Have you ever bought anything COD? There was a price attached to getting the item. And the price had to be paid before you got the article. And for the church to be successful, there is a price to be paid by each of us. Last year I took a journey through the scriptures in the Wednesday evening Bible study. The tour director, Pastor Sandy planned it, she decided which books Gary Richardson, Paul Mummert, Rudy Brubaker and I would teach. I got the books on commitment, obedience and discipline, that's COD. Sandy knew I needed that message and the best way to make sure I got it was to have me teach it. Sandy was picking on me.
Now, didn't that sound really stupid? I knew Pastor Sandy wasn't picking on me but I was beginning to wonder by the end of the year. I've been telling myself I'm committed, I'm obedient, I'm disciplined but during the year God spoke to me through his word and the holy spirit to clean up my act. In the last few weeks I've had more good old fashioned correction. It's called a trip to the woodshed. On December 29th Pastor Sandy told me how much work it would be for people in the degree program and how she was concerned about the people taking the courses. She didn't know it until recently but Internally I rebelled, then remembered the obedience lesson. Let me tell you right then I didn't care about anyone else, it was going to be a lot of work for ME. You see, the teacher must be the first partaker. Don't aspire to teach unless you can stand the heat. By the time I'm finished a couple of you'll say I'm picking on you. If you do, you'll give the devil a golden opportunity to destroy you. I'm not targeting anyone any more than Pastor Sandy was when she picked the books of the Bible. But when I teach I understand why John said, "I have no greater joy than to see my children walk in truth." If just one of you gets this it'll be worthwhile.
After I got my attitude adjustment, I shared some things I was seeing about commitment, obedience and discipline with Pastor Sandy and she suggested I teach it some Sunday. I responded, "let the pastor." Just think this through slowly with me, one step at a time, I'm talking obedience, I'm asked to do something, I try to back out. That's a new definition of dumb.
Today Christians talk a good talk of commitment, but their walk doesn't support the talk. They don't attack the enemy unless there's a way out and if the going gets tough they run for cover. Is that commitment? What does commitment take?
- It takes obedience.
- It takes singleness of mind.
- It takes a certainty that you absolutely know what you should do.
- It takes submission to authority.
- It takes the proper preparation.
- It takes self discipline.
And these are the very things giving many Christians the most trouble and this is why the church isn't victorious and without spot or wrinkle. This is why it isn't the force to turn the world right side up. Note I said right side up, most of us agree it's upside down now. Our job is to turn it right side up. But if the progress I've seen in the church in the last fifty years is used as a rate of change, and if Jesus is waiting for us to get ready for his return, it'll not be for at least a millennium, maybe two or three. Clearly something must change, and it's not God, it's us.
That's why ministers are being empowered by the spirit of God. It's to get us off dead center. But even with them, if we don't listen to these gifts from God, that's just where we'll stay. And when a steam engine is on dead center it doesn't do anything no matter how much you heat the boiler. Now, when I have someone telling me I need to change, it doesn't seem like the time to call them a gift from God but that's what they're called in Ephesians 4:8 and that's just what they are, no matter what we think. If the word says it, it is. And I'll tell you, both of our pastors have been just that to me, and so have the elders, and so have some others who've allowed God to use them. At times I haven't viewed them as gifts from God and you may have a hard time calling me a gift from God. If you have that problem, I'll understand. I've been there. But I'll not understand if you stay there. And I doubt if God will either.
