Life in the Fast Lane
Making the Drag: Enjoying the Journey on the Highway of Life
John 10:10
Woodlawn Baptist Church
October 10, 2004
Introduction
In John 10:10, Jesus said,
“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Remember the drag? How many of you used to make the drag where you went to school? I remember when I first got my driver’s license I picked up a few of my friends and rode over to Mexia to see what was going on. The first thing they wanted to do was make the drag. I’ll have to admit that I have always been out of touch with what everyone else is doing, so I had to ask what the drag was. In Mexia, the drag went for a couple of miles through the middle of town from the Wal-Mart parking lot back through town again. Back and forth we would go, and the first few times I drove it or rode it I remember thinking what a waste of time and gas it was, but the longer I did it the more I wanted to do it, and before I realized what had happened, I was hooked, spending most nights of the week riding back and forth, listening to the radio, enjoying the people, racing anyone I thought I could beat, and especially wasting my time and my gas.
It has been said that in the fall of man Paradise was lost, and with it, everything that made life worth living. But if there is one thing worse than that it is that we as a people have grown adjusted to it. We’ve become broken into the idea that this is just the way things are. The people who walk in darkness have adjusted their eyes. Like the drag, most of us live as though this life, the one you’re living today is pretty much the way things are supposed to be.
I didn’t realize it back in school, but life is a journey. For many people, the journey is a lot like the drags we used to ride, back and forth, always going in circles, having fun, enjoying the people, but wasting our time and never really going anywhere. Oh, sometimes you could change the scenery – you might ride with someone new, or take a detour along the way. You might get a new car or find some new tunes, but you always came back, riding back and forth, never really going anywhere.
Do you ever feel that way in life? If you were to be honest, some of you would have to admit that regardless of how you have changed the scenery of your life with different jobs and homes and cars, or even with different friends and sometimes even spouses, you know that you’ve just been going in circles. Life today is little different than it used to be. You still have the same troubles, the same worries, the same fears, the same struggles, and in spite of your efforts to get off the drag, something keeps pulling you back in, and if you are like most people, you simply accept that this is how life is supposed to be.
In the verse we read, Jesus said that the thief, Satan, comes into your life to steal, to kill, and to destroy. He wants to make sure that he keeps you riding in circles, never going anywhere, slowly but surely wasting your life away. He wants to steal your time, kill your hopes and dreams, and destroy your desire for life as God intended it. Whether you realize it or not, Satan has been at work all your life to keep you from seeing what’s really been going on. I told you last week that he has three powerful tools he uses in your life. They are noise, hurry, and crowds. So long as he can keep those as constants in your life you won’t have the time and you won’t develop the spiritual ears to hear the voice of God calling you out of the trap into the journey of a lifetime – into the abundant life God longs for you to live.
Today I want you to know that God is calling to you – calling you park the car for a few moments this morning, turn off the noise, escape the crowds, and listen to His gentle voice beckoning you to a life filled with joy and great purpose. If you were riding along on the drag this morning and you suddenly realized that its not getting you where you need to go, then you know you’d need to do something. If you are hearing God’s voice calling you to that journey, to that new and exciting destination, then you need to…
Get Off the Drag
I used to know this girl that had car trouble. She would tell her dad that her car was making this noise and that noise and that something was wrong with it, but it would never get repaired. She was complaining to him about it one day and she wanted to know why he hadn’t taken care of it yet. His answer? You’ve got to get it off the road for a little while if you want me to look at it.
Listen, the only way you will ever be able to truly discover whether you’re headed in the right direction with your life and time and talents and money and family and kids is to get off the drag of life. Stop doing what you’re doing! In other words, take a break! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Stop doing what is not working.
I realize that we’re living in a culture that doesn’t necessarily reward the person who slows his pace and even stops from time to time. From daylight to dark our days are filled with activity. We rush from this place to the next, working frantically to get this and that done, and before you know it days and weeks and months and even years can go by before we realize that we’ve been caught up in the trap. I read the other day that the average dad has about 7 minutes of meaningful conversation with his children per week. Per week! We’re living at warp speed pace at the cost of our families, our churches and our health.
I cannot fully express to you the importance of getting off the drag for a short while, whether it be for some period of time each day, or for a few hours every week, you’ve got to get some time alone. You can’t do it in the car. You can’t do it while you’re hunting or fishing. You can’t do it while you’re working. There it is again – you wanting to maximize your time by multitasking – just stop!
Take Inventory
When I was a senior in high school, I bought a 1979 Cougar. It had been garage kept for several years by an older couple and hadn’t been driven for quite a while. I took it home and washed years of dirt off of it and found it to be in like new condition. Once it had a new stereo and speakers, black tint on the windows and a little tune up, I decided to drive it over to Corsicana. It was college day there, the day that seniors from all over the area came over to check out the school. After a couple of hours, most of us hit the streets to ride the drag for the rest of the day. After 3 or 4 hours of going in circles and cruising around, I noticed that something was wrong with the car. It was spreading a heavy, wet black film out of the exhaust all over the back of the car and onto the cars behind me. Like any smart kid, I figured it just needed blowing out, so I headed home and put the foot in it. I didn’t get to drive it again for a couple of weeks after that, because rather than stopping to check out the problem, I worsened it and blew up the transmission.
Now, do something for me. Close your eyes and think for just a moment. Do you get angry easily? Frustrated? Are you lonely? Are you worried about something that is going on in your life? Are your kid’s grades dropping? Are you seeing behavioral problems? Are your credit cards maxed out? Have you been slacking off at church or with the Lord? Are you wrestling with some habit or sin that has a hold on you? Do you miss the relationship you once had with your spouse?
