Ever since we started Cornerstone 20 years ago we’ve always offered hot coffee in the lobby. But one of the odd things about that is that in those 20 years we’ve never had a person responsible for making the coffee who actually drinks coffee. For many years that was one of my jobs, and still is from time to time. Bob Trouard did that job for a number of years, and in recent times it’s been Andrew’s responsibility. But none of us drink coffee, not even occasionally.

There’s a story about a local fitness center, which was offering $1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate that they were stronger than the owner of the place. Here’s how it worked. This muscle man would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and then hand the lemon to the next challenger. Anyone who could squeeze just one more drop of juice out would win the money. Many people tried over time – other weightlifters, construction workers, even professional wrestlers, but nobody could do it.

There’s a story about a local fitness center, which was offering $1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate that they were stronger than the owner of the place. Here’s how it worked. This muscle man would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and then hand the lemon to the next challenger. Anyone who could squeeze just one more drop of juice out would win the money. Many people tried over time – other weightlifters, construction workers, even professional wrestlers, but nobody could do it.

“WHEN LIFE GETS OUT OF CONTROL: JESUS CRASHES OUR DAMAGED LIVES”

Life Crasher: When It’s Time For A Change

April 14, 2013

Cornerstone Community Church

What is your default setting when something around your house breaks? Is your first inclination to fix it or to replace it? In our home Brenda is the “fix it” person and I’m the “replace it” person. If one of our appliances has a problem, Brenda wants to fix it. And I have to admire her confidence, because she wants to fix it herself even when she has absolutely no idea how the appliance works. I’m at the other extreme. If something is broken, even something simple that pretty much anyone with half a brain could repair, I still want to replace it.

Once in awhile I will ask someone what it would take to convince them that Jesus really was God, that he really rose from the dead, that he really was who he claimed to be, and they say something like, “If Jesus were just to appear to me, if he would just let me see him, then I’d believe.” But think about this. Here were the disciples. They had lived with Jesus for three years. They had seen Jesus be crucified. They had seen the empty tomb with their own eyes. As we will read later from Luke, they had even eaten a meal with Jesus after his resurrection. This event in Matthew 28 was not the first time they had been with Jesus since he had come back to life. And now they are standing nose to nose with the risen Jesus, and are they convinced? No! Some of them still didn’t believe it. Even with the evidence staring them in the face, they still had doubts.

And what did Jesus do? Did he fire them? Did he put them on a performance plan? Did he yell at them or call them names? No. He looked right into the eyes and hearts of these doubting disciples, and he gave them what we call the Great Commission. He told them to go out into the world and make more disciples. He commanded them to go and persuade others to follow him.

You see, Jesus understood that having doubts is part of being human. It is not a requirement of following Jesus that we eliminate all our doubts. It wasn’t a requirement for the first disciples, and it isn’t a requirement now. Let me tell you why.

A little while ago one of you reminded me of a story I once told quite a long time ago about our family. I looked it up in my records; I actually told this story 16 years ago, so it surprised me that anyone remembered it. I actually think about this story at least once every week, every time I walk past the street drain located right by our front steps. And I thought about it again now, at Easter time, because it’s a story about a time when hope seemed lost.

This was back in the days when life in our family was particularly hectic. I was working as a lawyer in Palo Alto, and my wife – in addition to raising three young kids and working fulltime – was still recovering from a car accident in which she was t-boned by a pickup truck. While I usually drove our children to school at that time, this was one of those mornings I had to be out of the house early and wouldn’t see them before I left. Brenda was still unable to drive at the time because of the accident, so one of our neighbors at that time – Cathy – volunteered to take our two oldest kids in her van. Before I left that morning I carefully packed a lunch for Stephanie, who was 9, and Ryan, who was 6. Of the two, Ryan was the most particular about what he eats, so I made sure I used the kind of bread he liked and that I cut the sandwich the way he liked it and that I gave him his favorite snacks and that I put his lunch in his favorite “Flipper” lunch box.

A little while ago one of you reminded me of a story I once told quite a long time ago about our family. I looked it up in my records; I actually told this story 16 years ago, so it surprised me that anyone remembered it. I actually think about this story at least once every week, every time I walk past the street drain located right by our front steps. And I thought about it again now, at Easter time, because it’s a story about a time when hope seemed lost.

This was back in the days when life in our family was particularly hectic. I was working as a lawyer in Palo Alto, and my wife – in addition to raising three young kids and working fulltime – was still recovering from a car accident in which she was t-boned by a pickup truck. While I usually drove our children to school at that time, this was one of those mornings I had to be out of the house early and wouldn’t see them before I left. Brenda was still unable to drive at the time because of the accident, so one of our neighbors at that time – Cathy – volunteered to take our two oldest kids in her van. Before I left that morning I carefully packed a lunch for Stephanie, who was 9, and Ryan, who was 6. Of the two, Ryan was the most particular about what he eats, so I made sure I used the kind of bread he liked and that I cut the sandwich the way he liked it and that I gave him his favorite snacks and that I put his lunch in his favorite “Flipper” lunch box.

Have you ever gotten an invitation to something that at the end of which had this phrase: “Regrets only”? What it means, of course, is that you don’t need to tell the host if you’re coming to the party, but you only have to send them your regrets; you only have to tell them if you can’t come. And I’ve sometimes thought when I’ve received those invitations, “I wish I could send you my regrets. I’ve got a whole ton of regrets that I’d love to unload, all sorts of things I’ve done that I regret doing. If there was really a way I could send you my regrets, trust me – I’d do it.”

Some regrets we can tuck away in the closet so we don’t have to see them every day. We can push them to the back of our minds. And then there are the regrets that are constantly in our faces. I told you this story a few years ago. Not long after we moved into our house we got some dirt on the carpet in what we call our bonus room that we couldn’t seem to get out. Shortly after that a college kid came to our door selling this miracle product he claimed could get any stain out of anything. Did we have any tough stains we wanted him to get out as proof, he wondered? As a matter of fact, we did. So we invited him upstairs to show him our dirt. We figured this was a win-win situation for us. If it worked, our carpet would be clean, and we would have gotten it cleaned for free. If it didn’t work, we’d still have dirt, but we could always try something else.

Have you ever gotten an invitation to something that at the end of which had this phrase: “Regrets only”? What it means, of course, is that you don’t need to tell the host if you’re coming to the party, but you only have to send them your regrets; you only have to tell them if you can’t come. And I’ve sometimes thought when I’ve received those invitations, “I wish I could send you my regrets. I’ve got a whole ton of regrets that I’d love to unload, all sorts of things I’ve done that I regret doing. If there was really a way I could send you my regrets, trust me – I’d do it.”

Some regrets we can tuck away in the closet so we don’t have to see them every day. We can push them to the back of our minds. And then there are the regrets that are constantly in our faces. I told you this story a few years ago. Not long after we moved into our house we got some dirt on the carpet in what we call our bonus room that we couldn’t seem to get out. Shortly after that a college kid came to our door selling this miracle product he claimed could get any stain out of anything. Did we have any tough stains we wanted him to get out as proof, he wondered? As a matter of fact, we did. So we invited him upstairs to show him our dirt. We figured this was a win-win situation for us. If it worked, our carpet would be clean, and we would have gotten it cleaned for free. If it didn’t work, we’d still have dirt, but we could always try something else.

A motivational author and speaker named Charlie Jones – whose nickname was “Tremendous” because his best-selling book was titled “Life Is Tremendous” – once said this: “Five years from today, you will be the same person you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” It’s a bit of an overstatement, of course, but I doubt any of us would dispute the fact that the greatest influence on our lives is other people. People inspire us, and people drag us down. For good or for bad, you and I are who we are largely because of the people we’ve allowed to shape our character, our values and our beliefs.