by Dale Reeves
Story Pastor
This past week the news reported the story of a 40-year-old man who had to be rescued by firefighters after getting stuck in a tube slide on a school playground in Connecticut. Firefighters said the man was wedged in the middle portion of the slide, and when they arrived, they had to cut the slide open and then they gave the man oxygen because of the hot temperatures.
I don’t know how much the man weighs, or what provoked him to go down a tube slide intended for children—but I could relate a little bit. When I heard the story, I immediately texted it to my brother-in-law Barry, with the words, “This could have been me.”
Barry immediately replied, “Yes it could have!!”
We were both remembering the time in Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic when Barry dared me to go down a waterslide after one of the lifeguards looked at me and said, “There is a weight limit.” I gave my thumbs-up sign to him as if to say, “I’ll be OK.” Fortunately, it wasn’t a fully-encased tube slide, and I was just fine—just a little wet as my heartbeat started to slow down.
Recently my good friend (and former Christ’s Church student pastor) Dan Giese drove up to Mason from his ministry in Paris, Kentucky, to talk with David Buckley and me about our church’s men’s ministry. We had a great afternoon together reliving some of the crazy things Dan and I used to do at Woodland Lakes Christian Camp when we co-deaned weeks of work camp for senior high students. Most of them involved “Super Dave”-Osborne-kinds-of daring stunts we led our faculty in on the grounds and in the swimming pool at Woodland Lakes. Think lots of water, crash helmets, slip-and-slides, surgical tubing catapults, and you get the picture. No one was ever seriously hurt, but we did send one of our staff members to the hospital one time because of a chipped tooth.
Do you have any stories of something crazy you attempted that you had no business doing? Was it because you experienced a moment of poor judgment and a short lapse of common sense . . . or was it because of a dare that you simply could not back down from? In my life, both reasons have led me to attempt some stupid things. I can still hear the voice of our amazing camp nurse, Mark Mueller, questioning Dan Giese and me, “Should we be doing this?”
Your Old Self
Are you crazy enough to be ALL IN? This past Sunday at Christ’s Church, our lead pastor, Brad Wilson, continued our teaching series entitled, “All In.” Last week Brad talked about what it means to be “All In” with how we live our daily lives. If you missed that teaching last Sunday, you can check it out here.
The apostle Paul says it this way in Romans 12:1, 2, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (NIV).
The word translated “urge” here is the Greek verb parakalo, which is derived from a greeting that we might say to others, as in “please,” or “you’re welcome.” It’s a versatile word used in various situations to respond to a request or an expression of thanks. In this context, various translations render the word as “urge,” “beseech,” “appeal,” or “plead.” I’ll take it a step further . . . just like my brother-in-law coaxed me into doing a few crazy things, I think Paul was daring us to lay our whole lives on the line for Jesus Christ—to be ALL IN!
He tells us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices which are pleasing to the Lord. The 19th-century evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, reportedly said, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.” In the Bible, a sacrifice was a dead animal brought to the Lord for confession of sins, and in gratitude for his many blessings, shedding the blood of the animal so that forgiveness would come from God (see Hebrews 9:22).
So, to be “living sacrifices,” we have to die to some things in our lives. The apostle Paul calls this “the old man” or our “old self.” See Romans 6:6; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9, 10. Paul writes, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20, NLT).
Your New Self
The German theologian who lived under Nazi rule, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, said it emphatically, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
This dying is not a total annihilation, it is a transformation into Christlikeness. It is a rebirth into a new life, as Paul refers to it as “the new man,” as in Colossians 3:10, 11, “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man who is renewed . . .” (NKJV).
Can I ask you today:
—“How is Jesus calling you to come and die?”
—“What is holding you back from fully surrendering to Christ?”
—“What aspects of your life aren’t fully his?”
As I was driving to the church office Monday morning, I was listening to Jeremy Camp’s song, “No Survivors.” You can check out this powerful song here.
When asked about the story behind this song, Jeremy Camp says, “Surrender is not just waving the white flag. It’s an action! My ego, my pride, my grip on my life, throw it all into the fire and leave no survivors. I want to throw all of those things aside and not let any of those things survive.”
Don’t just let your “Old Man” get caught in a tube slide this week, make sure you kill whatever parts of your old self God is calling you to. As you seek to be the best version of your new self, breathe deeply of the oxygen the Holy Spirit provides you every day. Hope to see you this coming Sunday at Christ’s Church as we talk some more about what it means to truly be ALL IN!
“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT).