“Real Life”

The Corinthian church would probably make most of us rather tame folks a little uneasy.  We know from the writing of it that a good deal of the membership was made up of people who had been converted out of pagan lifestyle.  Some of them were thieves, some of them were drunkards, some were adulterers and some were homosexuals.  All came to faith in Christ and had their lives dramatically changed. It's amazing to me that God was realistic enough to let us know that some of those people probably slipped back into their lifestyles of sin, were confronted by the church and members in the church and apostolic leadership in the church to lovingly bring them back.  It's interesting today that this world that loves to live on the edge, we really are afraid to talk with people face-to-face about what matters.  But when you see someone about to go over a moral cliff you would do them a great help by stopping them.  And, especially if they share your faith in Christ.

So, Paul had to deal with three major issues we learned in day 1.  They struggled with their maturity, they struggled with their morality, and they struggled with their unity.  They did not get this unity thing right.  Their lives were impure in the morality and maturity-wise, well, they had a problem because their self-assessment wasn't very accurate, which is indeed a sign of immaturity but they saw themselves as spiritual and Paul called them fleshly and infants or babes.  He confronted them over their immaturity and their immorality.  He  had gotten in their face about their abuse of the Lord's Supper and informed them they were presently under God's judgment for such a careless attitude towards the things of God.  He was astounded that with a savior like Christ, they had developed a party spirit to where they had their favorite preachers, Apollos and Peter and Paul and Christ.  Now, the people who followed Christ, that was the super spiritual group in the church who knew they were above everybody else. But when you serve a crucified savior whose mark was humility and love, he was confused about that. 

Some of their doctrine, even by the time Paul wrote this letter, even though he founded the church, had been so subverted and perverted that some of them were saying there was no resurrection of the dead. And it is through belief in that and the truth of that they had come to Christ. 

When I think about this church and all that it offers us and the truth about life, by the way, if I were God I would not have included this letter in my book.  Would you? Would you like to tell the whole world that one of your people is sleeping with his father's wife? I don’t think we'd do it that way.  You see it is the utter, plain truthfulness of this book that is one of the bedrock things that convinces me of its reliability, of its trustworthiness, of its absolute truth.  God holds nothing back.  He took the star of the Old Testament and told us about his lying, his cheating, his adultery, and his murder!  And this is the star guy who is a man after God's own heart.  I don't think that's an effective way to convince people to follow you and especially to follow your people.  But God tells the truth about us because the Bible is not about people.  It's about a magnificent savior who takes the likes of us and sees us just like the Corinthians because that's just what we are, and saves us by his free grace by calling us to himself.  So after dealing with a church like this, what's Paul going to say? It's got to be good, I mean he's coming down to the wire.  It's got to be stunning, certainly.  Well, stunning it was, stunningly plain.  There's hardly anything in 1 Corinthians that rivets you to it.  He talks about an offering that has been taken for the church at Jerusalem and how they might participate.  He talks about his travel plans and when he's planning on coming if the Lord permits.  He talks about Apollos and that he doesn't want to come right now because they had asked him, "When's Apollos coming?"  He says, Well, I can’t come right now so I'm going to send Timothy to you instead.  He's a little on the timid side so why don't you be nice to him while he's there.  He reminds that Stephanas, one of their own, is a good leader, you need to follow him.  He gives about 5 very quick, clear instructions and then closes his letter, and that's about it.

So, how in the world is this to help us today? What is it that Paul is saying? What is it he's laid out for them?  Actually, what he has done, he has gone through the mountaintops and the valleys.  This is the church that loved the colorful spiritual gifts.  They had these huge experiences in worship and maybe even in private.  Their Christianity was volatile.  They were a greatly gifted church, yet they were a greatly out of balance church and this highly gifted and expressive church saw themselves, because of their experiences and their expressions as spiritual and mature, but Paul had to get in their face and say "Grow up!"

