Mark Johnston

Smart People

I’ve heard multiple sermons about Jesus choosing his disciples.  He overlooked those bursting with potential.  He bypassed those brimming with knowledge.  He selected instead the last, the least, and the leftovers.

A tax collector.  A zealot.  Some fishermen.

This is encouraging since we’re surrounded by a system that measures people almost exclusively based on gifts and poise and accomplishments and mental prowess.  Jesus saw through the clutter on the surface and examined the heart; finding the promise he was looking for on the inside rather than the outside.

Which means you don’t have to have a graduate degree, be a gifted communicator, or possess the finest entrepreneurial skills to follow Jesus.

But what if you do have a graduate degree?  What if you are a stellar speaker?  What if everything you touch turns to gold?  What if you can start a business with the ease with which some people start a pot of coffee?  What if you’re a science whiz, a prolific writer, a rising star, a seismically talented individual?

What if you’re the thirteenth disciple?

You remember him, right?  Paul wasn’t a fisherman.  He wasn’t a tax collector.  He wasn’t at the bottom of the heap or the middle of his class.  Paul was an intellectual.  A Pharisee of the Pharisees.  Raised at the feet of one of the most venerated religious instructors of his era.  A mind-numbingly intelligent human being; intrepid and confident. 

Then he met Jesus and became vanilla, right?  Isn’t that what he says? “…everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ” (Philippians 3:8 – MSG).

Yet the reality argues differently.  By the time Paul was a decade or two into his ministry, he’d reached into a significant number of major cities on his continent for Christ.  He testified before kings, wrote half the New Testament, and mentored some of the most outstanding leaders the church would know.  He stood up to a religious sect that tried to hijack Christianity – and shut them down.  He stuck his finger in the chest of Peter, the guy Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to, and told him to back off so the message could move forward.

He launched new churches with the ease with which most people vacuum their SUV or throw in a load of laundry.

Paul might have felt like he’d thrown it all away to follow Jesus, but Jesus didn’t feel that way.  Jesus didn’t rob Paul of his gifts.  He just redirected them.

If you own the company you work for, know how to write books, negotiate deals, create strategies, or diagram the universe, following Jesus means dumping all of that in the trash.  Switching the source of your confidence.  But chances are good Jesus will dig it out, dust it off, and give it back to you.  To use for his glory instead of your own.

Because the gospel is for everyone.  Even smart people.

High Rollers

I know nothing about gambling.  I’ve never been in a casino except to stand in line for a buffet.  I’ve never tried poker (although I think I may have the face for it).  I’ve never even bought a lottery ticket.  It’s just not my thing.

But I want to live like a high roller nonetheless. 

A high roller is a gambler who bets extraordinarily large amounts of money.  When they show up at a casino, the red carpet is rolled out.  We’re not talking 50% off the seafood smorgasbord, but complimentary limousine use, a personal concierge, and a key to the penthouse suite.

High rollers take big chances because they have big resources to back them up.  They have the guts to roll the dice.  And that’s how I want to live when it comes to spiritual things.

Of course, there are times when it’s best to not take a risk.  But I’m learning that the worst possible thing a follower of Christ can do over time is nothing.  Doing nothing with your potential, your opportunities, your talents and gifts and creative faculties… that’s the worst bet of all.

You may protest: “But I’m not doing nothing – every day I get up and go to work/do my chores/finish my projects.”  Nothing disguised to look like something may be the worst nothing of all.  Just because you show up every day with the dice clenched tightly in your fist doesn’t make you a high roller.

You’ve gotta roll when it comes to your confidence in God.  Don’t just sit there with the cards in your hand (yes, I switched metaphors).  After all, this isn’t just a game of chance; it’s a game of faith.  There’s a power in play beyond some random results.  God is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Jesus said it this way: “To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29 – NLT).

If your vision of life is safety and no big surprises – if that’s your view of the “faithfulness” the scriptures call for – then gamble small.  Be a low roller for Jesus.  Pull a couple one-armed bandits; throw some chump change at your future.

But if your dreams are big; if you catch yourself thinking in terms of what can influence an entire office building or city or region or culture; if you hope to start something or extend something or revamp something that over time could change the world; then bet the farm baby.

Whatever you do, don’t let the dice get all sweaty in your palms and assume holding on is the safest bet when it comes to your faith.  Roll.

If you want the perks, you have to go big.  Heaven caters to the high rollers.  I’m betting on it.

Symptoms

Everyone’s sick lately.  The stomach bug has gone around.  Colds and sinus infections and fevers have all made an appearance.

