Sunday's Sermon: Get Out of the Lifeboat

Last Sunday I preached about a concept Donald Miller writes about in Searching For God Knows What. Its an issue our church struggles with, and though I'm not sure how many people caught on (I got more compliments about my tie than the sermon), it was a message that spoke to me. By the way, the book is excellent and I would highly recommend it. So, here's the sermon.

The Lifeboat

I just finished reading a book called Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller. For those of you who don’t know who he is, Donald Miller is a contemporary Christian writer. He has a way of writing that just makes sense. He puts Biblical concepts onto paper and it makes you say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” I would highly recommend the book to anyone. One of the concepts he talks about is being in a lifeboat.

Sometimes as Christians we think of a lifeboat metaphor in terms of saving everyone who’s not a Christian, going out to the Titanic and picking up all the drowning people. That’s not what he’s talking about. To illustrate what the lifeboat is all about, I need some volunteers. (During service we had four people come up front and stand on a half-inflated swimming "couch.").

On a lifeboat, you want to save as many people as possible. But what if the boat gets too heavy and you have to throw someone off in order for it not to sink? Who gets thrown off? Who decides who gets thrown off? What happens in this situation is everyone tries to stay alive. They try to convince the other people they are worthy of staying on the lifeboat. But still, someone has to go. We’re getting pretty full up here, right? So, Mary says, “You can’t throw me off. I have children and grandchildren. My grandson just turned 4 last week. I’m a secretary at a school. I have to stay on this lifeboat.” And Linda says, “Me neither. I have a husband and daughter. I won’t even be able to say goodbye to them. Besides, I know how to get us to land. If you throw me off, you’ll all die anyway.” And Jamie says, “I’m too young to die. I’ve only been married for a couple years. And I sell Mary Kay. How will anyone get make-up if I’m dead?” And so the women conspire against poor Al, and he doesn’t get a say. So Al gets tossed overboard and drowns.

This is the lifeboat. Not a fun place to be is it. It’s a good thing we don’t normally have to be on these things, right? Not to sink your boat or anything, but this is life. This happens everyday to every one of us, even on Sunday morning at this church. You see, everyone wants to think of themselves as being in the group that doesn’t get kicked off. The popular group. The group everyone likes. And so, either consciously or subconsciously, we do our best to make everyone think we’re a great person.

And sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking we’re better than this person or that person. Why? Because there is a deep desire within us to be accepted, to feel important, to be looked up to, to be loved. And to counteract the fear of rejection or isolation being unloved, we put other people down. And this is just the surface issue. Because in a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a lifeboat. We wouldn’t have to worry about being the unloved one or the last one picked for a team.

At one point this world was perfect, and this wasn’t an issue. In the Garden of Eden, God created Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were perfect. They walked and talked with God, and as their Creator, God gave them their sense of worth. They had nothing to fear. Adam never told Eve she was ugly, or she got on his nerves. And Eve never told Adam he watched too much TV and didn’t spend enough time with the kids. There was no fighting match to see who was better than whom.

Until sin entered the world, when they disobeyed God. All of a sudden, they were kicked out of the Garden, and God wasn’t as close as He used to be. The way things used to be was tarnished and trashed, and they were separated from God. Without God telling them how much He loved them, without them getting their worth from Him, they had to seek it from each other. And Adam couldn’t always give the love God did. Same with Eve. Sin equals separation from God equals searching for the love and acceptance of God in others which ultimately equals a letdown and a lifeboat.

That’s where we’re at today and that’s where the disciples were at when they walked with Jesus. Mark 9:33-37 gives an account of their lifeboat games. So if you have your Bibles—by the way if you have a Bible you brought to church, could you hold it in the air? If you have your Bibles, turn to Mark 9:33-37.

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

Disciples in the Lifeboat

In this passage, Jesus and the disciples are going to Capernaum. They are walking away from just having witnessed Jesus drive out a demon from a boy. They had tried to drive the demon out but couldn’t. And so in their state of failure, they walked. And soon arose an argument. In the Greek, the word for argued is what we get the word “dialogue” from. This word literally means “to balance accounts, to take full account of, to consider, to debate, or to argue.” In arguing about who was the greatest, they were being careful to give full account of why they should be at the top of the list. They compared themselves to each other, putting one another down and building themselves up. And they knew that what they were doing was wrong. Because when Jesus questioned them about it, they all got very quiet.

