November 4, 2007 All Saints Sunday

Sermon Title: “The Measure of a Man”

Series: None

Text: Luke 6:20-31

Dr. Steve Jackson

NewSong Community Church

Delivered on November 4, 2007

 

“Then he looked up at his disciples and said: Blessed are you…but woe to you….”
Luke, Chapter 6

 

The Measure of a Man

 

Today is the day in the church year known as All Saints Sunday. Since the fourth century this day has been set aside to remember all the dearly departed saints who have gone to their heavenly reward.  But the day also begs the question, what makes a person a saint? How do you make the list?


When I think of “saints” I think of people like Mother Theresa, and Billy Graham. We think of great people that have roads, hospitals and churches named after them; people who have made significant contributions to our world. You know, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, folks like that. We might even include an occasional grandmother or grandfather, aunt or uncle in our personal list of saints. The truth is, the term has multiple meanings for most of us, all the way from someone who is virtually sinless to someone who is remembered long after they died because of their deeds.  What is the measure of a life well led? Why do some people measure up to sainthood, and others don’t?

 

The suggested Scripture lessons for the day tell us something about what makes a saint. There in the last verse of the Daniel passage we read, “But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever” (Dan. 7:18). The reading from the Psalm is all about the “faithful ones.” “Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful” (Psalm 149:1). In the Ephesians passage Paul talks about the glorious inheritance “the faithful” have obtained and how they are set apart by the seal of the Holy Spirit. Paul writes, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and of your love toward all the saints…” (Eph. 1:15). And then there is the passage from Luke we just read, which seems to contrast what a saint looks like compared to the rest of us. This is Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount and in many ways it describes what a saint looks like. It give us the truest “Measure of a Man” we have available to us.

 

And so today, since I know we all want to be saints, were going to talk about “The Measure of a Man” (not meaning that in sexist terms at all). We’re going to talk about the way God measures a person versus what you might call the “world’s” measure. As you probably already suspect, there is a huge difference between the two.

 

Some years ago the Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer published an article titled: “How Do You Measure Up as a Man?” The article claimed that after extensively researching the question, several criteria had come up as the main determinants in most men’s minds about “success.” There are eight of these:

 

1. The ability to make and conserve money.

2. The cost, style and age of his car.

3. How much hair he has.

4. His strength and size.

5. The job he holds and how successful he is at it.

6. What sports he likes

7. How many clubs he belongs to.

8. His aggressiveness and reliability.

 

I did some very informal research myself this past week on the Internet and came up with my own list of four things that seemed to be on everyone’s (male and female) list of what success looks like:

 

1. Wealth

2. Health/Looks/Youth

3. Happiness

4. Fame/Celebrity

 

Jesus gives us four blessings and four woes this morning. The blessings are on the deprived: the poor, hungry, weeping, and rejected. The woes, on the other hand, are on the opposite folks: the rich, full, laughing, and accepted. It’s no coincidence that the four measures Jesus chose here are almost identical to the markers we choose today to determine the “haves” from the “have nots.”

 

But you’re not surprised that Jesus would say this, are you? You already knew about the topsy-turvy world of the kingdom. You know where, “the last shall be first, it’s more blessed to give than to receive, you must lose your life to save it, up is down, etc…”

 

I mean, back to our point here—technically you become a saint by dying, right? Who wants to be successful at that? There’s something I’ve pondered many times…ask yourself, would you rather be a famous, “successful” dead person, or a live “nobody” like you and me? Makes you think doesn’t it?

 

Some of us, of course, would like to have the best of both worlds: success by worldly standards, and success in terms of being considered a saint. Is it an either or proposition? Charlemagne was one of the last great emperors of Rome. In his day he was the most powerful man on earth. And when he died he decreed his body should be dressed in his emperor’s robe and seated upon a throne inside his tomb with a crown on his head, a scepter in his hand, a sword by his side, and an open Bible on his knees, with his bony finger is pointing to a Matthew 16:26 which reads, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his own soul?”

 

Can you have the best of both worlds? Or must we choose one or the other?

 

Let’s consider Jesus’ description of a successful person. What do you make of that? I mean, does anyone here today really believe it’s better to be poor than rich? Hungry instead of full? Weeping instead of laughing? And hated instead of accepted?

 

As I see it we have several options when it comes to what Jesus meant by these words.

