Words of suffering; rejection; sacrifice… These are not easy words to hear. On the surface, I can criticize and judge Peter for not wanting to hear those words, for rejecting them even when they were spoken by Jesus. But deep down, I feel the same way as Peter.
Is this what I signed up for? Is this what you signed up for, when you gave your confession of faith, when you were baptized? Did you think—did you even imagine—that you would receive a cross to bear, instead of a blessing? Did you realize that you were agreeing to give your life away, that you were declaring your willingness to lose your life for the sake of the gospel?...
I know that many of us right now are excited about several of our young people who are exploring what it means to be a Christian, and who are considering baptism in the very near future. You and I are encouraging them in this pursuit. Should we be warning them instead?
We try to overlook these words. We treat them as if they are written in very small print, down at the bottom of the page, so easily overlooked. And yet, they’re not. These words aren’t printed any smaller than any of the other words in our Bibles. Worse yet, in some Bibles they are even printed in red ink.
In more ways than one, these words stand out.
But we really do try to focus on other things, because after all, if we talk too much about suffering and rejection—if we tell folks who come here that Jesus calls upon them to carry their cross and to live a life of sacrifice—then we’re not going to attract very many new members.
So let’s talk about sports instead. Let's talk about basketball.
About a week and a half ago, I turned on the TV at the start of a Lakers/Nuggets game. Tristan came into the room, and together we watched about one period of play.
If you are a Lakers fan, you may recall that that wasn’t a very good game for the Lakers. But I did enjoy explaining some of the rules of the game to Tristan, trying not to overwhelm him. He seemed to enjoy it, but then later he asked if, next week, we could watch Monday Night Football instead.
There is no Monday Night Football, but very soon there will be March Madness. John Wooden is perhaps the greatest college basketball coach, and I remember hearing him speak once, when I was just a kid, at Chapman University’s Founders Day.
I don’t know how many of you are into college basketball. I do know that when I lived in Indianapolis, the whole city went nuts when the Final Four came to town. Then again, Indianapolis is a basketball town.
So naturally, most of the games I went to when I lived in Indianapolis were hockey games. For eleven seasons, the Indianapolis Ice played minor league hockey at various ice rinks in Indianapolis, including Market Square Arena and Conseco Fieldhouse.
But it wasn’t just a hockey game that people went to see. There were many stunts and gimmicks that went along with the games. The game started off with team introductions, which included a light display and pyrotechnics. There were not one, but three Elvis impersonators who walked around the stands, leading folks in the Chicken Dance, and slingshotting t-shirts into the crowd.
Fans were brought onto the ice at intermission for games and contests. Shots on a powerplay would earn everyone in attendance a free hamburger. On one occasion, I got to see the Village People give a concert after the game. I also heard that on another occasion, they recruited former NBA star Manute Bol to play in one of their hockey games, as a publicity stunt. Manute was one of the tallest players ever to play in the NBA; but unfortunately, he never took the ice due to an equipment problem.
The team did take the game seriously, I suppose; but at times, it was almost easy to forget that there was even a game going on. What if there was a team—basketball or hockey, it doesn’t matter—that focused more on the stunts and the gimmicks and the show than on the game? A team whose whole focus was on things like keeping the jerseys clean, keeping the fans entertained during halftime, keeping the stands filled through the use of stunts and gimmicks? That would certainly be a team that had lost its focus. A team’s focus should be on the game. Everything else comes second.
Some will argue that, in professional sports, this has already happened. It's all about luxury boxes to impress one's clients, and TV market share, and $45 million dollar contracts. But what about the game? Are professional sports losing their focus?
A church’s focus is—whether we like it or not—mission. The church does not exist to serve itself. The mission of the church, and the purpose of worship, is not to have our own needs met. People will tell me often that they get a lot out of worship, and that’s good; that’s really good. But that’s not the primary reason why we’re here. That’s not our number one focus.
