Get In or Get Out!Get In or Get Out!

Matthew 12:22-32Matthew 12:22-32

Jesus continually ranks at the top of the list of admired people • Even non-Christians regard Jesus as:

– Great teacher– Great leader– Great visionary

• Even today, he is the subject of:– Magazine articles– Documentaries– Coffee shop dialogues

• Popularity like no other person in history

So why did his contemporaries kill him?

• What was so upsetting about him that:– Religious leaders wanted him dead– Secular leaders were willing to kill him– Crowds that had followed him turned on him– Men demanded his blood & cheered his pain

• If Jesus was the gentle genius some portray, how could this have happened?

The not-so-meek-and-mild Jesus

• More than:– Gentle soul– Poetic philosopher– Insipid preacher– Innofensive friend– Innocuous celebrity

He was the light of heaven on a dark world

• Jesus was not:– Politically correct– Religiously pious– Socially tame

• Jesus was dangerous:– Made claims that people couldn’t take– Gave commands that left people undone– Named realities that others sought to bury– Broke barriers no one else would assault– Dismantled the status quo

Do we know this radical Jesus?

• Or is our Jesus so domesticated that he:– No longer disturbs us– No longer disrupts us– No longer disciples us

What do we do with the Jesus who says “Get in or get out”?

• Matthew 6:24 NIV “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

• Matthew 12:25 NIV … “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”

What do we do with the Jesus who says “Get in or get out”?

• Matthew 12:30 NIV “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

• What do you do with the Jesus who says: Get off the fence!

Walking the FenceWalking the Fence

We live in a fence-walking world

• Comfortable with:– Partial commitments– Hedged bets– Associate memberships– Part of the game from the safety of the stands– Stick to principles, if no personal cost– Boast of successes, distance from setbacks– Want sane lives, with the perks of “success”

Homer worked up courage to propose to the girl of his dreams• “Sue, I know I’m not:

– Wealthy like Tom– Handsome like Tom– Cultured like Tom– Romantic like Tom – But I love you.”

• “I love you too, Homer…– But tell me more about

Tom!”

Fence-walking with God

• “Take my life and leave me be …”• Manly version:

– “Take my wife and let her beConsecrated, Lord, to thee.Take my children as thine ownAs for me, I’ll stay at home.”

• Hard to get that “consecrated” part down– As they say in Texas Hold ‘Em, to go “all in”– Not that we’re not interested in God, just wary of full

investment

Wilbur Rees put it this way:

• “I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please – not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of a womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I’d like to buy just $3 worth of God, please.”

God is not interested in partial investments & divided loyalties

• A religious leader can build quite a following by pretending otherwise– Suggesting that God is mainly interested in

some fine-tuning of our personalities– That he’s content so long as we’re spending

time & money on him on Sundays, even if we’re dallying with Tom the rest of the week

Gordon MacDonald explains why:

• “When the crowd got too large, [Jesus] would inevitably sharpen the blade of his teaching. He would make it clearer that there was a dramatic cost to discipleship.

• “It was almost as if he were saying the size of this crowd suggests that you haven’t heard me plainly enough or some of you wouldn’t be here; so let me give it to you another way. And when he finished restating his message, many would then leave because they finally understood that no one can remain in the presence of Christ and be merely a very nice person.”

Crazy Sound BitesCrazy Sound Bites

To Christians at Laodicea

• Revelation 3:15-16 MSG "I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You're not cold, you're not hot--far better to be either cold or hot! (16) You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit.

• Possible interpretations:– Jesus prefers opposition (cold) to indifference– A tale of two coffees:

• Hot on a cold day; cold on a hot day• Lukewarm? Never! Lost its distinctiveness!• Supposed to be different from environment, not like it!

Described life with God in terms of

• Leaving behind:– Parents & family– Safe boats– Professions– Possessions

• Denying self

• Not intrinsically wrong• Jesus is not:

– Anti-family– Anti-safety– Anti-possessions– Anti-self

• He calls the question– Pursue them the

world’s way– Pursue them his way

He is asking:

• Where are you standing?

• Who & what do you really love?

• Where are you planting?

• What fruit is it producing?

• Are you straddling the fence?

• We’ll examine ourselves the next six weeks?

Hope to see three results:• Our character will be more consistent with our claims

– Need to see where our lives are fragmented

• God will work on us & improve our character & influence– The world has plenty of people just like us today

• Running on their own power, driven by anxiety, fear, or anger

– If we are really going to be the salt & light of the world• We have to get off the fence & align ourselves with God

• Ultimate fruit of spiritual discipline is greater joy – Discipline is not a word we associate with joy– Hebrews 12:2 NIV Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and

perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

No wonder they No wonder they crucified him!crucified him!

Matthew 7:24-27 NIV

• “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (25) The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

Matthew 7:24-27 NIV

• (26) But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. (27) The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

How would Jesus have affected you, if you had been there?

• I’d like to believe that I’d have heard the Spirit of God speaking through him– “Could this be the Son of David,” the promised Savior?

How do I walk with Him?

• But I might have been more like the Pharisees– Certain that change was mostly what others needed– I might have done the unforgivable thing – regarding

the Spirit of God, still trying to reach me, as evil– I might have been so smug in my niceness & stuck in

my religion as to say, How do we get rid of this man?• How about you?

Edward Sandford Martin:

• “Within my earthly temple there’s a crowd.There’s one of us that’s humble; one that’s proud.There’s one that’s broken-hearted for his sins,And one who, unrepentant, sits and grins.There’s one who loves his neighbor as himself,And one who cares for naught but fame and pelf.From much corroding care would I be freeIf once I could determine which is me.

Who are you?Who, with Christ’s help, can you become?Are you willing to make a choice?Or, would you rather just crucify him?