Last week, we talked about the four ways we can become uncivilized individuals. The reason we articulated for becoming uncivilized was because our lives, if civilized become unworthy of the cause we are called to live. That is to say that change and life and revolution in Christ begins with our willingness to be uncivilized for the sake of God’s glory. How does that manifest itself? Well it tangibly manifests itself in our lives when we can look into the present of our lives and be who we were raised to be and set the vision and speak the goals of your life into the lives of others.
We become most dangerous when we engage other people and become intimately involved in the lives of other people, to meet other people in their needs even when it comes at a sacrifice to ourselves. Because anything short of that is simply civilized and mediocre, unworthy of a living sacrifice–that is safe and not dangerous. It is hopelessly futile.
This week I want to change gears and come at becoming dangerous by training ourselves to take big risks. We take a lot of stupid risks, we also take silly risks, but have you found out that when it counted most and life hung in the balance, we didn’t choose the way of greatest risk, but took the safe route. We probably did this with our college applications. Graduate school, our jobs, even our relationships. You can sit here and say, “Jonathan, ain’t talking about me, I take risks all the time!”
The problem is, your idea of risk is not really a risk. I know you say risk is relative and a lot of people will humor you and say, “yes, you took a big chance, you jumped over a puddle,” but is that really what you want? Don’t even try to lie to me, I’ve seen your college applications, I’ve seen the jobs you choose. I’ve seen the way you always take on the smallest projects. In fact, it makes me laugh and curse, how unwilling we are as a church not to want to take risks. You don’t think I know, I know you are irresponsible because risks scare you because if you take a risk and fail, you know your cowardice trumps and the failures haunt your evenings.
So we chose the path of least resistance which is usually the path of unrisky behavior. After all, we are a species that only survives because those who are prone to risk taking die early and the rest of us live unassuming lives, seemingly happy, but stuck in a cyclic pattern that has no business in our faith.
Let’s go to Matthew 16. I know I’ve been preaching and writing a lot from the book of Matthew these days, but I’ve been really into the book of Matthew, I must have read it like three or four times last month and I just have to tell you–if you’re not reading the Bible, you’re missing out. I have more thoughts on the thoughts I had about thoughts, because of this particular book last month. Let’s read.
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
– Matthew 16:21-23
Vs21 – Can you envision the risks you need to take? Let me explain how this stands with you and with us. I know you don’t really understand what’s going on here in the greater scope of things just from that passage. Especially since the passage starts with the words, “From that time.” Let me break it down for you. In the final year of Jesus’ ministry, he was headed south toward Jerusalem via Caesarea Philippi, which is the northern part of Israel. It is here that Jesus asks the disciples, “Do you know who I am” and thereby implying, do you all know what’s going to happen next? Do you know what happens when you decide you’re going to follow me on this journey south to Jerusalem? Peter says “dude, you’re the guy. You’re the guy that is going to lead us out of Roman occupation.” Jesus answers Peter, “That’s right; God has shown you the vision if you know who I am.” It is from that time that Jesus begins to show his people the consequences of the risks that they will need to take if they follow him.
The likewise is true for us too. Until we accept Jesus as our savior. I don’t just mean that we say that and pretend and play act like we always do with our brand of Christianity. I mean, when we accept Jesus as our savior with all our hearts, minds and souls and totally believe in what we’re getting ourselves into–that is, when our faith is our faith and not the faith of somebody else force feeding it down our throats, then and only then, will you recognize Jesus as the guy who will liberate you. It is at this juncture we actually get a grasp at the understanding of what it means to be a Christ follower. I mean you knew what it meant before you sold out for your faith, but when you do sell out for your faith, you gain insight and an intimate knowledge of the risks you need to take in your life.
These risks begin to include, alienating friends and family with and because of what you believe; but it also includes risking who you are and see yourself to be for the hope that you can be made anew. Jesus saw exactly where he needed to go and what it would cost and he makes no lie of it–he tells it straight. The Gospel would not be so good if Jesus didn’t know what the consequences of his death meant. The gospel would just be an accident then. Fortunately, Jesus knew exactly what the price and consequences were and he decided he would take those risks despite them.
I tried thinking about the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. I say this often and I say this frequently, but the greatest risk I’m taking is this calling to religious professionalism. It really is. This is the one thing I know I will fail at if it wasn’t the will of God. More than that, I know I’m not cut out for it. I don’t have the personality for it and by God’s grace I come every Sunday and share with you His words hoping that I don’t butcher that holy honor.
This is the excitement also–I can’t predict what comes next. The risk I take is the most stressful thing in the world but it is the most rewarding and most invigorating. I know to most of you, being a religious professional is not that much of a risk. But the risk is not what you embark upon doing. It’s not jumping out of planes and climbing mountains without ropes that is risky–the risky part comes into play when you lose something close and near to your vitality.
The Fork in the Road
This brings us to the fork in the road that we all get to because we’re human and because at the very recesses of our hearts, we’re all too afraid of the act in risk taking. Peter is the one who makes this interesting observation: he basically says “This shall never happen to you.” In saying this, he was implying that Jesus would not be allowed to take the risks that he was suggesting that he take.
