C.S. Lewis said “ I didn’t go to religion to make me “happy.” I always knew a bottle of port could do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” What do you think he meant by that? If I were to give you a choice between being comfortable or being committed, which would you choose? If you let your flesh answer, you will choose comfort. If you let your spirit answer, you will choose commitment. Today we will look at the difference between those two and see what our response should be. We will use a hospital as our analogy. Let’s begin. Jesus said in Mark 2:17 “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” When we get hurt physically, where do we go for help? A hospital. I believe there is a direct comparison between a hospital and a church. The CHURCH is Called to Be A Spiritual Hospital Jesus is using hospital language when talking about being spiritually sick. When he saves us He doesn’t take us to heaven immediately. Salvation is just the first step in our spiritual health. John 5:24 “24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
Jesus moves us from death to life, but what we do with our new found life is the question. We are now part of His church. We are His body on the earth, called to be His imagers. We love others, in order to be a reflection of His Glory. He has called those of us who are “the church” to be a hospital that works to heal the sick and injured, regardless of how difficult the recovery process is. For the next few minutes we will focus on our commitment to helping others recover in our spiritual hospital. After you have received your healing, you are supposed to become part of the hospital staff. Did you think you were a patient here? Your job in this hospital is vitally important to the patients we serve. Their life depends on you being good at your job. Here is an important distinction: We are not called to be a hospice that has transitioned people to a comfort phase and given up on the idea of people actually recovering. Hospital: A place where you go to receive healing and a plan to move forward with your life. Hospice: A place you go to be comfortable while just waiting for your life to be over. When it comes to finding a church, if we are honest, most of us start by looking for a hospice not a hospital. The main reason is because being comfortable is what our flesh wants, but we all know that being comfortable all the time is not good for us. We look for a church that makes us comfortable because it looks right, has music we enjoy hearing and doesn’t talk about the Holy Spirit or anything else that religious folks have deemed “strange” or inappropriate.
In other words, we are looking for a church where we are comfortable to just sit and receive the pain killers. Which is the comforting message of going to heaven. But we are not called to be comfortable, we are called to be committed. As disciples of Jesus, we have enrolled in spiritual medical school. We are learning to become doctors who can help the spiritually sick. Medical school is difficult, it requires study and hard work, but the rewards are great. Hospitals are similar to churches in that they were founded because of their desire to fulfill a mission. With a hospital the mission is to heal people of physical issues. The challenge becomes that over time as a hospital grows it becomes more focused on making enough money to support the large staff and facilities. This necessarily causes the amount of care they give each individual to be less. With a church, their mission is “The great commission” given by Jesus. But just like a hospital, as a church grows it becomes more focused on making enough money to support the large staff and facilities. This necessarily causes the amount of care they give each individual to be less. Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Sharing the message of salvation through God’s love is vitally important, it is the first step in the process. The idea that God loves us so much that He would give His Son to take our punishment, is a very comforting thought.
But the instruction Jesus gave in verse 20, which is of equal importance, requires we take it beyond the comforting part and “teach them to observe all He has commanded”. If we haven’t done this, we haven’t fulfilled the great commission. This is where our true calling and responsibility as a hospital comes in. It’s also the place where things start to get uncomfortable. Again, medical school is difficult and you have to study in order to be qualified to help people. What would you think about a person who went to the hospital every week for the same issue. And every week the doctor told them what to stop doing and what they needed to start doing in order to get well. Their visit with the doctor made them feel better about their condition, but every week they ignored his advice and stayed sick. After a while they become comfortable with their disease. Churches are full of patients who have ignored the advice of the spiritual doctors and continue in their issues. But they were supposed to be healed of their problems and be helping others at this point. But let me say it once again, medical school requires work and is uncomfortable. People would rather have the pastor pray for them instead of going to the spiritual rehab to fix their problem. People drop out of church for the same reason they drop out of medical school. It’s hard. They came for comfort, but soon realized it would cost them more than they thought. They couldn’t commit to the transition from patient to medical student. Here’s a tough question: Did you show up as a patient for another shot of spiritual morphine, just to make the pain go
away and be comfortable, or have you shown up to continue your spiritual education? Jesus did not call us to a life of comfort, but of commitment. In Luke 19:23 He said “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me”. Once you pick up a cross, you are committed. Does that sound comfortable to you? In this passage, Jesus is calling you to be committed to dying to yourself every day. Are you committed as a kingdom citizen at that level? FUEL is a teaching hospital. We are here to train you for the various different jobs in the spiritual medical field. The problem is that most of us prefer to be patients rather than medical students. Some of you are called to be spiritual first responders. A spiritual EMT. You are the first on the scene when you hear of someone in a spiritual wreck. You know how to stop the bleeding and get them to someone who can deal with the bigger issue. Some of you are called to be spiritual ER nurses and assist the doctor with emergency treatment. You can deal with the mess and not be bothered by it. Your focus is on getting things ready in the ER and helping in any way you can. Some of you are called to be spiritual surgeons and repair the core problem. You job is the turning point because you meet with the patient and family after the procedure and give them the news about what happens next.
