Steet Signs of Life: Merge

Pastor Meyer's Sermon

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our heavenly Father and from our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus, our Christ.

My Dear Friends, it was one of the worst days of my life. I was so scared. In fact, I was so scared that, sitting in the chair, my legs were shaking. In fact, I was so scared that all I could do was think about the police officer sitting next to me and the gun that was at his hip. I was so scared that I could feel the hairs rising up on my neck and the sweat trickling down my back.

You see, I was 16 years old and in the middle of my driver's test. And the only think I could think about is what is that man going to do with that gun if I do something wrong. And then I heard those words. “Take a left up at the light and merge onto the highway.” So I made my left turn. I remembered to turn my blinker on and, as I was going down the on ramp to get onto the highway, I looked to my left and I saw two tractor trailers coming down on the outside lane. There was no way I was going to be able to merge over. So I had a decision to make. “Do I just stay in this lane? Well, I can't do that because the lane is going to end. It's going to turn into the shoulder of the road. And once I hit the shoulder of the road, I'm certain I'm going to run off the side of the road. And I guarantee you I would not pass my test.”

“Well, do I speed up, go faster than the truck and then move over into the lane? Well, I can't do that because I would be breaking the speed limit. What if I slow down real fast and then cut over into the lane?” Well, I looked in my rearview mirror and there were several other cars behind me trying to get over, too. If I would slow down quickly, I may cause an accident. And so in that split second decision, I decided to ask the officer. “Officer, I need to get over into this lane. There are two tractor trailers. I need help.” And with his words and encouragement, he helped me to get over into the highway lane.

Well, the rest of the test went fine. We won't talk about the parallel parking but, when we finally got up to the driver's license office and we got out of the car and we walked into the office, he said, “Kendall, I want to let you know you did a good job with that merge because you knew you couldn't do it yourself and so you asked for another set of eyes next to you to help you out. You did a good job with that.”

God is calling us to merge with Him. Did you hear it? It was in our Gospel reading from John 8. “If you hold on to my teachings,” Jesus says, “then you are truly my disciples.” In other words, if you merge into my lane, then you are truly my disciples. But it's hard for us to merge, isn't it? We grow up here in America doing things the American way and what is the American way? Pulling yourselves up by your own bootstraps, doing things on your own, being able to say, “Yes, I built this myself.” The idea of “my way,” not anybody else's way but my way becomes the cry. And so it's hard for us to merge into God's lane because we want to stay out here on the shoulder. We want to do things “my way.” It doesn't matter that we can't see the scenery very well because we're so focused on our lane because it's bumpy there on the shoulder and we have to watch the road or we're going to go off the sides. It doesn't matter that it seems like my life is really going rather bumpy whereas, over in this lane, it seems a little smoother but that doesn't matter because I'm doing things my way.

It doesn't matter that you don't know when the shoulder is going to end because, as long as you're here on the shoulder, you're doing things “my way” and things are going pretty well for you until you run into that coworker that's making your life miserable. You keep trying to work it out but things are just not working out and it seems like every day that you go to the office, things are getting worse and worse and worse. And even your job is becoming more and more unbearable. You tried everything and you don't know what to do. Or maybe you have a problem. Maybe you have a painful memory you've been holding onto. Someone has hurt you. And every day that you wake up and every day, as you go about your life, you can't help but think about that painful memory. You have tried. You have tried as hard as you could to forget about it, but you can't. And you're holding on to it. You think about it every day and questions of why come into your mind. And you know, one of these days, this painful memory is going to cause you to run off the road.

Or maybe you're just so happy you're doing it “my way” that you don't care the shoulder is going to end because you think, “Oh, I'll see the end of the shoulder and when that time comes, when my way is no longer available and there is no other way than God's way, then I'll move over. But for now, I'm happy with doing my way.”

The problem, My Friends, is that you may not see the end of the shoulder. I have a good friend of mine whose brother died a week ago this past Friday. And it was a shock to the family. Sure, Mike had rheumatoid arthritis. Sure, he had a little bit of diabetes but nothing gave him a clue as to what was going to happen. He was, that Friday evening, playing board games with his mom. Toward the end of the night, he was getting tired and so he decided to get up and go downstairs to go to bed. He went into the kitchen. He looked out the window. He saw the tomato plants. Now Mike and his mother had a deal. Mike would buy the tomato plants. His mother would grow them and then Mike would eat the tomatoes. And so he looked out the window and he saw the tomato plants. He said, “I can't wait until they're ready to be eaten.” And so he went downstairs. He got ready for bed. He went to bed. He never woke up. He died of a massive heart attack at the age of 41. I tell you Mike did not see the end of the shoulder.

