If We Believe…
Begin with the end in mind
Have you ever heard someone someone say…
“Begin with the end in mind.”
I learned this lesson early on in life from my father. I grew up in Montgomery, AL.
Growing up, my dad and I loved to go fishing together. It was and still is one of my favorite things to do with my dad.
Here’s what you learn when you’re out on the lake fishing. Whenever you find a good spot, a place where the fish are biting, you always want to drop your anchor. Sometimes we would forget to do this.
We would find a good spot, we would have a little luck, catch one or two fish, and then, before we know it, we’re drifting. And here’s the thing, you never drift to where you want to be.
Now, there are few things I hate more than spiders. And I was always sitting at the front of the boat. As luck would have it, we would always drift right into a dead tree full of spider webs and my dad could not get the trolling motor started quick enough to pull us out of the trees and those spider webs.
Or maybe he could and he just enjoyed watching me squirm!
Either way, you never drift to where you want to be.
But your direction (whether you’re going in that direction on purpose or not) determines your destination.
Drifting a Little to the Right
On July 20, 1969, at approximately 3:18 p.m. (CT), Neil Armstrong’s famous words allowed everyone at mission control in Houston and around the world to breathe again.
Some of you are old enough to remember this moment. The rest of you have probably heard this, seen this, or watched a movie about it. But I want you to listen to about 60 seconds of the conversation happening between mission control in Houston and Neil Armstrong as his team is attempting to land for the very first time on the moon.
Listen to this:
When he said: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” everybody at mission control here in Houston could breathe again.
Before he spoke those words, did you hear what he said?
Apollo 11 was DRIFTING a little to the right.
Why were they able to breath again? Because Apollo 11 was no longer drifting. They had arrived at their destination.
Make no mistake about it, everyone in that room at ground control, every astronaut aboard Apollo 11, everyone of them had begun with the end in mind. And now, here they were walking on the moon!
Your direction determines your destination.
And… if you begin with the end in mind, your destination determines your direction.
A Life of Constant Frustration
We all know that NASA would have never sent astronauts to the moon without planning and preparation, and most of us would never set out on a journey of any kind without at least putting an address in our GPS, but how many of us are trying to make it through this life without any sense of where we’re headed?
How many of us are drifting, just hoping we’ll wind up in a good spot?
You never drift to where you want to be in life.
How many people do you know who are frustrated with their life, maybe even mad at God, but they’ve somehow forgotten, or just never thought about, or maybe they don’t want to begin with the end in mind.
But your direction determines your destination.
AND… your destination determines your direction.
But our failure to begin with the end in mind leads to a life of constant frustration.
Beginning at the End
The Good News, and this is really Good News, is that in the beginning, God had the end in mind for us.
In Luke 24, Jesus has already been crucified, buried in a borrowed tomb, and it’s Sunday. Jesus has risen from the grave, but not everyone knows this yet. And there are two people who were disciples of Jesus who are now leaving Jerusalem and they are on a seven mile journey to a place called Emmaus.
Listen to what Luke says happens next…
Luke 24.14-24
14 As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. 16 But God kept them from recognizing him.
Just imagine this moment… these two people are walking together and all of a sudden Jesus is walking with them, but they don’t know it’s Jesus.
Did you know that you could be walking through this life, walking through a season of uncertainty and confusion, and Jesus could be walking with you even if you don’t know that Jesus is walking with you?
Jesus is walking with these two people, and then he asks them a question…
17 …“What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. 18 Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.”
19 “What things?” Jesus asked.
Jesus knew “What things?,” so why did He ask the question?
If you follow the ministry of Jesus one of the things you’ll notice is that Jesus asks a lot of questions he already knows the answers to, so he’s not asking to gain information, to learn something new, he’s not asking for His benefit but for the benefit of the person he’s walking with.
Jesus doesn’t want anything from these two people, he wants something for them. He wants them to answer the question so he can open their eyes to know what they can’t know, to see what they can’t see, and to understand something they could never understand on their own apart from Him.
19 “What things?” Jesus asked.
“The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. 20 But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. 21 We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.
22 “Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. 23 They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! 24 Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.”
So they knew, Jesus is no longer in the tomb, but they’re not sure what happened!
All they know and all they believe at this point is that his body is missing. Apparently there were angels who said Jesus is alive! But you have to admit, this would be hard for anyone to believe.
After all, no one comes back from crucifixion.
Crucifixion, Resurrection & Predicted Hope
When people die on a Roman cross, they stay dead. No one comes back from that.
