Tear Off Your Side View Mirror

Rev. Matthew Eyerman

I. Introduction

1. start today with an old school song

I have decided to follow Jesus,

I have decided to follow Jesus,

I have decided to follow Jesus ---

No turning back, no turning back.

2. have you decided to follow Jesus?

3. call to mind the passage from Matthew’s Gospel

Matthew 18:9And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire.

4. this morning I want us to tear off our side mirrors

5. no turning back

6. no looking back

7. revise the song

I have decided to follow Jesus ---

No looking back, no looking back.

II. Elisha ---- needed messenger -- #1

1. return to the first reading

2. Elisha was a farmer

a. fairly successful farmer

b. had own plough and oxen

c. and own land

3. some of us are also successful

a. teachers

b. nurses

c. office workers

d. students

4. I was very good at the hotel stuff

5. but the Lord had plenty of people who can do hotel stuff

III. Elisha ---- needed messenger ---- #2

1. The Lord looked over the employee list

a. plenty of fishermen

b. plenty of farmers

2. the Lord did not need another successful farmer

3. had plenty of those

4. the Lord may not need another successful whatever

5. the Lord needed a messenger

6. now don’t confuse success with doing God’s will

7. God not going to punish you for being yet another successful whatever

8. but it that really God’s will in your life?

9. a sermon for another day

10. point: God needed a messenger and found a farmer to be that messenger

III. Elisha --- no looking back

1. Elisha then broke the mirrors off his faith car

2. look what he did

a. killed the oxen

b. smashed up the farm equipment

c. burned the equipment

d. cooked the oxen

e. and ate it

3. everything that made him a farmer was gone

4. not matter what happened with Elijah

a. good days

b. bad days

c. success

d. failure

5. he could never again be a farmer

6. no looking back

IV. the big c ---

1. some of us are afraid of the big C

2. so afraid that we even call it the “Big C” rather than the full name

3. you know the Big C

a. not cancer

b. not nearly as scary as COMMITMENT

4. commitment involves trust and it is hard to trust

5. who can we trust

a. the government ---- remind me why are we fighting in Iraq?

b. business --- here today, enroned and dot-comed tomorrow

c. school system ---- are the children really learning?

d. even the church ---- out of touch or majoring in the minors

e. and relationships

1. what can I say

2. what seems great at 4am in the club

3. whole different perspective at 12 noon in the light of day

6. so who do we trust?

V. the big C ---- commit to God

1. Elisha takes everything he owns

a. all the farm equipment

b. all oxen

c. burns it

2. while the rest of the world ½ way commits to each other

3. Elisha commits all the way with one person who always commits all the way

4. Elisa commits to God and God commits to Elisha

5. commit to God

VI. the big C ---- ramifications of commitment

1. may mean you have to let go of some behaviors and some people

2. story

a. always amazed at people who have friends from back in the day

b. great you were able to grow together

c. I had to let them go

d. had to say, God bless you, see you at the resurrection

e. how I was is not how I am now

3. Elisa took the rear view mirror off his car of faith

4. no looking back

5. no turning back

6. do the same, take off the mirrors

7. make and live the commitment

VI. nostalgia

1. second reason to tear off the mirrors

2. that mirror make us look back

3. and when we look back tend to remember the good old days

4. story

a. used to have a friend

b. all he ever talked about was high school

c. finally had enough

d. been out of high school for XXX years

e. life moves on

5. the good old days weren’t all that good

6. they were just the old days

7. life moves on

8. can’t spend it living in a museum

VII. reverse nostalgia

1. or we only remember the bad parts