WEBVTT 00:00:02.360 --> 00:00:06.960 Howdy So one of our sister congregations in our 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:09.720 Lutheran Church circuit asked me if I wanted 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:13.259 to attend a men's retreat in Montana over Labor 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:18.280 Day weekend, and I thought why not I Like to 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:20.379 get away from Houston every once in a while all 00:00:20.379 --> 00:00:23.570 the concrete everywhere. Let's be honest But 00:00:23.570 --> 00:00:26.010 I wasn't sure what to expect but it turned out 00:00:26.010 --> 00:00:29.510 to be an amazing time of fly -fishing and boating 00:00:29.510 --> 00:00:32.210 and hiking and Shotgun practice and whatever 00:00:32.210 --> 00:00:35.070 struck our fancy while we were up there some 00:00:35.070 --> 00:00:38.329 guys went golfing But I have absolutely no golfing 00:00:38.329 --> 00:00:41.710 skills. I'm barely even good at putt -putt But 00:00:41.710 --> 00:00:43.509 and believe it or not though. I actually caught 00:00:43.509 --> 00:00:46.850 five fish while fly -fishing So I was uh, that's 00:00:46.850 --> 00:00:48.509 five times more than I've ever caught in the 00:00:48.509 --> 00:00:50.390 rest of my life So, you know, that's pretty amazing 00:00:50.969 --> 00:00:54.810 But on that Saturday, I stood on the edge of 00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:59.130 a cliff about 40 feet in the air, looking down 00:00:59.130 --> 00:01:02.789 into a river. From below, it hadn't really looked 00:01:02.789 --> 00:01:05.670 all that high, but once I climbed up and stood 00:01:05.670 --> 00:01:09.250 on the edge, I realized this is higher than I 00:01:09.250 --> 00:01:13.230 thought. Now, I had seen a few people already 00:01:13.230 --> 00:01:17.400 jump. Everyone was fine, laughing. Everything 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:19.840 was great. The depth, they checked, was over 00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:23.459 100 feet. I had my water shoes. I was jumping 00:01:23.459 --> 00:01:28.760 in feet first. Everything was fine. But my knees 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:31.859 started to shake. My heart started pounding. 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:35.379 My stomach dropped. I could not let go of the 00:01:35.379 --> 00:01:39.140 rocks behind me. And I thought, what am I doing 00:01:39.140 --> 00:01:43.400 up here? Now something you should assume about 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:45.540 your pastor is that he turns almost everything 00:01:45.540 --> 00:01:49.019 into a spiritual metaphor. Of course I do, it's 00:01:49.019 --> 00:01:52.219 my job. But I thought to myself, what if God 00:01:52.219 --> 00:01:54.719 had told me to jump? He didn't tell me to jump, 00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:58.219 but I'm just saying. Would I trust him? Would 00:01:58.219 --> 00:02:02.319 I obey him even if I was afraid? Now I know God 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:05.239 doesn't work like that. He doesn't just tell 00:02:05.239 --> 00:02:07.319 us to jump off of cliffs to prove our faith. 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:10.520 But I had been scared a lot when I was a kid. 00:02:11.210 --> 00:02:15.590 I had avoided too many challenges that would 00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:19.449 have helped me when I was younger. And since 00:02:19.449 --> 00:02:22.550 then, I sometimes look for things that push me 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:25.389 out of my comfort zone to give me some of those 00:02:25.389 --> 00:02:29.129 experiences. So that's where my mind went. If 00:02:29.129 --> 00:02:32.650 God asked me to do something scary, knowing that 00:02:32.650 --> 00:02:35.849 I would get through it, something that may not 00:02:35.849 --> 00:02:40.580 have made much sense, but would I obey? And then 00:02:40.580 --> 00:02:43.580 another thought hit me. Why even climb all the 00:02:43.580 --> 00:02:46.219 way up here if I'm not going to jump? I had already 00:02:46.219 --> 00:02:50.060 made the climb. The choice was right in front 00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:53.740 of me. You can't just stay neutral. Was I going 00:02:53.740 --> 00:02:56.060 to stand up there and make my friends wait another 00:02:56.060 --> 00:02:59.360 hour and a half for me to jump? Yeah, I didn't 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:02.379 realize it was that long. It was that long. Or 00:03:02.379 --> 00:03:08.180 was I going to leap? And so finally, I jumped. 