It’s hard for us to imagine, but in the first century it wasn’t uncommon to see Roman roads lined with Roman crosses. If you lived in an area controlled by the Roman empire, you were all too familiar with the Roman cross.
The Romans were expert executioners. Their motto was “Pax Romana,” Roman peace, which was peace maintained through violence or by the threat of violence. You don’t go against the Roman empire. If you do, you die. And the Roman cross was a visceral reminder that whatever you do, you stay in line.
No one comes back from a cross.
So you really can’t fault these two disciples for not knowing what to believe in this moment. All they know is the report that the body of Jesus is missing and angels have announced He is alive!
Jesus says…
25 “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26 Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” 27 Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Did you catch that?
Jesus walked them through the scriptures, the writings of Moses, and all the prophets… Jesus walks these two disciples through the entire Old Testament and shows them all the places where the story, History, His-Story — points to Himself!
28 By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, 29 but they begged him, “Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.” So he went home with them. 30 As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. 31 Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
Eyes Wide Open
Don’t miss this… When they break bread with Jesus, their eyes are opened. When they break bread with Jesus, everything changes. They are no longer living in the unknown. They are no longer living without hope.
I’m convinced that one of the reasons Jesus wants His church to practice Communion as often as possible is because Jesus knows that when we break bread with Him our eyes are opened so we can see what we cannot see without Him, so we can know what we cannot know without Him, so we can remember our Hope, remember Jesus is alive and Jesus is with us.
When this happened…
32 They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” 33 And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven disciples and the others who had gathered with them, 34 who said, “The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter.”
THE LORD REALLY HAS RISEN!
And because they believed, everything changed!
Now, they have passion and a purpose. Now, they have direction and a destination. They are no longer drifting, no longer living in confusion, uncertainty, doubt, and fear. Now they know Jesus is alive, and that fact changes absolutely everything forever.
Because they believed, everything changed!
Do You Believe?
And I just wonder, do you believe? Do you really believe Jesus is alive?
Because if you do, that FACT changes absolutely everything forever!
On April 12, 2004, the question that was on the cover of Time Magazine was this:
“Why did Jesus have to die?”
In that issue there was a 10 page article striving to answer that one question.
It is the question the disciples on the road to Emmaus were trying to answer. It’s the same question people for some 2000 years have been striving to answer.
If you ask the average person today, why did Jesus have to die, they might say something like this…
Well, in the beginning there was the garden of Eden and God created Adam and Eve, but they sinned! That’s when sin entered the world and our sin separates us from God so God had to come up with a plan to save us so that one day, when we die, we can go to heaven to be with him forever.
That’s what a lot of us grew up believing. The problem with that version of the gospel story is that it suggests that perfection was the expectation God had for Adam and Eve and that God has for you and me.
And because we were unable to live perfect lives, because we have sinned and we have failed each other and we have failed God, God had to come up with a plan to save us. And that’s why Jesus had to die!
It’s one of the reasons so many of us struggle with always wanting to be perfect, to do everything just right… because somewhere along the way we believed the lie that perfection is the expectation.
It’s the reason so many of of us always feel like failures. Because we can’t be perfect. But no one has ever been perfect, except Jesus!
So what if perfection has never been the expectation?
What if the reason Jesus came from heaven to earth, lived among us, and willingly went to the cross was a part of a divine plan that started BEFORE God planted the garden of Eden?
What if God, in the beginning, had the end in mind!
What if Jesus came and gave his life not just so we could go to heaven when we die, what if there’s something more, something bigger, at work in what happened at the cross?
Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 1.4-5:
Even BEFORE he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Did you hear what Paul said… Before God made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
Why did Jesus die?
Because He wanted to restore relationship between God and humanity.
Because he wants to walk with you like he walked with Adam and Eve, like he walked with the disciples from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
Jesus knew that our natural tendency is to drift.
God knew sin would be a part of our story, but it would not be the headline of our story. Of His Story.
The defining part of our story would be our redemption through Jesus so that we could walk in relationship with Him wherever we go.
And you can walk with Jesus today because Jesus is alive!
And… If we believe what we say we believe, it changes everything.
What will change because we believe?
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this, but…
We are here today because THEY BELIEVED.
Which makes me wonder…
Who will be here tomorrow BECAUSE WE BELIEVE?
We know how the story ends. God is with us, God is for us, and God has already invited us into living the abundant life.
So today, what I want to encourage you to do is to walk with Jesus. To live every day with the end in mind. And point others to Jesus. Invite others to folllow Jesus.
Whatever road you’re walking on, walk with Jesus. Jesus is with you.
And remember, if we believe what we say we believe it changes everything.
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