And so, in looking hard and long for a message, a singular message from this passage of scripture, I could only phrase it like this, and when I say it, you're going to say "What in the world has happened to Tony?"  By the time we get to the end of the chapter, realizing what kind of people they are, what Paul was saying with his parting words, which were very important, this is what he was saying in his plain words, "Suck it up and get on with life!"  Now that's a Greek phrase.  [Laughter]  Let me translate it for you, which being translated  means, stop whining about walking with God.  Soft Christianity had no place in Paul's day and it definitely has no place in our day.  Ill-defined or undefined, rounded on the edges, very non distinct and nondescript, how does anybody really know by looking at us what a Christian is?  What is distinct  in your life and in our lives together as a church that says, "I am a follower of the LORD Jesus Christ, the rule of all creation and the sovereign savior of all who will call on him?" What is it that marks us out as different? We have been enabled somehow to take the most magnificent truth that humanity has ever known and condense it down to where we can hear it and be unmoved.  So there is a structure, I think, to this chapter for what Paul is saying to us, "Suck it up and get on with life."  The reason he's saying that to the Corinthians is that they were whining about when Apollos was going to come back, they were whining about, "Well, I don't like Paul, but I like Peter," "I don't like Peter, but I like Christ." They were dillydallying around with the sharp demands of Christianity, falling off into sin, going back to their old lifestyle, and Paul said, "Stop whining about walking with God and start walking with him."

So we see kind of a triangle of things.  You're not going to put it together until the very end, but I think it will make sense.  At the top of the triangle, he's addressing something very simple about God's work in relation to people.  Now actually that's the first point so it's going to be up on the screen.  I'm going to mention the other two, but they are not coming up until I get to them, all right? But the first thing he wants us to understand is God's work in relation to people, because a misunderstanding of that keeps us from seriously walking with God.

The second one he wants us to see on the left side, or your right side of the triangle is our work in relation to God.  So you are talking about God's work in relation to people, our work in relation to God and I'm mixing metaphors a little bit going from work to play, but I want you to know that all of it is done on God's playing field.  Let me see if I can explain that.  This hit me very late, actually just this morning.

What he's telling us there are parameters to he nails down at the end of this chapter.  Very clear, strong parameters for Christian living, defined and impassable.  The world we now live in, it would be a complimentary thing, I think, if someone said to you, "Man, you know how to live.  You live on the edge." I mean that's how we would esteem somebody.  We look at the athlete that is out on the fringe a little bit.  We look at somebody who likes to risk.  I man, we have these, I can't even think of the right terminology now, these high-adrenaline sports, these high-risk things that people have to go out, and, you know, the ones where they attach some kind of kite to a surfboard.  Have you ever seen anybody do that? Have you ever seen it when the wind gets stronger than they can handle and it lifts their surfboard with them attached to the kite up out of the air and then slams them into the side of a building?  Sounds fun doesn’t it? Just kind of makes you want to go out and do that.  When the men were skiing out in Utah, we saw a helicopter come to the peak of a mountain and drop 3 or 4 bodies, plop, out of it.  I wouldn't so much worry about skiing down the mountain if I was doing that, but I would worry about the tornado that happened on the top of the mountain because the rotors of that helicopter were going over my head.  I mean that's living on the edge!  But, if God didn't make a mountain, could you live on the edge?  If there was no water and wind, would there be an edge to live on?

The point is this, follow me!  The only reason that someone can truly live on the edge is the person who lives within the boundaries of truth. If everything in your life is relative, there is no such thing as an edge to live on.  Who are you gonna impress? There is no extreme to go to.  You can pierce your body, paint your body, slash your body, there's nothing creative about that, there's no edge.  You can do anything to your body that you want to.  You can use any language you want to because there's no edge to live on.  But when you live within the edges and the parameters that God has given you, then, my friend, you can live on the edge.  No testing what God has put as an edge as a boundary, but living fully to the edges of life for his glory!  Now let's see if we can come back and explain it.

The first thing we need to look at is God's work in relation to people.  Simply said, the Corinthians needed to understand as we need to understand, God does his work through people.  Chapter 16, Verse 1:

"Now concerning the collection [some people have trouble calling an offering in a church 'a collection', Paul didn't'].  Now concerning the collection for the saints as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you are to do.  On the first day of the week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.  And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me."

The simple thing he wants us to see is that God does his work through people.  How are we going to understand God's work in relationship to God's people? The Corinthian Church loved the Holy Zap!  What do I mean by that?  It works well in our culture because we like an upscale, uptight emotional experience to prove that something real has happened to us.  We are geared to the working up of people in a point in time situation to convince them that God has done something in their lives.  Have you ever been manipulated with the Gospel? I have.  It's a dastardly thing to do!  The Corinthians liked the issue of the emotion, the ecstatic, the wild experience with God, and when it came to the day-to-day operations of Christian living, they frankly didn't know how to handle it.  So when Paul comes to the end of his letter and he begins to write about these daily, mundane things, it's like, that's kind of dull until you realize what he's doing. 

