Chapter 8: Urgency

Captain Sully knows about urgency. Shortly after takeoff, he realized that a bird had been sucked into the engine of his plane. He was going to have to make an emergency landing, but there was nowhere to land! He had 155 people on board, and he had to do something fast. So Captain Sully landed in the middle of the Hudson River!

When the alarms started going off, he acted with a sense of urgency. You may not know it, but the alarm is sounding. Each day 146,357 people die. That is 6,098 per hour, and 102 per minute! The alarm is sounding.

Have you ever had fruit or vegetables that were harvested too early? Too late? Its disgusting. The trick is to harvest them at just the right time. Jesus said that the harvest is ready, but the workers are few.

The harvest "looks like a coworker who starts crying at lunch when you ask her about things at home. It looks like an elderly neighbor who sits by himself on his front porch in the chair next to the chair where his wife used to sit. It looks like an angry boss who asks you why you go to a men's prayer group before work on Thursday morning. It looks like your kid's teacher. It looks like the guy in the 7-Eleven on Saturday night, waiting to spend fifty dollars on lottery tickets, hoping to finally have something that will change his miserable life. It looks like the classmate you've reconnected with on Facebook. It looks like the attractive woman with the low-cut top sitting next to you on the plane and trying to flirt as you discuss the weather. It looks like the young couple at the end of the street who seem overwhelmed taking care of their three little kids. It looks like your alcoholic father. It looks like your teenage daughter who acts like she doesn't want you around only because she needs you so desperately. It looks like the person you're going to eat with at McDonald's next Wednesday because you want to eat with him in Heaven for all eternity."

There was a girl who was awoken by her families grandfather clock, it was ringing 4, but it didn't stop there, it rang 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14! She was so frightened that she ran upstairs and told her family, Get up! It's later than it's ever was!

Are you ready to work? Jesus needs workers who will pray. He wants us to be ask to be sent? Seems kind of silly doesn't it? Why do we need to ask Jesus to send us to do what we already know He wants us to do? "Maybe He wants to know that we want lost people to be saved as much as He does. Maybe He wants to know that we know that without Him, the Lord of the harvest, there would be no harvest. Maybe He wants us to ask Him to send workers because it confirms we understand that we can't do this by ourselves."

Second Jesus needs workers who will go. We can't just sit around and wait for people to come to us. Jesus expects us as a church to GO to the world and make disciples. The best way to reach people for Christ is to go where they are and share Jesus with them.

It's time to get to work, and we need to hurry, because it's later than it ever was.

Enjoy the Journey

Chapter 7: Resolve

Have you ever quit at something? What was it? What is the hardest thing you've done that you refused to quit?

Jesus refused to quit. His mission was to get to Jerusalem and die for the sins of the world. He had a clear goal, and unmatched resolve. "You are going to face obstacles on the way to Jerusalem. We all have a place God plans for us to go, our destiny, a place of extraordinary service and sacrifice, a higher purpose for which we were placed on this planet." Jerusalem meant death for Jesus. What is your Jerusalem? What are you resolved to do?

It takes a lot of resolve to get significant things done. Beethoven was resolved to create great music. He did, even after he went completely deaf! He wrote some of his most famous pieces, including several symphonies! Can you imagine writing a symphony that you could only hear in your head? Talk about resolve!

Whatever your Jerusalem is, you can't let anything get in the way of you getting there. We can't let anything keep us from eating with sinners. "Set your face on your Jerusalem and don't let misguided disciples keep you from following God's plan and fulfilling your destiny."

As we work to reach people for Jesus, we are going to face challenges from outsiders. However, we must understand that we will also face challenges from insiders! We have to be ready to follow God's lead no matter the cost. Jesus had his face set on Jerusalem. What is your face set on?