God has given us effective, if slightly uncomfortable, mechanisms for knowing when to pay attention, take a day off, or crawl into bed.  They’re called symptoms. 

Sneezing, coughing, throwing up, and the runs are all symptoms.  They’re not the sickness itself; that’s some far more ominous invisible thing going on inside.  They’re just the red flags that indicate a disorder.

Thankfully, humans continue to develop increasingly potent ways to attack our symptoms: Nyquil and Pepto; Tylenol and Sudafed… all symptom relievers.  They make us feel better while whatever is actually wrong runs its course.

The dark side is that in suppressing our symptoms we create an illusion of health, not true health itself.  Some studies suggest that medicating a virus may actually extend the length of time we’re ill.  Apparently the body, in the absence of symptoms, doesn’t fight as furiously against the underlying bug.

Of course we’re happier – our nose isn’t running as constantly, our throat doesn’t hurt as much, and our aches and chills are eased.  And we’re also more presentable; we can function socially without the embarrassment of a trail of snot, a hacking cough, or a sudden departure for the restroom.

Jesus said, “When an evil spirit comes out of a person [when the symptoms disappear], it travels through dry places, looking for a place to rest, but it doesn’t find it.  So the spirit says, ‘I will go back to the house I left.’” (Matthew 12:43-45 – NCV)

Much of what passes for spirituality is little more than symptom management: the suppression of outward behaviors that stem from our fallen condition.  Churches are filled with presentable people who’ve dried up their moral mucus and soothed their outward fever – but is it legitimate healing or only superficial alterations?

Is the Christian faith primarily about the absence of symptoms?  Or the presence of Jesus?

Certainly, symptoms are a definitive sign that something’s wrong (a reality we can find it equally convenient to ignore).  But a lack of symptoms for a day or week or month doesn’t necessarily indicate that we’ve been cured.  Maybe we’ve just duped ourselves into believing that a good moral life is somehow a substitute for the genuine transformation only Jesus brings.

Which is what we need, by the way: not just a solution for our symptoms, but the saving power of Christ.

And while we’re at it we need to cease being surprised by the spiritually runny noses and high fevers of people who do not yet know Christ.  Stop trying to fix their symptoms.  They’re sick, but you’re not the cure: Jesus is.

Symptoms are a sign that’s something’s wrong, but their absence doesn’t mean something’s right.  Maybe we need to get honest about what’s really wrong with us so Jesus can heal us – rather than procrastinating the truth while hiding behind our symptom management.

Miracle

It’s been humbling to watch God at work in The Journey over the past few months.

People are finding Jesus and following him fully.  Every week, people are putting their faith in Christ; taking next steps of spiritual growth; and strengthening their character and witness as believers.  Our weekend gatherings have increased 75% since last year.  More people have completed Launch (finding their place in God’s story here) in the past five months than in the previous three years. 

More of us are participating in Life Groups.  Every week, new people are volunteering.  We made a radical decision at the beginning of 2011 to set aside significantly more money than we budgeted last year for those who are near us and need us in our community – and God has honored it by growing The Journey financially.

God is at work.

In the midst of this, an opportunity has opened up.  For two years, we’ve been preparing to move.  We maximized our current campus to reach and connect people.  We hired staff to empower members for ministry.  And we set our sights on moving to a new and better place so we can continue to grow.

It may be time.

A building we’ve been looking at for two years has come back on the market.  If you attend The Journey, I showed a picture of it this past fall.   It’s what we’ve been dreaming of.  It fits (or exceeds) all the criteria we laid out last November:

• 20-40,000 square feet (it’s 50,000)
• $2-3 million purchase price
• $400-600,000 cash up front
• Within 5 miles of our current campus (it’s 3.08 miles away)
• Visible and accessible (28,000 cars a day drive by it, and there’s plenty of parking)

It’s a game-changer.

Of course, there’s a catch.  Two catches, actually: first, we have a competitor – a business has made an offer on the building; and second, we need $300,000 cash to complete our offer.

We’re starting a series next weekend called Miracles.  Coincidentally (coincidences are things that happen more often when we pray), we need a miracle.  We need the business that is looking at this property to go away – to lose interest or pursue something else.  (They want this building to sell widgets; we want it to give back to our community.  Our vision trumps theirs.)  And we need a financial phenomenon to move forward.

We need a miracle.

If you’re a part of this community of faith, or simply love The Journey, will you pray for a miracle over the next 72 hours?  Our God is able, the moment’s right, and we’re in position.

