If you want an image of what a
compartmentalized lifestyle is all about then just see the travel ads that
go something like this: “What happens in Vegas (Mexico) stays in Vegas
(Mexico).” That motto is a great illustration of a compartmentalized
life. The point is that you can travel to a destination where you
can do what you want and there are no consequences back home. What
happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. (Right! Ask Natalie Holloway’s mom
about that philosophy.) So if you want to cheat on your spouse, no
problem. We’ve got your covered. If you want to gamble away your life
savings, we’ll never tell. You want to drink yourself stupid, go ahead,
here is your free pass. You can live one way at home and another way at
Vegas and that is OK.
That attitude or mindset (CFS:
Compartmentalized Faith Syndrome) is detrimental to Lifestyle
Christianity.
But let’s bring it close to home here in
Florence, Alabama. Many Christians want to live one way while at
church and another way when at work or play. Let’s say you come to FBC
and you leave inspired to live a better Christian life. You’re whistling
a hymn and as you’re driving home you see a hitchhiker. You are totally
dialed into the Lord so you consider picking him up so you can share
Christ with him. However, you notice he is wearing a hockey mask and
carrying a chain saw so give that thought a pass. But when you go home you
do some extra chores, volunteer to mow a neighbor’s lawn. You shop for a
senior adult in your neighborhood and at the grocery store you even return
your shopping cart to the cart corral. You are inspired because you’re
feeling so filled with faith and good spiritual feelings. Sunday was a
inspiring and a great faith filled day.
Then Monday hits. You hit the
world running. You arrive in the marketplace with your agenda and your
ambition and your pride. Then somebody crosses you and that loving
feeling that you felt yesterday goes flying out the door! “Game on!
Church was yesterday. Real life is today. I am at work.” What
a difference a day makes! Suddenly, you do NOT feel like singing,
“This is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in
it!” Why? Because it is Monday and everyone knows Monday is where
real life takes place! Right?
REVIEW:
We are in a series entitled: “24: A Day In the Life of A Believer.”
So, I must address this segment of time in our lives even though it might
be a very difficult thing. Last week I talked about what do you need to
do during the morning hours….when you first awake. It doesn’t matter if
you are a night owl or a morning person; you need to begin your day by
acknowledging God’s presence. You need to make a connection with God
so that you hold the hand of God in the morning before you ever leave the
house.
Let’s review some of the
action steps:
(1)
Begin with a Call to Worship: Express words of worship to
God.
(2)
Experience worth as you hear God affirm you and caress you with His
love and compassion.
(3)
Enjoy words from God as He speaks into your life the wisdom and
guidance that you need for each day. This involves time in His Word.
The POINT is…make a connection with
God at the beginning of your day. Open the lines of communication so
that you can continue to connect throughout the entire day.
ILLUSTRATION:
What I want to do is use this backpack as an illustration and visual of
your faith. This backpack represents your faith, your
connection with God. It represents your relationship with God. At the
beginning of each day FEED YOUR FAITH (pack your backpack) so that
when you walk out the door you have the essentials for survival.
So, HOW do we pack our faith?
·
Cell phone…Prayer…your lifeline to God. And you put that in
your backpack.
·
First Aid kit…you will get hurt so you need to be reminded to turn
to Jesus
·
Bible… You take this Bible, some of God’s word, and you Hide it in
your heart.
·
LIGHT…God’s Word is a lamp
unto my feet
·
coffee cup. This reminds me to have daily conversation with God
throughout the day.
·
Hydration system…water of life…the Holy Spirit
·
Hiking Pole…you need to remember that life is a daily walk with Jesus and
you need His help to keep you from falling.
You put this all in your backpack.
Remember, this backpack represents your faith. This is your personal
connection to the grace of God and you need this wherever you go.
It’s MONAY…time to leave the house and
enter the marketplace, the workforce. This is when you drive to work, you
make your way into the marketplace, to school, wherever it might be.
Wherever it is you spend the majority of your day; the place where you
spend the 9 to 5.
The FOCUS of TODAY is
FAITH in the MARKETPLACE.
So here’s my rhetorical questions to
you:
·
What do you do with your faith (backpack) once you leave home?
·
What do you do with your God connection?
·
What do you do with the words He speaks to you?
Unfortunately, too many Christians leave
their faith at home or tucked away in a pew at church. Others leave it in
the car, maybe in the trunk – out of sight. That is the heart of the
problem I am addressing today.
Or do you (my hope and prayer) take that
faith and wear it throughout the day so that it invades every piece of who
you are and every part of who you are. You feel God’s presence, access
His wisdom and allow it to influence the way you think and feel and treat
one another.
The focus of this message is about
taking your faith with you when you enter the marketplace or taking it
with you to school if you’re a student. Wherever it is that you spend the
better part of your day. Don’t leave home without it. You are designed
to live it. This is faith in action.
Remember, all of us are recovering
sinners. Maybe we should remind ourselves of this by daily saying to
ourselves: "My name’s Larry and I’m a recovering sinner," just to keep
this reality before us. C. S. Lewis has said that it’s when we notice the
moral filth in our lives that God is most present in our lives. Have you
been pretending, putting on an image that your battle has ceased?
Then it’s time for you to respond to
God’s call to authenticity.
So, let me help you this morning by
showing you the pressure points…the place to watch. These are the times
when we are put to the test to see if we stand by our faith and refuse to
drop the backpack.
Pressure Point #1: We
drop our backpack when our PRACTICE does not match our PREACHING.
Romans 2:17-24
The true litmus test for
being a follower of Jesus is living your belief. There is a
popular saying that goes like this: you need to walk your talk. No
you don't. You need to walk His walk. You need to walk
God’s walk. That’s the sign of a transformed life. That’s the way you
can tell if Jesus Christ has fully invaded somebody’s life and has
changed his or her behavior, their life, how they live, how they
interact.
Will Rogers said, “Live in such a way
that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”
James S. Hewett,
Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p.
490.
Jesus said, “You will know who My
followers are.” It’s very interesting that Jesus didn’t say, “You
will know they are Christians by their bumper stickers.” He didn’t
say that.
Or by the crosses they wear, the
cute little Christian T-shirts they have or the yard signs.
That’s not how you know somebody’s a Christian. He said, “You’ll know
they are Christians by how they love one another.”
In Matthew 7:20, Jesus said,
“Yes the way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that
is produced.” (NLT) You’ll be able to tell if somebody’s living it
because they’re producing the fruitfulness of God’s Spirit in them.
In the real world I understand how
difficult it is to go from here and take your faith with you (wear that
backpack) all throughout your day. I understand. There are parts of your
day in which it is easy to completely forget about God. I understand how
difficult this is and I realize this is a tough message.
It is so easy to compartmentalize our
faith and drop our backpack. A marker of spiritual maturity is when
somebody is able to recognize those times in their lives when they are
most likely to drop the backpack. There are times in which the
temptation to compartmentalize my faith and shove God to the side is
greater than others. Maturity helps me to recognize those times and to
move from dependence on my own will to dependence on God’s Spirit that
actually then change my actions. That’s a marker of maturity.
The key to 24-hour Christian living is
to recognize those times when you are tempted to drop your backpack.
2 Corinthians 13:5
states, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test
yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you. If not you
have failed the test of
genuine faith.” (NLT) I hope
that you earnestly desire a genuine and real faith. I pray that you covet
a 24/7 faith.
When you are in a situation that
requires you to have integrity, this is when it’s easy to drop your
backpack because you think nobody is watching. You reason: “I can
get away with this. I can go the world’s way instead of God’s way and
nobody will really notice.” Do any of these integrity situations sound
familiar to you?
·
You have plans to go out with friends and colleagues and it might be a
convenient thing to leave your backpack at home when you go out.
·
You slip the backpack on to one arm and you laugh at a racial
joke.
·
You’re late to an appointment because you totally procrastinated but by
the time you get to the appointment you leave the backpack in the car and
tell the person that the traffic was bad and you couldn’t do anything
about it.
·
You’re on a business trip. When you get to the hotel room, you just leave
the backpack in the hallway and when you go inside to purchase a movie you
would never rent at home.
·
You love the cut and paste functions so much on your computer that you
plagiarize an entire term paper and that backpack is no where to be seen.
·
It’s a business dinner with a lot of drinking going on. Your self-control
is in your backpack but your backpack is in the trunk because it doesn’t
go very well with your business suit.
Folks, what I'm trying to say is that
integrity and faith are connected. When you compromise your
integrity, you compromise your faith.
The Bible tells us that God loves people
of integrity. In fact, it is one of the things that really pleases Him.
1 Chronicles 29:17
says “I know my God that You examine our hearts and rejoice when You
find integrity there.” (NLT) God loves His children to display
integrity.
Proverbs 11:20
(NLT) says “The Lord detests people with crocked hearts but He delights
in those with integrity.” Integrity is a choice. In your life you
get to choose whether the Lord’s going to detest in your integrity or
delight in your integrity. When we stand at the crossroads when integrity
is required this is the time when many people drop their backpack.
Pressure Point #2: We
drop our backpack when our POSSESSION does not match our
PROFESSION.
You can hear a big thud from the sound
of falling backpacks when “show me the money”…put up or shut up time is on
the line.
ILLUSTRATION:
There is a powerful illustration of what I am talking about in a story
about Moses. He wore a veil after his meeting with God. Paul records in 2
Corinthians 3:13 that Moses continued to wear a mask, not to hid the glory
of God, but to hid the fact the glory had departed.
Listen. Can you heard the sound of a
falling backpack?
I don’t know your life. I don’t live in
your house. I'm not talking to your business manager. I'm not reading
your books or checking your computer. However, if there is a sense of
conviction it’s not because of me it is because God is knocking on your
heart.
If you are dropping your backpack to
impress people or get ahead in life, then it is killing your spiritual
life.
You only have one chance at life. There
is no dress rehearsal. If you need to make some changes, make them
now!
What I want from my life is that I
want to be able to live the life of Jesus Christ with integrity and
authenticity. I want to wear that backpack (my faith) 24/7 so I’ve
got to identify those areas of my life where I am tempted to drop my
backpack. I want that for me and I want that for you.
You may need some help here. The best
think is to bring other people into your life and admit; “This is the area
I am most tempted. This is where and when I tend to drop my backpack.
Will you come alongside and do life with me and whenever you see me
going for the straps of my faith, will you alert the sirens? Blast the
alarms and say, ‘Friend, you are leaning in the wrong direction. Don’t
take a trip to the dark side!’
That’s what I want and that’s what I
want for you.
Jesus said in Matthew 6 “Make your
light shine so that others will see the good that you do and will praise
your Father in heaven.” (CEV) Jesus said, “Hey followers of
Me, followers of God! Make your light shine, your life shine, so that
people see your life they’ll say, there’s something attractive about
that. Make your life good enough to put on a hill for others to see and
provide light for other people.”
Let me ask you a rhetorical question:
“Is there anything about your life, anything that is so compelling, so
appealing, that others look at your life, they see your peace or your love
for others or your love for God and they say, “I want that! I want what
she has. I want what he has.”
Last week I shared with you 3 ACTION
POINTS. Today I’m just asking ONE THING…ACCEPT the challenge of living an
authentic life.
2 Corinthians 5:17
states, “Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new creation. The past is
forgotten and everything is new.” (CEV) That’s who you are. That’s
what you have to offer. You don’t have to fake it. You don't have to
pretend.
Galatians 5:6
(NIV) says “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself
through love.”
Be assured that God has chosen to use us
as His hands and His feet. What an honor, what a privilege, and what a
responsibility. Every Christian’s life is either pushing people toward God
or away from God by how you live your life.
At the end of your life what do you want
to be known for?
There’s a great passage in 1
Thessalonians 1:8 (NLT) as the apostle Paul writes to Christians at
the church in Thessalonica: “The word of the Lord is ringing out from
you to people everywhere. Wherever we go we find people telling us about
your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it.” Same verse,
but a paraphrase “The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even
have to say anything any more. You are the message.” (The Message)
That’s what I'm talking about! These
believers did NOT live a compartmentalized faith and in doing so they
became the message that our world so desperately needs.
CONCLUSION
Will you join me in this attempt to live
it out? Will you make the commitment that you don’t want to live a life
where you drop your backpack just because money’s involved, or integrity,
or because your pace is too fast? Will you do this? Will you get to the
point where no matter where you go that this backpack is with you because
it is a part of who you are?
What I am talking about is not just a
religion on a shelf but a relationship that influences who you are. Will
you accept the challenge?
If Christianity was a crime in America,
and you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence
to convict you of this crime?
Will you make a commitment to God that
says, “I don’t want to be a part of Christianity where I compartmentalize
my faith.”
So, START by making a connection with
God before you leave the house. Then, when you enter the
marketplace, just live it.
Last week the one last thought was,
“It’s time.”
It’s time to get started. Today, I want to add to the phrase with the one
last thought that I really, really want you to remember: “It’s
all the time.”
This is the life that God blesses. Do
you want God’s blessing on your life? Then live it.
Closing Prayer:
“Lord, help us not to put this message
off and leave this place with only good intentions. We want to be people
who follow You all day long. We want to be people who live the message we
believe. Help us to become people who live an authentic and Christ-like
life so that others will be attracted to you. God, we pray in faith that
we can and will be different. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.”
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