Some of you are called to be spiritual general practitioners, who cover the regular check ups and deal with the non life threatening issues. My point is that there is a job for everyone. The pastor isn’t the only person who should be able to help you with an issue. Every person in this room has been called to do a job in this spiritual hospital. So let me ask again, did you come for another shot of spiritual morphine or did you come for continuing education towards your calling? Let’s take a couple minutes to look at what happens at a hospital. When you arrive at a hospital, the first thing they do is to stop the bleeding deal with the pain. They put you in a bed to make you comfortable while your condition is evaluated and tests are being done. But what if the hospital staff ignored the person and kept talking among themselves? What if they desire their own comfort as opposed to their commitment to the oath they took as a medical professional? The oath that says they are committed first to the well being of the patient. When someone walks through our doors for the first time, what do you do? Are you ready to see what they need and why they have entered the hospital? Or are you too busy talking with your friends to concern yourself with a new patient. You might even be talking about the best way to help new patients, but that conversation isn’t helpful at that moment. When someone walks through our doors for the first time...there is a reason. It was not a random decision to come to a church instead of sleeping in or going to the lake. You have to wonder,
what made them make that decision? Has a tragedy just struck their life? It could be medical, relational, emotional or maybe financial? Something external has probably motivated them. If they are already a Christian, there is a reason they left another church. Maybe they just moved into town. There is always a reason, it’s never a random decision. We have to make our patients our first priority. Their comfort while being diagnosed is of the upmost importance. Remember, we also have an oath to uphold. It has to do with loving our neighbor as ourselves. Making sure a patient is comfortable is important, but it isn’t the end goal. Getting better and getting their life back on track is the end goal for the hospital. This is where things get a little more challenging, because we normally don’t like what the doctor says when he comes to our room and interrupts our comfort with some uncomfortable news. The test results he gives us are then followed up with a prescription for medicine and diet and lifestyle modification advice. The recommendations we get from the doctor will certainly make us uncomfortable, but the problem is that it’s so easy to just not act on them and stay comfortable. We know the doctor told us these things for our benefit. It wasn’t because he enjoys saying things that we don’t like to hear. On the contrary, these things are intended to heal our issues and allow us to get back to a full and productive life, but it’s up to us to follow his instruction.
Being confronted with the truth can be very uncomfortable. But if we decide not to follow the doctor’s instruction, we can expect to be back in the hospital very soon with the same issues. One of the main reasons we don’t do it, is because it requires us to do things that are uncomfortable. Personally, I deal with it every time I go to the doctor’s office. On more than one occasion I’ve been told: Stop eating junk...start getting some exercise...lose some weight. None of those things are comfortable...but they will produce better test results. Here’s something that won’t be a shock. As humans our flesh will resist anything that makes us uncomfortable and be attracted to anything that offers the promise of comfort. Some of us view church as a spa. Going to the spa should be a special once in a while treat, not something you do every day, even though we would enjoy going. As soon as you enter a spa the atmosphere is set with ambient music that promotes a sense of calmness and the air is filled with aromas that please your senses. The goal of the spa is to make you comfortable, but the reality is that it’s just a short term fix for stress, not a long term fix for what causes the stress. On the other hand, going to a doctor ordered rehab facility is most certainly not a special treat or something we would look forward to doing. Working on strengthening the weak areas of our life is the opposite of comfort. It can actually be painful.
Even though it’s painful, it’s good for us to have a commitment to a discipline that will increase our strength and endurance. The long term benefit outweighs the temporary discomfort. 2 Corinthians 4:17. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” Going to spiritual rehab and working our weak areas is designed to take us to another level. So, here’s our challenge: We can believe with all of our heart that working out is good for us, but until we take action and actually go, we will never be changed. It’s not the belief that changes us...it’s the action. James 2:14-26 ”What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Faith without works is dead. It’s not enough to just believe, you have to act on that belief. I absolutely 100% believed, and told people, that if I stopped eating carbs, I’d lose weight...but that belief didn’t do me any good at all, until I acted on it.
Believing and talking is comfortable, but action is uncomfortable and requires a commitment. That’s why people say “It’s easier said, than done”. So, going back to the idea of our church being a hospital, I want us to understand that in our relationship with God, the things we believe, say and then act on are literally a matter of life and death. John 5:24 “24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” If FUEL is called to be a fully functioning effective spiritual hospital, then we must view ourselves as doctors and medical students, who are giving life saving instruction, that if followed, will get people moving from death to an abundant life in Christ. It’s time to step up and start taking personal spiritual responsibility for our spiritual education. It’s time to be fully committed!
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