What drives commitment?

Acts 13 

podcast: http://www.pastorwoman.com/podcasts/ba1ea11e-d5b0-4051-a2cb-93f44da...

Hello.

To many - he was a fool, plain and simple.  I mean, who would grow up in a great home with loving parents and siblings, get a good education, even graduate from college-all to throw it away in the jungles of Ecuador?  Really, who would willingly go into an Ecuadoran jungle, filled with savages who had killed all outsiders ever caught in their area?  Dang.  [Now, I have a son who is a thrill seeker, one might call him an 'adrenaline junkie' (. . . okay, many folks would call him an adrenaline junkie)] but walk straight into a spear?  Not so much.  Yet that is what handsome Jim Elliot did.  Commitment... he had it. 1,2

 

What drives this kind of commitment?  If you could derive a formula for a winning outcome to that question, you would be rich.  Of course, today's business entrepreneurs talk and write about commitment: 'how do we inspire and then draw it out of people?'  Commitment.  We all like to think we have it in us, but do we?  What does it look like?  Step a little closer please.

 

When I was 18, I flew from San Francisco to Champagne-Urbana, Illinois, for a world missions conference for college students; there were some 16,000 of us!  I had no idea the change makers I was hearing and seeing at "Believing and Obeying Jesus Christ." These were super heroes of the faith who risked much and never called retreat.  It was the second time I heard Billy Graham, (I had been 11 the first time), then Luis Palau, the brilliant English theologian and teacher John Stott, and even Elizabeth Elliott-wife of the aforementioned Jim Elliot, still carrying the torch of the Gospel some 23 years after her husband had been brutally killed.  Why?  She wholeheartedly agreed with her husband, who wrote in his journal seven years before he died,

"he is no fool who gives                                                                                                              what he cannot keep                                                                                                                     to gain that which he cannot lose."

Oh, I am so inspired by this beautiful man's commitment to bring Jesus to those who had not heard. 

What drives commitment?

           for a cause greater than one's self.

What drives commitment to Jesus Christ?  Sold-out passion for a cause greater than one's self.  Paul and Barnabas, on the first journey to take the gospel out had that kind of commitment.  We take up their story when the leaders of the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia, implored them, "Brothers, if you have a word of exhortation for the people, please speak." 

Paul talks to them about the Lord right where they are  - Jews in the synagogues, and Paul speaks to them in a way they can understand.  He delivers a brilliant, impassioned message, talking about God's plan through their familiar history.  "Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power he led them out of that country; for about forty years he endured their conduct in the wilderness; and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance. All this took about 450 years.

"After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years.  After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ~>'I have found David son of Jesse,                                               a man after my own heart;                                                                 

             he will do everything I want him to do.'

"From this man's descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. As John was completing his work, he said: 'Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.'

"Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed.  When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.

"We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus..."Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. 

The word of the Lord spread through the whole region.   Six times in this 13th chapter of Acts, Luke refers to the word of the Lord - Paul and Barnabas speaking it, crowds gathering to hear it ... desire for truth, desperate need for good news.

We saw it in the life of Jim Elliot; he had seen it in the lives of Paul and Barnabas, driven by the passion and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

 

1 - http://scriptoriumdaily.com/today-jim-elliot-was-killed-1956/

2 - http://www.inspirationalchristians.org/biography/jim-elliot/