What Are You Willing to Give Up?

Scripture: Jonah 3; Mark 1:14-20

 

Introduction

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

• Jesus gave up everything for us even to death on the cross.
• None of us will ever live up to the sacrifice that God’s Son made for His creation.
• But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to do the best we can to live a life according to Him.
• God never asks any more from us than what He knows we are able to give.
• If you asked me 20 or even 10 years ago if I would be capable of standing here today …
• I’d quickly say, “no way!!” It’s not something I would want and it’s not something I could do.
• Yet somehow, God knew I could do it and He has shaped me in some unique ways.
• It starts with a tug that He puts on your heart to do something for Him.
• In my case, He had never asked me for anything, so I felt compelled to answer His call.
• Of course, I had little confidence that He would pull it off with me, but here goes.
• It was a process, and it took getting the right people in place and me making some good decisions along with the many bad decisions I made.
• What kind of tug is God putting on your heart? Is He calling you?
• When we are called to serve God, it means giving up some of the things in this world that we serve. Three things we may have to be willing to give up are:

1. Prejudice
2. Comfort
3. Risk

 

1. Prejudice

• When we think of prejudice, most of us were raised in the “Archie Bunker” era.
• All In the Family poked fun at prejudice that mostly centered around race and ethnicity.
• Our first story today from Jonah is all about prejudice.
• We’re jumping in at Chapter 3, but if you remember from the story: God told Jonah to go to Nineveh to try to turn them around and straighten them out.
• God had gotten pretty fed-up with Nineveh because they had become so wicked.
• And of course, Jonah jumped on the next boat headed for Nineveh right? NO!
• According to Jonah 1:3:

Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

• Jonah did the OPPOSITE of what God told him to do.
• And why would he do such a thing? He didn’t want to help the Ninevites.
• We know how much Jonah didn’t want to help them based on his prayer in 4:1-3:

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.  He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.  Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

• He was so upset that he didn’t even want to live after God saved the Ninevites.
• Does God always send us people to help who are easy to help? NO
• Does God always send us people who speak the same language and see the world like us?
• Prejudice is a hard thing to overcome because it gets baked into our whole attitude.
• We get the “those people” attitude and the condescending “see I told you” attitude.
• But we must remember that God doesn’t see them that way, so who are we to do that?
• When people are different from us and react differently from us, we must have patience and compassion.
• At least if we claim to be Christ-followers, we do – because what would Jesus do?
• One of the biggest challenges we face at Biltmore is the language barrier.
• At least 80% of our clientele are Spanish speaking with little English ability.
• There are two ways of looking at this situation:

1. This is America. If you are gonna come here, then speak our language, or
2. I’m an American who wants to better understand how to help you.

• The first way is arrogant and ignores the struggle of the foreign person who needs help.
• The second way is kind and caring and reflects what we are trying to do in the first place.
• I believe, at least for Biltmore, God is putting it on my heart that we need to promote #2.
• I believe that we are being called to build a language bridge to people so we can tell them about Christ.

2. Comfort

• What are some things that give you comfort? Job, home, food, clothes, family, friends
• Are you willing to give up some of those comforts?
• Think about the first disciples that we read about today in Mark’s Gospel.
• They gave up their jobs as fishermen and we know at least one of them, Simon Peter, was married.
• Can you imagine just walking away from everything to follow some guy around the countryside that you only just met?
• There actually is a little more to this story that the Mark Gospel leaves out.
• In Luke’s Gospel chapter 5 it expands on this first meeting with Simon Peter, Andrew, and the sons of thunder, James and John.
• Simon Peter let Him use his fishing boat to teach and preach to the people on shore.
• Let’s pick it up with verses 4 through 11 for the rest of the story:

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.  So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”  For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”  So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

• As you can see, there was a lot more convincing going on than Mark alluded to.
• If you want to convince a bunch of fishermen that you are powerful, bury them in fish.
• Kind of like if you want to convince a bunch of church people that you are powerful, bury them in clothes in their clothes closet.
• People at Biltmore make a lot of sacrifices and do give up a lot to serve others.
• Is it fair to ask any of you to give more? Probably not.
• But God does want more from you. And He never said anything about being fair.
• God says: “I have given you over 4000 Spanish-speaking people last year to tell about Christ and what have you done?”
• Well, when you put it that way, I guess I see your point, Lord.
• It’s not like we haven’t thought about it, prayed about it, agonized over it – we have.
• It just hasn’t been comfortable to do anything about it.

3. Risk

• How much are you willing to RISK answering God’s call?
• YOUR call and MY call are to build a language bridge to tell people about Christ.
• What are the risks? You are going to have to give up something:

1. PREJUDICE – you might have to let go of lifelong attitudes about people.
2. COMFORT – you might have to step outside of your comfort zone.

• Last week we talked about a special kind of synergy – spiritual synergy.
• We talked about how God is working right alongside us all the time.
• That’s how we can accomplish so much more than the sum of our parts.
• If God is working right beside us, how much risk could there really be?
• I gave up climbing the business career ladder to focus on a calling as pastor.
• But God has richly blessed me beyond my wildest dreams.
• The things that I have given up for Christ are greatly overshadowed by the benefits.
• Overcoming risk really means overcoming fear, doesn’t it?
• What is the most powerful tool that we have for overcoming fear? FAITH
• 2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we live by faith, not by sight.”
• Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
• Then in Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
• Faith is how we mitigate risk.
• If you have faith that God is calling you to do something, then your faith will overcome risk.
• It is through faith in Christ that we can overcome the barriers that hold us back.
• And it will be as Paul told the Phillipians in 4:12-13:

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength.