"Can't We Just Get Along?"

The name Rodney King was prominent in the news about 20 years ago. He was an African-American construction worker who, while on parole for robbery, was beaten with excessive force by police officers following a high speed car chase in 1991. I won’t go into all the details but his words afterward are still remembered: “Can’t we all just get along?”

Many people have said these same words under many different circumstances. With the total impasse in our government right now, a senator recently gave the same message.

There was a city named Sardis mentioned in the book of Revelation, many of whose Christians imitated Rodney King’s words.

Let’s first go back to what Jesus said to His disciples: “I am THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6 NIV) Not A way, but THE way!

These words of Jesus have been a stumbling block among all civilizations from Jesus’ culture down to the present.

Let’s talk about this city of Sardis whose actions have an application for all of us.

The city of Sardis was a bustling commercial community which, like all the cities of the Roman Empire, had a culture of worship to the Roman gods. Temple worship was woven into the fabric of family, business and daily life.

Christians met in the private homes of wealthy individuals and were at first tolerated just as a sect of the Jews who had their established synagogues. But as time went on, Christians became looked upon as traitors to Rome. And if they did not attend temple worship they were ostracized. And to be ostracized in a community like Sardis meant not only personal separation but separated from business dealing also. Many in the Church decided that if they were going to have any kind of life, it would be best to “just get along”! They said, “We know that Christianity is the only way, but why not just go to temple worship which we know is not right but God will understand that we need to live among these people. Idolaters can believe in their gods and we can believe in Christ and have peace.

That was significant because, when they did that, they killed the message of Christ. They compromised the distinctive WAY of Christ.

Christians in Sardis were a big-time “get along” culture. They wanted peace in all religions so that they could all “just get along”.

The pressures that these early Christians faced in Sardis are very much like the pressures we face today. You know, today people don’t mind when I tell them I am a follower of Jesus Christ and that He is my Savior and Lord – people are OK with that. But when I get to the point that He said that He is the only way, that’s where the friction starts to come. Because when Jesus says that, He is saying that His system is right and all the other systems are wrong. That’s what we’re not allowed to say in our “get along culture”.

Right now in Iran a Christian pastor of a House Church has been sentenced to years in a cruel, dirty prison because of his faith. Insiders say that he could have been immediately released if he would just say 5 words: “Allah is the only God.”

The government could not “get along” with him because of his Christian faith. He could not “get along” with the government’s attitude toward his Christian faith. The pastor is standing up for what he believes. How many of us have the will to do the same?

Jesus says in effect in His letter to Sardis, “The get along culture may be scoring big there right now in the game of life, but in the end I win the game!”

This whole thing about Sardis may be a hard thing to swallow – I mean who doesn’t want to get along – I do. Who doesn’t want to believe that everybody can be right in their own way. It’s so attractive. But there is something deeper going on here which really tells us about the love of Jesus Christ. When you think about the other religious systems of the world, who offers the assurance of forgiveness like Christ? Securely? Firmly? None of them do.

All of the other religions of the world are totally different from Christianity. They all would have you earn your way to heaven by doing “good” things to please God.

But Jesus tells us that you CAN’T earn your way to heaven because NOTHING that you do is “good” enough to overcome your debt of sin. Only Christ as your Savior on the cross can erase that debt – and all you must do to be saved is to accept your need for Him.

But some ask, “What about those people who have never heard about the love of Christ? Can they be saved?

Well God is a God of great mercy and broad grace. Whatever He does with those people, will be absolutely right. And we’ll celebrate that. The issue is that you’ve heard and I’ve heard. So what will we do with this Jesus who is wonderfully the WAY.

 

   

"Save Your Fork!"

As you know, I’m just a cynical old guy whose saving grace is that I’m more cynical about me than I am about you or anybody else.

My cynicism about the world is bubbling up again as I look at the problems all around civilization. There was a time when I was very political and thought that if the right people had the power, then things would get fixed. But both sides of the political spectrum have assumed power in the last few decades and things were still not fixed.

Then I turned to the church and I really thought that the right presentation would build the kingdom and the world would flock to the church and her King.

But the kingdom still tarries and they aren’t flocking to us – in fact many are running away. Perhaps this is slowly changing – I hope that it is.

My mind keeps turning to the words of Isaiah about the idyllic future promised by God. You may know the words, but let me give them to you. They are appropriate words to cover any cynicism:

 

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:6-9).

What a beautiful biblical message! But I surely don’t see it around yet. I see sin. But I’m no longer surprised at sin – mine or yours. The older I get, the more I’m aware that if the message I hear and teach on radical grace isn’t true, then we're doomed!

But there is still Isaiah and his dream – the lion, the wolf and the calf together, and a child leading in a world full of the knowledge of God. That promise would be a pipedream were it not for the One who made the promise.

It is God’s promise. And as I pause over Isaiah’s dream, something in me is hopeful and even excited by the future.

Something in me, even when it’s dark, sends me to the dawn of a new day and the beginning of a time of joy. Maybe today or this year God will say, “It’s enough! That society of men has had its chance!” The trumpet will blow and God will bring down the curtain of history.

If I were not a believer, wishing people a “Happy New Year” at the start of each year would be mindless drivel with no possibility of anything but the darkness. If I were not a believer, common pessimism about any meaning in this mess would make a drunk out of me at best and suicidal at worst.

It’s the reason I don’t begrudge the unbeliever his or her life of denial because that’s all unbelievers have. Go ahead: amuse yourself to death or do it with pills. If all we have is environmentalism, politics and New Age drivel, go for it!

“Men must work, and women must weep, and the sooner it’s over, the sooner we sleep.”

If that’s all there is…go for it!

But now this cynical old guy is, believe it or not, going on record with a great degree of hope. It’s anchored in the promise of a Creator God who loves us and promises to clean up the mess. It’s enough for anyone to hold onto in the dark.

I don’t remember his name. He was a Christian comedian who talked about having dinner with a friend who was a wonderful cook. He said that the most glorious words in the English language were often spoken when she was cleaning up the dishes on the table after the main course.

She would always say, “Save you fork!”

The comedian said when he heard those words, knowing that dessert was on the way, “All the fat cells in my body stood up and sang the Hallelujah Chorus.”

Something sort of like that happens when I read those words from Isaiah 11.

I’ve read them many times more than I can remember, and can come close to repeating them by heart, not because I memorized them but because they have always stuck with me.

When I think about those words from Isaiah, all the cynical cells in my body groan, get off the couch, and stand up and sing the Hallelujah Chorus.

I’m forgiven, loved and accepted just the way I am – and so are you when you see your need for a Savior, Jesus Christ, and desire to make Him the Lord of your life.

And not only that, you have a future promised by the only One who can make and fulfill that promise.  

SO SAVE YOUR FORK! THE DESSERT IS COMING!