High school pep rallies before the big game were, as they were designed to be, an immersion into an emotional bath: there was the band, the fight song, the school song, the speeches, and the getting the student body hyped up with hatred for the enemy our team would battle under the Friday night lights. The opponent for that coming night was the enemy, no doubt about it. One of the highlights of a pep rally in the gym that I remember occured when we hung the star of our hated arch rival in effigy from the rafters. It was great fun. I enjoyed seeing that dummy dangle with player's name written large on it for all to see. I still remember that name.
Recently, just before the New Orleans Saints took to the gridiron to face the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC championship, the team gathered on the sidelines to listen to their quarterback scream, "This is our house! This is our house! No one comes into our house and . . ." And "We can do it; let's finish the fight!" Or something like that. You get the idea. They were hyped; they were yelling; they were jumping up and down with fanatical anticipation.
But come the middle of the third quarter and players on both teams had been hit, knocked down, piled on, and battered. They were exhausted, flat out worn out. No one was jumping up and down hyped by the "ra-ra" spirit. The emotion had worn thin and then . . . off.
Some people look on church that way--a pep rally of, "Get out there this week and do it! You can do it!" The music, the applause during the sermon are all geared to cause the congregation to leave the buuilding with that can-do attitude. They've heard over and over again, "Be strong. Be of good cheer. Be courageous."
But when the third quarter comes, as it does, maybe even before they drive their BMWs out of the parking lot, all the effects of their emotional baptism have vanished. They're back to living discouraged, deflated, and defeated.
God calls us to do the impossible--go into all the world and make disciples along many other impossible commands. If we're of the church-is-my-pep-rally-mentality, we'll fail every time, because we can't do the impossible.
Back when Israel was getting ready to enter the promised land, the 80-year old Joshua had the impossible task of leading them in and engaging in warfare, fighting alongside of a people whose parents had rebelled against God and had rebelled against Joshua and Caleb's report 40 years earlier. So how was Joshua to do the impossible?
God tells him how in Joshua 1 and it's the farthest thing from a pep rally talk. Yes, God does say "Be strong. Be courageous." But the the basis of the strength and the courage is different than trying to get Joshua to work up the courage and the strength.
In chapter one, God tells the reader how the strenth and the courage come:
1. Immerse yourself in God's Word. (Joshua had seen Moses write the first 5 books of the Bible.)
2. Soak your speech in God's Word. The conversations with family, friends, and others were to be immersed in God's Word. ("This book shall not depart from your mouth.")
3. Allow the words of the Book to shape your worldview. ("Meditate on them day and night.")
4. Then do them. ("Be careful to do all that is recorded in them.")
How very, very far that's removed from a weekly pep rally based on emotinalism.
That's the type of person we look for to be our best friends, Bible-soaked.
No comments:
Post a Comment