“Super Sized Life” part 3 (Getting Plugged In)
Brian A. Moon
A young woman called Nancy had a disability and was confined to a wheelchair, yet she developed a unique ministry to hurting and lonely people. She placed an ad in the local newspaper that read: "If you are lonely or have a problem, call me. I am in a wheelchair and seldom get out. We can share our problems with each other. Just call. I’d love to talk."
Each week at least 30 calls come into her, and she spends her day counseling and comforting people. When asked how she became disabled, she said, "By trying to commit suicide. I was living alone and had no friends. I hated my job and was constantly depressed. So I decided to jump from the window of my flat, but instead of being killed, I ended up in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down. That second night in the hospital Jesus appeared to me and told me that I’d had a healthy body and a crippled soul, but from then on I would have a crippled body and a healthy soul. I gave my life to Christ right there and then. When I got out of the hospital I tried to think of how a woman like me in a wheelchair could do some good, and I came up with the idea of putting an ad in the paper, and the rest, as they say, is history."
Our world is filled with lonely, hurting people just like Nancy. Many of us have even experienced what it is like to be hurting, alone, and living without any joy. We have been to the bottom of it all, the end of our rope, the pit of despair, and maybe even had thoughts of ending our own lives like Nancy did. Right now as we speak somewhere, in some dark corner, there is a teenage girl and a lonely 30-year-old man attempting to take their lives because it hurts so much to live. Our world is often times a place that has no joy and no happiness. In fact we feel as though we are joy deprived most of the time. But if you have been here for the past two weeks you will remember a quote that Jesus Christ made, it was this:
John 10:10 “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance”
Circle the word enjoy in that verse.
We have been talking about how to find the “Super Sized Life,” one that is extreme and fun, and fulfilling to live. We are not supposed to live a life of despair and joylessness, Jesus Christ came so that we can have and enjoy life. In that story that I told in the beginning, Nancy said that Jesus came in her darkest hour and gave her a new life, a new hope, and an amazing joy doing something very special; passing on the joy that she had been given. That is a perfect picture of the final key to finding the “Super Sized Life”, it is Getting Plugged In… “Getting plugged into what,” you are probably asking yourself. You see Jesus Christ came to this earth as a human being just like you and me, he experienced hurts and loneliness just like you and me, and he died, just like you and I will.
But here is the difference, when Jesus died on the cross he paid a debt that you and I owed. Let me explain, we all have a thing God calls sin in our lives. We all have messed up and done things that are wrong. These things are what cause evil things like loneliness, and joylessness in our lives because sin separates us from God. But when Jesus Christ, God’s only son, died 2,000 years ago he died for us, that is he took our sin and our loneliness, and our joylessness and paid the price of death that they have.
That is not the end of the story though because Jesus rose from the dead, he defeated death and sin, along with loneliness and joylessness and now he offers that amazing new life to us. He offers it to people like Nancy, and you, and me, and to lonely and hurting people all over the world. One of the things Jesus did to accomplish this before he went back to be with God, is he set up what we know as the church. The church is the place that God hangs out, the place that Jesus power is given and the place people find hope and joy.
Now when I say that word church don’t think of a building think of this:
Acts 17:24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.” NASB
God does not hang out in building, or temples, or churches, but instead the church is all those people that believe in Jesus. All of us that have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ are the church! And that is what we are to get plugged into, we are to get plugged into God’s family here on earth, we are to get plugged into a body of believers like right here on Sunday nights.
All of us have seen the classic sit-coms “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Brady Bunch” on Nick at Night or some other late night station. These shows deal with the ups and down of two American families. Beaver would come home after doing something dumb and stupid and by the end of the show because of the support and love of his family everything was fine. Marcia would come home after being heartbroken by some new boy and she found a whole house full of people to love and take care of her hurts.
The key to all of these nice and happy endings was that they had a family. The same is true for you and me, we need a church family, a group of believers in Jesus Christ so that we can live this “Super Sized Life.” Just like these TV families were a home for the hurting we need a church family because it is:
A home for the hurting
When Jesus left this earth he had experienced it all, even the feelings of loneliness and joylessness and he had even been hurt a time or two. Knowing how all of us feel, and having felt all of these things himself he says this,
Matthew 11:28 “Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light."’ NLT
And today Jesus says these very same things through the church, through thousands of believers, to each of you that need a home for the hurting. Jesus says to us, “I know you are getting hurt every day, I know how much this life steals your joy and gives you feelings of hopelessness, but come to me, come to me through this family I have left you.” This group of believers that meets here every Sunday night is to be a home for people who are down and out, a home for people who have been beaten up by the world, and a home for people who are in need of joy and hope. If you are going through a tough time in your life like, your parents are getting divorced, you got dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend, you are struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol, you lost a job you needed, you let someone down, or whatever it may be,
The church, or this family right here is the first place you should turn for help. This group is Jesus with skin on, we are God’s hands and feet, so let him come and minister to your hurts through other people.
The church is also a place of encouragement and refreshing when we are struggling with things.
Hebrews 10:25 “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another…” NIV
We all desperately need to hear words of encouragement and affirmation and Jesus says, “I got you covered.