Keep your eyes closed for just a moment longer and listen. What is the Lord speaking to you? Is there some thing in your life that He is speaking to you about? Is it a lie? Is it a truth, some secret you are hiding?
Now look up here and listen to me – that thing you are thinking about – whether it is something I have mentioned or something altogether different – it is simply the symptom of the greater problem. You see, the black film I saw coming out of my exhaust was not the problem, it was the indication of a greater problem. But the temptation is to stop the smoke rather than to tear into the transmission.
If you are angry and hurting and lonely, the answer is not divorce. The answer is not to find new friends. The answer is not to get a new job or a new church or any of those things. If you are wrestling with some great sin that has a tight grip on you, the answer is not some new program. I heard on the radio the other day a new solution for overeating. You go out and take pictures of road kill: dead dogs and cats and such that have been run over with all the vermin on them and post them up in your house. You tape them on the fridge and in the cabinets, and seeing those pictures will help you stop overeating. You know what that is? It’s dealing with a symptom.
The real question you have to ask, and it is not one that always has a quick answer is this: what lies behind the symptom? What is causing this smoke? God is not in the business of band-aid approaches to healing and wholeness; He wants to cut to the core of who you are and bring about real healing and restoration, and the only way it is going to happen is for you to park the car for a while and dig a little deeper. But let me assure you of this: it will be worth the effort.
Some of you are ready to quit. You have given up on the possibility of a great marriage, so you settle for an okay one. You have given up on experiencing victory over that thing that has you in bondage, and you just decide that it really isn’t that bad or harmful anyway. Some of you have resigned yourselves to thinking that your happiness is dependent on what others do or don’t do. “If my husband would help more, or would stop this behavior,” or whatever else you want to add, then you could be happy. Listen, God is calling you today beyond all of that to something better. You can keep riding in circles if you like, and ten years from now you’ll still be riding that same old drag. Or you can decide this morning that even though the answers are not forthcoming at this exact moment, you’re going to take a turn, a change, allow God to transform your life as you follow His lead on a different journey – the road to abundant living.
The longer I study the Bible the more convinced I am of this: that all too often we set our eyes on heaven and decide that when we reach our destination we can then enjoy what God has come to give us. If that were the case, then God ought to just take us home when we accept Him. Life isn’t about the destination so much as it is about the journey, about enjoying the ride along the way. It is about God finding you on the road to Damascus with murder and wickedness in your heart, shining the light of the glorious gospel into your life, filling you with the love of Jesus Christ through repentance and faith in Him, and mile by mile transforming you into the man or woman God has created you to be. So how do I get there? I’m going to assume this morning that you’ve determined to get off the drag, that you’ve at least begun to think about your life in terms of the journey God wants to set you on. How do you get started?
Pack Your Bags and Don’t Look Back
Matthew did it. Andrew did it. John and James and the others did it. Peter took a little longer, but eventually even he came around. The apostle Paul is perhaps the most dramatic example of it in the New Testament. What is it? It is men who came face to face with Christ, the Christ who found them on the drag of life, who showed them a new and better way, men who packed their bags and never looked back. I admire that in them and am deeply challenged by it. Every one of those men left behind careers, security, planned futures and dreams of where they wanted to go for the new life Christ was offering, and here is what is so unbelievable – all those men traded good lives for lives of suffering and heartache! But if you could ask them today if they would do it all again, every one of them would gladly say yes because the lives they received in return for good lives were better, abundant, joy-filled, dynamic lives filled with great purpose and power as they experienced the presence and the person of Jesus Christ living His life through them!
Perhaps during our time together this morning the Lord has impressed upon you that it is time to accept Him as your Savior. You know that the life you’ve been living is not taking you where you need to go, and no matter what you do, no matter what you try, it never will. It is not because you’ve not been trying or because you’ve not been sincere in your efforts, but because of a fundamental disposition all men have called sin. It is not sin plural, as in sins. It is not what you’ve done, but what you are – and what you are is unacceptable in God’s sight. The good news though is that God in His great love and mercy sent Christ to be sin for you.
“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” However, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Let me say it like this – so long as you are content to ride along in your sin, your final destination will be hell. You stand condemned and under the wrath of God. That’s not a message we like to hear, but it’s the message you need to accept, because once you can come to grips with that – then you are ready to receive the good news that Christ died in your place so that you don’t have to pay the wages of your sin. He died to give you life. He died that you might be righteous. He died to set you free. He died to restore your soul. He died so you might realize and experience the most wonderful life ever known to man!
Before we close today, I want you to turn with me to Luke 9:57 and read with me a few verses.
“And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto [Jesus], Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Every one of these men who came to Jesus has some things in common with you. Each of them realized that God wanted to start them on the journey of a life. Each of them had at least some desire to begin the journey, but every one of them succumbed to their reservations. In other words, even though you realize that what you are doing may not be taking you where you need to go, and even though you realize what you need to do to get there, and even though you have some desire to begin this morning, the reality is that most of you are not going to go. Every one of these men had an excuse that was a little bit bigger than their desire, and so I ask you today, will you follow?
According to the Lord, the only real way to follow; the only real way to begin the journey is to pack your bags and never look back. “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Only you can decide to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. You can ride along in circles – “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy;” or you can get off right here and choose to go a new way. “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.” It’s your choice.
Works Cited:
Eldredge, John. The Journey of Desire (Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville, TN) 2000
2 Corinthians 5:21
Romans 6:23
