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The Mat of the Spirit
A sermon preached by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Devout male Muslims carry around with them prayer mats and
at designated times of the day, they roll those mats out, prostrate themselves
before God and they say their prayers. We respect how diligent and devout they
are. There is something to admire in their devout devotion to prayer.
We Christians do not carry mats around. We do believe in
prayer with all of our hearts because we believe that the Holy Spirit is within
us wherever we are at all times of the day and that the holy place that we
should turn to is within; that we believe that the Lord Christ lives within us
and that we believe that everybody should be a pray-er; women and men, girls and
boys and we believe that anytime is a prayer time and anything can be prayed
about.
But you know in the gospels there’s a good deal about mats;
not prayer mats, but mats. And Jesus has a way of saying that often we remember
when we can’t remember where to find it. He says again and again, take up your
mat and walk. He is saying, there’s no way that you can leave behind what was,
but pick it up, roll it up, put it under your arm, follow me. It is in fact a
radical reversal of this mat business. It has to do with a daily walk with the
Lord.
The first mat that I think the Lord wants us to roll up and
move on beyond is what I would call the mat of irresponsibility. We are
responsible before God and I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed in the
Bible, but the Apostles were all responsible people before Jesus called them;
everyone of them. There were fishermen, there was a tax collector – the four of
the fisherman that were described are in Mark 1 – Levi, later on Matthew the tax
collector, second and on through, every one of them a responsible person. Now
you say, what’s the big deal? Okay. If you cannot take the first step and take
responsibility for yourself, how can you become a responsible follower of Jesus
Christ? The big thing here is that you’ve got to quick blaming. You’ve got to
quit blaming your society, quit blaming yourself, quit blaming your parents,
quit blaming your habits, quit blaming what you look like, quit blaming the
gifts you were given, and become responsible for who you are.
Second Thessalonians, Paul is writing to a bunch of folks
who had laid down on their “irresponsible,” mats. They thought Jesus was coming
any day so why work? Why be responsible? Why take care of your families? Why
try to get ahead? Jesus coming any day, we go to heaven – wow! That’s 2,000
years ago by the way. People who get a crook in their neck always waiting for
the coming of the Lord, that’s not a new thing. The whole point here is that
Paul comes to them and says, now wait a minute! You may remember when we were
there we worked for a living. We didn’t take any offerings up. They were tent
makers, he and his party; he said we worked day and night so we wouldn’t be a
burden to you and then he says, here’s the law I gave you – follow it! If you
don’t work, you don’t eat – responsibility. Now responsibility won’t save you,
but responsibility is the first indication that you and God have a future
together.
The second of these is the mat of “spiritual birth,” or
“spiritual response,” and what you’re asked to do is to pick up the mat that
says I’m just going to stall right here with my own responsibility. I’m my own
god I control my own life and that’s all I need. Some years ago I watched with
fascination – video games were just coming out at that time and I had
grandchildren who had become experts in them, they tried to teach me and then
they gave up, but I did learn enough to find out that it’s all a matter of the
controller, it’s a little thing like this, it has buttons, you manipulate this
and out on the screen is what you’ve decided, you’re the controller. The one
that fascinated me the most, I guess, because of just my understanding of
stories was one called ‘Aladdin,’ and Aladdin rode around on a mat, a magic
carpet, it was a mat and they would sit there and they would do this kind of
thing like they do and they’re so good and they’re controlling what’s going up
there. And if Aladdin needs to go this way they punch something and that
way…up, down, around…they are the controllers. It is a parable of our society.
We think we can control everything and we think we can be our own gods and sit
there with the controller and make everything happen like we want it and the
Lord Jesus comes into our lives and says, you’re not gods and sooner or later
you’re going to come to the place where you realize you’re going to need
somebody else controlling things other than you!
If you were to learn how to fly one of the things that
you’re instructor who is in the right seat would teach you is the immense danger
in stalling out. You stall out in an airplane when the nose of the airplane
gets so high that the power in the airplane can no longer push it forward and
the airplane stalls and turns over and heads for the ground. By the way, the
way to get out of that is to stick the nose of the airplane down, give it
opposite rigger and with the speed, you come out the other end, but you have to
do something. You can’t just let it flip. Okay. Our culture has stalled out
in trying to control everything. We want to be perfect.
