Living in 3D
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Living in 3D
October 16, 2011
by Rev. William “Buck” Day
Luke 15:4-10, 32
4‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” 7Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
8 ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” 10Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’
32 “…But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” ’
It seems like everywhere I go there are people! Who would have thunk it? Well, I have been thinking about it. As I have been looking at the people that I have been walking around and with this week, I have been thinking “Oh my God. What am I going to do? What should I be doing with all these people?” Has that been your experience this week? It has been mine. I want to tell you a little bit about just one of the folks that have been on my mind this week. Every Saturday when Les and I are doing our normal stuff, we go to Chipotle. We go and we go through the line and there is this one little woman who runs the cash register; her name is Lily. A great little Latino woman, she is always very bubbly and very friendly and we have begun to strike up a conversation with her. It is one of those things where I don’t know where it is going, you know. I was there by myself yesterday and I said, “How was your week?” She is like…. You know, it is just this preoccupation with people. So, I say that simply to say you know what? I am in the same boat as you guys. I am in the same boat with you guys in terms of trying to figure out how to do this whole thing… because we are talking about how to give away the greatest gift of Christ that we have by pointing others to faith.
So the question is that if we have made that decision to begin to walk across the room, as it says, “Just Walk,” now what? What do we do with that? What does it mean to walk, how do I do that? What should I be praying about and what on earth should I say when I get to that point?
Well, I think it starts by our topic this week which is “Living in 3D,” and there are three “D”s and in that first step in that process is what is called developing relationships. In other words, we need to begin to be building relationships with people outside of our circle of comfort. In order to do that I think we have to stop first. We have to stop first and, truth be told, I think we have to face a little bit of the ugliness that is a part of who we are. I think the truth is that most people have a loving heart towards some people, but, we also have a secret list.
We also have a secret list of those people we can’t stand. Maybe on your list it is your spouse because they walked out on you. Maybe it is someone who has wounded you because of their words. You might have reasons for the people on that list; they might be really good reasons. But, I think it gets even more complex than that, because I think there are some of us that don’t like entire groups of people. We maybe get a little huffy when we are around men and women who maybe didn’t vote the way we did. Or maybe we become a little uptight or a little constricted when we are around some people of maybe a different ethnic background. Or maybe we just plain get upset because some people aren’t in the same social economic level that we are. We don’t talk about that very often do we at church, especially in mixed company. A little bit uncomfortable perhaps, huh? But I think it is true, that many of us have this list and if the people are on this list, the truth be told, we would just as soon that they were on a ship that was permanently headed out to sea. So, if you ask me to love somebody outside my circle, out of nowhere all these hosts of qualifiers and filters begin to raise up within me. If you are going to ask me to love somebody outside my circle, they better be nice. They better not hurt me. They better be safe. They better be deserving. They better be stable. Maybe I am not the only one here. Maybe you have qualifiers, too. I hope you have qualifiers, because I don’t want to be here in my own sinfulness in front of you. Because I think we all have that list of wannabes, don’t we? They better be white; or they better be black. They better be prolife; they better be liberal; they better be Democrat; they better be Republican; they better be young; old; rich; single; straight. Am I ringing any bells here?
So where do these qualifiers come from? Where do they come from? What are they all about? Well I think it goes back to our Scripture. Jesus told this parable about a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son. And today I want to ask us, why did he tell those parables? Why did he tell those stories? In the very beginning of Chapter 15 it tells us that the Pharisees didn’t like the people that Jesus was hanging around with. He was hanging around with the wrong people. By their standards, they were on their hate list. You see, somewhere along the line the Pharisees, who were Godly men who were trying to live for God, got this idea that they convinced themselves that God’s heart was just like theirs and that God also had a hate list of people that he frankly wanted to send to hell. So Jesus tells this parable. He tells this parable to open their eyes and say, you know what? God doesn’t have a hate list. God’s heart is not like their heart. Irreligious, immoral, profane people, the people that Jesus was talking to, actually, in fact, mattered to God. They aren’t on any hate list. The truth be told they are on God’s love list. God didn’t want to send them to hell at all. Those irreligious, immoral, profane people are people that God really cares about; that he loves. And he is trying to show that.
So for us, if we are going to be one of those “walk across the room” kind of people, and we are going to talk about this idea of developing relationships, I think the place to start is right here. We have to get past those kinds of inherent attitudes and filters that say you know unless you pass my filter, unless you meet the standard of my heart, I am going to refuse to reach out to you. My firm belief is that all of us as followers of Christ have got to deal with that. We have to eradicate that kind of ugly underbelly that is a part of our lives because if we don’t, we are never going to leave our circle of comfort, let alone get out into the zone of the unknown.
So developing relationships starts with an attitude that says, you know what, I am open to you. I am open to you whoever you are, whatever you have done, whatever you believe about life. That is the starting point. I am open to accepting you, to knowing you, to journeying with you, and caring about you. Once we are willing to develop those kinds of God honoring relationships, I think we will begin to see some very interesting doors begin to swing open as we begin to discover the people’s stories that we come in contact with, and that is that second “D” of the 3D Living.
Well, this series is put together by a pastor by the name of Bill Hybels and he tells some stories within it. One of the stories he tells is that he joined a racquet ball league that met every week to play racquet ball. In the course of that he met a guy that he had never met before; and in the course of just the consistent weekly gathering for racquet ball, they developed a relationship. They kind of hit it off and they became friends. As the trust level began to rise about six months into that relationship, Bill says that this guy confided in him that he was really struggling. He was trying to work through a difficult relationship between himself and his grown son. As he tells the story he said that they had come to this terrible impasse because of an argument that happened between them and as a result the father decided that he was going to cut off all communications with his son. Pretty tough stuff… Now Bill says for reasons he could not fully articulate, he was beginning to regret that decision. He wanted his relationship with his son back but he feared that he had blown it and it wasn’t going to happen. So in the weeks that followed, Bill continued to just patiently dialogue with this guy, asking good questions, listening, talking about his interests, his spiritual life, kind of some of the things that were going on in his family. In that, he didn’t press; he didn’t judge him; he didn’t try to fix the guy; he just stayed the course—consistently showing up for racquet ball week after week, being there for him, faithfully building that friendship.
