February 25, 2007 Hebrews 13

Anyone here familiar with the cartoon Peanuts?

Do any of you remember the cartoons where Lucy sits at her five-cent psychology booth?

Well, in one of those comic strips, good ol’ Charlie Brown stops by for advice about life.

“Life is like a deck chair, Charlie,” Lucy says. “On the cruise ship of life, some people place their deck chair at the rear of the ship so they can see where they’ve been. Others place their deck chair at the front of the ship so they can see where they’re going.”

And after saying that, the good doctor Lucy looks at her puzzled client Charlie and asks, “Which way is your deck chair facing?” Without hesitating, Charlie replies glumly, “I can’t even get my deck chair unfolded.”

Christian leader Mike Yaconelli commented once that “Everywhere I look on the cruise ship of Christianity, I see crews of instructors, teachers, experts, and gurus eager to explain God’s plan for the placement of MY deck chair, but I still can’t even unfold it. No wonder, when I peruse the titles in a Christian bookstore, I feel like I am the only klutz in the kingdom of God, a spiritual nincompoop lost in a shipful of brilliant biblical thinkers, an ungodly midget in a world of spiritual giants When I compare my life with the experts’, I feel sloppy, unkempt, and messy in the midst of saints…and I’m a MINISTER.”

Many of those who attend our church have always wanted to go to church, wanted to get to know God better, longer for a better relationship with Jesus, but more often than not, at church they were made to feel as if the “mess” of their lives disqualified them from the possibility of an authentic spiritual life.

Unfortunately, in many religious circles, there exists an unwritten rule. Pretend. Act like God is in control when you don’t believe he is. Give the impression everything is okay in your life when it’s not. Pretend you believe when you doubt; hide your imperfections; maintain the image of a perfect marriage with healthy and well-adjusted children when your family is like every other dysfunctional family. And whatever you do, don’t admit that you sin.

Pretending is efficient, uncomplicated, and quick. To illustrate that point, imagine you’re at Food Lion in Verona, you see someone you haven’t talked to in two months… What’s the first thing that’s going to come out of their mouth? (“How are you doing?”) What’s the stock answer you and I almost always give to those who ask? (Fine) And all that’s well and good, but what about the days where you’re not fine? What about the days where you’d really LIKE to answer, “Not very well, I struggle with depression, and February is usually a lower time for me, things’ve been a little rough at work, I’m struggling a bit trying to make ends meet, and I’m tired all the time because I never get a chance to relax.” But we don’t say that…why is that, do you think?

We all are a mess. Repeat that with me (We all are a mess). None of us is who we appear to be. We all have secrets. We all have issues. We all struggle from time to time. We are not perfect, nor will we ever be. And yet, we all have tremendous potential. And we CAN see legitimate, real change take place in our lives. As I read through the small group study from the past week, the last sentence on the first page stuck out to me, because it deals with both the struggle AND the possibility. Todd Wendorff wrote in our small group study book:

"Although I struggle to stay consistent, I have found that my time with the Lord IS PRODUCING the change of character and perspective I long for in my life."

Followers of Jesus tell the truth about their lives, and followers of Jesus also admit their unfinishedness. Unfinished means incomplete, imperfect, in progress, in process, under construction. Spiritual describes someone who is incomplete, imperfectly living their life for God. When we seek God, Jesus begins to take shape in our lives. He begins a good work in us, he starts changing us, but the finishing process is a more-than-a-lifetime process. The work of God in our lives will never be finished until we meet Jesus face to face. And so the author of the Hebrews wrote, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

True spirituality isn’t about being finished and perfect; true spirituality is about trusting God IN our unfinishedness. But EVEN IN our unfinishedness, we do not lack in hope

(pursue God with all that we are in the midst of our brokenness)

