DARING TO COMMIT
When was the last time to went to an all you can eat buffet? It is funny to watch people in line. They stand in front of the salad area they and think, I really don’t want to fill up my plate; there might be something better later on. Then they go down a little bit further to the pastas and vegetables and they are thinking, there might be something better further down. The they get down to meats and they think, I had better leave room for dessert. They get down to the end of the deserts and they look at their plates and realize that they got hardly anything from the line because they were always waiting to see what came next.
That is OK in a buffet line because you can go back through as many times as you want. However, that is not OK with life. In life you only get one shot. There are people who go through life afraid to commit to anything because they are always looking for something better to come along down the road. I can’t commit to this because it means that I may be missing out on that. What if I commit to something and I make a mistake? What if I end up regretting my choice?
Today we are continuing in our series Daring Faith and I want to talk about Daring to Commit. Your life is shaped by your commitments. We become whatever we are committed to. If you commit yourself to nothing then what do you think you will become? Nothing of course. Someone once said “Great people are just ordinary people who have made a great commitment to a cause greater than themselves.”
You cannot live a life without making some kind of commitments. You can’t buy a house without making a commitment. You can’t buy a car without making a commitment. You can’t have a job without making a commitment. You cannot have kids without commitments. It is a part of life.
Romans 6:13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
Romans 6:13 (MSG) Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time -- remember, you've been raised from the dead! -- into God's way of doing things.
The greatest commitment in life is committing yourself to Jesus Christ. To give yourself completely to God to be used for the purposes that he made you, that he created you. Let me suggest the following 4 commitments;
1. Commit to EXALTING
To strengthen my faith, I must commit myself to uniting with others in worship. Worship is for God but it brings benefits to you. I could give you fifty benefits of worshiping God. Let me just mention two. It renews your faith and it restores your joy. When you come to worship like this and you get together with other people to worship, it renews your faith and it restores your joy.
Isaiah 40:31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Have you ever gotten up on a Sunday morning and said, ‘I am so tired.’ I really don’t have any energy to go to church today. And yet you went to worship and afterwards you were more energized. How many would say that? Yeah. Of course. Because it renews your strength.
You are not going to get your strength renewed by watching golf on TV. Getting an extra hour of sleep can help. It can recharge your body but not your soul. Strength is renewed not simply by resting but by hoping – by being inspired through worship.
Sometimes I think of myself like the coach on Rocky. Rocky is out there in the ring and he is fighting his heart out but taking a beating. Then the bell rings and he goes to the corner. He is hurting and disoriented. The coach tells him he is doing a great job. He splashes some water on his face. Wipes off the blood and then pats him on the back and tells him “You have got this. Now get out there and win this fight.” And Rocky jumps to his feet reenergized and goes back out swinging.
For many people, that is what church is. The bell rings and you go to your corner. You get refreshed and infused with new hope and vision and then you get sent back out to win the fight. Worship is like the jumper cables when your battery is dead. You come and worship, you hear the Word and you are refreshed.
This is why it is so sad when I see people missing church or coming in late. At my last church, this was part of the culture. People would walk in when the service was half over and yet still expecting the full blessing. Why would they rob themselves of the opportunity? Imagine you go to the gas station and find out they are giving out free gas – as much as you want but only once per customer. You pull up and you put in a few drops and then drive away. Why!
Psalms 100:1-2 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
Worship renews our faith and restores our joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Psalm 122 says “I was glad when they said to me let us go up to the house of the Lord.” It says glad. Not mad or sad. You don’t go because you are bored or because you have to too or are simply expected to. You go because you want to. Worship renews our faith and it restores our joy
Isaac Watts wrote fifty-two books, twenty-nine of them on theology. Anyone here remember reading any of them? Probably not. He is best remembered for his hymns. He wrote more than seven hundred, and even today many of us can quote them even though they were written more than 280 years ago. One of his best known (we talked about this in Dec) is Joy to the World. When he died, he was reciting one of his favorites: "I’ll Praise My Maker While I Breathe."
The Lord gives eyesight to the blind, he calms and heals the troubled mind,
he sends the wounded conscience peace;
he helps the stranger in distress, the widow and the fatherless,
and grants the prisoner glad release.
I'll praise him while he lends me breath, and when my voice is lost in death
praise shall employ my noblest powers;
my days of praise are never past, while life and thought and being last
or immortality endures.
Worship energizes me. It renews my faith and restores my joy. Commit to exalting.
2. Commit to EMBRACING
To strengthen my faith, I must commit myself to fellowship. To connecting with other Christians. We only truly learn who we are in context of relationship. Identity is found in community. You only learn who you really are through relationships.
Think of the movie Tarzan. He grows up in the jungle surrounded by gorillas. At some point he looks at himself and realizes that he is different. He cannot do the things the other gorillas do. He has no idea who or what he really is. Then one day other humans come into the jungle and he sees them. He realizes that is who he is. He sees Jane and he thinks “Wow!” You do not know what a human is until you meet one. You do not know what a man is until you meet a woman.
The bible tells us that we were created to live in community. We need each other. We need to be connected with the body of Christ.
Romans 12:4-5 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
This is kind of obvious. My ear only functions when it connected to the body. It only fulfills its purpose by staying connected. If my ear was cut off and was laying on the ground over there it would have no value. It would not function; it could not hear anything on its own. If my nose got cut off it would cease to function as a nose. It cannot smell anything on its own. If my eye got poked out it would not be able to see anything. It would cease to function.