(If you’d like to act on faith by giving financially, simply click HERE.  Choose “Life Investments” or “Offering” to designate your gift.  You can also mail us at The Journey, 723 Dawson Drive, Newark, DE 19713.)

Easy

It’s easy to follow Jesus.

Don’t believe me?  Just listen to him: “The teaching that I ask you to accept is easy; the load I give you to carry is light” (Matthew 11:29,30 – NCV).

I understand the revolt some spiritual leaders are championing against the “wussifying” of Christianity.  I get that there’s a shift away from believers as consumers and churches as spiritual Walmarts.  I’m grateful for the boldness that calls a spade a spade, drawing clear lines amidst the fuzzy moral grayness of our ultra-permissive culture.

Because of course, in so many ways, following Jesus is anything but easy.  There’s a life to be left behind, a cross to be taken up, and a spiritual battle to be engaged.  But this didn’t deter the one who started it all from insisting that his teaching is easy and his load is light.

Seth Godin said recently: “Setting up [people] to be right is almost always worth the effort.  It’s so much more useful than setting people up to fail… When in doubt, make it so people succeed.” 

Jesus seemed to have a vested interest in setting some people up to be right (and others up to be very wrong – that’s another blog for another time).  He set the woman caught in adultery up to be right, asking her: “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” and then relieving her soul with the words, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”  He set Zacchaeus up to be right: “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today;” although the crowd wondered why he would seek face time with such a sinner.

Does your church set people up to be right whenever you can, to succeed in their spiritual growth?

People are going to face enough hell (literally) in following Jesus; why would we provide more hoops for them to jump through (wear this, not that; use this translation of the Bible, not that; believe what this denomination believes, not that)?  Why would we ever leave it unclear how to take the next step, form a friendship, and take shape in their faith?  Why would we take the easy teaching of Jesus and make it more difficult?

If you think I’m suggesting dumbing down the faith, far from it.  I’m just suggesting dumbing down our ridiculously long and arbitrary list of additions to the faith; removing the hoops, leaving the only hard leap to be believing the gospel and following Christ.

Apparently, if the teaching of your church isn’t easy (in the respect of not making it difficult for people to come to Christ, connect with others, and grow spiritually), then it isn’t the teaching of Jesus.  And if the weight of belonging to your group isn’t light, it isn’t the weight of Jesus.

His is easy.

Old Buddy, Old Pal

Here’s something I’ve noticed about friendships: they’re easy to maintain in the middle.

What I mean is that the quality of a friendship (and of a friend) is rarely tested when life is uninteresting and routine.  Minor, everyday issues don’t pull on the fabric of a friendship with much force at all.  It’s easy to have and be a friend who celebrates when things are going moderately well and encourages when things are going relatively badly.

Friends aren’t hard to find in the middle.

It’s on the fringes of life that friends become harder and harder to find and to keep.  When catastrophic pain explodes in your life.  Or when unprecedented success shows up.

In those extremes, friends tend to fade.  When the pain is so intense it stops life in its tracks rather than simply slowing us down.  When suffering takes on otherworldly proportions.  That’s when many friends will fall away.  They simply can’t handle the scope of our sadness.  The depth of our sorrow exposes the shallowness of their character.

The same is true in times of sensational triumph, oddly enough.  Certainly a few companions with ill motives flock to whichever light is currently burning brightest.  But many of the people we believed we were close with will cool in their affections as thoroughly during great victories as they do during great calamities.  They’ll make the mistake of assuming that now that we’re successful we don’t need them like we once did – when the truth is, we need them more now than ever, to keep us balanced and confident during the stress of achievement.  The height of our conquest reveals the extent of their insecurity.

All of this lies in stark contrast to the teaching of scripture.  Paul writes, Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15 – NIV).  That’s the kind of friendship that doesn’t fade on the fringes of life, at the extremes of suffering or success.  That’s the kind of friends you want to have.  That’s the kind of friend you’re called to be.

This requires the mind and heart and character of Christ coming alive in us.  A willingness to hang with a friend whose head is hanging low; to plumb the depths with someone on the edge of insanity because of their grief.  To mourn with those who mourn.  And a commitment to stick with a friend who is enjoying unparalleled favor; to rise to the heights with them, affirming and celebrating their attainments even when they’re far greater than our own.  To rejoice with those who rejoice.

What kind of friends do you have?  Friends who disappear on the fringes, or friends who can handle your extremes?  And what kind of friend are you?  A friend that falters when the pain is too great or the success too significant, or someone who can handle the depths and the heights?

The difference can mean the world – old buddy, old pal.