00:03:09.129 --> 00:03:11.430 Isn't it amazing how we take the simplest of 00:03:11.430 --> 00:03:14.509 things and we make it into something complicated? 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:18.530 Moses faced something like that. He brought the 00:03:18.530 --> 00:03:21.650 children of Israel out of Egypt out of slavery, 00:03:22.669 --> 00:03:24.509 and yet the whole time they kept complaining. 00:03:25.310 --> 00:03:27.210 It should have been fairly straightforward, right? 00:03:27.569 --> 00:03:30.710 Wouldn't you like to leave that? He had brought 00:03:30.710 --> 00:03:32.810 the children of Israel out of Egypt and they 00:03:32.810 --> 00:03:36.879 kept complaining. But Jesus just wanted the people 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.719 to follow him. Of course it's going to be hard 00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:44.139 going through a wilderness to get home, but they 00:03:44.139 --> 00:03:47.879 couldn't seem to somehow just accept following 00:03:47.879 --> 00:03:51.340 after the God who loved them. Moses showed them 00:03:51.340 --> 00:03:54.319 that God's Word, it's not far away, it's not 00:03:54.319 --> 00:03:57.400 unreachable. His commands are not impossible. 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:03.000 His will, it's accessible. When we realize that 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.460 we have a choice before us, life and prosperity 00:04:06.460 --> 00:04:09.460 with God versus death and destruction without 00:04:09.460 --> 00:04:15.360 Him, God calls His people to decide. See, we're 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:18.420 meant to choose life, not by looking for the 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:21.600 quick thrill of jumping into a river, but by 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:25.240 loving the Lord, walking in His ways and holding 00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:29.720 fast to Him. See, that's what leads to life and 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:32.850 blessing. But that's also where the metaphor 00:04:32.850 --> 00:04:36.610 of my cliff jump stopped being just a metaphor. 00:04:38.110 --> 00:04:41.410 See, here's the thing. When I hit the water, 00:04:41.970 --> 00:04:45.589 I didn't cross my arms the way that I probably 00:04:45.589 --> 00:04:48.689 should have. See, somehow I must have leaned 00:04:48.689 --> 00:04:51.509 forward just a little bit, and the impact caught 00:04:51.509 --> 00:04:55.990 me right in the chest. The spot in my sternum 00:04:55.990 --> 00:04:58.850 where my chest muscles were weakened years ago 00:04:58.850 --> 00:05:01.980 by cancer radiation therapy, which nobody else 00:05:01.980 --> 00:05:04.279 had, so nobody else would have thought to mention 00:05:04.279 --> 00:05:08.519 it. And it fractured. Yes, I am preaching with 00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:12.339 a fractured sternum. It's a lot of ibuprofen. 00:05:14.319 --> 00:05:20.000 See, following, even in a silly practice metaphor, 00:05:21.899 --> 00:05:26.060 it cost me something. It hurt, and it still does. 00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:29.120 But that's the reality of the Christian life. 00:05:30.149 --> 00:05:32.689 Following Christ isn't just about the moments 00:05:32.689 --> 00:05:36.329 that work out neatly. They're not about where 00:05:36.329 --> 00:05:38.589 the prayers get answered in exactly the way we 00:05:38.589 --> 00:05:41.990 wanted. It's not where the paths are smooth, 00:05:42.290 --> 00:05:46.110 because sometimes faith costs. Sometimes obedience 00:05:46.110 --> 00:05:49.129 hurts. But the good part about Jesus is that 00:05:49.129 --> 00:05:52.709 he doesn't hide that. In Luke 14, Jesus said 00:05:52.709 --> 00:05:56.350 to the crowds, if you want to follow me, count 00:05:56.350 --> 00:06:01.720 the cost. Whoever does not carry his cross and 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:05.680 follow me cannot be my disciple. He says it plainly, 00:06:05.899 --> 00:06:11.100 count the cost. Don't pretend discipleship is 00:06:11.100 --> 00:06:14.139 going to be painless. See, that's how life often 00:06:14.139 --> 00:06:17.839 works, isn't it? We face these cliff edge moments. 