Imagine getting an invitation to be on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” Imagine winning the Million Dollars without using a single lifeline. Imagine taking your prize money home (less the large chunk that your silent partner Uncle Sam would claim). Imagine taking that money and burying it in the backyard without telling a single soul about it. Not too likely.
It is something that we would probably brag about and the news would be the talk of the town and the Colonial Pantry, the Post Office, Maybe even down at Fisher’s. It would be something that would be hard to hide (and the new car would tell the story as well).
Sadly, many of us have been less than vocal and less than public with something far more valuable than money. That is what Paul is talking about in our scripture for today. I want you to know this morning that if you have given your life to Christ, you have something far more valuable than anything the world has to offer. You have been given the keys to eternal life and yet, many of us bury it in our proverbial backyard and never really do anything with that gift.
It is sort of like the story that Chuck Swindoll tells in his book “Improving your serve” when he wrote this:
“Let’s play ‘Let’s Pretend’. Let’s pretend that you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in a company that is growing rapidly. I’m the owner and I’m interested in expanding overseas. To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad and stay there until a new branch office gets established. I make all the arrangements to take my family and move to Europe for six to eight months. And I leave you in charge of the busy stateside organization. I tell you that I will write you regularly and give you directions and
instructions. I leave and you stay. Months pass. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe and received by you at the national headquarters. I spell out all my expectations.
Finally, I return. Soon after my arrival, I drive down to the office and I am stunned. Grass and weeds have grown up high. A few windows along the street are broken. I walk into the Receptionist’s room. She is doing her nails, chewing gum and listening to her favorite disco station. I look around and notice the wastebaskets are overflowing. The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed for weeks, and nobody seems concerned that the owner has returned. I asked about your whereabouts
and someone in the crowded lounge area points down the
hall and yells, "I think he’s down there." Disturbed, I move in that direction and bump into you as you are finishing a chess game with our sales manager. I ask you to step into my office, which has been temporarily turned into a television room for watching afternoon soap operas.
“What in the world is going on, man?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, look at this place! Didn’t you get any of my letters?”
“Letters? Oh yes! Sure! I got every one of them. As a matter of fact, we have had a letter study every Friday since you left. We have even divided the personnel into small groups to discuss many of the things you wrote. Some of the things were really interesting. You will be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memory some of your
sentences and paragraphs. One or two memorized an entire letter or two - Great stuff in those letters."
"OK. You got my letters. You studied them and meditated on them; discussed and even memorized them. But what did you do about them?"
"Do? We didn’t do anything about them."
You can be assured that if you ever won the million dollars on “Millionaire”, you would have more friends than you could count and long lost relatives coming out of the woodwork. You would be called upon to “DO SOMETHING” with your newfound fortune... Yet, here we sit with a gift far more precious and where are we putting it and how attractive are we making it to the world?
We are making it incredibly difficult for others to be drawn to Christ because we aren’t putting our faith out there for the world to see. I like the way that Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase “The Message” translates verse 13 of our text for today. “If I acted crazy, I did it for God; If I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes”.
That is the point of the whole thing for me... we are content to act neither Crazy, nor overly serious, but too often, we are content to never do anything that would attract attention to Christ through us. We may pretend to be faithful, but in the end result, we don’t have much of an impact, because our faith is not working for us other than to secure our own place in Heaven. The carrying of the message to others is not high on our agenda. We are content to act neither crazy, nor overly serious about our faith and have reached levels of luke-warmness from which may never recover. We need, therefore, to remember the admonition in Revelation to the church at Laodocea when Christ Reminds them what happens to people of lukewarm faith.
I recently came across the story of a guy who prayed this prayer every morning: "Lord, if you want me to witness to someone today, please give me a sign to show me who it is." One day he found himself on a bus when a big, burly man sat next to him. The bus was nearly empty but this guy sat next to our praying friend. The timid Christian anxiously waited for his stop so he could exit the bus. But before he could get
very nervous about the man next to him, the big guy burst into tears and began to weep. He then cried out with a loud voice, "I need to be saved. I’m a lost sinner and I need the Lord. Won’t somebody tell me how to be saved?" He turned to the Christian and pleaded, "Can you show me how to be saved?" The believer immediately bowed his head and prayed, "Lord, is this a sign?"
While this story may be funny, we are often in the same boat with this guy. People all around us are hurting and needing to hear about the love of Christ and we are too busy burying our faith beneath all sorts of other issues of life and as a result don’t read the signs around us showing us a world which needs desperately to hear of the saving grace of Christ.
What is it that is so amazing? What is it that we have
forgotten or buried? Quite frankly, the message could not be more clear. We were dead in sin, but because of Christ we have been raised from the grave that we ourselves have dug and have been handed the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
As Paul points out in our text for today. Christ died for us so that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him! We need to be well known to God and commend ourselves to the world... rather commend Christ living in us to the world and live a life that brings him powerfully before people!
Since September 11th, our country has realized what much of the rest of the world has known for a long time: That this world is not a safe place. The sleeping Giant of America has awakened and has declared war on terrorism. I believe that it is time for another sleeping Giant to wake from a long lasting slumber. I believe that it is time for the sleeping Giant of the church to wake up and declare war on sin. We could all use a little house cleaning in our own lives to rid ourselves of sin, but we also need to see the people around us who need the Gospel and deliver it to them and lead them to the Prince of Peace.
The entire world yearns for peace and we have the peace of Christ which passes all understanding. Yet, we bury it in our backyards. It is time to dig it up!
So, I know what I would do if I won the million dollars from Regis... the whole world would know about it. That would be my “final answer”. I also know that I have been given a gift of far greater value and I have dedicated my life to sharing that gift with the world. I am done making excuses for myself and for other Christians who fail to live up to the call of Christ. I am ready to lead the charge to transform our world with the life altering, eternally significant message of hope that is ours through Christ. That is my FINAL ANSWER... Is it yours?