“I seek to accept the limits of my humanity. I will never be able to do all that needs to be done. I cannot meet the needs of every person. I cannot be in peak performance at all times. Some things will be left undone. My concern should be not my human weakness, but rather to avoid a spirit of laziness, indifference, negligence, or procrastination. God will take up the slack of my weakness, but I must develop the discipline of faithfulness and diligence.” (John Drescher)

If we take a second to try to glimpse into Jesus’ private life, we just might grab some impression of a the commitment Jesus made in his life to pursue intimacy with God, along with the struggle to be consistent in that practice. (This isn’t the whole picture, but a short little batch of Scriptures at the beginning of the gospel of Mark should hint at what I’m speaking of (Read 1:35-37) First, he chose a time and place where he was least likely to be disturbed (usually in the morning, and in a secluded place). Second, he did not permit even those closest to him to disturb his time in prayer (this didn’t always hold true). And third, time after time in spite of those first two commitments, Jesus’ devotional life was always threatened and intruded on by the needs around him, but in spite of that he did not quit that habit of seeking God early and daily.”

If you could imagine with me this commitment in Jesus’ life as two movements: one, in seeking a solitary place, Jesus withdrew from the world, and the other, in his ministry of healing and teaching, a deep involvement in the world.

Maybe a way to illustrate these two movements of Jesus we see throughout the gospels would be to present two different models of the Christian life.

One of these we could call the “Pilgrim’s Progress” model of the Christian life.

Bunyan begins Pilgrim’s Progress by talking of a time where he lay down and fell asleep, and began to dream, and in this dream He saw a poor, ragged man named Christian standing off by himself in the fields, a heavy burden on his back, a Bible in his hand. As he opens to read from time to time, he wept and trembled and cried out, “What can I do?! What can I do to be saved!?” He is convinced that the City of Destruction where he lives is about to be burned with fire from heaven for its sins and corruption, and he LONGS for a place that he can flee.

And one day while Christian is walking along and crying out in spiritual torment, he groans loudly, for he felt as if a cloud were on his soul, and he burst out again, saying, “Who will save me?” He gave wild looks this way and that, as if he would rush off; yet he stood still, because he did not know which way to go. At last, a man named Evangelist came up to him and said, “Why do you weep?” Christian responded, “Sir, I see by this book in my hand that I will die, and then God will judge me. I fear death.”

Evangelist asked: “Why do you fear death, since this life is a terrible struggle already?”

Christian responded again, “I fear that I am doomed, and that this load on my back will make me sink down, till at last I give up.”

"If this is your situation,” said Evangelist, “why do you stand still?”

And Christian said, “I do not know where to go.” (tell of the ensuing journey…leaves wife and children and friends) This is the desire to be apart from the world because of its corruption, and so Christian flees away.

Another impulse we might find ourselves subject to we could call the “Jonah” model of the Christian life. Jonah had to enter the city, with all its sin and corruption.

Have you ever felt like as a Christian you needed to flee the world and its corruption? Have you ever felt like as a Christian you needed to enter the world, where folks are lost and dying, to love them and minister to them? Now, you may or may not have felt both of these impulses, but I am convinced we need to walk a balance between the two in order to be faithful followers of Jesus. We NEED to know that we are called out, separate from the world as Christians, in order for us to understand our calling. This is one of the primary motivating influences for daily devotions. We start the day by remembering who we are. But after being called out and pursuing a deepening relationship with God, our commitment to love our neighbor should lead to increasing involvement in the world, not running from it.”

Time alone with God sharpens the focus of our priorities and opens us to receive God’s presence and power. The intimacy of our lives with Christ is the measure of our spiritual power for God. “Be still and know,” says the Scripture- and there is a knowledge of God and God’s work which only comes in communion with God. What I speak of is not just a technique or dry religious duty. It must be honest, authentic pursuit of God. But even with a knowledge of this commitment we have to grow in Christ, we keep in mind that from now until the day we die, we will be unfinished, flawed human beings…spending much more time searching for answers than finding them. So until that point, we “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” and we pursue him with all that we are, we struggle to stay consistent in that pursuit, and in the process we find life.