Series: Risen
Message: Stop Playing It Safe
March 20, 2016
[presentation 1, slide 1] Grab your Bibles and turn to Matthew 16. You can find Matthew
16 on page _____ in the Bibles in the pews.
In the movie Risen Clavius, the Roman Centurion, finally discovers the risen and fully alive
Jesus. For a while he follows Jesus and his apostles to Galilee undercover until John spots him
off in the distance. John sneaks up on him and invites him to join the group – which he does.
Watch this next scene from the movie. As the disciples are sleeping, the Roman Centurion visits
Jesus.
Video Clip: Risen_Week_2
[presentation 2, slide 1] Obviously, the Roman Centurion has a decision to make. Will he
believe in the risen Savior and follow him, or will he continue to side with the Romans and stick
to the status quo? Will he risk everything to follow the Savior of the world, or will he play it
safe?
Dr. Scott Dudley of Bellevue Presbyterian Church in Washington states, “We have created
today the most risk-averse society in history. We are the most seat-belted, bike-helmeted, airbagged, knee-pad wearing, private-schooled, gluten free, hand sanitized, peanut avoiding,
sunscreen-slathering, hyper-insured, massively medicated, password protected, valet-parked,
security-systemed, inoculated generation in history – and all it has done is make everyone more
afraid of everything.”
When was the last time you took a risk? Have we become so afraid of uncertainty that we
refuse to venture out? We insulate, inoculate, isolate, and then we pray that we’ll die in our
sleep without any pain. All the while we go through life never facing any real challenges.
More to the point is this big question: When did we – as Christians – get the idea that God
calls us to safe places to do the easy things? Was it safe and easy for Abraham when God called
him to leave everything he knew to follow God to a destination unknown? Was it safe and easy
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for Moses when God called him to go back to a country that wanted him for murder in order to
free his people from slavery? Was it safe and easy for a young shepherd boy named David when
God called him to face Goliath? And was it safe and easy for Peter to step out of the boat onto
the crashing waves?
We read story after story in the Bible people who took risks because of their calling from
God. Some ended up safe and sound. Others were imprisoned, beheaded, hung upside down on
crosses, and burned at the stake. And I just wonder if we would go as far as they because of our
faith in Jesus. When did we start thinking that God’s will is an insurance plan instead of a daring
plan?
In Matthew 16, Jesus wonders just how safe his followers are willing to play it. So he asks
them what people are saying about him, and his followers give him the safe answer. [slide 2] 14
“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the
prophets.”
And then Jesus asks them, 15 “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”
Perhaps the disciples look at each other a little nervously, and I imagine they look at Peter
because he’s always got the answers. And finally Peter speaks up.
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“You are the Christ, the
Son of the living God.”
I wonder if, in his words, Peter realizes the impact. To state that Jesus is the Christ, the
Savior of the world, and that he is God’s Son changes everything. And that means that Peter and
John and the rest of the disciples – you and I – can no longer play it safe.
Before Peter can realize the full impact of his own words, Jesus delivers a message loud and
clear what following him really means. [slide 3] 21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to
his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief
priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Following Jesus at this point means that these guys would see the death of their King instead
of his rising to power and taking the throne from Rome as they had hoped. Up to now Jesus
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grew in popularity with the people, and the disciples were riding the wave. And then Peter states
that Jesus is the Christ, and in response Jesus praised him and told him that an entire movement
would form that hell itself could not stop.
Then in the next moment Jesus bursts their bubble. In the midst of popularity Jesus talks of
suffering. In the midst of identity with God, Jesus talks of death. But what the disciples miss is
that Jesus also talks about resurrection.
What I find interesting is that the only people who even thought about Jesus’ coming out of
the tomb were the people who were responsible for putting him in the tomb – the elders, chief
priests, and teachers of the law. They got it. They remembered that Jesus said he would come
back to life, so they set out to make sure there would be no shenanigans – no missing body.
According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, a guard of over 1000 soldiers was set, and a
Roman seal was placed on the mega stone that covered the entrance to the tomb. Jesus’ enemies
understood his claims, but his followers missed those claims until after the resurrection.
If they hadn’t missed what Jesus was trying to say, don’t you think the disciples would have
been somewhere near the tomb counting down the seconds on day 3? Don’t you think that the
women would have gone to the tomb with anticipation and hope instead of burial spices for his
body? Don’t you think that Peter’s reaction would have been different?
Instead Peter hears suffering and death, and look at what he does. [slide 4] 22 Peter took him
aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
And Peter gets a bad rap for doing this, but can you blame him? Like we, he prefers to avoid
the hard stuff and just get to the good stuff. We prefer to play it safe just like Peter.
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Jesus turned to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not
have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
There’s a bigger picture here. Life is more than working, eating, drinking, and playing golf.
[slide 5] When it comes to following Jesus, we can’t keep playing it safe, and it starts with [slide
6] becoming KINGDOM minded.
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And that’s a huge risk. Our friends will start to look at us differently. They might even start
ridiculing us because we’re Christians.
We’ll start to look at ourselves differently. We’ll come to the realization that it’s not about
us and what we want. When we become kingdom minded, we put God at the center of our lives.
And when we put God at the center of our lives, his kingdom advances and the church becomes a
powerful force in this world.
The big picture is simple – God sent his Son to die for us, and everything we do as individual
Christians and everything we do as a church centers on that. Everything we do has God’s
kingdom in mind – not personal preference, not because it’s the way we’ve always done it, and
not because it’s my way or the highway, but – so that we can win one more for Jesus.
