Outlive Your Life Part 7

We behave like a flea in the ear of a giraffe. The gangly animal breaks loose from the herd and charges across a wooden bridge. The worn-out bridge shivers and groans, barely able to support the weight. When they reach the other side, the flea puffs out its chest and declares, "Boy, did we shake that bridge."

We think we're shaking up the world when actually we're just along for the ride.

Take time to remember. "Look at what you were when G.o.d called you" (1 Cor. 1:26 NCV). Remember who held you in the beginning. Remember who holds you today.

Moses did. He served as the prince of Egypt and emanc.i.p.ator of the slaves, yet "Moses was . . . more humble than anyone else" (Num. 12:3 NIV). The apostle Paul knew to go low and not high. He was saved through a personal visit from Jesus, granted a vision of the heavens and the ability to raise the dead. But when he introduced himself, he simply stated, "I, Paul, am G.o.d's slave" (t.i.tus 1:1 MSG). John the Baptist was a blood relative of Jesus and one of the most famous evangelists in history. But he is remembered in Scripture as the one who resolved: "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

And what about John Newton? This former slave trader served as a minister from 1764 until his death in 1807. He was a confidant of well-known leaders such as Hannah More and William Wilberforce. His hundreds of hymns fill churches with music. Yet on his deathbed the writer of the hymn "Amazing Grace" said these words to a young minister: "I'm going on before you, but you'll soon come after me. When you arrive, our friendship will no doubt cause you to inquire for me. But I can tell you already where you'll most likely find me. I'll be sitting at the feet of the thief whom Jesus saved in His dying moments on the cross."1 John Newton never forgot who had lifted him up.

The greatest example of this humility is none other than Jesus Christ. Who had more reason to boast than he? Yet he never did. He walked on water but never strutted on the beach. He turned a basket into a buffet but never demanded applause. A liberator and a prophet came to visit him, but he never dropped names in his sermon. He could have. "Just the other day I was conferring with Moses and Elijah." But Jesus never thumped his chest. He refused even to take credit. "I can do nothing on my own" (John 5:30 NRSV). He was utterly reliant upon the Father and the Holy Spirit. "All by myself"? Jesus never spoke such words. If he didn't, how dare we?

We can rise too high but can never stoop too low. What gift are you giving that he did not first give? What truth are you teaching that he didn't first teach? You love. But who loved you first? You serve. But who served the most? What are you doing for G.o.d that he could not do alone?

How kind of him to use us. How wise of us to remember.

Stephen remembered. And since he remembered Jesus, Jesus remembered him. As Stephen's accusers reached for their rocks, he looked toward Christ. "Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of G.o.d, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at G.o.d's right hand" (Acts 7:55 NLT).

Stephen stood on behalf of Christ, and in the end, Christ returned the favor.

What do you have that G.o.d hasn't given you? And if everything you have is from G.o.d, why boast as though it were not a gift?

(1 Cor. 4:7 NLT) My Father, I desire that the att.i.tude of John the Baptist might be my own-that Jesus would increase even as I decrease. Give me an ever-larger picture of you so I might see myself with ever-increasing clarity and revel each day in your amazing grace. Keep foolish pride far from me, and give me the sense to humble myself in healthy ways that bring strength and joy to everyone around me. Remind me constantly, Lord, that you hold my life and breath and eternal future in your loving hands and that every good thing I have comes from you. Never let me forget that although without you I can do nothing, in Christ I can do all things. The difference is you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

CHAPTER 12.

Blast a Few Walls

"See, here is water. What hinders me

from being baptized?"

Then Philip said,

"If you believe with all your heart, you may."

-ACTS 8:3637

Fans rooted for the compet.i.tion. Cheerleaders switched loyalties. The coach helped the opposition score points. Parents yelled for the compet.i.tion.

What was this?

This was the brainchild of a big-hearted football coach in Grapevine, Texas. Kris Hogan skippers the successful program of Faith Christian High School. He has seventy players, eleven coaches, quality equipment, and parents who care, make banners, attend pep rallies, and wouldn't miss a game for their own funeral.

They took their 72 record into a contest with Gainesville State School. Gainesville's players, by contrast, wear seven-year-old shoulder pads and last decade's helmets and show up at each game wearing handcuffs. Their parents don't watch them play, but twelve uniformed officers do. That's because Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility. The school doesn't have a stadium, cheerleading squad, or half a hope of winning. Gainesville was 08 going into the Grapevine game. They'd scored two touchdowns all year.

