"I know we are the hands and feet of you, Oh God."

Title: I Refuse
Artist: Josh Wilson
Album: See You

So I thought that I would start a blog to capture life and everything that I have going on.  I am going to cheat a little bit for the first one.  I am going to go through the formalities of introductions and such in my second post.  But for now, to get this thing started, I am going to post the notes of the sermon that I preached back in March.  I will post other things as I figure all this out.

This was my first sermon...

JUST DO IT!

Have you ever seen the “hot now” sign at Krispy Kreme Donuts? Not everyone has. If you have seen it, did you stop and get some? There are two very different ways that seeing that sign play out. Yes, I am starting out this message with donuts, in case you are wondering.

Since I was 16 years old I have loved to go see my family in Virginia Beach. That area is where I learned to drive in a city, it’s where a lot of great memories have happened for me. One of those memories was the first time I saw a “Hot Now” sign. It’s right there on Virginia Beach Boulevard. The sign hangs in the window. It’s neon and it spins when it is turned on. You may not know to look for it if it’s your first time there. I heard a pastor talk about Krispy Kreme and the donut making process. He managed to relate it to salvation. I’ll share a little with those of you who haven’t seen this amazing process…

The shop is small and it has a window outside so that you can watch as the donuts are made. They get dropped out and take a ride through a weaving conveyer (it goes up and down, moving the donuts along and giving them time to rise), they get dropped into the oil and then flipped so that both sides are evenly cooked. Then they move on to the glaze where they get drenched. Perry Noble (from NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC) related this whole process to our sanctification and how the glaze was like getting baptized and the box symbolized the local church…

What I want to relate to you from my experience is how good it all is. If you haven’t had a “hot now” donut (and I am the only one in my household who has), then you may not follow me. But bear with me. I remember the first time I had one. It was unlike any other donut. I wanted more. I simply could not get enough. I was… in love!

Now you may say… love? Really? Remember, I was 16 at the time. But what I want to bring out of this is that there are two different ways that we approach being followers of Christ. The first way is with excitement and commitment. And the other is to put it off until you are “ready”.

(Luke 5:1-11 ESV)

[Jesus Calls the First Disciples]

5:1 On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Here we see Jesus, who already knows his place. He knows that choosing his disciples will lead to a ministry, ministry will lead to many confrontations with religious leaders and so on… But here we see him choose anyway. Peter, Andrew, James and John were singled out. They were put on the spot by a man who simply said, “Follow me, …”

What was their response? Did they ignore him and go back to work? No! They dropped what they were doing and went to follow Him. Why would they do that? It wasn’t because they hated their jobs, following a stranger wouldn’t have seemed like a good way to put food on the table. So what was it? I think that it was the Holy Spirit telling them to go. Just do it! This is your chance. This is not just a man calling you. There had to be some more powerful factor to these men leaving behind everything.

Did they question Him? No. They left their boats and followed Jesus. We see this in the case of all of the disciples. Matthew the tax collector was sitting at his tax booth and Jesus said “Come on.” And Matthew just left. He didn’t say, “well, let me just finish up here and I’ll be right with you.” He stood up and walked away from his job, his family, his friends…

Could you do this? An even simpler question than that, how many have been baptized? I have done a lot of studying in the book of Acts. In that text we see people come to Christ left and right! They become Christians in three easy steps.

#1. They believe in Jesus Christ. That seems pretty simple, right?

#2. They repent of their sin.

#3. They get baptized… immediately!

Look at the story of Philip and the Ethiopian. The Ethiopian is reading from the prophet Isaiah, riding along in his chariot. Philip sees the guy and goes to talk to him. After Philip explains Jesus to the man, this guy sees some water and asks what is keeping him from being baptized then and there. Are we that submissive to Christ’s will in our life? Do we hear God speak into our lives and make the necessary changes or react in the proper manner to our calling?

How many of us would be able to drop everything, change everything in our lives for Jesus? That answer should be all of us here. A better question would be, how many of us would do that if we were called to live by faith?

