The Solution - Luke 10
This morning I’d like to open up with a little game I’m going to call “blast from the past”. I’m going to throw a couple of brand names out there - let’s put those up on the screen, and I want you to tell me, what do they all have in common, are you ready? Alright - Kodak, Nokia, Blockbuster, and the Sony Walkman. How many of you remember these brands? I remember the sony walkman - if I can paint a picture for you, little teenage JJ with his over the ears headphones which were a constant presence on my neck during school, with a cord that ran into my sony walkman, which had a CD in it on repeat, and I put that walkman into my cargo shorts as I went roller blading around my subdivision. Yeah, that’s right - I peaked in high school. What do all these brands have in common? Every single one of them were groundbreaking and did incredible things at one time - but then had a major shift in their industry, and they missed the boat. I say “do you remember these brands” - because they don’t exist anymore! Kodak developed the first digital camera, but they missed the shift in the photography industry and they filed bankruptcy in 2012. Nokia created the first cellular network in the world. For young-uns image a phone that looked like a brick and was basically indestructible. Nokia was a huge deal, but they overestimated their brand believing they could “catch up” in the smartphone era. In 2008, one year after the first iPhone dropped - they were already too late. The sony walkman at one time changed how we listened to music - but they didn’t adapt. They actually had all the technology and the ability to launch a better product than the ipod, but they were scared to test out something unknown, but they missed it and Apple practically owns the market now.
Or my personal favorite - blockbuster. Do you guys remember blockbuster? Or Family Video? Can you believe we used to do that? We used to go into a physical store, pick a movie off a shelf and then go home for movie night. In our house, Friday night was movie night - and we’d order a pizza, go get a movie from blockbuster and then pick up the pizza on our way home. Then along comes this guy Reed Hastings, and one day he went to Blockbuster and found out that he had a $40 late fee, for a forgotten VHS rental of Apollo 13. Blast from the Past, right? So he got to thinking, “what if I create a company where they can get the movies in their homes, started out getting mailed to people, and then later it was streaming, and it’s a flat monthly rate instead of having late fees. So Reed Hastings started a little company called Netflix. Now here’s the crazy part. In the beginning, Reed Hastings offered to sell Netflix TO Blockbuster for $50 million. And Blockbuster said, “get out of here.” Well, we all know how that story ended. There was a shift, and Blockbuster missed it. Netflix is now worth over 300 BILLION dollars. Reed Hastings personally is worth over 4 billion dollars, and there is exactly one Blockbuster store left in the entire world and it’s in Oregon. You know, but there is one more brand - one more place that’s in danger of missing the shift in the landscape around them that I wanted to talk about. And that’s the church.
Today we are continuing our series called “Everyday Influencers” and if you were with us last week, you might remember how we talked about the shifting landscape in the church of modern America. If we want to be people who share the love of God with our neighbors, we need to recognize that the world around us is changing. And so nobody really argues with the premise - things are changing, in the church, in our country, in each of our personal lives, the landscape is changing. And last week we left it on a note of discernment. We realized that we need to invite the Holy Spirit into the conversation and to spend time asking God “who, where, when, what do I say, How do I say it?” To respond to changing landscapes, we start by asking God for help. Now today, we’re going to talk about what comes next.
If you want to grab your bible, today we are going to be in Luke chapter 10. Now while you’re looking that up, let me set the stage a little bit. Luke is one of the gospels, so it’s the story of Jesus and we’re in chapter ten, so Jesus’ ministry is starting to get kicked off. We’re not at the end, where he gets in trouble and they kill him and he rises from the dead - but he’s been around, he’s done a few miracles. He’s a known element by now. He’s got the twelve disciples, his closest followers - but there’s actually a whole crowd now that are following Jesus. And so we start out in chapter 10 with Jesus sending the people out into the world. The big message from Jesus was that the kingdom of God is here. People have been far away from God, they’ve been struggling and now, through Jesus, we have access to God. He’s healing people with sickness, he’s providing for people - one of the last miracles he did was feeding 5,000 people with one little basket of food. It was incredible. And so he sends these guys out - go tell people that I’m coming. [read v.1]. 72 people - so this is not the 12 disciples. He sends them out in a different part, but out of the big crowd he picks 72 people, and he sends them out in pairs, you know - so they won’t be lonely - “go tell people I am coming.” And then he says this, [read v.2]. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Now, maybe that’s a little bit of weird language for us in the modern world - but he’s talking to a bunch of farmers and shepherds and whatnot, so this metaphor makes total sense to them. If you’ve got a huge field of crops, and you need to harvest the field, but you don’t have enough buddies to help you harvest it - crops going to go bad. Things will get missed. And the metaphor is pretty clear, right? The world is the field and the people are the harvest. There are so many people who need to know about Jesus, who need to know about God’s love and how even if you’ve sinned, and even if you are living far away from God - we can have access to God through Jesus, we can find forgiveness through Jesus. But Jesus says, I don’t have enough workers. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And this shows us something so key - the biggest obstacles in the church are not coming from out there, the obstacles are in here.