When I got into the accident a few years ago I lost the end of my finger. I was sitting there in the hospital room when the doctor cut it off my body. It is not walking around somewhere having a life of its own. It is dead and gone. As soon as it was disconnected from the body, it ceased to function.
The purpose that God made you for can only be discovered connected to the body of Christ. If you are not connected to a church, you will not know your purpose, your role or your function. E.g. Kuwait.
One of the powerful things about connection is diversity. If you do not like diversity then you are going to have a very hard time in heaven. God loves diversity, which is why he created us from every race, every language, every tribe … God invented that. God has brought us together from all around the world to live as family.
The temple in Jerusalem was a very segregated place. There were places that women could not go. There were places that only Jews could go. Only a select few could enter the temple courts and only one could enter the Holy of Holies. Probably none of us here as Gentiles could get beyond the outer courts. If any of us here tried that we could be killed. Think about that. You walk in here and you die.
Jesus came to remove all that. When He died on the cross veil in the temple was split. There was no longer any separation. The church is for everyone. Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight. Amazing grace for every race. It starts by building fellowship with other people. God created us for community. That is where we find our identity and our purpose.
In life we need others, even if you are an introvert. We need one another. You must commit to worship, and you must commit to fellowship.
3. Commit to EQUIPPING
To strengthen my faith, I must commit myself to discipleship, to growing in my faith. There are some things you will never learn on your own. You only learn them in community. You only learn them from others. There are some things you can only learn in relationship. For instance, you can only learn forgiveness in relationships. You can’t learn that on your own. You cannot learn loyalty, kindness or love on your own. God want us to grow, and the way that we grow is by learning from others.
Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The best way to learn is to do. The best way to grow as a Christian is to serve. Again, this is why community is so important. It provides opportunities to serve.
1 Peter 4:10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
Significance comes from service. God wired the universe that we only feel significant about our lives when we give it away. You cannot be selfish and significant at the same time. Significance comes when you stop thinking about you and you start thinking about other people and you give your life away.
The talents you have were not given to you for your own benefit. Your talents were given to you to benefit the people around you. And their talents were not given to them for their benefit. Their talents were given to them for the benefit of you.
Ministry is the path of meaning and service is the path of significance. You’re not going to find it any other way. You’re never going to feel as good about you until you start giving your life away.
One of the popular stories at Christmas is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol. We see his life transformed when he is visited by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future. What I love about the story is the results of that transformation. From his generosity to the boy who goes to get the Christmas turkey to his transformed relationship with his nephew Fred and his employee Bob Cratchit. We see the fruit of his transformation is that his life goes from being all about himself to using his life to bless others. A changed heart leads to a changed life – a life of ministry and service. You commit to worship, fellowship and discipleship.
4. Commit to EXTENDING
To strengthen my faith, I must commit myself to extending. What is mission? It is sharing your faith with others. It means presenting the gospel to others in a way that they can understand and accept it. I like the way that Bill Bright (founder of Campus Crusade for Christ) defined evangelism;
Evangelism is communicating Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God -- Bill Bright
Let me break down this definition for you. First, evangelism is verbal. Communication is involved. Non-verbal communication is also very important. Loving people and caring for people is important. However, it must be accompanied by the Gospel message.
Second, evangelism is communicating. That means that it involves two parties. The message must be given (sender) but also be received (receiver) and understood. If you are speaking in a language that the person you are speaking with does not understand then it is not communication. Talking to a tree is not communication. If you are sharing the message in a way that is not culturally appropriate of understandable, it is also not communicating. The message of the gospel does not change but the way we communicate the gospel MUST change because the audience we are sharing it with is always changing.
Third, evangelism is sharing about Jesus Christ. He is always the central message. There are lots of different organizations who do good things. They feed hungry people. They provide water for people who are thirsty. They communicate a positive message. This is not evangelism. As a church, we prefer to partner with organizations who not only do these good things but they do it in such a way as to lead people to Jesus. If we call ourselves Christians then Christ must be the central message in everything we say and do.
Fourth, evangelism is done in the power of the Holy Spirit. Only God can draw a person to Himself. If any real results occur it will be because of God.
Fifth, evangelism is remembering that we must leave the results to God. You are not responsible for the decisions of others. It is your job to communicate the message clearly. It is God’s job to take that message and use it to draw the person to a decision. Your job is to go and sow. God’s job is to make it grow.
We as a church believe in the importance of evangelism because we believe that the most important decision a person can ever make is the decision of whether to receive Jesus as Lord and saviour. It is a life and death decision.
We believe that a relationship with Jesus makes a difference. It makes a difference in where we spend eternity but it also changes us in this life. Having a relationship with Jesus changes you.
Dr. John Geddie was born in Scotland but emigrated to Canada when he was little. As a young man he felt called to ministry and attended Bible College in Nova Scotia. In 1848 he went to become a missionary in the New Hebrides islands in the South Pacific, now known as Vanuatu. He served there for 24 years and saw amazing transformation. He helped translate the bible is several local dialects. He helped abolish the practice of killing a widow when her husband died. In 1871 he grew ill and suffered until he died in 1872. After he died a tablet was placed in the church he helped build on the wall behind the pulpit. It said this; “In memory of John Geddie … Missionary sent from Nova Scotia to Aneiteum for twenty-four years. When he landed, in 1848, there were no Christians. When he left, in 1872, there were no heathen.”
What an amazing testimony. Don’t you wish that there was a tablet like that when you die? This world is a different place because of you. That only happens when we commit our lives to the cause of Christ.