We need to be very careful here at this point. Peter is both true and false at this juncture. If we are stuck on whether we need to be risk takers, hear me out: we need to be. However, there is a certain amount of truth to what Peter is saying. Sometimes we don’t need to take risks. Here’s what I mean by that. We sometimes go off and do something stupid on a dare don’t we?
That said, I am telling you that we don’t have to take unnecessary risks for Christ. That’s right, there are sometimes in our Christian walk, where we take unnecessary risks for Christ in the name of piety–that is wrong and totally unacceptable. At the same time, this ideology that all risks are not in God’s plan for us is a farce. It is false. Saying that we should never take risks is a lie fabricated by Satan. Let me spin it to you this way–it’s one of Satan’s tricks. Risk taking is life and suffering will happen regardless of whether or not we decide we want to take any risk.
When we become afraid of taking risks, we become the opposite of dangerous. We become risk averse. The only person that wants you to become risk averse is the person that stands in the way of losing the most in your risk taking. If that person isn’t you, there’s a problem. When we fail to take risks, we become a hindrance to God. Additionally when we fail to take risks for what we believe in, then we are envisioning too small.
Only small dreams and goals require little to no risk. God sized vision involves a lot of potential loss. After all, risk is simply the trading of one thing for another. This always begs the question of “how do we discern God’s things?”
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.– Colossians 3:12-17
If the things of God are what we must take risks for, then where does that leave us with our optimal risk taking? If doing these things is ultimately the most dangerous risk we can take, then can I ask how often have we done this? Are we doing this at all? If the answer is “no” then why is it “no”? But perhaps that’s not our problem. Our problem is that when and if we do these things, we feel like the burden is unjustifiably against us–the weight of enacting these things, we believe, is heavily against us. It supposedly strips us of our God given rights as human beings.
Let’s read. Verse 24.
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
– Matthew 16:24-28
Vs 24 – your cross, that is, your risk, is anything and everything you find comfortable that you are willing to give up on and live without. In a sense, if you really think about the implications of “taking up your cross” it is to consider yourself dead. When you consider yourself dead and follow Christ, the risks you take with your life in the name of Jesus becomes easier. I know this may sound cultish to you, but have you ever thought about it. Isn’t the way we should all be thinking? Like our lives are no longer our own to lose?
If the disciples had thought their lives were their own, we wouldn’t be Christian most likely. In fact, 11 out of the 12 disciples would probably have lived fulfilling lives. Can I be honest with you guys? I’m going to be honest with you guys. The reason a lot of us will always live unfulfilling lives is because we cannot die to ourselves. I’m not talking about greed, I’m not talking about comforts. I’m talking about shame. For some reason, shame kicks our lives into high gear every time we want to do something and we are petrified from taking a risk because the shame at which we think, would be incurred, keeps us frozen. It’s the most terrifying, heaviest cross and we dare not lift it. However, that is silliness that shame keeps most of us from pursuing with great ferocity the things of God.
Vs 25 – I want to talk about our lives now because we have to switch gears and refocus our definition of “risk.” If risk indefinitely costs something and that something comes always at the price of our lives then here’s a lifelong dilemma that must constantly be weighed over and over.
Listen to what Jesus says here in verse 25: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” If you think that playing your life safe, that is, if you never take a risk to pursue your life or fulfillment of it, then you’re going to lose, in a single breath, everything you are trying to protect from being lost by taking the risk in the first place.
Check this out, I know none of you have ever asked a girl to marry you, heck, I haven’t even done that yet. Ahaha. But I’ve gotten obscenely close to doing so a long time ago and I’ve seen enough movies to know what that type of risk is like. It’s the biggest risk you can take save for accepting Jesus as your personal lord and savior.
Here’s why: because marriage is forever and to be rejected for a proposal to be married is unfathomably humiliating and dangerous to our hearts and souls. But if you sit there and protect yourself from the potential of being rejected, then you lose what would have made you infinitely happy in the first place. There you would have it. You lost it, your life or the potential life you could have always dreamed of wanting is gone.
In that same breath, Jesus turns around and says, try risking everything in your life and see what you would find. It’s the incredible oxymoron and dichotomy of faith. I know what a lot of us will try to do with this passage though, we’ll try to use it and justify our bad decision making and frame it up as “Biblical risk taking.” just to let you know, it’s not.
The risks we take in which we are to lose our lives and sacrifice everything we have worked towards is our lives in juxtaposition to our faith, our beliefs and our visions. I said this last week didn’t I? That our vision and our goals are what set us towards a dangerous uncivility? And likewise, that can only be fueled by a reckless risk taking like Jesus is advocating for to his disciples.
Vs 26. Here is why we need to take risks and become dangerous… For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Here’s where I want to finish up today.
We have a choice
To take risks of faith and do something beyond ourselves and risk losing everything for the sake of our lives being living sacrifices to God, or to sit by and watch others take big risks and wonder why our lives are so unfulfilling. That choice is yours.
But I want to remind you that when we have dangerous faith, a faith willing to take risks and lose our lives then we have the mind of God and things of God in our mind and see a great work through our risk taking. The summer is coming, do you want to be dangerous? Do you want to take risks of faith with me? Do you want to see what God has envisioned for us? Start making an inventory of what you are willing to lose for faith in God, for your salvation in Christ, for your continual sanctification.
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