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:21.579 We oftentimes want Christian faith to be the 00:06:21.579 --> 00:06:25.490 default for normal people. just to be neutral. 00:06:25.629 --> 00:06:27.930 We cruise along the river and watch the cliffs 00:06:27.930 --> 00:06:30.509 from a distance. But there are these moments 00:06:30.509 --> 00:06:33.209 in our lives when we find ourselves at a place 00:06:33.209 --> 00:06:38.689 where we can't always be neutral. Neutral itself, 00:06:39.410 --> 00:06:45.350 indecision itself, is a decision. Do we stand 00:06:45.350 --> 00:06:48.750 up for people being oppressed? Do we tell someone 00:06:48.750 --> 00:06:51.110 they've gone too far and that we cannot accept 00:06:51.110 --> 00:06:55.480 it any longer? The question is always the same. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:59.480 Are we willing to jump? Are we willing to take 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:02.699 the risk? And are we willing to pay the price 00:07:02.699 --> 00:07:06.120 when we do? And often it's not the climb that's 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:10.379 the hardest part. We may talk a good talk, saying 00:07:10.379 --> 00:07:12.600 what we would do if the choice was in front of 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:15.699 us, how we must be willing to choose what isn't 00:07:15.699 --> 00:07:18.939 what others would accept. It's the choice at 00:07:18.939 --> 00:07:23.459 the top that matters. when we don't feel the 00:07:23.459 --> 00:07:25.980 ground under our feet and we have to keep moving 00:07:25.980 --> 00:07:30.060 forward. See, life in Christ requires that we 00:07:30.060 --> 00:07:37.699 choose Him daily. It's the moments when the cost 00:07:37.699 --> 00:07:40.519 becomes clear, when we realize that this could 00:07:40.519 --> 00:07:45.620 hurt, when we know that not everyone, maybe not 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:49.639 even those closest to us, will agree or understand. 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:55.100 And that's when faith gets real. But don't miss 00:07:55.100 --> 00:07:59.500 this. Life is on the other side of the leap. 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:04.379 When I told my mom later on, yes, I told my mom 00:08:04.379 --> 00:08:07.560 later on. See, I know how bad it would be if 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:09.860 she gave me a hug sometime in the next month 00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:12.720 and I wince in pain and she's like, what's going 00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:18.160 on? Why didn't you tell me? She was not very 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.519 happy. Didn't she teach her son not to jump off 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:23.360 of cliffs just because everyone else was doing 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:27.600 it? Her immediate response, why would you do 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:30.699 that? And then after a nice long pause added, 00:08:32.059 --> 00:08:34.440 well, you're 45 years old. You can make your 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:39.960 own decisions. And she's right. Nobody could 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:43.899 make that decision for me. Not even the people 00:08:43.899 --> 00:08:46.320 who love me the most. But isn't that the way 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:49.409 it is? with most important decisions anyway. 00:08:50.690 --> 00:08:53.230 Jesus is very clear in Luke 14. He's walking 00:08:53.230 --> 00:08:55.470 with the crowds, and He turns to them and says, 00:08:55.629 --> 00:08:59.370 if you want to follow Me, count the cost. It 00:08:59.370 --> 00:09:02.409 won't be easy. And it may mean putting Me before 00:09:02.409 --> 00:09:04.669 your family, your possessions, your comfort. 