Essentially he's convinced that the Main Thing (God) really needs to be the main thing in our lives, the most important thing. He wants people to see how the gospel seeps into and consumes every avenue of our lives and we need to allow it to give God centre stage on our lives.
If I said to you in a rather bored tone, showing no sign of alarm or emotion 'there's a scorpion climbing up my leg' you'd think me a little strange; you wouldn't believe me about the scorpion. The statement 'there's a scorpion climbing up my leg' points to a reality that is urgent and requiring immediate action, my life is at risk - how can I be bored? I clearly haven't understood the reality of what I'm saying, I must be lying about the scorpion.
Often I find I meet people who say 'yeah I'm a Christian, so what?' or if they don't say it, they convey it. You meet people who convey a feeling of 'being a Christian isn't that big of a deal'. If you were to see someone standing at a football match in and amongst the terraces, surrounded by screaming football fans all yelling about how brilliant a particular football team is, but this person was sitting down, looking bored. What would you think? That they're in the wrong seats? I certainly wouldn't think that they supported the same team as the people chanting. Supposing you saw them out after the game wearing the football strip of the team the fans were chanting about, you'd perhaps be a little confused wouldn't you? I'd certainly have some questions.
In church you see people sometimes looking quite bored whilst all around them people are lost in worship and relationship with God. What do you conclude about these people? Well, I think to myself that they either don't believe the same thing as those standing around them, or that they don't understand what they say they believe, if they in fact say that they believe it. Do you follow?
Consider these statements:
'I believe in a holy, all powerful, awesome God who sent his own son to die on a cross for the sins of the world and now is alive ruling and reigning forever more... so what, that doesn't make a difference to my life.'
'There's a scorpion climbing up my leg... so what, that doesn't make any difference to my life.'
'One day I'm going to stand before the creator of the universe and he's going to call me to account for all the things I've done/not done with my life... so what, that doesn't make any difference to me and my life.'
'There's a tiger loose in my front room... so what I can still watch TV in there.'There's a disconnect bewteen the statements and the realites that the statements points to.
What we need is some dominoes thinking.
Dominoes you know - push one and they all go down, in turn.
Work it through:
Tiger in front room = potential death for anyone in the room, need for help = I can't watch TV in there = I need to watch TV some where else, or go get help to get the tiger out of the front room = I think I'll leave the house, just to be on the safe side...
For Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 he says a few things like this:
We will all stand before God to be judged one day = God is holy and awesome = I want to be ready when I meet him = I want to do all that I can to warn/tell people about the death of Jesus.
Do you see how it goes?
To keep the Main Thing, the main thing you need to do some dominoes style thinking.
Have you thought through the implications of what you believe? Of what others believe? Have you seen how the guys in 'The Hangover' responded to the tiger in their bathroom?
Come on: The main thing, is to keep the Main Thing, the main thing.
