picture - me

What is the best thing that happened to me yesterday?  I fell off a cliff and died.  I was playing minecraft and I was out exploring, going further into the great beyond than anyone else in the w- on the server…

I fell off that cliff and I died.  And no.  I didn’t respawn.  I got up.  Grabbed my bible, went into the bathroom and read that bible…no, not all of it in one…sitting.

And I got to thinking…how do people know me?

I few years ago I was working at a bible camp in rural Alaska, ten miles out into the bush, near the village of Unalakleet.  I was asked to give my testimony and or some odd reason, when I got up in front of everyone, I asked, without having planned to, how they would describe me.  I didn’t really know what I was doing, but as the students started saying different ways that they would describe me I realized what God was doing…

Not one of them said anything about whether or not I was a Christian.

I was a leader at the camp.  I was a Christian from a family of Christians…the son of pastor, the grandson of a pastor, the brother of a pastor, the nephew of a pastor…I, who was going into his senior year at a Christian college…and they did not say anything about me that had anything to do with God.

This was four, maybe five years ago, and I still can’t forget it.

Who are you?

If the people here in this room were asked to describe you, what would they say?

How should we be?  Titus chp. 2

How to live?  2 Timothy 2 (22-23)  You set God’s Word aside and avoid speaking to Him too often and yet, when some obscure (in that it does not directly impact your daily walk with the Lord) aspect of your personal (or your parents’) theology gets challenged you’ll be all up in arms over it, despite the fact that you’re doing the same thing, but worse.

There is a girl that I’m talking to…she’s from California, and even though we’ve only been writing so far, I just can’t let go of how sincere she is.  She is so honest, but respectful, open but appropriate.

She means what she says and cares deeply about meaning to mean what she says, understanding what she’s saying and how that makes her look.  She has gone out of her way to give me a complete, full, whole picture of who she is as a person, and no matter what happens tomorrow night on our Skype date…I have been blessed to see such sincerity in a sister in Christ.

I doubt very much that any of you are that sincere.  And that’s okay, she’s 26, you’re not.  Not yet.

I’m not judging you, I’m inviting you to walk fully, wholly and completely with Jesus.  Stop asking yourself “what I can get away with” and ask yourself “how can I get closer to God?  How can I love others around me?  How can I honor my parents and show them love and respect, even if they aren’t Christians?”

You can’t love God and love this world, the things that you’re passionate about that you keep separate from God.  You’re playing games, trying to set aside worldly things and make them whole, and in doing so you’re fighting against God who doesn’t care about whether or not you’re happy with Him in this moment.

How will you be remembered?  How will you be described?  Because if there’s nothing to say about whether or not you’re walking with God, then its all worthless.  Your boyfriend or girlfriend will not save you.  Your grades will not save you . Your job will not save you.  Your stuff will not save you.  Your friends will not save you.  Your family will not save you.

God saves you.

He wants to save you, to be with you, to guide you, to teach you, to be your God and that you will be one of His people.

God wants to set you apart from this world and so the more you love it, the more you waste your time with the world for the sake of “having fun” of “boys will be boys” the more you’re ignoring God.  You’re spitting in His face and telling God, “You don’t know what you’re talking about just stay in my church life and let me do my own thing.”

Be sincere.  If you truly love God, if you truly want to follow Jesus, then get serious and read the bible, for yourself.  Pray to God.  And obey.

Repent.  Believe.  Follow.

It isn’t enough to repent and believe.  If you don’t follow Jesus, then your repentance and your belief are meaningless, worthless garbage.  Read the bible and ask God to show you what it means, because its hard to understand sometimes, and we need God to teach us and lead us.

And when people look at you they will see you…and not Jesus.

I died yesterday, on that video game.  And it was like someone flushing the toilet while I’m taking a shower.  I was shocked.  It was like coming up for air.

Who am I?  Is this me?  I’m not a terrible person, at least not according to the world.  But what am I doing?

Its not what you do that matters, its who you are.  But what you do is a reflection of who you are, and that…matters.

So take a long hard look at yourself.  Look at what you choose to do, every day.  And add up all your actions.  What sort of person do you see?

God made us to be in a close, right relationship with Him.  He made us to be alive!  He made us to create and to sing and to praise Him!  He made us to someday go with Him to a place prepared for us.  Some of us here in this room are going there, to that place Jesus went to prepare for us.  And some in this room might not be.

Ask yourself which one you are.  Do the math.  It is about the heart and it is the heart that is the wellspring of life.  Look at what you do…do the math…and ask yourself, who am I?  What picture do I paint of myself?

If you go to visit the Queen of England, and you get up to the gates and you tell the guard…”let me in.  I’m here to see the Queen.”  What do you think they’ll do?

You ain’t getting in.

But, if as you’re leaving, the Queen comes out of the gates and calls out, “stop!  I know you!  Come in!  Let’s have tea!”  Then you’re in.

Its not about who you know.  Its about who knows you.  Who are you?  Does God know you?  Do you seek Him?  Have you truly repented, believed and followed?

How does the world see you?  As one of its own?  Or are you merely passing through, destined for a different home?

In the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, the Pevensie children have died in a train accident and the world of Narnia has come to an end…

"Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among the mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the glass there may have been a looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean.  It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia so much is because it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!""

The Unicorn in The Last Battle (by CS Lewis)

...

I am so excited to go home.  I am so excited to not have to worry about this life, this life that is messy, and tough, and hard.  But there’s a chance that not everyone here in this room is coming with us.  And some of you that don’t may have claimed to be Christians, but you were lying, to God, to yourself, to your family, to your friends, to the world.

Because you never stopped to ask yourself, “who am I?”

So, who are you?

The end is coming, maybe tonight, maybe hundreds of years from now, but its coming.  And when it does it will not matter what you have done as much as it will matter who you are, but who you are is where what you do comes from…

So who are you?  Who knows you?  What do they know?

I’m obviously not expecting you to answer this question for me.  Answer it for you.  Because you can lie to me.  But you can’t lie to God.  He knows.  So be honest with yourself.

And ask…………………”who am I?”