As an itinerant
preacher with Youth For Christ, Mike Gordon says he gets to travel a lot, often
with Christian bands and musicians.
Speaking Thursday
morning at the fourth chapel of Spiritual Emphasis Week at Smithville Christian
High School, Gordon said many people had told him that if he ever had the
chance to visit Nashville, he should take it.
“Everyone said
Nashville is awesome,” Gordon said. So three years ago when he had the chance,
he flew down early in order to do some sightseeing.
But on the bus from
the airport to his hotel, Gordon was approached by a drug dealer, and while
going for a walk to buy supper, he was mugged by some knife-wielding thugs.
Gordon said he was
shocked.
Everyone had said
Nashville was great. No one had warned him that Nashville had a dark side.
“How come no one told
me about this?” Gordon asked. “This is not what I signed up for!”
Some people say being
a Christian is great, and that’s true, Gordon said, but Jesus also warns us
that trouble is coming: “In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33)
There are times when we fail tests, lose our
jobs, or find out someone we love is very sick. People die, families break up,
and we get rejected by the universities to which we’ve applied.
“Jesus does not hold
back,” Gordon said. “He does not say if you go to a Christian school you won’t
have trouble. He doesn’t say if you have a perfect attendance record at church
you won’t have trouble. He doesn’t say if you memorize the Bible you won’t have
trouble. He says we will have trouble.”
Bad things happen,
everything changes. “And many of us ask ‘why?’ ” Or we ask if God doesn’t love
us, or care for us, or if the Bible is not real or true.
Reading from the Book
of Matthew, Gordon used the example of John the Baptist.
“When John, who was in
prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him,
‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ Jesus
replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those
who have leprosy[a] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the
good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on
account of me.’ ” Matthew 11: 2-6
Gordon said John was
mentioned in the Old Testament, was a cousin to Jesus, and was baptized by
Jesus. Those three “fun facts” mean John is “super-duper legitimate.” Yet in
the Scripture passage, John has run afoul of religious leaders and is languishing
in prison.
John’s question
basically amounts to asking Jesus if he’s really God, Gordon said, “because if
you really are God, I probably shouldn’t be in this prison right now.”
And instead of
replying with a promise to get John out of prison (“P.S. John does not get out”)
“Jesus is saying I want you to know that whatever your circumstance, I am still
God.”
Gordon said when we
find ourselves in trouble and turn to God in prayer, we often pray for God to
fix the things that are going wrong. But sometimes “what we want to hear from
God is different from what we need to hear,” he said. What we need to hear is
that God is still God, that the Bible is still true, and, most importantly,
that God still loves us.
“Just because you feel
a certain way does not reflect the truth of how much God loves you. Just
because you feel despair does not reflect how much God loves you.”
We often thank God for
blessings, and think that the blessings are the good things in our lives.
But Gordon said real
blessings are the things that draw us closer to God, and sometimes the things
we think are blessings – jobs, relationships, new toys – can draw us away from
him. Sometimes it’s the troubles in our lives that we can look back on and see
as the things that drew us close.
And the key to this
all is the realization that “there comes a time when you have to take it
personally,” he said. “You are not a Christian because your Mom and Dad are
Christians. You are not a Christian because you go to church.”
No matter how bad
things get, because we have Jesus, we win, Gordon said. But the question is, do
you have Jesus?
In Matthew 16, Jesus
asked Peter “who do you think I am?”
The answer to that
question is a personal choice, and it’s one only you can make.
Here is the chapel message in Mandarin, courtesy of Yanyan Wu.
同学们，这是今天信息的概要。如有什么问题或需要代祷可以微信我。
讲员讲了一个自己旅游的经历，去到盼望己久，美好的城市。在公共汽车上居然有人问他要不要买毒品，之后在去吃饭的路上又有人拿出小刀抢劫，这些经历使他跌破眼镜，在这城市的广告中，在朋友的口中都是听到关于这城市的美好，谁能知道你会遇到这些让人难以接受的事呢？在我们的人生之中，有时一帆风顺走在平坦大道中但有时一个突如其来的意外却改变了我们的一生。
马太福音 11:2-6
约翰 在监里听见基督所做的事，就打发 两个 门徒去， 问他说：「那将要来的是你吗？还是我们等候别人呢？」 耶稣回答说：「你们去，把所听见、所看见的事告诉 约翰 。 就是瞎子看见，瘸子行走，长大麻风的洁净，聋子听见，死人复活，穷人有福音传给他们。 凡不因我跌倒的就有福了！
这里的约翰是施洗约翰，他是为主耶稣预备道路的人，也是为主耶稣施洗的人，但从以上的经文我们看到这里的约翰在监狱里，他怀疑主耶稣是不是他要等候的神。在我们的生命中遇到措手不及的事时，也许失去亲人，也许没收到盼望要去的学校录取等，我们也开始了怀疑，埋怨甚至愤怒。但经文里我们看到耶稣叫门徒去鼓励约翰，祂就是那位一直等待的弥赛亚。同样，耶稣也鼓励我们祂与我们同在，有祂我们不再惧怕。
圣经告诉我们等候神的人有福了，神引领我们走在光明之中，衪赐给我们平安，喜乐，祂与我们同在。请问你是否邀请耶稣进到你的生命里?
* * *
The final chapel of Spiritual Emphasis Week 2017 will be Friday, Dec. 1, at 9 a.m. All are welcome.
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