The first thing he's saying is, in God's work and relation to people, God does his work through people as he's asking them a question.  Are you willing to be used? Are you willing to be used of God?  It's a BIG question.  How does he give them the practical output of that? He gives it this way, in an offering.  There's a church in Jerusalem, it's the mother church, that's where Christianity came from.  They're in trouble by reason of various conditions and circumstances, and he says, "Now we're taking an offering.  I've been through Galatia, I want you to participate in the offering; here's how I want you to do it." The question he's asking them is "Are you willing to be used of God to meet the needs of others?"

Now, wait a minute, Paul, I thought God met the needs of people.  He does! Primarily through his people, not through the Holy Zap!  He says, and what I want you to do is I want you to give.  Now, I'm not going to spend a whole sermon here, but I do want you to look at the simplicity of some of the lessons of Christian giving.  Go back to Verse 1:

"Now concerning the collection for the saints as I directed the churches at Galatia, so you also are to do.  On the first day of every week…."  So the giving we see is quite regular.  "Each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper."  Christian giving in principle should be a giving that is both planned and regular.  Christian giving should be something that is proportionate.  He says this, "Store it up as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come." As he may prosper simply means, as God has prospered you, give as you are able. If you've been given a lot, give a lot. If you've been given little, give little, but the proportion of that giving may be the exact same, and the reason he wants us to do it planned and regularly, he says, "So there'll be no collecting when I come," is because planned giving avoids emotional or coerced giving. One other thing that he says, and this is really more to preachers than it is to churches, I think, Verse 3:

"And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem.  If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me."

What he's saying is, 'we going to send a group of men with a letter to Jerusalem carrying this offering. And if it's a large offering, I will go with them to secure it if you need me to. But they're going to handle it, I'm not going to.'

The other day Joie decided that we were going to start doing our banking online.  Something happened that really surprised us.  I didn't know what happened.  She said, "Oh, man, Tony look at this… we don't have this kind of money in our account." And I thought, "Oh, boy, the bank's made a mistake. I've got access to somebody else's account."  What would you do if you had that?  Actually what had happened is, just in case of an emergency, if nobody else is around, my name is on the signature card at church to sign a check because all of our checks have to have 2 signatures.  In rare instances, if I'm needed, I will be used as the second signature on a check.  They know that by social security number.  The bank's software made a mistake and ran the social security number to my personal accounts and to the church account.  Now, I couldn't do anything in the church account.  Now I couldn't do anything in the church account; I couldn't change anything, but I could see it.  I called Scott, I called Amber and I called the bank president and I said, "Change this."  I explained to him no pastor needs that kind of access to the financial records of his church.  I don't want to know it and I don't want to ever have access to it.  Why? Billy Graham wisely warned preachers many years ago and has for decades that money, sex and power is where preachers fall.  I don't have any problem, I don't think, with money except that I'm just like you, I want more of it.  Uh, but I don't want to be tempted.  I don't know what anybody gives in this church.  We have to guard ourselves in the realities of day-to-day life.  What's been put in front of you that you need to wake up to and say, "I need to be careful here?"

But the major point is, are you willing to be used? And, first are you willing to be used to help people, some of which you have never seen, and would you do it with your money? God operates through the normal means of life and if you're going to give I want you to give planned and regularly, I want you to give proportionate, because if you plan it and if you give regularly, that will avoid the emotional sense or the issue of coerced giving.  Second, oh, by the way, before we go there, I want you to look at Verse 15:

"Now I urge you, brothers---you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints --" 

Are you willing to be used?  Do you see the picture of Paul's life?  He was persecuting the church, he met the Lord on the road to Damascus, Jesus Christ became his highest value in life, he pursued him above all things, he wanted to take this gospel to the world and that's what ended him up in Corinth, a pagan city, very fearful and somehow, someway, I don't know if it was in a tea garden, I don't know if it was in a pagan temple, I don't know if it was in a lecture hall, I don't know where he met this man named, Stephen, but he met him, and he sat with him.  He developed a relationship with him because he was concerned for his soul, and this Stephen fellow was the first convert in Achaia. Paul put a very practical turn on this Christianity.  He took it to Stephen and Stephen was saved.  Are you willing to be used of God?

Second, are you willing to be helped by others? The Corinthians needed help, or are we too proud to help them.  They wanted Apollos to come; he couldn't come.  They asked for him to come evidently because he says, "Now concerning our brother, Apollos," in verse 12, and every time he says, "Now concerning" that's telling us that he's answering a question.  Stephanas was raised up as a leader.  Timothy was sent to help.  The Corinthians needed help and they needed to understand God's work in relation to people.  They wanted Apollos to come because he came with a little sparkle.  Can't we be served by Apollos, Paul? No, he's not coming now, I'm going to send Timothy. Well, we really don't want Timothy.  I would rather had Apollos. And Stephen, he's just one of our own, he's not special.  Have you ever wanted God to do something in your life? You're waiting on that heavenly Zap when God has sent so many things along to help you your way.  God does his work through people.  Are you willing to be used? Are you willing to be helped? Or does your pride get in the way?

