Introduction
The past couple of weeks we have been talking about this idea of being impacted by God. Like we studied in the first week, it is putting ourselves in positions where change can happen. It’s putting ourselves in the right place where we can be impacted in order to get the right kind of change we desire and need in our lives—the kind of change that leads us to become the sort of people God wants us to be.
Have you ever heard of the phrase “status quo”? It is a Latin phrase we use to simply mean “the way things are.” If you say someone is living the status quo, they are living the norm, doing things as they have always been done.
The status quo for a lot of teenagers is having their own cell phone, getting their own car when they get their license, graduating from high school at 18 and for most, heading to college in the fall. This is the status quo. This is seen as “normal”.
Tension
This may not be a new thought for a lot of you, but have you ever thought about the idea that there is a status quo when it comes to being a Christian as well? There are things you do when you call yourself a Christian that are just “normal.” You go to church for example—Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights. You go on a mission trip at least one time in high school. You have memorized John 3:16. And like this verse suggests, we believe the right things. We believe Jesus was God’s Son. We believe Jesus died for our sins. We believe He was raised from the dead. We believe we will go to heaven when we die. End of story.
But you know what I have noticed? People who are living the status quo aren’t typically the happiest people. I think this is true for adults and for students. The people who are doing things just like they “should” or as is expected aren’t necessarily content, excited or passionate about where life has found them. Can any of you give me an example of this?
In other words, the status quo of Christianity isn’t necessarily the most satisfying, faith-building place to be. And it could be because the status quo has nothing to do with being impacted or impacting others.
A lot of the things that make up the status quo of Christianity are good. Like our core beliefs and going to church, but what if there is more to Christianity, more to our faith than just what is normal, what is expected, and what is typical? What if colliding in our faith means much more than doing these right things, believing these right things, and staying away from bad stuff? What if it has a lot more to do with the God who is calling us to experience Him?
Truth
One of the things we have to be careful about when we read Scripture is to not read the Bible like a textbook as list of do’s and don’ts. A lot of us have the tendency to simply read the Bible at face value. We figure out what it tells us to do and what not to do and stop there—maybe even make it a checklist of sorts, simplify it so that it is easier to figure out what exactly is expected of us. This is a tempting trap to fall into, and one that will lead us exactly to where we are—living the status quo. And doing that isn’t exactly a new idea. It is an old one.
In fact, in Jesus’ day, this was the temptation as well. The people who were most likely to be seen doing this were the Pharisees—the religious elite. It can be crazy to hear because we typically view the Pharisees in a negative way, but they were very religious, sometimes in a good way. They were very concerned about doing the right things, the things that were expected of them. They had the Ten Commandments—the obvious list of dos and don’ts—and then some. Lots more rules, lots more guidelines, lots more stuff to follow. You could say that they set the precedent for the status quo. If you wanted to be in God’s good graces, there were certain expectations to meet, and it seemed to the people of the day that the Pharisees were a good example of what God was after. In the world of the religious, they were the goal.
Funny, but the Bible doesn’t really present them that way, does it? I mean, when I hear the word Pharisee my mind usually jumps ahead to, “Don’t be like them!” Why? To put it simply, Jesus doesn’t speak too kindly about this super-religious group. Okay, I may be holding back a little. There is one time in Scripture where Jesus says this to them:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. . . . You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:27-28, 33 NIV).
Right, so this is a little awkward, because this isn’t exactly how one would talk to people who have it right and who are setting an example worth following. I mean, yes, culture was different in the Middle East two thousand years ago, but not that different. Calling someone a snake then meant the same thing it does now. It’s not exactly a term of endearment.
So where is the disconnect? Why was Jesus so frustrated with this group when it seemed like they did everything right and believed everything that is right? They had it together, so why was Jesus’ harshest rebuke saved for them? Maybe we can have a better idea of what Jesus would have for us if we look at the people who did do it right, the people who Jesus said made some good and right decisions.
Let’s look in Matthew, where Jesus calls the first disciples. Look at what happens:
As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him (Matthew 4:18-22 NIV).
So what is the big deal about this passage? What happens here that makes the disciples different from the Pharisees? These verses say one thing about these four disciples—Scripture tells us that when Jesus asked these men to join Him, they immediately left what they were doing. They dropped everything, abandoned their jobs, left their families and did exactly what they needed to do to join ranks with the Son of God.
And this is where the Pharisees got it wrong. The Pharisees talked a good talk and followed all sorts of rules, but when it came down to it, they weren’t really being impacted by God. They weren’t doing anything that required radical action from their tightly held beliefs.
The disciples, on the other hand, were doing exactly that. They left it all in order to be with Jesus. They abandoned it all for the sake of faith.
The Pharisees were living the life of the status quo—a life that was expected, tame and just pretty average—even if it appeared right and “by the book.” But the disciples weren’t satisfied with that. They wanted something more than just a life spent doing the same old thing. They wanted a life walking with Jesus, and doing that is anything but normal, anything but routine, anything but predictable. It is a life spent really experiencing God.
Application
The Pharisees trusted a system. The disciples trusted God.
The Pharisees trusted their ability. The disciples trusted in the Savior they knew they needed.
To live a life where you are constantly impacted by God, with others and with the world means trusting in a big God when He calls you to drop your nets, when He calls you to lead a larger, and maybe even a little more dangerous life than the status quo offers.
You can do all of the right things, believe all of the right things and still spend your whole life insulated—not anywhere near experiencing a real God.
You can spend your whole life believing in God, but not believing God for who He says He is. You can spend your whole life believing in God but not following Him.
Here is the thing: Being a follower of Jesus means doing things that others might consider crazy. It means drawing some attention to yourself. It means maybe being whispered about behind your back. It means maybe being told you are taking this Christianity thing too seriously. It means others thinking you may have lost your mind. It means living so certainly and with so much passion and conviction, so much belief and love for God, that everything else pales in comparison. It means valuing nothing, literally nothing, more than Jesus.
Living life without being impacted is easy. It is safe. It is predictable. It is popular. It is the status quo. But this isn’t exactly what Jesus had in mind when He invited the disciples to drop their nets and follow Him. He wanted these men to be impacted by God—to abandon what was expected of them, what was normal and what was secure. He wanted them to invite Him into their lives in a way that maybe felt risky and potentially even crazy, but it allowed them to get a picture of just how big God was—a picture you can’t get without being impacted in a major way.
Living a life where we experience God means putting more hope and confidence in Him than in anything or anyone else—including ourselves. It means opening yourself up to possibilities you may have never dreamed of that only God can make happen.
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