We dove into the deep end of the pool for our first week of Radical. There were a few different tensions that David Platt brought out.
Family vs Faith?
Luke 9 57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
When you look at some of the hard sayings of Christ, you have some hard choices to make. We know that Christ would desire that we care for our families and yet on two occasions in the passage above, Jesus is challenging his would be followers to choose Him over their family. Who wins?
Two Worlds
We also saw the contrast of some examples of the persecuted church vs the picture of the American church.
As I stood on that mountain, God gripped my heart and flooded my mind with two resounding words: “Wake up.” Wake up and realize that there are infinitely more important things in your life than football and a 401(k). Wake up and realize there are real battles to be fought, so different from the superficial, meaningless “battles” you focus on. Wake up to the countless multitudes who are currently destined for a Christless eternity.
We had an interesting discussion about football and a 401(k) seeing that most everyone had just watched the super bowl. While we don’t think football or investing is inherently evil, we also don’t want to look back on this life recognizing that we’ve wasted it over and over on things that won’t matter in eternity.
A Beautiful Building or Missionary Funding
We wrapped up trying to deal with what it means to minister in the American city or suburbs vs getting the gospel to the poor around the world. Another quote:
Now, remember what was on the left: “First Baptist Church Celebrates New $23 Million Building.” On the right the article said, “Baptists have raised $5,000 to send to refugees in western Sudan.” Five thousand dollars. That is not enough to get a plane into Sudan, much less one drop of water to people who need it. Twenty-three million dollars for an elaborate sanctuary and five thousand dollars for hundreds of thousands of starving men, women, and children,most of whom were dying apart from faith in Christ. Where have we gone wrong? How did we get to the place where this is actually tolerable?
Like many other American churches we find ourselves trying so hard to maintain a nice facility (which we are also very thankful for) vs needing to raise funds to help our missionary family get the gospel around the globe.
Needless to say we walked away with more questions than answers.
But I think we found rest in this truth: Individually we must find what God is asking us to do, and then pursue it with reckless abandon. What is God asking of you?
Join us on Wednesday Nights at 7 as we work our way through the book Radical.