A lot of people have heard that the church is declining. Oh no! The church is declining, and they like to put the blame on the world. It’s because of the scandals. It’s because of the megachurches. It’s because of the liberals. It’s because of - insert whatever into the blank. We paint a picture of a world that is anti-church. We tell ourselves a story of how all of us are ready to share God’s love, but there’s nobody out there who wants to hear it. But that’s not what Jesus says. He says, “nah - the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” The greatest obstacles are not coming from out there, they’re coming from in here. Let’s put some numbers on that. A recent Barna study found out that 75% of self-identified Christians who have conversations about their faith, have less than 10 spiritual conversations a year. 48% of Christians say and this is a quote, “Most non-Christians have no interest in hearing about Jesus.” As a church, we are assuming that people hate us. We are assuming people are against us and that they will not listen to us. But here’s the truth I want you to let sink in - the reality is that the vast majority of people in your life are open to talking about faith. We just gave up before we even tried! In our country, among the group of young people who have no religious affiliation, ⅔ of them believe in God. 20% of people who have NO religious affiliation say that they pray every day. Atheists and Agnostics are a very loud section of our population, but they actually represent only 7% of our country. When we assume that most people don’t have questions about Jesus - we give up before we even start. But the data shows us that the truth is the people around you are more open to talking about Jesus than you might think. And this has dramatic effects on churches. The real distinction between growing churches and dying churches is people who are willing to talk to other people about Jesus. There’s a really good chance that there are people in your life who want to know more about Jesus. They have questions they want to ask, they just don’t know where to look for answers. The biggest obstacles are not out there, but they are right here - when we give up before we even begin.
You know there’s an old story about a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occurred. And on that seacoast there was a little life-saving station. The building was super simple, and there was just one boat. And the members of the life-saving station were committed to helping people and they kept a constant watch over the sea. When a ship went down, they unselfishly went out day or night to save the lost. They’d get in their little boat, pull the people out of the ocean, get back to the dock, dry the folks off - save lives. And because so many lives were saved by that one little station, it sort of became famous. And because of that good work, more people wanted to help out at the Life Saving Station. So they joined the crew - bringing more time, talent, money - new boats were bought, new crews were recruited, formal training, etc. As the membership of the life saving station grew, some of the members were unhappy that the building was so primitive and small and the equipment was outdated. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds, and they built a bigger building, put nicer furniture in it. As time went on, the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for the members. They met regularly, and when they met - it was apparent how they loved one another. They greeted each other, hugged, shared events that are going on in their lives. While waiting for people to save, they got to know each other. But some of the folks didn’t really want to go out into the storms anymore. They didn’t want to go on the life saving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do it for them. Around about that time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought into the life-saving station boarloads of cold, wet, dirty, sick, half-drowned people. The beautiful meeting place became a place of chaos. The plush carpets got dirty, the exquisite furniture got scratched. And suddenly at the next meeting there was a split in the membership. Most of the members now wanted to stop the clubs life-saving activities. It was unpleasant, and messy and ruined their nice little meetings that they enjoyed. Other members insisted that life saving was the whole point of the church - I mean, life saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if you want to save the lives of those who are out on the ocean, why don’t you go begin your own life-saving station down the coast. And that’s what they did. And years passed and the new station experienced the same changes as the old one - and so another life saving station was founded further down the coast. History continued to repeat itself. And if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of wonderful meeting places with ample parking and plush carpeting. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but most of the people just drown. That story was written in 1953 and I wonder - if Byron Center is the seacoast, can I drive around this town and find big, mostly empty buildings, very nicely decorated that care more about their carpets than the people who come in? When we forget our purpose as a church - the obstacles are not outside of us, the obstacles are in here. The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few.
Then we get to verse three and Jesus throws in this little number, [read v.3]. He is killing me with the metaphors today. Lambs among wolves. And I don’t know if I need to spell that out for you, but lambs, traditionally, when they hang out with wolves - tend to get torn to pieces! Before he sends them out, Jesus warns them - it’s not going to go great. Lambs among wolves - that’s the worst pep talk ever! But what we learn from it for our lives today is that this whole thing about going out and influencing the world in our daily life, bringing Jesus into our context, bringing Jesus with us to our jobs, our hobbies, our sports, our entire life - it’s supposed to be hard. I think Christians in America have this weird perception of “hey, if God is blessing something - it’s supposed to go super smooth.” When God shows up, it’s super easy and there’s no problems. But that’s not actually what Jesus says! What did Jesus say? Lambs among wolves! And if you look at his followers - that’s pretty much how it went for them. The disciples, out of the twelve of them, there was ONE dude who got to live into old age. And that’s because they exiled him, a life sentence living on an island. Every other disciple was tortured, beaten and murdered in various and horrible ways for following Jesus. And I don’t know how we read that - lambs among wolves - and then turn around and expect things to be easy for us in the modern world.
But here’s what this looks like practically - when you start sharing Jesus with someone, it’s not always going to be an instantaneous, massive wave of change in their life. Sometimes it takes years of pouring into a relationship. And sometimes it feels like you’re making progress and they’re more open to talking about faith and Jesus and their beliefs, and then sometimes it feels like we took ten steps backwards. I think one of the best comparisons is walking with a family member who has some kind of drug addiction or alcoholism. I can’t tell you how many times as a church leader I’ve had the chance to walk alongside someone - and for every victory, there’s a failure. I remember one time there was a young couple who came to my church - this was years ago, and she was pregnant and they were both struggling with substance abuse. And we poured into them. There was a widow in our church, she opened up her home to them. They stayed in her spare bedroom and she was a nurse so she was always checking on that baby. And we helped him get a job, took her to doctor’s appointments. Got them into an apartment, furnished it - we had donations of couches and lamps and whatnot. We made so much progress, welcoming that couple that was struggling, she had the baby - healthy and strong, and then a couple months go by and he fell off the wagon. Fell back into his drug use, but she didn’t. And I remember people in the church being so angry. Aw man, we did all that for nothing. And I remember the widow spoke up. Whether it’s three steps forward and two steps back or whatever - that baby is alive and healthy, and she took that victory and she held on to that. If you want to make a difference in people’s lives - it’s going to be lambs among wolves. Sometimes we get chewed up and spit out. But the good news is GOOD news. It’s worth every effort.
The greatest good news that anyone can ever hear is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and savior of the world. All of us start out far away from God, but God - in his goodness, in his mercy and love, has given us a way to reconcile with God. Our connection with God has been torn apart - we start out far away from God. When Jesus came he took our sin, our brokenness on himself. He took our sin, it died with him on the cross, it was buried with him in the tomb, your sin is dead and gone and when he rose from the dead - he defeated sin and death. Jesus defeated death so that we could have life. And if you believe in him, and trust him as your lord and savior - if you repent of your sins, call on his name - you can have that forgiveness. You can be washed clean and start a life of living under God’s grace. If you ever hear me use the word “gospel” that’s what I’m talking about. That human beings have a broken relationship with that divine thing that is out there. But in the person of Jesus - who was fully divine and fully human, he came to heal that broken relationship. To save us - that’s why we call it salvation. And to live in that healing - to have a restored relationship with God is the greatest good thing that has ever happened in my life. And I want that for everyone. I want everyone to know what it feels like to be known and loved by the God who made them. It is incomparable. It makes me want to scream - bring on the wolves.
But it wasn’t always like that for me. I grew up in the United Methodist Church - and I haven’t talked about this very much from up front. But I grew up in a church that was like a life saving station that no longer sends boats out onto the ocean. And I don’t want to pick on the United Methodist Church - a lot of denominations have these same struggles, and there’s good people in a lot of those churches - I’m just speaking from my experience. We just - Jesus was like a pretty bow that we put on top of a nice life. He wasn’t our savior, he was our mascot. I was a pastor in the United Methodist Church for 8 years - and I was considered a success because our church declined slower than the other churches around us. We had the young, trendy pastor - and really nice carpets. And I’m telling you this because I want you to hear that this is my struggle too. I’m a life-long Christian who has shared his faith with very few people. And one of the things that attracted me to the Zero Collective, to Center Church - was the passion to see lives transformed by Jesus. The Zeroes are not a cute phrase for me - I’m like, totally sold out for this mission. You guys inspire me. I want to be a better pastor for you all. 8 years in the UMC, I think I baptized, three adults, maybe 4. I was here two months before we had our first baptism, AND a child dedication. And I was pushed into it. I told ‘em, we don’t have anybody signed up for baptism! Fill up the tub anyways. Put out the call. I never done that before. I was terrified, they’re going to think I’m a failure, I just got here. Then my friend Meghan stepped forward. She’d been at this church three weeks, and the Holy Spirit was working on her heart. She declared Jesus as her lord that day. And I don’t know about you but I’m ready to take the boat back out.
And so if I can close with two challenges for you all. These are my dreams for this church - for this thing that we are building in this place. First - we’ve got to shift our thinking. This…this thing we do on Sunday morning, this is training. This is boot-camp. This is where we praise and honor Jesus, we worship him and fuel up - to get out there and share his love. I want you to shift your thinking from a comfortable club that cares about carpets, to a life saving station sending boats out into the storm. First, we need to shift our thinking. Second, I want you to live sent. I have been your pastor for 6, 7 months? Something like that. If all I have done with all the work we’re doing with the kids program, student programs, worship team, missions outreach. If all I have accomplished is making this church more comfortable for the Christians, then I am a complete and total failure as a pastor. But if I can invite you to live sent - if one person in this church goes out into their life and brings one person to know Jesus who didn’t know Jesus before, the heavens will rejoice, literally that’s what the bible says - when one person gives their life to Jesus, the heavens rejoice - if I can invite you to live sent in this world, then what we are doing together in this place can start to have eternal ripples. Lives can be changed when we share the greatest good news the world has ever seen. Jesus is the son of God, savior of the world.
And let me make that very practical. When I realized that so much of my life was about comfortable Christianity and not about living sent - I wanted to make a change in my personal life. And so I created a note on my phone - and it’s just a list of names. Names of people in my life who might not know about Jesus. And when I first started doing it, I was living in this town called Flushing, and in that town was a coffee shop that I frequented. I went there all the time - and the first name that went on my list was “coffee shop guy” - I didn’t even know his name. But he was the owner of the coffee shop. And eventually I learned his name was John. I put him on my list and I started praying for him. And I couldn’t figure out how to initiate a conversation about faith with John - and so one day, I was the only one in the coffee shop, and on my way out the door I asked him, “Hey man, you know I’m a pastor - I’m in here a lot writing sermons and whatnot, is there anything I can be praying for in your life.” And I thought maybe he’d be super weird about it - or like mad at me or something for pressuring him. But he wasn’t at all. It was like I’d cracked the door open. So then the next time I go into the coffee shop, he was like, “Hey, can I ask you a question?” And then he starts asking me about some of the weird stuff he’d heard about Christians - and that was all it took. I looked at my life, the people I might know who don’t know Jesus, I made a list - started praying for them and just looked for opportunities to live sent.
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. We are being sent out as lambs among wolves, but that’s okay because God is still in charge of the harvest. Every single person you interact with in your life would benefit from knowing Jesus. And so church - let’s not be blockbuster in a netflix world. Or Nokia or Kodak. Let’s be a life changing station. We’re loading up the boat - are you coming? Let’s pray.
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