(Luke 9:57-62 ESV)

[The Cost of Following Jesus]

I would venture to say that none of us could do that. Sure, we make changes when we are ready to. We take baby steps to being a better person. We read a little more of our bible each day, pray a little more… The next section of scripture that I want us to look at tonight is also in Luke. Jesus is talking to a group of His followers and they are getting ready to move on to their next venue… their next speaking engagement, if you will…

57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus [7] said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

The person who said this to Jesus was caught up in the moment and made a bold claim. I have a friend who plays a game called Shenanigans. He sums the game up like this:

“This is a game that involves anytime someone makes a definitive statement about a situation around them like “This couch is so comfortable, I could sleep on this for a year.”  Someone could then call “SHENANIGANS!” on them meaning that they either have to perform that action OR get slapped across the face by the person who called Shenanigans.”

What I think Jesus did here when the man told him “I will follow you anywhere”, is call Shenanigans. Rather than slap him across the face though, Jesus said, you can't make that claim honestly. He told the man that it would be harder than what this guy could handle. Keep in mind that Jesus hand-picked his disciples. Those guys had been living it and had grown accustomed to the lifestyle. I'm not saying that the apostles had it any easier, but Jesus called this guy out.

Now, at first I thought that this was a harsh side of Jesus. I did a little research and found that the oldest son in the family was given the task of making funeral arrangements WHEN the father died. This means that he was saying, “I have to stay here until my father dies”; and not “my father just died and I can’t miss the funeral.” That could have been years down the road. Jesus knew that he didn’t have that kind of time.

Jesus specifically calls the next guy to follow Him. But this guy tells him that he would follow, but made the excuse that he had to bury his father first. This did not mean, as I said before, that his father was dead. This is really the point of all of this. One commentator called this the “Convenient disciple”. What excuse have you made when Jesus said “Follow Me!” I have a huge list. I can always come up with a new one if something debunks my convenient excuse. But the truth is that, in the end, our individual responses to this are going to decide where we spend eternity.

So what are we called to do? When Jesus calls us to serve Him, we each need to respond by doing it. In the last part of this scripture, Jesus calls on a man again to follow him. What answer does He get? Another excuse. You could look at this again as a cold response from Jesus, or you could see it in light of eternity. But you say, he just wants to say good-bye to his family... Jesus wanted the “Distracted disciple” to be sure that his focus was on the kingdom.

Here Jesus uses the plow analogy. Have you ever laid off rows in a garden? Do you know how you are supposed to make the rows straight? You look at a spot straight ahead and plow straight towards that. Usually this would be a fencepost, a tree, or a rock, etc. Keeping your eyes on that one spot helps keep your rows straight. That is what Jesus is calling the man (and us) to do. We need focus and direction to our goal.

Years ago the British agnostic Thomas Huxley had to leave

early one morning to go from one speaking assignment to another,

so he got into a horse-drawn taxi to go from his hotel

to the train station. He assumed that the hotel doorman had

told the driver of the carriage that they were to go to the train

station. So when he got in, he simply said to the driver,

“Drive fast.”

Off they went. After a short while, Huxley, who was somewhat

familiar with the area, realized that they were actually going in

the opposite direction from the train station. He yelled to the

driver, “Do you know where you’re going?” Without looking back,

the driver replied, “No, sir, but I’m driving very fast.”

So where do we fall? Do we have direction? Are we like the first disciples that Jesus called. Will we drop everything and follow Him? Or do we fall into one of the last three categories? The excuse-maker, the convenient disciple, or the distracted disciple? How are we going to live in light of our calling. I believe that if you are here tonight, there is a call from Jesus on your life. What has He called

you to?

Father,

We are distracted, we seek comfort, we make excuses. But Father we want to change. We repent of a lack of devotion to proclaiming Your Kingdom. We ask as we close tonight that You give us a new outlook on how we can further the good news. Jesus, you call us to follow you and we pray now that you give us the courage to stand up for You through the uncomfortable times. We ask for purpose and resolve as we fight against the enemy. And now, I ask as we leave here tonight that, Father, you will bless each one here. Thank You, and we praise you for all that you are going to do for each one of us. In Your precious name, Amen!

So, thanks for reading!  Below is the video for "I Refuse", I think that the lyrics of the song sum up the message that I was trying to get across.  We used the song for our worship that night.  Enjoy!  I would love any feedback that you might have and I am open to discussing anything that I post here.