So here’s my question: Are we playing to win, or are we playing just not to lose? Are we
willing to take some risks and try new things to win one more for Jesus, or are we content to
maintain status quo? Do we want to build a great church for God’s kingdom, or do we just want
to be a good church with a decent reputation in town?
If we want to stop playing it safe, then we need to become kingdom minded, and second, we
need to [slide 7] RELINQUISH ourselves.
Look at verse 24 of Matthew 16. [slide 8] 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone
would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
This is probably one of the most misunderstood phrases in all the New Testament – “take up
his cross.” You’ve heard it. You’ve probably said it. I know I have. “Oh, that’s just the cross I
have to bear.” We talk about some difficult relationship as “my cross to bear,” or some illness or
physical limitation as “our cross to bear.” And I think we demean and cheapen and make Jesus’
call easy and safe.
When Jesus uttered these words, they weren’t pretty or comforting, and they were definitely
not easy. Jesus isn’t talking about following God in the hard times and trusting him through
those times. Jesus calls us to die completely to ourselves. Jesus calls us to relinquish everything
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we are to him. Jesus calls us to be all in.
A missionary named A.W. Milne felt the call to a tribe of headhunters in New Hebrides.
And when he set sail to go to them, he knew that all the other missionaries to this tribe had been
martyred. But that didn’t stop him. He was completely sold out to Jesus.
Milne lived among the tribe for 35 years and never returned home. When the tribe buried
him, they wrote the following epitaph on his tombstone: “When he came there was no light.
When he left there was no darkness.” What would it look like if you were to become a fully
devoted, sold-out follower of Jesus?
Somewhere along the line we became convinced that following Jesus should be easy. We
build church buildings where we can gather together in safety. We hire ministers who preach
feel-good sermons. We play and sing our favorite hymns and songs to assure us of how much
God loves us. We start ministries and programs to fulfill our wants and our desires. The
evangelical church today makes it seem so easy to be a Christian. Just show up to church on
Sunday morning, let us entertain you for an hour, and you can go home feeling good about
yourself for another week.
When did we become so selfish and so self-centered? This hour a week isn’t about you or
me. Christianity is not even about the hour a week worship experience; it’s about totally
relinquishing – surrendering, selling out, sacrificing – who I am to Jesus Christ. The twenty-first
century church needs more people like this. The twenty-first century church needs [slide 9]
more GOD-SIZED people with GOD-SIZED plans.
Faithfulness is not holding down the fort; it’s storming the gates of hell. The will of God is
not an insurance plan; it’s a daring plan. The complete surrender of your life to the cause of
Jesus isn’t radical; it’s normal. What’s abnormal is thinking we can follow Jesus on our own
terms. Jesus didn’t call us to make us safe; he called us to make us dangerous.
In 1955, five young missionaries heard God’s call to reach a dangerous and isolated tribe of
Indians in the dense rain forests of Ecuador. They worked for many months to establish contact
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and demonstrate friendly intentions to the Auca Indians. Auca means “savages.”
On January 6th, a man, a woman, and a teenaged girl made contact with the tribe. The
meeting started out friendly, but ended abruptly when the Auca made a hasty departure. Two
days later the Auca went into the missionary camp and speared all five missionaries to death.
What’s interesting about this encounter is that all five missionaries were fully armed and had
the ability to defend themselves. They knew that the Auca never encountered armed outsiders,
so they carried their weapons in full view of the tribe. It was found out that the missionaries
would fire their guns into the air as a last resort to ward off an attack, but would shoot no one
even to save their own lives.
Later it was learned that they did just that. Only after killing these men did they realize that
they were indeed friendly – they had the ability to kill their attackers with ease, a point they
realized when one of their number was grazed by a bullet while hiding in the bush. It was only
then that they realized that these five men chose to die rather than kill the attacking Indians.
When news of their deaths reached America, Look Magazine featured the story and
concluded it with the phrase, “What a waste.” Found in one of the missionaries’ journal, Jim
Elliot wrote, [slide 10] “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he
cannot lose.”
In verses 25-26 of Matthew 16, Jesus says, [slide 11] 25 “For whoever wants to save his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he
gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”
It’s time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. What’s lacking in
the church is not education or resolve. Most of us are educated way beyond the level of our
obedience. What’s lacking is good old-fashioned guts.
[slide 12] Jesus didn’t call us to live safe lives. He called us to follow his example. He
didn’t die to make us nice, safe people whose goal is to never rock the boat. He died to make us
radical people who can storm the gates of hell and come away victorious. He calls us to become
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God-sized people with God-sized plans.
He may not call you to some vicious tribe of Indians in a rain forest of Ecuador. But he may
call you to invite your neighbor over for dinner so you can share Jesus with him. He may not
call you to die because of your faith like so many other Christians around the world. But he may
call you to put to death your safe, status quo living. He may not call you to become a preacher or
to lead a church or to become an elder or a deacon. But he is calling you to become kingdom
minded and to relinquish yourself to him and to become a God-sized person with God-sized
plans and actions.
Stop playing it safe. Stop living life to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue
God-sized passions. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating
the past; start creating the future. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the
journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first
day and the last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping
what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Don’t let fear dictate your
decisions. Take a flying leap of faith. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Go all in with God.
Go all out for God.
If it were not for the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, none of this would be practical. But
the fact that Jesus rose from the dead changes everything. When you become convinced of that,
it will set you free. You will not live to be safe; you will live fearlessly for the Savior who
marched fearlessly into Jerusalem for you and for me.
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