The church exists to serve those outside its walls. The church exists to do serve God, and to do God's will: bring release to the captives, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, that sort of thing. The church exists for mission. And like individuals within the church, the church itself is called to a life of sacrifice.
There are so many mainline churches today who act as if their primary focus is to keep the church alive, to keep the doors open. I once met with a group of elders who were discussing what they could do to stop their congregation’s decline. That was the number one question on their minds and on the minds of their congregation. One of them began the meeting by stating the question out loud: “What can we do to keep our doors open?”
I looked at her and said, “Keep them open for what?” The look on her face told me that she didn’t understand, so I said: “Why is it important for the church to keep its doors open?”
She said, “So the church doesn’t die.”
And I responded, “Why not let it die? What’s so important about keeping the church alive?”
Keeping the church alive is not our mission. That’s not our primary focus. If we put all our efforts into keeping the doors open, the lights on, and keeping enough people in the pews to keep the bills paid, then we’ve become like a sports team that has all but forgotten about the game it is supposed to be playing. If all our efforts go into saving our church’s life, then we will surely lose it, because we’ve already lost our focus. But those who lose their life, those who are willing to give their life away, for Christ’s sake, for the sake of the gospel, will find that their life has been restored.
Have you ever thought of that verse in terms of how it applies to the church? So many churches these days are trying so hard just to stay alive. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe churches should think about what "sacrificial giving" means. Maybe the only way to save the church is to be willing to lose it, for the sake of the gospel.
It wasn’t so long ago that church members in North America were encouraged to ask, “What is God calling us to do for others?” That was the question put forth by pastors from the pulpit. But somewhere along the way, the question gradually changed. People began asking a new question, one that sounded something like: “What am I going to get out of coming to church?”
It wasn’t so long ago that churches in North America were sending missionaries to foreign lands; places like Africa, Asia, Latin America. Today, there are an astonishing number of Christians in even the most remote regions of the world. And yet, right here in America, fewer and fewer people are committed to the way of Jesus. Fewer and fewer people have realized the good news of a God who loves them unconditionally.
The mission field definitely still exists today; and it's right outside our door. Churches that are thriving, churches that are dynamic, churches where people experience the Spirit's presence in a powerful way, are those churches that are actively giving of themselves. They give, even if good business sense would dictate that they not give so much. They take on big mission or outreach projects, even if it seems impossible that a church their size can do something so big.
And that's part of the point, really. If we take on only those projects that we think we can handle, then what do we need God for? We can do it all by ourselves, without any help from God whatsoever. No need to walk humbly here!
But when we take on something bigger than we think is possible, we are forced to realize that we need God's help. Amazingly, more often than not, when a church does that, God's help does, in fact, come. Unfortunately, most churches never find this out. Most churches are too timid to try.
I don't know if you saw it or not, but I was a little startled by an NBC News story I saw recently. A lot of churches I know make a point of giving ten or twelve or even fifteen percent of their total income to outreach, which, to me, seems pretty admirable. But on NBC Nightly News, there was a story about a church that gives 100% of its income away.
In the early 1990s, Jim Semradek wanted to start a church that cost very little to operate so that all of the Sunday morning offerings could be given away. And so he started Waterfront Community Church in Schaumburg, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
How do they do it? They sacrifice. They don't meet in a big chapel or sanctuary--they meet in a high school auditorium. The band musicians practice and play for free. And this has enabled the church to do things like pay for a member's car repairs or a neighbor's brain surgery.
I don't think God is calling all churches to follow Waterfront's model. Then again, perhaps I have too much of a personal interest in having a paid staff and a building of our own.
But a church like Waterfront is certainly a reminder to me that what we have—our building, our staff, and everything that helps us do ministry, from computers and copy machines to printed music and pew cushions—all these things are tools to help us accomplish our mission. They themselves are not our mission, but they can and do help us accomplish it that mission. They are not what we should be focusing on primarily; but they can help us to focus on the things that are really important. They can be very helpful and useful, as long as they help and don't hinder what's really important—as long as they help us keep our head in the game.
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