00:09:05.049 --> 00:09:10.070 It will cost you everything. That's a hard one. 00:09:11.190 --> 00:09:14.210 It's one thing to cheer for Jesus when He heals 00:09:14.210 --> 00:09:17.590 and when He multiplies bread and fish. Thanks 00:09:17.590 --> 00:09:21.149 for feeding us. Thanks for taking away my limp. 00:09:22.110 --> 00:09:26.389 But to follow Him? To really follow? When we're 00:09:26.389 --> 00:09:29.470 called to eat His body and drink His blood? To 00:09:29.470 --> 00:09:32.250 accept the sacrifice that He showed us on the 00:09:32.250 --> 00:09:37.809 cross that now defines our lives? Putting our 00:09:37.809 --> 00:09:42.730 lives in His hands. Even if it bruises us. Even 00:09:42.730 --> 00:09:47.309 if it costs us. even if we lose everything, even 00:09:47.309 --> 00:09:52.710 our own reputation, even if it kills us. And 00:09:52.710 --> 00:09:58.730 then Jesus starts talking about salt. If salt 00:09:58.730 --> 00:10:02.470 loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty 00:10:02.470 --> 00:10:07.269 again? And isn't that so strange? How does that 00:10:07.269 --> 00:10:11.059 make any sense? How is salt not... Salty have 00:10:11.059 --> 00:10:14.159 you ever gone in the pantry and grabbed the salt 00:10:14.159 --> 00:10:16.200 and like take it a little bit and taste it and 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:21.159 be like ooh jelly beans no Salt is salt. How 00:10:21.159 --> 00:10:25.220 is salt not salty pure? Well, okay, I guess I 00:10:25.220 --> 00:10:29.399 may figure it out see pure salt The kind that 00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:31.519 we buy in the stores today. It's not gonna lose 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:34.440 its saltiness because sodium chloride You know 00:10:34.440 --> 00:10:37.720 NaCl that table salt. It's not gonna stop being 00:10:38.490 --> 00:10:41.870 Table salt. It's stable. If you put it on your 00:10:41.870 --> 00:10:43.990 tongue in a hundred years, it's gonna still taste 00:10:43.990 --> 00:10:47.970 like salt. But in Jesus' day, salt often came 00:10:47.970 --> 00:10:50.950 from places like the Dead Sea. It was a mixture 00:10:50.950 --> 00:10:55.950 of salt, gypsum, sand, and other minerals. If 00:10:55.950 --> 00:10:59.809 the mixture was exposed to moisture, the actual 00:10:59.809 --> 00:11:02.669 salt would dissolve away and leave a chalky, 00:11:02.970 --> 00:11:05.429 tasteless white powder of everything else that 00:11:05.429 --> 00:11:08.889 looked like salt. but tasted like nothing. It 00:11:08.889 --> 00:11:13.830 was useless. Who knew? See, that's what discipleship 00:11:13.830 --> 00:11:16.990 without commitment is like. It still looks like 00:11:16.990 --> 00:11:20.529 the real thing, but it's lost its purpose. That's 00:11:20.529 --> 00:11:22.590 what happens when we claim to follow Christ, 00:11:22.850 --> 00:11:25.649 but we back down when others look at us and say, 00:11:25.889 --> 00:11:29.730 ooh, why would you want to do that? A disciple 00:11:29.730 --> 00:11:33.309 who loses their distinctiveness, their flavor, 00:11:34.309 --> 00:11:38.129 becomes like that residue. We may look like salt, 00:11:39.269 --> 00:11:42.669 but we're no longer useful. And that's what it 00:11:42.669 --> 00:11:45.769 felt like on that cliff when suddenly a young 00:11:45.769 --> 00:11:51.529 girl climbed to the top. Her father went up there 00:11:51.529 --> 00:11:56.429 with her, and he jumped. Her older sister held 00:11:56.429 --> 00:12:01.090 her hand and jumped only for the young girl to 00:12:01.090 --> 00:12:04.850 let go at the very last second. I was like, man, 00:12:04.870 --> 00:12:08.830 that was good. Yeah, well done. Someone even 00:12:08.830 --> 00:12:10.629 tried to throw a rock to show that it wasn't 00:12:10.629 --> 00:12:13.049 really all that far. Yeah, that did not help 00:12:13.049 --> 00:12:17.230 at all. While I had already been up there for 00:12:17.230 --> 00:12:21.009 an hour by then, she stood there with me for 00:12:21.009 --> 00:12:23.309 half an hour while others were trying to convince 00:12:23.309 --> 00:12:27.529 her to jump. They'd kind of given up on me. For 00:12:27.529 --> 00:12:30.669 some reason, a comment made by her father who 00:12:30.669 --> 00:12:34.529 climbed back up again, It brought to mind for 00:12:34.529 --> 00:12:38.470 me a physics lesson which of course it did and 00:12:38.470 --> 00:12:41.370 I started rambling about how gravity is you know 00:12:41.370 --> 00:12:43.909 a law, but it's just the appearance of gravitational 00:12:43.909 --> 00:12:47.149 acceleration in the universe when enacted upon 00:12:47.149 --> 00:12:50.590 a Area that looks like a flat surface and the 00:12:50.590 --> 00:12:53.690 girl looked at me and said Why are you talking 00:12:53.690 --> 00:12:59.809 to me about this instead of jumping? Ouch young 00:12:59.809 --> 00:13:07.240 girl ouch And 45 seconds later, I jumped. And 00:13:07.240 --> 00:13:09.620 two minutes after that, she jumped with her family. 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:16.100 Why did that comment get me to jump? Because 00:13:16.100 --> 00:13:18.059 we realize that the very thing that gets us to 00:13:18.059 --> 00:13:20.720 do the hard things is when we realize our part 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:24.480 in living for the next generation. I didn't want 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:27.179 that girl to let my fear become an excuse for 00:13:27.179 --> 00:13:31.779 her to avoid something she really wanted. Something 00:13:31.779 --> 00:13:34.759 that maybe she needed. I've been there and I 00:13:34.759 --> 00:13:37.940 didn't want that for her. I wanted her to be 00:13:37.940 --> 00:13:40.139 brave in ways that I wasn't when I was a kid. 00:13:41.500 --> 00:13:43.860 We come back to church often times when we have 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:46.899 our own children. We walk away from abuse because 00:13:46.899 --> 00:13:49.139 we can't let others see that as an example of 00:13:49.139 --> 00:13:52.559 how to live. We leave our dream job so we don't 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:55.139 miss out on spending time with nieces and nephews. 00:13:55.879 --> 00:13:58.539 We stay with a lower paying job so we can spend 00:13:58.539 --> 00:14:02.210 time with the kids who need us the most. But 00:14:02.210 --> 00:14:04.789 salt isn't something that changes how salty it 00:14:04.789 --> 00:14:08.350 is over time. Deciding to lose its saltiness 00:14:08.350 --> 00:14:11.230 during college and then finding its way again 00:14:11.230 --> 00:14:14.950 after the fun years end. It's either salt or 00:14:14.950 --> 00:14:19.649 it isn't. Are you salt? And if you are, where 00:14:19.649 --> 00:14:25.450 is your flavor? So here's a question. Where are 00:14:25.450 --> 00:14:28.590 you standing at the edge right now? What cliff 00:14:28.590 --> 00:14:31.570 has God brought you to? Maybe it's a decision 00:14:31.570 --> 00:14:34.549 to forgive someone who hurt you. Maybe it's a 00:14:34.549 --> 00:14:36.929 call to give more generously than feel safe. 00:14:37.649 --> 00:14:39.850 Maybe it's speaking about your faith in a place 00:14:39.850 --> 00:14:43.070 where you'd rather keep quiet. Maybe it's letting 00:14:43.070 --> 00:14:47.769 go of something you've been clinging to. But 00:14:47.769 --> 00:14:50.370 standing on the edge is scary, and frankly, the 00:14:50.370 --> 00:14:53.490 leap may bruise you. It may even fracture something. 00:14:54.669 --> 00:14:57.269 It may mean that people close to you shake their 00:14:57.269 --> 00:14:59.269 heads and say, why would you do that, Christian? 00:15:00.529 --> 00:15:03.830 But the leap is where faith becomes real. It's 00:15:03.830 --> 00:15:07.450 where life with Christ begins. And as a church, 00:15:08.350 --> 00:15:11.929 that's our calling too. Not to jump off the cliffs, 00:15:12.850 --> 00:15:16.570 but to follow Christ. We're called to be salt. 00:15:17.490 --> 00:15:20.210 Not to look like salt, but to live with flavor, 00:15:20.990 --> 00:15:22.789 with distinctiveness, with faithfulness that 00:15:22.789 --> 00:15:25.509 endures. We are called to be a people who don't 00:15:25.509 --> 00:15:28.120 just stand on the edge of a cliff, admiring the 00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:31.700 view but who leap into the waters of God's promise. 00:15:32.860 --> 00:15:36.519 Because here's the truth. Choosing life in Christ 00:15:36.519 --> 00:15:40.399 is not about avoiding pain. It's about trusting 00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:43.039 that the life He gives is greater than any cost 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:47.879 we could bear. Moses said it long ago. Choose 00:15:47.879 --> 00:15:51.000 life so that you and your children may live. 00:15:52.139 --> 00:15:54.659 Jesus says it even more clearly. Whoever loses 00:15:54.659 --> 00:15:59.720 his life for my sake will find it. So may we 00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:04.679 not hesitate at the edge. May we count the cost 00:16:04.679 --> 00:16:09.320 and still leap. May we choose life by choosing 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:12.779 Christ. And don't forget to cross your arms when 00:16:12.779 --> 00:16:15.440 you jump. Thanks be to God.