Come hang out with some of my family and let them encourage you when you’re down.” In fact God places us from time to time in tough situations, he allows us to go through something bad so that we can learn how to relate with other people when they suffer and are hurting.
There was a young boy who was involved in a terrible accident and the doctors were forced to amputate one of his arms. When the boy awakened from his surgery he looked down to see that his arm was now missing. Embarrassed and scared he sent all of his family out of his room and refused to see anyone. The boys parents we heartbroken for their son, but could not figure out what to do, so they called a local pastor to come and talk with the boy. When the minister arrived he knocked on the door and asked to come in, the boy shouted back "No, I don’t want to see anyone like this!” The man walked in slowly anyway and reached out his hand to the boy. The boy looked up and saw that the pastor’s arm was not real, it was a prosthetic arm. The boy began to warm up to the pastor and after a few minutes they were laughing and talking like best friends.
You see the boy could not relate to everyone else at the time, he was hurt and everyone else could not feel what he was feeling. The pastor however had gone through something terrible in his own life, and now he was able to use that to relate to this boy in a way that no one else could. God puts us in all kind of tough situations but he also prepares us for the next person who is going through what we just went through.
And the church family provides us with those opportunities to find healing for just what we are experiencing.
1 Corinthians 12:26 “If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.” CEV
That verse reminds us that not only is the church family a home for the hurting, but it is also a:
A place to celebrate
The church family is also a place to celebrate all that Jesus has done for us. He gives us this amazing new “Super Sized Life” and now we can all gather together to shout and sing and tell Jesus that we love him.
1 Chronicles 16:31 “Tell the heavens and the earth to be glad and celebrate! And announce to the nations, "The LORD is King!" CEV
Circle the words “be glad” and “celebrate”
As the church family we should be glad, we should be glad and we should not hesitate to celebrate. Jesus Christ has set us free from our sins and given us a life with no end with God!!! That should make you want to celebrate! We are not supposed to live joyless lives that never have anything to jump up and down about, but instead we are to celebrate the fact that we have life, we have a “Super Sized Life” in Jesus Christ.
Think about when you are at a sporting event like a Tampa Bay Buc’s game. The team is up by only 2 points with a minute to go in the fourth quarter, a field goal would win the game for the other team and they have the ball and are driving fast. They cross the 50-yard line with 20 seconds to go and have time for one more play and a then a try at a field goal. You know that if they get 15 – 20 yards the game is over for the Buc’s so you are yelling and screaming at the top of your lungs along with every other person at Raymond James Stadium. The noise is deafening and as the quarterback tries to call an audible the wide receiver misses it and the Buc’s intercept the ball and run it in for a touchdown! Imagine the celebration that is taking place. The stands are rocking back and forth from the people celebrating at what they have just experienced. Now imagine that this game was the Super Bowl and everyone has charged onto the field and is cheering and shouting with joy.
But this is just a football game and come Monday morning it will not do anything for the salvation of your soul. Jesus Christ however died to take away our sin and give us not only salvation, but an amazing new life full of joy and life to the fullest. So Sunday’s are Super Sunday’s not for some football game, but because Jesus has done it all!!!
2 Chronicles 15:14 “…then they celebrated by shouting and blowing trumpets and horns.” CEV
That verse sounds a lot like a game with air horns and a band and shouting and our church, this group of believers should be a lot like that. We should get just a little excited when we realize all that God has done for us.
Habakkuk 3:18 “yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.” NLT
The church family is a home for the hurting, and it is a place to celebrate all that God has done, but it is also:
A place to serve
The key to the “Super Sized Life” is all about finding out who we are in and because of Jesus Christ, and realizing that God has an amazing game plan for each of us, But also it is about getting plugged into passing all this great life on to others.
“Suppose a great doctor discovers a cure for cancer. Once that cure is found, it is there. But before it can become available for everyone, it must be taken out to the world. Doctors and surgeons must know about it and be trained to use it. The cure is there, but one person cannot take it out to all the world; a corps of doctors must be the agents whereby it arrives at all the world’s sufferers. “That precisely is what the church is to Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus that all people and all nations can be reconciled to God. But before that can happen, they must know about Jesus Christ, and it is the task of the church to bring that about. Christ is the head; the church is the body. The head must have a body through which it can work. The church is quite literally hands to do Christ’s work, feet to run upon His errands, and a voice to speak His words.”
- William Barclay
We are not supposed to be like an island in the sea of drowning people that does nothing to help,
But instead we are to show and tell others about this amazing “Super Sized Life” that we have all found in Christ.
Matthew 5:14 – 16 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” NRSV
Underline the last sentence of that verse, “In the same way let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
This “Super Sized Life” is so amazing that when you are living it out it is like light compared to dark.
People will notice that you have something they do not and they will want to know how you gained such happiness and joy in life. The church family is supposed to serve others with the love that Jesus has given us. We should show others about this life in Christ with good deeds, with actions that show love,
And we should tell others about this amazing life in Christ with our words that are full of love. There is nothing that will get you more excited about life then passing life on to someone else! I hope you have gained a new outlook on life because of this series, I hope you have realized that you can have an amazingly fun and fulfilling life if you allow Jesus Christ to come in and take over.