Enjoy the Journey

Chapter 5: Tolerance

This was by far my favorite chapter in the book thus far. He says that there are two things that you never want to do. 1: Scream fire in a crowded theater and 2: whisper the word tolerance in a church. How true that can be. Tolerance has become a bad word, especially in churches. Many people associate tolerance with accepting sin, watering down the gospel, and letting everyone do anything they want to all the time. However there is a difference between tolerating sin and tolerating sinners. Tolerating, at least in the sense that we are talking about, is simply allowing someone or something to be.

Continued unrepentant sin by a Christian should not be tolerated. Paul teaches us in Romans that just because we have grace doesn't mean we should keep sinning. We all do, we are by nature sinners, but that doesn't mean that we should willfully sin all the time. "Sin in the church is like a caner that, if left untreated, leads to death. We are supposed to eat with non-Christian sinners but not with unrepentant Christian ones." We read in 1 Corinthians 5:9-11: "I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat." "Sinners should always be allowed in our presence. It's their only hope. It's our only hope for reaching them."

Remember the story of the woman who came and washed Jesus feet with expensive perfume and her hair? She had a reputation of being...a sinner (probably a prostitute). The people who were there couldn't believe that Jesus was allowing her to hang around. But Jesus wasn't condoning what she had done, He was just loving her. "Jesus was more tolerant of lost people than most of us will ever be, because He loved lost people more than most of us ever will. Tolerance is viewed by many in the church as watering down the message of Jesus, but when we look at how Jesus interacted with sinners who were in need of salvation, we learn that tolerance toward sinners was key to how He reached out to them. He chose to be with sinners because He wanted them to have hope. He allowed this prostitute to be in His presence at this dinner because He wanted her to be with Him at the banquet He will host in eternity." Had this woman made bad choices in her past? Absolutely. But that didn't make her intolerable, just sinful. But with Jesus there are no lost causes.

One thing that we have to remember is this: in Jesus, we are not our worst sin. We are not defined by the bad choice we made on prom night, or the people that we slept with before we were married, or the wrong things we did so that we could get a promotion, or anything else that we have done. We are sinners who sin, but we are not sin. There is a huge difference. Sinners are loved by God, sin is hated.

"Do we really believe that all lost people can have the hope of forgiveness-that God can forgive anyone of anything? If so, then that will change everything. We will tolerate sinners-allowing them into our presence-because we believe that God has the power for positive change." With Jesus there are no lost causes.

Enjoy the Journey

Chapter 5: Intimacy

The word intimacy brings up different thoughts to men and women. Women think of long walks on the beach, staying up talking all night, romantic candlelight dinners, and things like that. Men on the other hand think of...well...other things. Jesus thought of eating with sinners. You see eating with someone in Jesus day was equivalent to saying that you accepted, were friends with, were connected with that person.

"'In first century Palestinian Judaism the class system was enforced rigorously. It was legally forbidden to mingle with sinners who were outside the law: table fellowship with beggars, tax collectors... and prostitutes was a religious, social, and cultural taboo.' Manning writes that in the Near East today, for an orthodox Jew to say, 'I would like to have dinner with you,' is a metaphor implying 'I would like to enter into a friendship with you.'"

Eating with people was a big deal. And frankly, it still is. It is one of the best ways to get to know people, and people generally eat with people they are trying to get to know and become close friends with. It is one of the best opportunities that we can have to share the story of Jesus. And one of the best ways we can share the story of Jesus is to share our own stories.

We can not isolate ourselves from people. 'When we isolate ourselves from people, we lose the ability to connect with them on any level.' This is not how Jesus worked. After all, " Saving someone who is separated from you by a barrier is impossible."

We put up barriers all the time. We associate with people who look, talk, think, dress, and smell like we do. How can we be used by God to save the lost and at the same time not associate with them for fear that they will 'drag us down?' The answer is we can't. Its impossible. "Devotion to our points of view can hinder our efforts to reach lost people and help them get back to where they are supposed to be."

It's time that we start being known for being people who eat with sinners. People who aren't afraid to step outside the bubble of Christianity and associate and become close friends with people who have different points of view and ways of life! That is what Jesus did, and He expects nothing less of us.

Enjoy the Journey