***Open with skit***
Skit:
Guy #1: Going on a hike was a great idea man! I love being outside.
Guy #2: Me too, it is a gorgeous day.
Bear: Grrrr……
Guy #2: What was that?? (Both guys turn and look around, Guy# 1 spots the bear)
Guy #1: It’s a bear!! Quick, run!!!! (the two guys run until they come to a cliff where they stop suddenly)
Guy #2: Oh no! It’s a cliff. How are we going to escape this bear?
Guy #1: We have to jump to the other side. Come on! (Guy #1 takes a couple of steps back, then runs and jumps over the gap. He lands on the other side and rolls. He gets up and brushes off himself) Come on, hurry up!!
Bear (getting closer) Grrrr…..
Guy #2: I can’t jump…
Guy #1: What? Why not?
Guy #2: I don’t want to get dirty. I can’t go home with dirty pants, my Mom will kill me. I got a date when I get back too; with the hottest girl in the school. What would she say if I show up all dirty and stuff? I have to look my best…
Guy #1: You’re not going to look your best if you are eaten by a bear man! You gatta jump!
Bear (getting closer): Grrrr……
Guy #2: I can’t!! What if I don’t make it? The hole seems really big. It looks sort of slippery too! I just can’t jump. I don’t trust the ground or myself.
Guy #1: I made it…so can you! Dude, the bear is getting closer!
Bear (a few feet away now): Grrrrr……..
Guy #2: I can take care of the bear. I have a black belt, I will fight him off!
Guy #1: Dude, you can’t fight a bear!!! You have to jump!
Guy #2: I can do it myself!!!! (The bear jumps on Guy #1 and proceeds to eat him.) THE END
As we talked about last week, our theme this year is ‘Jump!’ Specifically, we are going to be spending our time focusing on jumping into a relationship with Christ and what that looks like. Last week, we looked at three reasons why we are using jump as our theme.
First, jump communicates no turning back! When someone jumps out of plane to skydive, there is no turning back. You are falling to the earth and there is no way to turn back and get back in the plane. You are all in, 100%, no turning back and that is how Christ wants us to be living in a relationship with Him.
Second, jump communicates excitement and fear. We compared this to a zip line on a ropes course. It takes guts to jump off the platform at first but once you have jumped you experience such excitement and joy. That is what it is like to follow Jesus. Sometimes it is hard to obey and follow but when we do, there is nothing like it!
Third, jump communicates something that stands out. To help us with that, we had a random person start stepping from side to side and waited to see how long it took everyone to figure out who it was. It took like five seconds, but then compared that to the one second it took everyone to then figure out the random person jumping. Jumping into a relationship with Christ means living in a way that is notably different to the people around you; God wants to use you to make a difference.
Tonight, we are going to talk about a pretty simple question but yet, a very important one if any of us even want to consider jumping completely into a relationship with Christ. That question is, “What is holding you back?” Christ has presented himself to you and has offered His hand; “Come and follow me,” He says. Standing in front of you is the One True God of the Universe offering you eternal life and an escape from death. He wants to bring you into His own family as a brother and a sister and use you to do amazing things. The life that He offers is better, by far, than anything you could find anywhere else. He wants to have a relationship with you but the choice is yours. Do you jump or do you stay? What is holding you back?
To help us look at this question let’s open our Bibles to Matthew 8:5-13 and look at a remarkable story about a Roman Officer who approaches Jesus. In this story, the Roman Officer could have listed a thousand reasons to not approach Jesus, but he realizes he needs to put all of them behind him because the life that Jesus offers is better than anything else he could turn to.
***Read Matthew 8:5-13***
As the Roman Officer was returning home one afternoon, he could hear the cries coming from down the street. Worried that they may be coming from his own home, he quickly picked up his pace to check on his family. As he got closer and realized the cries were indeed coming from his house, his quick pace changed to a flat out run. Bursting through the front gate and then the front door, he quickly ran to the back room where he found his family surrounding the bed of one of their young servants.
“What’s wrong,” he asked. His wife tuned to him with tears in her eyes and explained that the boy had come down with a serious infection. The boy had not been feeling well that morning but wanted to get his work done because he loved his master so much. Midway through the day, the boy collapsed in pain and was now paralyzed.
