TOPIC: ?Diving In?
TEXT: Acts 2:47
The view from the bottom of the ladder was bad enough. As I stared up to the top, the ladder seemed to stretch a mile into the air ? up and up and up. The platform for the high dive looked a mile away. Then again, I was only 10, and small for my age. My friends were there talking about how cool it was to jump off the high board. I wasn?t so sure. I mean, that platform was a mile up in the air. But, my friends were there, and they were urging me on ? you know, doing chicken sqawks and such. Great bunch of friends! So, I started to climb the ladder. I would be the first in the group to go the distance. Someone, I don?t remember who, told me not to look down ? to look straight ahead as I climbed. Guess what I did? I looked down. I was terrified by what I saw, and I was only about half-way up! The view from the bottom of the ladder was bad enough. The view going up the ladder was worse!
And when I got to the top of the ladder, I realized that I had vastly overestimated my terror, both at the bottom and on the way up the ladder! I had thought, then, that I couldn?t be more terrified, but when I got to the top of the ladder, I found out what terror really was! The view from the top was nothing short of horrifying! I looked off in the distance, and it seemed like I was up as high as the rooftops of the tallest buildings I could see! I looked down at the pool, and it looked like a dot far below me! I was terrified! I grabbed hold of the rails on the platform, frozen. I looked out at the distance, I looked down at the pool, I looked down to where my buddies stood on the ground below the ladder, and I realized that I had to make a decision. What would it be? Should I risk almost certain death by jumping into the pool below? Or should I climb back down the ladder and risk the humiliation that I would surely receive from my buddies?
I climbed back down the ladder. My friends didn?t hassle me as much as I figured they would. None of them jumped either! But I felt like a chicken, a failure in my own eyes and the eyes of my friends. It took me till the end of the summer to get up the courage to try again. I?d been to the pool several times, but had stuck with the low board and avoided even getting close to the high board. It took me till the end of the summer to get up the courage to walk over to the high board and look up. I stood there and watched as people climbed up, and jumped or dove into the pool below. I watched as they surfaced ? arms and legs and necks intact ? and swam to the side. I watched as they climbed the ladder again and repeated the process. And I decided to just do it ? to take the plunge!
The ladder stretched up and up and up into the sky. I didn?t look down. I climbed and climbed and climbed until I reached the top, and I walked out on the platform with my eyes focused straight in front of me. I walked to the edge of the board. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the pool below me. It seemed so far away! I took a deep breath, let go of the rails, and jumped. My heart was beating fast. I was falling faster! My stomach felt like it had stayed on the board, far above me. It seemed like it took forever for my feet to hit the water. Then woosh, I was in and under. I kicked my feet and floated to the surface -- and I realized that I was alive ? and that my body was intact ? arms, legs, hands, feet, neck ? everything was where it should be. Even my swim suit had stayed in place! I had done it! I swam to the ladder on the side of the pool, hauled myself out, and headed back to the high dive ladder to do it again! And before the day was over, I was jumping off the high dive platform without even thinking about it!
Becoming a Christian is kind of like jumping off the high dive. In Acts 2:47, Luke talks about the days after Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon those first believers. Luke wrote:
The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Today is Confirmation Sunday, and that?s what?s happening right here at Riverchase United Methodist Church. God is adding to our numbers people who are being saved, who are diving into discipleship. I want to suggest four ways that becoming a Christian is like jumping off the high dive.
First, when you jump off the high board, you don?t really know what to expect. I remember wondering all sorts of things when I was contemplating that first jump, not least of which was: ?Will it hurt?? I wondered what it was like to fall through the air. I wondered what it would be like to hit the water. I wondered how far I would go under the water. I wondered if I would make a big splash, and I wondered if I would survive the fall! And even though I had watched other people jump off the board, and even talked to some of them about what it was like, I still had so many questions. I didn?t know what to expect.
Diving into discipleship is like that. When you give your life to Christ, you don?t know what to expect. When you open the door to God working in your life, all kinds of things can happen. I?m going, this afternoon, to Sumatanga, our North Alabama United Methodist Retreat Center, for our Board of Ordained Ministry Interview Retreat. The Board will be interviewing people who are at various stages of entering the ordained ministry. One of those people is Steve Strange. He?s applying for Probationary Membership in the Conference. Over half of the people we will interview are what we call ?second career? people, like Steve. They started out their working lives as something else, then heard God?s call upon their lives to enter ministry. Now, I would hazard to guess that most of those folks didn?t think God would call them into ministry when they accepted Christ and became a part of the church. That wasn?t what they expected at all. Yet, here they are!
There are some of you here today who teach Sunday School classes, or lead Bible Study groups, or teach in Vacation Bible School, or work with the youth, or sing in the choir, or are part of the Church staff, who never dreamed when you became a Christian what God would have you doing. Diving into discipleship is like that. You just don?t know what God has in store for you. Singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman calls becoming a disciple ?The Great Adventure.? You just don?t know what God has planned for you when you say yes.
The second thing about diving off the high board is trust. Before I ever took the plunge myself, I watched other people do it, and I thought: ?If they can do this, I can do it.? I had some level of trust that going off the high board was possible for me, that I would be O.K. if it did it. I trusted the fact that others had jumped and lived, and I trusted that I could jump and live, too!
I grew up watching people dive into discipleship. I grew up watching people respond to God?s call upon their lives ? working and serving in the church, living Christian lives, loving others. And as I grew, I trusted that being one of God?s people was for me, too. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews talked about those believers who lived before him. He wrote:
Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)
Look around you at all the people who are running the race with you. Look to the past to see those who have gone before you. Look to the future to those who will come after you. We are part of the great adventure of faith. We can trust diving into discipleship because we have seen others do it.
But we can also dive into discipleship because we can trust in God. It is God who calls us to be Christians. Remember those words from Acts I read earlier:
The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
We aren?t believers by accident. It?s God?s doing. God has worked in our world before, and God is working in our world now, and God will work in our world in the days to come. Even when we are afraid to take the plunge, God is with us. Psalm 56, verses 3 & 4, says it well:
When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid.
The second way that going off the high board and diving into discipleship are similar is trust.
The third similarity is preparation. Now, I have to admit, when I took that first leap off the high board, my preparation had consisted only of watching others doit, and then getting up the courage to jump! If I were planning to be an olympic diver, a lot more would have been necessary!
My preparation for diving into discipleship was a little more extensive. In addition to watching how others did it, I went to Sunday School and worship and youth fellowship and confirmation class. I read and studied the Bible, listened to sermons, talked with my parents and others about what they believed. All of those things prepared me to dive into discipleship. And now, years later, I am still doing those things as I learn to be a disciple of Jesus, and as God continues God?s work of saving me.
The last thing about diving off the high board is to take the step. I had to climb the ladder, walk out on the board, let go of the rails, and jump. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, you have to dive in. The Nike people are pretty much right: ?Just do it.? Becoming a Disciple of Jesus Christ is a leap of faith! When you take that step, the power of God?s grace will surround you and save you!
There are 41 confirmands here this morning who have decided to take the plunge. They?ve been involved in Confirmation Class for several weeks, learning about God, about the church, about the beliefs of the United Methodist Church, about the commitment they are making. And now they?ve decided to take the plunge and become disciples of Jesus Christ, and members of this congregation. God is adding to our numbers because God is leading people to take the plunge, to dive into discipleship!