 

For instance, we can view these words of Jesus as merely Words of Consolation. I mean, think about it (without trying to sound extremely cynical and negative) there’s a whole lot more people out there in the world who are poor, hungry, weeping and rejected than there are the other kind. We live in a bubble of prosperity here in the United States. I mean, let’s face it, we get all panicky when we can’t water our lawns here, while in much of the world people don’t even have drinking water. Maybe what Jesus was doing here was just trying to make the masses feel better by saying (in effect), “Consider yourself blessed! You don’t have all the worries the rich, good-looking, well-fed folks have!

 

Do you think that’s it? I’ve heard people do that before. I’ve been talking to people explaining the great need in places like Africa and other parts of the world, and after I’ve describe the conditions there, some folks will say, “Yes, they may be poor, but they sure are happy! They aren’t happy, or else they wouldn’t always be trying to get to the USA! Those are words of consolation, well meant, no doubt, but they’re words we say to make ourselves feel less guilty on this side of the ocean, or on this side of the tracks. They make no sense biblically—at least in my mind.

 

Do you that’s what Jesus was doing? Just trying to make folks feel better about themselves since they were in such bad shape? I don’t.

 

A second option could be that these are Words of Condemnation. By that I mean, perhaps this was Jesus’ way of letting the “have nots” of the world know it’s okay to trash and criticize the “haves” of the world. In fact, if you think about it, many times it seems the “haves” make it all too easy to do that, don’t they? Earlier this week I read an interview with the poor little rich girl Britney Spears where she was lamenting (and I quote) “It’s sad how cruel our world can be…” Don’t you feel sorry for her? Perhaps we should. I also read where a church in Kentucky has put Britney on their prayer list and is collecting letters of encouragement to send her.  I like what that church is doing a whole lot better than I do those churches and believers who use passages like this one to club folks with condemnation: “Oh, you’re rich, and full, and happy now, but someday you’ll pay for this!” Jesus died for their sins just like he did yours and mine. Besides, he said himself that he didn’t come to condemn the world, but to save it.

 

Was Jesus giving us license to condemn here? Again, I don’t think so.

 

A third option, and the one I actually believe these words are, is Words of Correction. By that I mean I believe Jesus was offering us a “corrective” to our way of thinking which is warped by the fall. I specifically do not think he was saying it’s truly better to be poor, hungry, weeping and rejected. We know it isn’t from our own experience. I believe what he was saying is the opposite of those things—what we know as the “good life,”  tends to pull us away from God and one another. When they do, they become what I like to call “enemies of the cross.” Let me mention a few of them.

 

The first enemy of the cross—something that separates us from God—is self-sufficiency. We talked about this a little last week when we heard the Pharisee pray to God “about himself” and he didn’t ask for anything at all—why? Because he was self-sufficient, in his mind, he didn’t need a thing.

 

The truth of the matter is God can help anyone except the person who doesn’t think he or she needs any help. Self-sufficiency is a great enemy of the cross because it means I don't need God or anyone else. If you think about it, so much of what we hear, and see and read and experience all tends to promote independence from depending on anyone, even God. The “self-made man” is an American icon. But the truth is, we all need other people, and we all need God.

 

In the chapter we read in our Sunday School class a week ago, John Ortberg recalled a famous story you may have heard before about Mohammed Ali. Ali, who personally referred to himself as “The Greatest,” was on an airliner about to take off when a stewardess came by and asked him to fasten his seat-belt like everyone else. Ali replied, “Superman don’t need no seatbelt.” To which the quick-witted stewardess replied “Superman don’t need no airplane either!”

 

Where does it leave God when we’re all caught up in our self-sufficient world? It leaves Him on the outside! Over in the book of Revelation Jesus addresses a self-sufficient church—the church in Laodicea. And he says to them, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20). Isn’t it great that Jesus, despite our flagrant sense of independence, still wants us! He still longs for the kind of intimate table fellowship he shared with his disciples with you and me. The corrective Jesus offers here to all of us, rich or poor, hungry or filled, is that we need God and we need one another. We are not self-sufficient. I love the way the refrain from an old hymn says it, “I need thee, O I need thee; every hour I need thee; O bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee.”