When you come to Jesus you don’t come with perfection. You
come with great need. Maybe the need for meaning, maybe the need for purpose,
maybe the need to put things together again, maybe like a puzzle that you’ve all
had laid out on the table and somebody has come up and made all the puzzle and
all the pieces in different places.
Turn in your Bible to Mark 2. This is one of the great
stories in all of the Bible. You’ve heard it before and you’ve heard me preach
on it from before. But I want to point out this is the story about the
paralytic and they brought the one who was paralyzed, the four guys who carried
him on a mat, and they carried him and lo and behold they couldn’t get in. And
they lowered him through the ceiling and if you will look down in verse 11,
Jesus, after He has forgiven his sins and has healed his body says, “I tell you,
get up, take up your mat and go home.” But it’s the early verse I want you to
look at. “A few days when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that
He had come home and so many gathered that there was no room left, not even
outside the door and He preached the word to them.” If you read this in the
original, there is no break before He came home and the people gathered. It is
altogether possible – they were tearing off the roof of Jesus’ house.
Now I don’t know what you would do if all the sudden
somebody started tearing the roof of your house off, but I know what I’d do.
The first thing I’d do is make my way through the crowd, get outside and say,
hey you lunkheads! What in the world are you doing up there?! You know what
Jesus did? Nothing. He let all of that ceiling trash come settling down. He
knew, of course, what was about to happen and He knew there was a person there
who desperately needed help and He patiently waited while the mess gathered
around His feet. Too many of us want everything in place all of the time and it
doesn’t work that way!
I stand at an altar when it’s wedding time and I look at
that wonderful bride and that wonderful groom and they are so enraptured, so
ecstatic, scared to death, but they are in love, head over heels and I say to
myself, I wonder what they’re going to do when things start to fall apart?! I
wonder what they’re going to do when the roof begins to come down? Are they
going to stand together and say this isn’t what we expected, but we’re here and
we’re together and we’re going to stand here or are they going to walk out? You
see, that’s true of kids. When we hold that little baby in our arms for the
first time it is an incredible experience and I’ve been through it with
grandchildren and there’s the little baby and you look into that angelic face
and if you’re a grandparent you’re so glad you get to walk off and leave it
(Laughter)! Because you know the next thing is 3 o’clock in the morning and 5
o’clock in the morning and 7 o’clock in the morning, it isn’t perfect is it? Do
you quit being a parent because it isn’t perfect? No. It is God’s pattern that
when things are not perfect they’re exactly like He knew they would be and the
whole thing is to take it and put it in your arms and pick up your mat of false
expectations and turn to Jesus who is the one who understands imperfection and
who forgives, who embraces. Look what He says…they bring the paralytic to Jesus
and look what Jesus says, this is verse 5, “When Jesus saw their faith He said
to the paralytic son, your sins are forgiven.” Now that’s a funny thing to say,
he came to be healed! Yeah, but you forgot something. You forgot that in that
part of the world if you had something bad happen to you it was an obvious sign
you were a terrible sinner. It had nothing to do with the physical it had to do
with the spiritual and Jesus had, looking at a guy who had acquired guilt, false
guilt, but it was real and the first thing He had to do was to clear the slate,
your sins are forgiven you and then He healed him and then He said, take up your
mat and walk.
There is a third of these mats and it’s the fellowship of
the mat. Consider those four guys that brought him. Sooner or later, my
friend, I would hope you’re one of the four at one of the corners of the mat
helping somebody who really can’t help themselves, but oh my friend and hear
this, sooner or later you’re on the mat. It may be close to when you breathe
your last and God will have blessed you with great health and life all of your
life, but the day will come and you will be the one in need of the four who are
there to help you.
And there’s a fourth…it’s for the one who’s on the mat and
not even the four can help, it’s the Holy Spirit’s mat and now the Holy Spirit
picks up the four corners and the Holy Spirit takes you and in His own way
strengthens, helps, lifts, heals, saves, forgives, hear Isaiah…Isaiah knew this
better than almost anybody; Isaiah 40:31, “They that wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall
run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Or again when Isaiah, Ted
Adams favorite verse, “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
That’s the Holy Spirit and all He asks is that you be dependant and trustful
upon Him as He lifts you up and takes where you need to go.
Which mat is yours today? Are you still trying to control
everything? Are you still trying to make everything perfect? Have you not ever
seen yourself as one at one of the four corners? The mat of the fellowship…and
some of you may indeed need the Holy Spirit to just pick you up and hold you
close and you know what? He will! Take up your mat and walk!
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