While
I was stuck behind a long line of traffic in Columbus, I decided to play a game
to pass the time. And the game was, “Find the most creative vanity license
plate.”
And the winner was a car that had “Latte
7” on their plate. Anybody that would
need to let people know how many cups of coffee they need in the morning,
scares me.
Over ten years ago, when we were living in
Findlay, Ohio, Penny purchased new plates for her car. And the people behind the counter at the
Bureau of Motor Vehicles wanted to give Penny a license plate that began with
the numbers 666.
And she said, “I’m sorry, but I need different plates. I’m a pastor’s wife and 666 is not a good
message to send.”
And the person behind the counter said, “You have to take it unless somebody in the
line behind you will take it.” And
the guy behind Penny said, “I’ll take
it.”
Vanity license plates. Today is the fourth part of a seven part
sermon series on what Jesus wants to tell us.
We’ve been reading through the Gospel of Luke for these messages that
Jesus has for us. And we’ve been
putting them in the form of what you might see on a vanity license plate. And today, the message is for us as his
followers to be ready to the end.
I attended a seminar with a group of 30
church leaders and we were asked to write a seven year letter. The leaders of this seminar asked us to think
about our church seven years from now.
And they wanted us to write down what our walk with Christ would look
like and what our ministries would look like in seven years.
And the seminar leader said, “Think about how old you will be in seven
years because that will put this in perspective.” And all of the sudden,
the woman sitting next to me let out this terrifying yell as she thought about
how old she would be in seven years.
It’s not easy to think about our lives
seven years from now or even one year from now.
And the whole point of this seven year letter was to help us to think
about where we want to be in the long-term since we usually only think of the
short-term.
In our Gospel reading from St. Luke, this
is exactly what Jesus wants us to do. He
wants us to think about our future. He
wants us to think about what our relationship with Christ will look like down
the road. Jesus is reminding us that he
will come again and when he comes again, will we be ready for him? Will we be found faithful when he returns?
Many of us saw watched the Tour de France
a few weeks ago. Cyclists are known to say that the race is won not at the
beginning but in who makes it across the finish line in Paris first. That’s how the race is won.
Churches also are called to think about
the future and where they want to be in order to be faithful to the end. Jesus
reminds us from the Gospel of Luke to watch out for complacency because he will
return and he wants to find us ready.
Luke chapter 12 Jesus tells us, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps
lit.” Jesus is using two images here
for being always ready in our faith. The
first image has to do with clothing. Be
dressed for action he says.
During Jesus’ day, people usually didn’t
wear a belt around their garments because it was more comfortable to wear their
clothes loosely around the house. But
they would need to wear a belt if they were to go on a trip. So a belt was a symbol of being ready to go
somewhere. And Jesus is saying that in a
symbolic sense, we are to be dressed for action and always be ready to be
faithful in serving Him.
And Jesus also uses the image of a lamp to
make his point about the importance of always being ready. We are to never be without the light of
Christ in our lives. That’s a great
image. Every Christian is a reflection
of the light of Christ for the world to see.
And sometimes we forget to light our lamps or we feel like we can make
it through the day without Christ’s light.
But Jesus is saying that we need those lamps lit every single day.
What does it mean for you and me to be
ready to the end?
First of all, it means that we know Jesus
Christ as our Savior and Lord. We can’t
have our lamps lit for the world unless we first receive the light of Jesus
Christ in our own loves.
One of my duties at the house is to be the
light bulb changer. By the way, do you
know how many TV evangelists it takes to change a light bulb? One.
But for the message of light to continue, send in your donation today.
How many United Methodists does it take to
change a light bulb? “We choose not to make a statement either in
favor of or against the need for a light bulb.
However, if in your journey, you have found that a light bulb works for
you, that is fine.”
Once in a while, I go to our closet to
find a new light bulb, and find that we’re all out. That’s why the first thing we need in order
to be ready to the end is to have the light of Christ in our lives by knowing
Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
The most significant event of my life was
the moment that I accepted Jesus Christ into my life. The day Penny and I were married, and the
days our children were born rank right up there, but there’s no doubt in my
mind that from an eternal perspective, the day I accepted the light of the world
in my life, is at the very top.
What
does it mean to have our lamps lit? It
first means that we have received the light of the world into our lives.
The second thing it means is that we grow
in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus used to say that about the
Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, who he bumped heads with time and
time again. Jesus would tell his
disciples, “The teachings of the
Pharisees are great. They say good
things. The problem is – they just don’t
practice what they preach. And because they
are not practicing what they preach, they’re not growing in their faith.”
I was sitting with a pastor at a Champs
restaurant in Columbus deciding on what we should order for dinner that
night. The waitress had dropped off our
menus and said she would come back to take our order. Well guess what? When you have two preachers in the same
booth, it will take about 15 minutes before they will even look at the menu
because we talk so much.
So this waitress would keep coming back to
our booth to see if we were finally ready.
And each time we would say, “No,
just give us another two minutes and we’ll be ready then.” This happened three times. She would come back and we would say that we
weren’t ready.
We finally decided on what we wanted and we
put in our order. After our waitress
left, we continued to talk and got caught up with how each other was doing.