 

A second enemy of the cross is self-centeredness. In addition to feeling self-sufficient, having plenty of money, being filled and spoken well of can lead us to think only of ourselves, as if the entire universe revolves around us. The self-centered person says: “Welcome to my world.” And, “What makes me happy is important.” And, “What I want, prefer, or need is important.” And further that “Other people are important only to the degree that they can benefit me.” Talking about self-centered people reminds me of the story of the wife who, when asked the secret of success for her fifty years of marriage replied, “We’re both in love with the same man.”

 

Again, we can look back to the Pharisee from last week and his two-sentence prayer that had four “I’s” in it, “I…I…I…I.” Sometimes we’re like the ant riding on the elephant’s back who leaned over and whispered in the elephant’s ear, “Boy, we sure are shaking the ground.” We think we are doing something! Or we’re like former Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi. One cold Wisconsin night Lombardi slipped into bed and his feet touched his wife Marie and she exclaimed, “God your feet are cold!” Lombardi smiled and said to her gently, “Dear, in the privacy of our home you can just call me Vince.”

 

Here’s my point—and heaven knows we’ve said this a bunch of times in the seven years we’ve been together—It’s not about us! The only people God sends away are those who are full of themselves.  To say it another way – saints…and successful people, are other-centered and not self-centered. To be full of yourself is to be an enemy of the cross of Jesus Christ.

 

I’ll mention one more enemy of the cross, one more thing that separates us from God, and that is what I’m going to call a “victim mentality.” I believe what Jesus teaches here in this passage is a corrective to the victim mentality. This thought comes from what Jesus says beginning in verse 27 about loving your enemies and doing good to those who hate you, and praying for those who abuse you, turning the other cheek, etc… The reality is we may be the recipients of all kinds of hostility in our lives—some deserved and some probably undeserved. But when people do treat us that way we have a choice. We can assume a victim mentality and whine, “Woe is me,” or “Nobody ever had it as bad as me.” Or we can lash out at those mistreating us. Or we can do what Jesus suggests here and take off our “victim hat” and take the initiative instead by responding with love, forgiveness, and generosity to those who are persecuting us.

 

Do you know what I’m talking about? I’ve mentioned Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl to you before. Frankl discovered by personal experience that even in the degradation and abject misery of a Nazi concentration camp where he was made to stand stark naked along with thousands of others in front of his enemies, he could still exercise the most important freedom of all: the freedom to determine one's own attitude and spiritual well-being. No one can take that away from you. Frankl once said, “What matters is to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.”

 

Of course, the greatest example of avoiding a victim mentality ever given humanity was by none other than Jesus himself. It was he, the sinless One, who endured the shame of the cross for you and me and while hanging there forgave his tormentors.

 

I believe this is an important word to us from the Lord this morning. No matter how bad things are going in your life—and let’s face it, we’ve got some bad situations happening to folks in our church right now—no matter how bad it gets, don’t let yourself have a victim mentality. No matter where you are in that situation right now, take the initiative: love your enemies, bless those who are cursing you, offer the other cheek…whatever it takes—don’t let a victim mentality get a hold of you.

 

I remember a couple of years ago when Katrina hit. In the midst of all the media coverage a controversy erupted over what to call the people who were displaced by the storm. Were they evacuees, or refugees, or displaced Americans? One thing that became clear early on was that most of them did NOT want to be called victims: helpless, powerless and pitiful in the face of the great storm.  In time the preferred term many of those affected by the storm chose to call themselves was survivors. They survived the storm and it’s aftermath. Many of them rose to the challenge of rebuilding their homes and their lives with a hope-filled survival mindset instead of the entitlement mindset of victims.

 

You may be in the midst of your own Katrina today. It doesn’t matter how bad it gets, I want to encourage you this morning, Do not despair! You are not helpless, there is hope, and you can get through this. You are a survivor, and not a victim. Why? Because God always has the final word.

 

So what is the true measure of a man? Who are the successful ones in God’s eyes? I believe it’s those who are faithful to the very end. I believe it’s the survivors—those who, when the going gets the roughest, lean the heaviest on God and not on themselves. The saints are those folks who realize the universe doesn’t revolve around them and that plenty of others have had it a whole lot worse than you, and so they have adopted a survival mindset, not a victim mentality.

 

How about you? How do you measure up? When it comes time for you to be remembered on an “all-saints” day some day a long, long time from now, how will you be remembered? Will you be remembered as one of the faithful ones? Will you be in that number? My prayer is that you—and I—will. Let’s pray.