I remember a time when I was younger, probably seven or eight years old, when my brother and I thought it would be a great idea to take our bats and see who could make a crack in our mom’s windshield. So we got up on the hood of the car and started banging away. And I can’t remember who won, but we did make a good crack in it. Obviously mom found out about it. And so did dad. Boy did we ever get quiet. Which is pretty silly seeing as how we were the only ones who could have done it, and we couldn’t really hide what we had done.

Same thing happens here with the disciples. Jesus is no dummy. He knows what they were talking about and lets them know, “Whoever wants to be first must be the very last and must be servant of all.” You mean, I have to be thrown out of the lifeboat if I want to be the greatest? Yes.

You have to be tossed, and you have to want to be tossed. When Jesus tells them they must be a servant, he uses a word which means one who attends to the needs of others freely. He could have used another more common word, doulos, which refers to a slave. Jesus isn’t saying you have to be a servant who is forced to serve, as a slave would be. He’s saying you have to be a guy who desires to serve. This has to be in your blood, being last. So not only do you have to be tossed from the lifeboat, you have to want to be tossed.

And this is hard for us. No one wants to be last. Last is horrible. Last means you don’t make the cut, you don’t get the trophy, no one pats you on the back and compliments you on a job well done. We’d much rather be first. And so when we don’t like what someone has done, we tell others about it. We put the pastor down because we don’t like a decision he made. And we don’t tell him about it for fear we’ll end up at the end of the lifeboat.

Or we boast about how much money we have in the bank, or our intelligence, or any other talent we have. Anything we feel makes us more special than someone else, or anything that makes others love us. Then there are others who feel they’re always at the end of the lifeboat, and just wish that for once someone would consider them worthy of stay onboard. I know I’ve been on both sides of the coin. But perhaps it’s time we shut our mouths a bit and begin loving other people. Just think about it: If everyone is so busy focusing on how they look to other people, then no one is looking at you. They’re all looking inward. So, instead of worrying about it, let’s take time to encourage each other, to serve each other, and to get out of the lifeboat.

Call to Get Out of the Lifeboat

That’s what Jesus called the disciples to do. In verse 37 he said, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” A child in Jesus’ day was at the low end of the social totem pole. Children were supposed to obey their parents and be sure to make their parents proud. They didn’t have many of the responsibilities an adult would, and just weren’t seen as very important. They are the ones who we would most likely toss from the lifeboat. So Jesus is saying we must welcome—receive with open arms—this child, Himself, and the One who sent Him—God the Father.

We must welcome God, for He is the only one who can love us and give us the sense of worth we are seeking. We won’t find it in other people, in their acceptance of us, or in putting them down. We’ll never be satisfied with ourselves until we welcome God and His love for us.

So today, it’s time to step out of the lifeboat. If we all step out of the lifeboat, then we don’t have to worry about being thrown overboard (take off swim trunks and throw away “lifeboat.”). God wants our relationships with Him and with each other to be pure. No more faking like we like each other just to feel good about each other. No more talking behind someone else’s back because you feel better about yourself. No more secretly evaluating people based on appearances or wealth or fame or Christian maturity. Jesus would say the greatest thing we can do to display that we love Him is to love others unconditionally.

Conclusion

I would guess I’m speaking to two types of people today. You’re either in the popular group pushing others out of the lifeboat, or you’re being pushed out wishing you weren’t. If you’re in the first group, and you want to change, here’s what you need to do. You need to tell God you’re sorry and repent. And from here on out, you need to commit to seeing other people as equals, as created by God and given worth by God. And you need to see yourself in that way too.

For those who are in the second group, and you want to change, you need to forgive those who have been doing this to you. Whether you’ve heard through the grapevine comments someone has made, or you’re jealous about another person, or something else, you need to forgive those people. And then you need to commit to loving them, even if they stay in the lifeboat.

I know that everyone is in one of these two groups…maybe even in both at the same time. That means we should all respond today. I would ask that everyone who desires to change pray quietly where they are at, out loud. As an act of commitment, pray for forgiveness and for a love for others. Then I’ll pray to close.