What would
you think of football players that go to all the team meetings, take part in every
practice, even suit up on game day and engage in the pregame warmups, but sit
on the sidelines eating snack cakes and refuse to get into the game?
How about
an aspiring sales executive who goes through weeks of sales training, gets her
sales kit and spends many hours familiarizing herself with the presentation,
follows guidelines to “dress for success” (as the best-selling book of years
past suggested), but never makes a sales call?
Sounds
silly, right? Why bother making the preparations, obtaining the necessary
equipment and putting on the best possible appearance, only to remain a
spectator while others become actively engage in the work to be done?
 |
| Too many of us are sitting along the sidelines watching, when we should be getting into the game. |
Yet these could
describe many who would classify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ. They
show up every time the church doors are opened and attend every special meeting.
They sing and sway to the music, sometimes raising their hands, attend Sunday
school classes, and know the prescribed jargon. “God is good” and “praise the
Lord” are phrases they often express.
Sadly,
there’s a disconnect. The folks they are inside the “stained-glass aquarium”
look surprisingly little like the persons they are outside the church doors. I
know, because I was once among them.
I’d take
part in various church functions, walk and talk the proper way in those surroundings.
I even held leadership positions within the congregation. But I barely knew
this Jesus I claimed to believe in. Outside the church environment, I didn’t look,
speak or think much differently from my unchurched friends and coworkers. I
acted as if God were confined to the church building and had no idea what I did
when I wasn’t there.
Only later
did I discover the difference between belief and faith. We see the distinction described
in the New Testament book of James. It cautions, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even
the demons believe that – and shudder” (James
2:19). But we won’t be seeing demons in heaven.
True faith,
the Bible tells us, can’t be divorced from action. The same book offers this
warning: “Do not merely listen to the
word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the
word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a
mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he
looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives
freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing
it – he will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:22-25).
This doesn’t
mean we’re saved or made right with God by what we do. The Scriptures are clear
on this: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works…” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Titus
3:5 confirms this, noting, “he saved us,
not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy….”
So why is
it important to be participants in God’s eternal mission, and not just
spectators cheering on those that are “in the game”? Because the Bible clearly
declares being a Christ follower is not a spectator sport. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Being casual observers is not an
option.
Then what
are these “good works”? They start with the two greatest commandments that
Jesus summarized – loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul, mind
and strength and our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). But this involves a
lot of things, from being kind and compassionate toward those in need to
engaging in the last command Jesus gave before His ascension:
“Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”
(Matthew 28:19-20).
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