What is the One Thing That Will Change your Life Most In this New Year? This Could Be It.

I really don’t recommend it.  But it has its benefits, especially when it turns out not to be true.  

As many of you know, about a month ago, I received a test result that indicated a fatal disease, no known cure, typically takes three to five years to kill you.    When news like that hits you, you see life differently then you did before.  Thankfully further tests show that I have many more years to live.  The news of my demise was much exaggerated.    

Still, contemplating that possibility did something.   It woke me up.  What do I mean?  Well, when the news hit me, do you know what really wrecked me?   That I might leave my son without a dad, that wrecked me.   I felt for my wife, members of my family, friends but it didn’t wreck me.   And it didn’t bother me so much how it would affect me.   At the time, I thought, how noble.   Look at me.  I’m not even thinking that much about myself.  Now, of course, I was thinking about myself.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been so impressed with my nobility. 

That’s when I woke up.  I woke up to the same painful truth that faced the king in this story, except my story has hope for a happier ending.    But what I faced, what he faced, everyone faces.   In fact, letting this truth live in you has the power to change everything.   It has the power to open you to greater joy, to greater life, to wake you up to what your life can be.   How does that happen?   Here, God shows the way.   Click the link below and hear what God has to say.

2 Kings 13:14-19

In this strange story, God tells you something profoundly important.  God is saying.  You cannot stop when you still have arrows in your hand.   Now how does that change everything?  Let’s look at the story. 

As the story begins, you’ve gotta know some things.  Before this story, this prophet, Elisha hasn’t shown up in history for about 50 years.  In the early days, after taking over from his mentor, Elijah, he did awesome stuff.  Elisha raised people from the dead, appointed kings, incredible things.  But then new kings arose, and he became yesterday’s news, until this story. 

Somehow King Joash hears that the old man is dying. So, he visits him.  We don’t know why.  Maybe he’s feeling sentimental, wants to honor this has-been of the past.  He does do a nice job at that.   Joash calls him father, like father of the nation.  Maybe he’s remembering how Elisha put his grandfather, Jehu on the throne.  He even remembers the words Elisha said when he saw his mentor, Elijah gets taken up into heaven.    

But how does Elijah react?  He doesn’t even say thank you.   Instead he orders the King around. He tells him. Grab a bow and some arrows.  The king might have thought at 90 years old, Elisha had retired from the prophet gig.  But he’s still going strong.  

Elisha tells him to fire an arrow out the window towards Aram or Syria, Israel’s enemy (wow, the more things change, the more they stay the same).  He even puts his hands on the king’s hand, as he gets ready to fire.  Then he lays out the word from God.  God is going to give you victory over Syria.  He even tells Joash the town where it’s going to happen.  But Elijah isn’t finished.  He tells the king to take the rest of the arrows, and start striking the ground with them.   And the king does that for a bit. Then he stops.   And Elisha gets angry.   He tells Joash.  That does it!  God would have given you complete victory if you had struck five or six times, but three, no way!   And with that the king goes, and Elisha dies. 

What is going on here?  Why is God so arbitrary?  It’s not like God told Joash how many times.   Couldn’t God have given the king a heads up?  

But here’s the key question?  Why did the king stop?   Maybe he felt ridiculous.  Maybe he thought the whole thing was stupid.   Who strikes arrows on the floor anyway?  But the point is, God had just given him momentous news, victory over his nation’s greatest enemy.   And the king kind of goes mmmh. Whatever.   Instead of banging those arrows into splinters on the ground, he goes through the motions a bit and quits.  And Elisha sees the painful truth the king doesn’t see.   Joash is perfectly fine with stopping with arrows still in his hands. 

In other words, Joash isn’t the guy who leaves it all out on the field.   He just leaves some of it out there.  And Elijah knows.  You can’t win battles that way.  More than that, if you want all that God has for you, you can’t live life that way.   God will give you the victory, but you’ve got have the staying power to stick around to get it.   And Joash doesn’t.  

That’s the painful truth that woke me up.   When I got the news of my possible demise, sure, I should want to fight for my life for my son, for others.   But I should want to fight it for me, until my last arrow was gone.  And I realized. I had more of Joash’s attitude towards life than I wanted to admit.   I was too willing to quit before the last arrow shattered on the ground.

Again and again in scripture, God uses the ones who don’t give up, who don’t quit, no matter what they face, no matter what setbacks come their way, they don’t stop. 

One of the books we got our son for Christmas tells the tale of a little girl, Rosie Revere, who wants to be an engineer.   But when she fails one time too many, she decides to give up, until her namesake, her great, great Aunt Rose tells her that same truth.  As the book poetically puts it, Life might haves its failures but this was not it, the only true failure can come if you quit. 

But that’s what Joash does, he quits.  He quits over something as simple as striking arrows on the ground.   He wanted victory, sure.  He just didn’t want it enough. 

In life, you can’t stop before you’re finished, before your last arrow.  Yet, that can be so easy to do.   Others may not even realize that’s what you’ve done.  But inside, if you’re honest, you know.  You’ve stopped striking your arrows.  The man, whose book inspired this sermon Erwin McManus has a quote that won’t leave me alone.  I put it in your bulletin.  Avoiding death is not the same as pursuing life.   Yet, you can live a life that does just that, a life that avoids failure and risk, a life so much less than what God yearns for you to have. 

At the church where I serve we could do that.  We could look at the setbacks we’ve faced, the empty places in the pews, and get scared.   We could think, let’s hold onto our arrows.  Let’s not risk them, certainly not strike them on the ground. But here’s the point, God has given that church an amazing array of arrows, a thriving Learning Center, an incredible campus, money in the bank.  But those aren’t the greatest arrows.  God has given that church people with gifts, experiences, passions to offer.   And as a church, God hasn’t called us here to avoid death.  God has called us to pursue life, to share with this community the life, the love that only God gives.   And God doesn't want us to quit, because God doesn't want to quit.

So matter what you’re facing in your life, if God has called you to it, don’t quit.  Keep striking your arrows.  It may seem futile, even foolish, but you never know what God is doing.   And you won’t know if you quit, if you give up, if you decide to avoid death rather than pursue life. And don’t think if you’re older, you get a pass.  Elijah was 90, and still doing the prophet thing.   Heck, Moses was 80 when he led the Exodus out of Egypt.  Abraham was 75 when God called him to take his first step of faith.   When God means your last arrow, God means your last arrow, not until your last breath!

At the end of Christmas, we celebrate the wise men, who journeyed to see Jesus.   We celebrate them at the end of Christmas, because that’s when they came.   It took them close to two years to get to Bethlehem.   Do you think that they had days where they thought about turning back, that the whole trip was one big mistake?  Sure.  But they didn’t stop.    Who knows?  Maybe a hundred wise men saw that star, discerned what it meant, but they quit.  These three didn’t.  And so, they saw the God that all the others missed.

You can’t ever stop pursuing life, living out the call God has given you, not until your last arrow is gone.   In fact, you and I wouldn’t be here, if Jesus hadn’t done that us.   When he went to that cross, at any moment, he could have said, enough.  He could have walked away, ended the suffering.  He could have avoided death.  But instead he pursued life for you, for me.   He didn’t quit until the last arrow was gone.   And because he did, you have life abundant and everlasting and without measure.  And if Jesus didn't quit on you then, he will never quit on you.

  

Know that Jesus is there with you, to walk with you, to stand with you, to even fight with you against the darkness of this world and your own life, until your last arrow shatters on the ground, and even there he won't quit on you, for God's love doesn't even quit when you die, it only opens you to the next adventure.   So in this New Year, don't avoid death, pursue life, and know that  God goes with you all the way.