He has been talking about them for the two previous chapters. Do you notice that Jesus doesn’t have any problem hanging with prostitutes or tax collectors but is always criticizing the religious people of His day? Here’s the problem he has with religious people: They have the outward appearance of having a right relationship with God but inwardly they are ferocious wolves, judging others and the lives they lead while giving the wrong impression of what it means to follow God. “By their fruit you will recognize them.” He didn’t say they will know them by their beliefs but by their fruit which is their lifestyle and behavior. Belief doesn’t become faith until you actively pursue a lifestyle devoted to Jesus.
It’s so easy to get off course because there are a lot of false narratives or messages of what it means to follow Jesus. One is that faith will cost you nothing. There is a cost to following Jesus. True faith will cost you everything you have. The false narrative is that you can believe in Jesus without really following or living like Jesus. No! True faith will cost you everything you have. Jesus illustrated this through a parable about a man who discovered a treasure in the field and sold everything he had to buy that field because of this great treasure. (Matthew 13:43) Now in Jesus’ day there were no banks so people put their gold coins in a jar, wrapped them in a cloth and then buried them. The problem was that the average lifespan was 27-30 years and so people would die and no one would know they had buried their treasure. Most farmers didn’t have enough money to own land so they leased it. Well, in this story Jesus is saying this farmer is plowing his leased land and his plow hits something, only to discover it’s a buried treasure. He doesn’t take it but re-buries it. Why? Because he doesn’t own the field. So he goes back to his house and sells everything he can get his hands on to buy the field. He buys the land but he is getting something of even greater value. So what Jesus is saying is that when you find something of great value, the kingdom of God and eternal life, there is no sacrifice or labor too great to attain it. True faith will cost you everything! This is why the New Year is so important for us because we need to recalculate our life to Jesus. It’s time for us to correct where we haven’t been actively following Him. It’s not just turning away from the way you were going. It’s recommitting to the highlighted route.
After “recalculating”, the GPS says follow the highlighted route. The highlighted route for Christians is the footsteps of Jesus. Not everyone who claims Jesus follows his path or lifestyle. We have so cheapened the call to follow Christ that we have made people believe all they need to do is come forward and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and that’s it. But the Book of James says even the demons in hell believe in Jesus as Lord (James 2:19) but that does not mean they are children of the kingdom. So what does Jesus say? “Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will get into heaven but only those who do the will of my Father will who is in heaven.” You have to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Charles Colson tells the story of being on the Bill Buckley television program, talking about criminal justice reform. A few days later he got a call from Jack Eckerd, the founder of the Eckerd Drug chain, the second largest drug chain in America. He saw me on television and asked me to come to Florida to advocate for criminal justice reforms. He, the FL State Attorney General, the President of the Senate got on Jack Eckerd’s Lear jet and went around the State of Florida advocating for criminal justice reforms. Everywhere they would go Jack Eckerd would introduce him to the crowds and say, "This is Chuck Colson, my friend; I met him on Bill Buckley’s television program. He’s born again, I’m not. I wish I were." And then he’d sit down. We’d get on the airplane and Chuck Colson would tell him about Jesus. We’d get off at the next stop, he’d repeat it, we’d do the same thing again, and I’d talk to him about Jesus. When he left, Chuck gave him some of R. C. Sproul’s books and C. S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity.” He also sent his own books. Over the next year, he kept pestering Jack Eckerd. And eventually one day he read Charles Colson’s book, “Loving God”, and decided that Jesus was, in fact, resurrected from the dead. He called me up to tell me he believed. Charles Colson responded, "You’re born again!" He said, "No, I’m not, I haven’t felt anything." I said, "Yes, you are! Pray with me right now." After we prayed he said, "I am born again. Marvelous!" The first thing he did was to go into one of his drugstores and walk down through the book shelves where he saw Playboy and Penthouse. He’d seen it there many times before, but it never bothered him before. Now he saw them with new eyes. He’d become a Christian. He went back to his office and called in his president and said, "Take Playboy and Penthouse out of my stores.” The president said, "You can’t mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make three million dollars a year on those books." He said, "Take ’em out of my stores." And in 1,700 stores across America, those magazines were removed from the shelves. Charles Colsen heard that and called to ask him, “Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?" Jack Eckerd said, "Why else would I give away three million dollars? The Lord wouldn’t let me off the hook."
The New Year is about looking at our lives and evaluating where we are living as Jesus and where we are not. It’s about recalculating. How do you know you’re on the highlighted route of Jesus? First, it’s going to be revealed in your time commitments. When you say yes to Jesus, you are no longer your own. Your time is not your own. We are created for this incredible, exciting and life changing mission and we’re spending our time on Farmerville on Facebook, or World of War Craft. We’re spending time building a virtual world when we could be building the kingdom of God. We have to recalculate our lives. When you say yes to Jesus, it means you’re going to say “No” to a lot of stuff, and not all of it is bad. In fact you’re going to say, “No” to a lot of good things because you’ve chosen to be a part of the best, the will of God and the mission of God. Your time is not your own.
Second, it will be demonstrated in your testimony. This is what Jesus says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This is why the Holy Spirit comes on us that we might be able to share the reason of the hope we have and live by. This is where many people take a wrong turn, living out of the fear of what people think rather than the power of God. It’s where we often fall short.
In his book "Jungle Harvest," missionary Ruby Scott describes her experiences in reaching a people known as the Tila Indians, who lived in a remote village in the jungles of southern Mexico, on the Guatemalan border. As Ruby and her colleague learned the Tila language, they translated the Bible in order to give the people the Scriptures in their own tongue; and they arranged to have the Gospel recorded and duplicated on records that could be played on hand cranked record players. The Tilas were astonished at this.
One of the men who heard the message was a witch doctor named Domingo. He was in his mid-50’s and illiterate. When he learned about Christ, he turned from his old way of life and was converted. He instantly became burdened for his old friends, the witch doctors in his former village. One day, he decided to take the Good News to them. He borrowed one of the portable record players and the records and off he went. His former friends were happy to see him, and they talked, laughed, and reminisced about the good old days. When Domingo opened up the record player, they watched him with great curiosity and began listening. After playing some of the Scriptures, Domingo told them that God had turned his heart around. He shared his own testimony with them and preached the Gospel to them as well as he could.
They were angry and skeptical, replying, "How can you, who have experienced the power and authority of a witch doctor, turn your back on the very gods who have chosen you?" They argued with him and threatened him. Domingo remained calm and kept sharing Jesus to them. Finally, his friends grabbed their machetes and ordered him to leave. Domingo hastily closed the phonograph and slipped the records into his carrying bag. Swinging the machine onto his back, he turned sadly and started down the trail. But he was so burdened and upset that he felt he had to make just one more try. Turning back, he began to say another word for Christ. In great anger, one of the men raised a machete and aimed it at Domingo’s phonograph. Instinctively, Domingo’s raised his hand, and the machete sliced off three fingers. Domingo hurried away, and when he was out of sight he stopped and tore a sleeve from his shirt to bandage his bleeding hand. Then he trudged wearily home.
Two days later, as Ruby Scott was dressing the stumps of his fingers, she coaxed him to tell her exactly what had happened. He told the story, then after a long pause, he looked at her and said: "Those poor men! God’s message just didn’t grab their hearts. I’ll go back and tell them again." Ruby stayed awake a long time that night, staring into the dark and thinking of Domingo’s crippled hand and his quiet words: "I’ll go back and tell them again." She thought of the times she had failed to witness to her friends, the times she had grown discouraged with her witnessing, and the times she had failed to go back and tell them again. Then she wrote, "I turned over, struggled to my knees in the cramped confines under my mosquito net, and rededicated my life to the Lord. I asked him to make me as faithful a missionary as this humble, illiterate former witch doctor." Amen
