Say Something…Do Something
Revelations 3:15-16 (NLT)
15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! 16 But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!
This is a pretty hard couple of verses to swallow. It’s saying that you should either be on fire for God, or not about God at all because in both cases, God can use you for His glory. It’s saying, get off the fence and make a decision because otherwise you are trying to serve two masters. You can’t be one way around your family, school friends, or co-workers, and be another way here at church.
I think most of us in the room fall somewhere between lukewarm and hot; if we are to assume the ‘hot’ is good in this case. If we are on fire for God then He can use us to do His will. If we are lukewarm then we are sitting on the sidelines, watching the game happen, but unwilling to get in there and play. Does God still love you if you are lukewarm? Absolutely! But there isn’t a whole lot he can do with us if he is asking us to go out in the world and show His love to others and we continually refuse to obey.
We all love God. We have all made a commitment to God. We have all given our lives over to Him and accepted Jesus as our savior. Our sins have been washed away and we expect to spend eternity in heaven. Awesome! We’ve bought the insurance policy and are set. But there is more we can do.
As believers, we are His ambassadors. We represent heaven on Earth. Does that make us perfect? No. Does that mean we can judge people? No. What it gives us is a responsibility to love. We are now meant to reach out and let people know about the amazing thing God did for us when He sacrificed His son to show His love for us so that we could have eternity in heaven.
So why is it so hard to say something to those people who we see and who we know are hurting? Why is it so hard to do something when there is so much pain happening around us?
I think what it boils down to is the strength of our faith. We don’t say or do something because we don’t fully believe it could make a difference. If we did, then we wouldn’t care what our friends, or family members, would say about us. If our faith was strong then we wouldn’t hesitate to go out and do what God has called us to do. We wouldn’t justify sitting on the side lines and watching the game go on around us.
If we were strong in our faith we would let ourselves continually be changed by God’s word. So ask yourself, “Do I really believe in all this? Am I willing to let it change me?”
Don’t answer right now…not sitting in this room here at church surrounded by other believers.
Ask yourself when it is just you, sitting in your room; when the only One who can hear you is God.
Ask yourself when you are out with your friends on the weekends and you just want to have a good time, but you see someone in emotional pain.
Ask yourself when you are at work and your co-workers are talking about the crazy things they did over the weekend and you have a choice to tell them about what you heard at church, or what you read in the Bible…or will you skip over that stuff and just tell them about the fun you had?
Ask yourself, “Do I really believe in all this? Am I willing to let it change me?” when you are standing at the line, about to cross over into sin, and see what your answer is then.
And when you are ready to answer “yes” to both those questions, then it is time to figure out the next step. What changes can you make? In the movie, To Save a Life, the students decided to come together at school and eat lunch. Doing so gave them a sense of community and the confidence to reach out and find students that were hurting and give them a place where they would be accepted. That worked for them. What will work for you?
Don’t let this world make you lukewarm. Choose to say something. Choose to do something. You’ll be amazed at what God can do with you.
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