Bill says that at some point he thought that the relationship was at a point where he could begin to maybe take a little bit of a risk. This is one of those things that was one of the nudgings of the Holy Spirit that we talked about last week; and, as I talked to some of you about that this week, I know that is something that we are trying to process a little bit and I will say to you that that is something that we may have to circle back to, to talk more about down the road in the upcoming months. But Bill felt like this was a chance to take a little bit of a chance and he felt like the relationship could withstand it, so he said to him, “You know, I would like to recommend maybe you going and talking to this Christian counselor friend that I have.” He was thinking that maybe as a result of that the relationship with the son could be improved because Bill knew the value of Christian counseling and how it can help unstick difficult relational situations. Even though the guy wasn’t a believer he thought maybe it would help.
Well, to Bill’s surprise, the guy without hesitation agreed to go. Bill says that after a few meetings with the counselor, in fact, the man and his son did reconcile and they are talking again. And Bill says “I don’t know what happened after that as they went on their own ways.” He didn’t know if either ever trusted Christ as a result of that but he knew that just the breakthrough in the interpersonal relationship that it would have ripples through the lives of both of these men. It would be positive.
As you think about that story, I think here is the point. It was only because Bill waited and walked beside this guy for a significant chunk of time and didn’t try to wedge in his own spiritual agenda there that this father agreed to go to the counselor to be able to meet that need that that man was really struggling with. We see the faithfulness of a good friend in the story. We see the patience of uncovering the person’s story and the genuineness in wanting to help this guy. The intertwining of these 3 “D”s is really critical I think for us to grasp as we begin to process this in our own mind. For your goal as well as my goal is to engage the people that are living around us, develop friendships with them that can create kind of a baseline for being able to walk with them, and ask good questions about their journey together. Because it is only when we truly understand the unique needs of whatever that person needs that we can then move to that last “D” which is discerning the next steps. Once we started up that relationship we start hanging around with them; we maybe have a spiritual conversation, we begin praying for them—that’s the starting point above all else. Then we wonder what is next. Maybe it is something that will help that person move a little bit closer because we never know the people that God will put us in contact with. The way I think about it is that if a person is here, and this is what it means over here to be at a point to where they make a decision for Christ, think of it as links in a chain, that there are links between here and here. Maybe God has you just putting one more link in the chain. It doesn’t get that person over the line of faith but there is another link in the chain to move them a little closer. That is what God wants us to do. As we just build those links, maybe you are the one that helps that person take that step of faith. It is about knowing how to best serve them, how to discern those next steps.
So as we do that, as we walked along with them, the very best thing we could do in terms of discerning those next steps is to lean into the whisperings, the nudging, the promptings of the Holy Spirit. As we develop the conversation with this person, we need to be simultaneously praying, begging for God’s direction, for the Holy Spirit to direct us for guidance. “What should we be doing? Give me some insight here, God. Give me a creative idea as to what might be the next thing to do. What is the next appropriate step?” If you noticed I said the word “beg” and I used that purposely; because I think we have to shamelessly beg for the Holy Spirit to help us because, if we are honest with ourselves, if the Holy Spirit is not in it more often than not we are going to blow it.
Many years ago I was at a conference and as part of the conference they were talking about the importance of evangelism and they were really getting us excited in talking about the power of multiplication of discipleship. I came out and go, “Yeah, I have to be more intentional about my witnessing.” So, we were at a hotel and I was in the pool, I forget if it was afternoon or evening; but I thinking about that and I saw this guy on the other side of the pool. He was just sitting on the edge with his feet hanging over the edge and I thought, “O.K., here is the guy.” Yeah. …You know where this is going… So I kind of swim up to him and make some small talk and I am just like, O.K. you have to do it… I kind of went “Where are you with Christ?” or something along those lines. And he looked at me and said, “I was at the conference too.” (laughter) So we are going to blow it. We are not going to know the right steps. So we have to be saying “God, help me. Help me in that.”
If you have been in the classes or the small groups, and I want to tell you if you haven’t been in the classes yet you are certainly welcome to join us either on Wednesday night or Sunday morning still, but last week what we talked about was one of the things that we discovered was that there has been someone in all of our lives that has walked across the room for us. Maybe it is about what does that look like. Maybe it is praying with the person. Maybe it is giving them a book or maybe a CD or a podcast of something that might be helpful to them. Or it could be maybe simply inviting them over to dinner and talking about what’s going on, if they are at that point. But I want to invite you, as you go into this week that is starting now, to be spiritually alert to the promptings of the Spirit, asking him to lead us into those relationships that he has already been working on. We have to remember that God has already been doing the work. Who are those relationships that we are suppose to build some relationships with? Who is that? As we do, may our earnest request be “Help me, Lord. Help me, Holy Spirit. Help me Holy Spirit.” And as you do, it may lead you into a relationship with an estranged dad, or maybe not. But wherever it takes you, if you choose to be obedient to God’s leading, I think you will look back on this week and you will say that this has been a week that has been well lived. That is my prayer for us today.
Let me pray for us.
Lord thank you. Thank you that you are moving and active and alive in our lives, Lord. Lord help us to understand what that means and what that looks like in our lives—how you speak to us, how you prompt us, how you move. Lord we are pretty dense sometimes and we need that. So help us, make it really obvious to us Lord, God. I ask that in your name. Amen.