And then someone from the kitchen brought
out our food. And that’s when my good
friend got an idea of how to apply his faith to that moment.
He said, “Hey, before we pray, let’s include the waitress especially since she
has been so patient with us.” And he
flagged down our waitress and he said, “My
friend and I pray before meals, and we were wondering if there’s anything that
you would want us to pray for and we’ll mention that in our prayer.”
You should have seen the look on her
face. She was surprised that we would
include her in our prayer but then this great big smile came to her face and
she said, “Well thank you. I really feel that it’s time to make a change
in my life and I’m not sure what that means.”
And my friend said, “Sure, we’ll pray for you.” She said thanks and off she went and we
prayed for Amanda, our waitress.
After the meal, we got the bill. And this was another high spiritual
moment. He said to me, “Let me pay for this.” And I said, “You don’t have to…OK.”
And then he said, what percentage tip
should I give her? And I said, “Well since I’m not paying, I would
recommend a really nice tip.” My friend ended up giving her a 30% tip
because he wanted to make sure that the waitress knew that we really cared
about her and that God really cared about her.
My friend reminded me of the importance of
applying our faith to everyday encounters with people. When we grow in our relationship with Christ
and apply our faith to our everyday lives, it helps us to be people who are
ready to the end.
And last but not least, if we want to be
ready to the end, we always need to know where we’re headed.
Jesus tells us in our scripture reading
this morning that we are to be like those who are waiting for their Master to
return from a trip, and who open the door for their Master upon his return.
Our faith begins and ends with Jesus
Christ. It’s important that we know where we’re going.
Billy Graham has been known to tell a
story about Albert Einstein. Albert
Einstein was traveling on a train when the conductor of the train was coming
around to punch the tickets of the passengers.
When he arrived to Dr. Einstein’s seat he asked for his ticket. And Dr. Einstein couldn’t find it and
frantically began looking for it.
The conductor said, “That’s OK. Dr. Einstein. We
believe you have a ticket. That’s OK.”
And as the conductor went on to punch the
tickets of the next passengers he happened to look back and this time saw
Albert Einstein now on his hands and knees of the train searching frantically
for his train ticket.
And the conductor went back to his seat
and said, “Dr. Einstein. Don’t worry about your ticket. We all know who you are. It’s really OK.”
And Dr. Einstein said, “But I still need that ticket because I
don’t know where I’m going.”
It’s important to know where we’re going
as we seek to be ready to the end.
Rev. Robert Lowry, 38 years old at the
time, was the pastor of Hanson Place Baptist Church in NYC during that terrible
period in 1864 when the plague was sweeping away multitudes of citizens. When he wasn’t visiting church members who
were ill, he was conducting funerals.
One hot July day, Lowry himself was near
collapse, exhausted, dispirited.
Reaching for a scrap of paper, he began composing a poem; then, at his
organ, he composed the music for it. It
spoke of his hope to meet his suffering and dying parishioners in heaven, down
by the River of Life.
Just listen to the words of this hymn of
faith:
Shall
we gather at the river, where bright angel feet have trod? With its crystal tide forever. Flowing by the
throne of God?
Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the Beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river.
That flows by the throne of God.
God has promised that there will be a
wonderful homecoming for those who have been faithful to Jesus Christ to the
end. For those who have received Jesus
Christ as their Lord and Savior, for those who are growing in their
relationship with Christ, and for those who know that the Christian faith is a
journey that leads to the beautiful river where all of God’s people will gather
and rejoice together.
John Maxwell relates the following
experience in his book, Think On These Things. He writes that he was awakened by a
persistent knock on his motel room door at 3:45 A.M. It was the police! They
were looking for a lady who had threatened to commit suicide.
Sure enough, a young lady in a nearby room
lay in desperation on a bed crying out to die.
Quickly the police held her down to the bed until her hands and feet
were securely handcuffed. For the next
45 minutes, he listened to her cry over and over again, “Please, let me die! Let me
alone! Nobody cares! Nobody loves me!”
The rest of that night John Maxwell
thought about the desperation and the agony of that lonely young woman. Somehow the message “I couldn’t care less” had echoed through the streets of Chicago
until she felt compelled to reject life.
And then he writes, “Just think how beautiful this world would be if this unchristian
philosophy were replaced with Christian attitudes until people would begin
saying, ‘I couldn’t care more.’”
This story from John Maxwell motivates me
to be ready to the end for Jesus.
Why? Because I want to be one of
those persons who tells others, “I
couldn’t care more.”
When Jesus tells us to keep our lamps burning
and to be dressed ready for service, it means that we let the people around us
know that, “We couldn’t care more.”
We couldn’t care more. That’s why we are collecting school supplies
for our neighboring elementary school.
I couldn’t care more. That’s why we are throwing a big party with
children’s games, free food, and live music for our community next weekend.
I couldn’t care more. That’s why our Second Saturday outreach team
met yesterday to visit the homebound, spend time with nursing home residents, make blankets for cancer patients at the hospital, pick up trash along the bike trail, and split wood to help people heat their homes this Winter.
I couldn’t care more. That’s why we provide meals for people in
need three days a week throughout the year.
We do what we do because we couldn’t care
more and we want to be ready to the end.
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