Pilgrim Soldier

The following is part of my sermon for this morning. The sermon as a whole is based on the story of Peter walking on the water, and why he started to sink.

I believe that Jesus is desperately trying to reach out to many Christians who are floundering in their faith because they have taken their spiritual eyes of him. The tragedy is that many of those he is reaching out to, don’t even realise they have a problem! They are like the church in Ephesus that is spoken to by the angel in Revelation 2:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

When we are first saved we are so in love with Jesus that we follow him unreservedly. We would get out of the boat and walk on water for him, but slowly but surely there is the danger that we allow the problems of our lives to divert some of our attention from Jesus. And slowly but surely we lose the gleam of that first love. We stop taking risks for him, whilst at the same time carry on doing the stuff that he has asked us to do. Our willingness to be busy for Jesus takes over from simply being with him, and we become like Martha in Luke 10:38-42 where she is so busy making sure everything is right, that she is in danger of missing out on simply spending time with Jesus.

And of course the real problem with Martha is that she didn’t even realise that what she was doing was wrong. In fact, she wanted her sister to join with her!

In Jesus’ response to this situation there is a sense of a gentle chastisement. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.” I get the image in my mind that Jesus was gently patting the cushions next to him, trying to convey the sense that he simply wanted to spend time with her!

The root of everything that goes wrong in our faith is when we stop focussing on Jesus! When we concentrate on him then we can deal with whatever comes our way and our faith need not suffer. Of course it’s difficult, but its the only way!

As I write the newest article over at theRubicon is called What exactly is our mission? and a discussion is ensuing over its accuracy! In many ways that is an aside, but it does remind me of something that I’ve noticed on and off for years.

For too many Christian’s the focus is on the end result. It’s on the numbers who have been saved, or the size of their congregation, or how much they give. It’s on whether we should be preaching the gospel at all times, or on how we live our lives as Christian’s. Yet I’ve realised that this is not where our focus should be. It should be firmly on Jesus.

As soon as our focus becomes the means to the end, rather than the end itself, our direction slips. Let’s focus on Jesus and by doing so, both individually and as a community of believers, everything thing else in our walk as His disciples will surely slot into place.