But we are called to merge through life. You heard it in the Gospel reading. You also hear it in the Epistle reading when Paul writes to the Romans, “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to the death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” In other words, if you're going to stay out here on the shoulder, you are going to die. You need to move over into God's lane.

But maybe you've heard the words. Maybe you've heard the words “I need to merge.” Maybe you know you need to merge with God and you need to merge through life and so you've merged over. You've answered that call. And you know you are a son or daughter of Jesus Christ, but you're moving a little too slow in the lane. You know what you call those people who are moving too slow, driving too slow? You call them Sunday morning drivers, right? Well, maybe that's what it all is in your life. You just decide to go to church on whether it's Saturday night or Sunday morning and then the rest of the week, you don't think about God. You don't think about church. You don't think about your relationship with Him. And things just become kind of boring. You're bored with the scenery. You're a little apathetic because you're just going through the motions. You're just going through the motions of going to church on Saturday night or Sunday morning, and you really don't have a burning faith, a relationship with God that's thriving. You don't really spend that much time in prayer and in His Word. And so you may be in God's lane, but you keep going slower and slower and slower until eventually you have to pull off to the shoulder.

Or maybe you're in God's lane alright and you are burning with the faith. You are going so fast, you are the hotrod driver. You have the pedal to the metal. You are trying to get active in every bible study available. You are on every ministry action team. And before you know it, you are spending more time during the week here at church than you are at home and you're saying, “Oh, I'm not doing things my way. I'm doing things God's way. God wants me to do it this way.” Is that true? Does God want you to neglect your family and your friends and your work responsibilities, spending all your time here at church during the week? Certainly, God tells us to put Him as a priority in our lives but we also need to take responsibility for our family and for our friends and for our work.

So you see, the writer of the Hebrews tells us to run the race marked out for us with perseverance. The race He's talking about is not a sprint. He's not calling us to merge with Him for a couple of years. No, God is calling us to merge with Him for life, to run the marathon with perseverance.

The question now is how do you know if you are merged in God's lane? How do you know how you're doing in God's lane? Well, the first thing is you need to realize who you are. Paul talks about that in the Romans. He says, “We are heirs of God.” What does that mean? That means we are given all the rights and the privileges of that being a son or daughter of God. And what is that? Well, through our baptism and through hearing His word, we see faith. We are given salvation, eternal life. And we're also given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is kind of like that police officer that was next to me during the driving test. He's helping and encouraging you as you're going down God's path.

Now here are some clues for you to see how you're doing as you're going down God's lane. What do you do when you hit a bump in the road? Because when you're even in God's lane, you are going to hit a few bumps. You are going to be asked to speed up more, maybe even to slow down but how do you react in those situations? Do you go to God in prayer? What about that coworker who's really giving you a lot of trouble and you don't know what to do? Have you taken it to God in prayer?

What about that painful memory you have that you just can't get rid of? Have you been able to hand it over to Him in prayer and let Him deal with it? And as you're going down that lane, God's lane, where are your eyes? Are your eyes fixed on Jesus when you hit those bumps? Because in John 14, Jesus tells us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me.” So we're encouraged to fix our eyes on Jesus.

Another clue is how are you doing in your ability to forgive? Are you acting out forgiveness in your own life? You know you are a forgiven child of God. You heard it earlier in the service. But are you also acting out forgiveness in your own life? Maybe there's a sibling that, during his or her adolescence, has made your life difficult. Have you been able to forgive that person? Maybe your parents, as you were growing up, made your life difficult, whether it be through abuse or simply not even going to any of your games or showing interest in anything you're interested in. Have you been able to forgive that parent? Maybe you have a next door neighbor who is giving you difficulty. You don't know what the problem is. The person is not speaking to you, but have you been able to still forgive?

And another clue is has your cry gone from “my way” to “God's way?” When a decision comes in your life, are you making a decision based on my way or are you asking what is God's way in this decision? C. S. Lewis has a great quote in his book The Great Divorce . And in this book, he's talking about death and in that great divorce where the soul and the body separate itself and the main character is in heaven and the main character is walking along with an angel and he asked, “What is the difference between heaven and hell?” And the angel says, “Heaven is where God's people say ‘Thy will be done.' Hell is where God says, ‘Thy will be done.'”

So how are you doing as you're going down God's lane? When you hit the bumps, are you seeking Him in prayer? Are you keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus? Are you able to act out forgiveness in your own life? And is your cry “God's way,” not “my way?”

And so we go down our life's roadway. We're not driving on the shoulder. We're not going too fast or too slow, but we're doing things God's way. We're merged into His lane trusting in Him, comforted by His forgiveness and enjoying the scenery of our life as it goes by. Because we know we're merged for life. Amen.