The whole situation didn't seem fair. So Coach Hogan devised a plan. He asked the fans to step across the field and, for one night only, to cheer for the other side. More than two hundred volunteered.

They formed a forty-yard spirit line. They painted "Go Tornadoes!" on a banner that the Gainesville squad could burst through. They sat on the Gainesville side of the stadium. They even learned the names of Gainesville players so they could yell for individuals.

The prisoners had heard people scream their names but never like this. Gerald, a lineman who will serve three years, said, "People are a little afraid of us when we come to the games. You can see it in their eyes. They're lookin' at us like we're criminals. But these people, they were yellin' for us. By our names!"

After the game the teams gathered in the middle of the field to say a prayer. One of the incarcerated players asked to lead it. Coach Hogan agreed, not knowing what to expect. "Lord," the boy said, "I don't know how this happened, so I don't know how to say thank you, but I never would've known there was so many people in the world that cared about us."

Grapevine fans weren't finished. After the game they waited beside the Gainesville bus to give each player a good-bye gift-burger, fries, candy, soda, a Bible, an encouraging letter, and a round of applause. As their prison bus left the parking lot, the players pressed stunned faces against the windows and wondered what had just hit them.1 Here's what hit them: a squad of bigotry-demolition experts. Their a.s.signment? Blast bias into dust. Their weapons? A fusillade of "You still matter" and "Someone still cares." Their mission? Break down barricades that separate G.o.d's children from each other.

Do any walls bisect your world? There you stand on one side. And on the other? The person you've learned to disregard, perhaps even disdain. The teen with the tats. The boss with the bucks. The immigrant with the hard-to-understand accent. The person on the opposite side of your political fence. The beggar who sits outside your church every week.

Or the Samaritans outside Jerusalem.

Talk about a wall, ancient and tall. "Jews," as John wrote in his gospel, "refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans" (John 4:9 NLT). The two cultures had hated each other for a thousand years. The feud involved claims of defection, intermarriage, and disloyalty to the temple. Samaritans were blacklisted. Their beds, utensils-even their spittle-were considered unclean.2 No orthodox Jew would travel into the region. Most Jews would gladly double the length of their trips rather than go through Samaria.

Jesus, however, played by a different set of rules. He spent the better part of a day on the turf of a Samaritan woman, drinking water from her ladle, discussing her questions (John 4:126). He stepped across the cultural taboo as if it were a sleeping dog in the doorway. Jesus loves to break down walls.

That's why he sent Philip to Samaria.

Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the mult.i.tudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed . . .

When they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of G.o.d and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. (Acts 8:57, 12) The city broke out into a revival. Peter and John heard about the response and traveled from Jerusalem to Samaria to confirm it. "When they had come down, [they] prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit" (vv. 1517).

This is a curious turn of events. Why hadn't the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit? On the Day of Pentecost, Peter promised the gift of the Spirit to those who repented and were baptized. How then can we explain the baptism of the Samaritans, which, according to Luke, was not accompanied by the Spirit? Why delay the gift?

Simple. To celebrate the falling of a wall. The gospel, for the first time, was breaching an ancient bias. G.o.d marked the moment with a ticker-tape parade of sorts. He rolled out the welcome mat and sent his apostles to verify the revival and place hands on the Samaritans. Let any doubt be gone: G.o.d accepts all people.

But he wasn't finished. He sent Philip on a second cross-cultural mission.

Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, "Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go near and overtake this chariot." (vv. 2629) Walls separated Philip from the eunuch. The Ethiopian was dark skinned; Philip was light. The official hailed from distant Africa; Philip grew up nearby. The traveler was rich enough to travel. And who was Philip but a simple refugee, banished from Jerusalem? And don't overlook the delicate matter of differing testosterone levels. Philip, we later learn, was the father of four girls (Acts 21:9). The official was a eunuch. No wife or kids or plans for either. The lives of the two men could not have been more different.

But Philip didn't hesitate. He "preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, 'See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?'" (Acts 8:3536).

No small question. A black, influential, effeminate official from Africa turns to the white, simple, virile Christian from Jerusalem and asks, "Is there any reason I can't have what you have?"

What if Philip had said, "Now that you mention it, yes. Sorry. We don't take your type"?

But Philip, charter member of the bigotry-demolition team, blasted through the wall and invited, "'If you believe with all your heart, you may.' And he answered and said, 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of G.o.d'" (v. 37).

Next thing you know, the eunuch is stepping out of the baptism waters, whistling "Jesus Loves Me," Philip is on to his next a.s.signment, and the church has her first non-Jewish convert.