As the Roman Officer and his family sat in the room, he knew there was one thing that could be done. “Jesus can help!” he said to the surprise of his family. His wife looked at him in disbelief of what she just heard. “You can’t…” she exclaimed.
You see, in the times of Jesus, the Romans treated Jews like dirt. They oppressed them, forced their control upon them and ridiculed them simply because “they were better.” What would his friends and family say, what would his officers say, what would his superiors say, if they found out that he, a powerful, well established, leader in the Roman army lowered himself to the point of asking a Jewish man to help him? He would be stricken of his honors and position; he, as well as his family, would be ruined.
When it comes to jumping into a relationship with Christ, one thing that holds us back at times is all the excuses we can think of not to. In the skit just a few moments ago, the second guy was full of excuses not to jump even though the bear was coming closer and closer. He convinced himself that the hole was too big, the ground was too slippery, and that he couldn’t do it. He felt that it would be better to die looking good than to be alive but yet look dirty.
As we consider following Christ, we tend to have an attitude like this guy being attacked by the bear. We have been offered an escape from death that is found only in Christ but yet instead of jumping, we just stand there and come up with all the reasons not to. We put so much more concern on looking good for the people around us rather than looking good for God. We excuse God away saying we don’t have time to spend with him, that we will get to Him later. We say we don’t understand everything, but yet don’t even try to.
If we are going to jump into a relationship with Christ, we have to stop coming up with excuses and just do it, or at least try and do it anyways. Our lives are not going to go on forever and sooner or later, death will find us and we will be out of time. The Roman Officer could have sat there and gone through all the excuses not to go but the boy would have died in the meantime. Admit it, we all have excuses, but they are simply that and nothing more. We each need to learn how to get over our prideful attitudes and excuses to fully jump into a life with Christ.
“What about a Roman doctor?” said the Roman Officer’s wife. “What about medicines? Or herbs? Or anything else? We can find something that will help the boy.” As those things were all good ideas, the Roman Officer knew that none of them compared to what Jesus could do.
Over the last couple of weeks, he had heard story after story of all the miracles that this man Jesus had done. He knew about his great power and authority that could do anything and heal anyone. “Why settle for second best,” he thought. “Why spend time and effort going after things that might help and ignore the one thing that is guaranteed to help.”
A second thing that sometimes holds us back from jumping into a relationship with Christ is because we waste our time looking else where for the answers to life’s questions. Today, because of things like the Internet and TV, we have so many more options available to us for the answers to life’s tough questions. Although there may be more options today, it doesn’t change the fact that there is still only on answer. In the book of John, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This was something the Roman Officer understood.
As the Roman Officer approaches Jesus for help, Jesus says he will come and heal the boy. The Roman Officer replies by saying he is unworthy to have Jesus at his house. “Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed.” Then he goes on to compare the authority of Jesus to the way his own authority works saying that he only needs to speak the word to his officers or to his slaves and they obey. In contrast, Jesus, who is the Son of God and Lord over all creation, merely has to speak the word, and the boy would be healed. Guys don’t waste your time looking for life and meaning in anything else, it only comes when we jump into a relationship with Christ.
As Jesus heard the remarks from the Roman Officer, verse ten tells us he was amazed. He turns to the people who were following him and expresses that he has not seen faith like this any where in Israel. He then says that there will be many other Gentiles, non-Jews, who will jump into a relationship with Christ and many Jews who will suffer because they have hesitated and been held back from jumping.
The main thing Jesus was speaking to here about the Jews is a very common thing that holds us back from Jesus as well; that is this ‘I can do it myself’ attitude that so many of us have and that was illustrated in our skit at the end. We put our faith in these rules and behaviors that we think we can master and work our way towards everlasting life and true happiness. We think that we can do enough good stuff for others or be ‘good’ people that we can earn our way into heaven. But that’s not the way it works and in the end we will be left with nothing.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” No matter how much you do, you can not earn your way into heaven!
As we consider following Christ, we need to realize that there may be things that hold us back from jumping all in. We need to be able to admit what is holding us back so that we can figure out how to get past it. We need to understand that we could come up with excuse after excuse but that eventually we will run out of time to jump. We need to stop looking else where for life and happiness because we won’t find it anywhere; certainly not in ourselves. True life, joy, and purpose only come through a relationship with Jesus Christ. What’s holding you back? Just jump…