And we are a bit dizzy. What do we do with a chapter like this? Samaria. Peter and John arriving. Holy Spirit falling. Gaza. Ethiopian official. Philip. What do these events teach us? They teach us how G.o.d feels about the person on the other side of the wall.

He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance . . . Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. (Eph. 2:1416 MSG) The cross of Christ creates a new people, a people unhindered by skin color or family feud. A new citizenry, based not on common ancestry or geography but on a common Savior.

My friend Buckner Fanning experienced this firsthand. He was a marine in World War II, stationed in Nagasaki three weeks after the dropping of the atomic bomb. Can you imagine a young American soldier amid the rubble and wreckage of the demolished city? Radiation-burned victims wandering the streets. Atomic fallout showering on the city. Bodies burned to a casket black. Survivors shuffling through the streets, searching for family, food, and hope. The conquering soldier, feeling not victory but grief for the suffering around him.

Instead of anger and revenge, Buckner found an oasis of grace. While patrolling the narrow streets, he came upon a sign that bore an English phrase: Methodist Church. He noted the location and resolved to return the next Sunday morning.

When he did, he entered a partially collapsed structure. Windows, shattered. Walls, buckled. The young marine stepped through the rubble, unsure how he would be received. Fifteen or so j.a.panese were setting up chairs and removing debris. When the uniformed American entered their midst, they stopped and turned.

He knew only one word in j.a.panese. He heard it. Brother. "They welcomed me as a friend," Buckner relates, the power of the moment still resonating more than sixty years after the events. They offered him a seat. He opened his Bible and, not understanding the sermon, sat and observed. During communion the worshippers brought him the elements. In that quiet moment the enmity of their nations and the hurt of the war was set aside as one Christian served another the body and blood of Christ.

Another wall came a-tumblin' down.

What walls are in your world?

Brian Overcast is knocking down walls in Morelia, Mexico. As director of the Noe Center (New Opportunities in Education), Brian and his team address the illegal immigration problem from a unique angle. Staff members told me recently, "Mexicans don't want to cross the border. If they could stay home, they would. But they can't because they can't get jobs. So we teach them English. With English skills they can get accepted into one of Mexico's low-cost universities and find a career at home. Others see illegal immigrants; we see opportunities."

Another wall down.

We can't outlive our lives if we can't get beyond our biases. Who are your Samaritans? Ethiopian eunuchs? Whom have you been taught to distrust and avoid?

It's time to remove a few bricks.

Welcome the day G.o.d takes you to your Samaria-not so distant in miles but different in styles, tastes, tongues, and traditions.

And if you meet an Ethiopian eunuch, so different yet so sincere, don't refuse that person. Don't let cla.s.s, race, gender, politics, geography, or culture hinder G.o.d's work. For the end of the matter is this: when we cross the field and cheer for the other side, everyone wins.

Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that G.o.d will be given glory.

(Rom. 15:7 NLT) Lord, in how many ways does my foolish heart make false distinctions among your people? Reveal them to me. How often do I judge someone as unworthy of you by the way I treat him or her? Rebuke me in your love. Where can I blast a wall or remove a barrier that keeps your children apart from one another? Give me some dynamite and the skill and courage to use it for your glory. What can I do in my sphere of influence to bring the love of Christ to someone who may feel ostracized or estranged from you? Lend me divine insight, and bless me with the resolve to be your hands and feet. May I be a bridge and not a wall. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

CHAPTER 13.

Don't Write Off

Anyone

Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

-ACTS 9:17

Ananias hurries through the narrow Damascus streets.1 His dense and bristling beard does not hide his serious face. Friends call as he pa.s.ses, but he doesn't pause. He murmurs as he goes, "Saul? Saul? No way. Can't be true."

He wonders if he misheard the instructions. Wonders if he should turn around and inform his wife. Wonders if he should stop and tell someone where he is headed in case he never returns. But he doesn't. Friends would call him a fool. His wife would tell him not to go.

But he has to. He scampers through the courtyard of chickens, towering camels, and little donkeys. He steps past the shop of the tailor and doesn't respond to the greeting of the tanner. He keeps moving until he reaches the street called Straight. The inn has low arches and large rooms with mattresses. Nice by Damascus standards, the place of choice for any person of significance or power, and Saul is certainly both.

Ananias and the other Christians have been preparing for him. Some of the disciples have left the city. Others have gone into hiding. Saul's reputation as a Christian-killer preceded him. But the idea of Saul the Christ follower?