Our work in relation to God:  We need to learn the proper stress between living with intention and living with submission.  Look at Verse 5:

"I will visit you after passing through Macdeonia, [Paul said] for I intend to pass through Macedonia, and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may help me on my journey, wherever I go. Fo I do not want to see you now just in passing.  I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits.  But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door of effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries."

Not only does God's work in relation to people, our work is in relation to God.  I want you to look at some things about Paul's life.  But, before we do that I want to ask you just a few questions, about your life, do you have a clear vision on where you are going? A focus in your life? And even though you have that focus, do you know how to hold and handle your plans lightly?  Paul says, "I'm making plans, I'm going to visit you, because I intend to go through Macedonia.  I'll stay with you awhile.  I hope so." And then he says, Verse 7:

"For I do not want to see you now just in passing.  I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits."

There was a transition truth in Paul's life.  He was very committed, very goal-oriented, but at the same time, in the goal-oriented issues in life, he made his plans as concrete as he could make them, but he said, "If the Lord permits." And God did permit, but he sure changed the way Paul planned to get to Corinth. 

Our work in relation to God:  God works through us and as we work we need to realize that God is in control.  Paul had to settle out and do that.  Some of the signs of us making plans, but not holding intention, the fact that God can control  them is when we get impatient, our anger rises, our frustration does, our irritation, those are all signs that we are in control  and God is not.  So, very simply, God's work in relation to people is that God does his work through people.  Rarely do you get this fantastic experience.

Second, our work in relation to God, whether it's ministry work or some other vocation, it's always done, should be goal oriented, should be distinct  because we're Christians playing in the parameters of God's field, we'll get to in a minute,  but always ready to let them go at any time.

Now, in that balance, Paul is looking at these Corinthians Christians.   He knows their lifestyle.  He knows their troubles.  He is saying to them, "Suck it up. Be a Christian in real life."  The chapter sounds kind of numb.  He gets to Verse 12 and he says this:

"Now concerning our brother, Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now. He will come when he has opportunity." [That, no doubt disappointed the Corinthians Then he says] Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love." 

It doesn’t take a lot to understand what he's saying.  Then he goes on….

"Now I urge you, brothers---you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves [addicted themselves] to the service of the saints--be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer.  I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence for they refresh my spirit as well as yours.  Give recognition to such men."

One of the sidelights is the way to measure the temperature of our faith is to measure the health of our relationships.  All this had to do with people.  Verse 19:

"The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord.  All the brothers send you greetings.  Greet one another with a holy kiss.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.  If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!  The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.  My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen."

Kind of a non dynamic way to end a very dynamic letter. What's he saying?  He's saying all the work of God done in you, through and for you is done on God's playing field and what is that playing field? After all the letter, dealing with all the extremities of morality, of the lack of unity, of immaturity in their lives, Paul lays down the parameters of Christian living with the strongest of words and what he is saying is, Get this clear.  Get what clear?  He said, Get it crystal clear.  Because the challenges to Christianity are only going to increase in number and intensity.  He is saying to them soft convictions will not survive Christian life in Corinth and they will not survive it here.  So what is he telling us?  He is telling us as he told them:

1.                 Know who Jesus is and love him accordingly. 

Now, I know the first part, it just seems kind of numb, but it's really a great thing when we grow up to realize that God's work in relation to people is the fact that he does it through people when especially we need to receive the help or we see a need, we're God's instrument to give the help or we're God's person and he's ministering to us through his people.

2.                 It's important for us to realize our work in relation to God is always held lightly because he can change our plans in a moment.

How do we live that way? By knowing who Jesus is and loving him accordingly.  Let me show you where I get that.  Look at verse 22:

"If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed."

Now, those aren't casual words.  First of all the word, accursed, and the word translated , Lord, come, are both Aramaic words.  That tells us that those were words the church had adopted very early on because this was a Greek-speaking church, not an Aramaic-speaking church.  These words came out of the Jerusalem church.  But it was no accident that Paul said, "If anyone has no love for the Lord."  What was the answer Jesus gave when he was asked, "What's the first and greatest commandment?"  You shall what?  LOVE the Lord you're God, the Sh'ma.  Paul was taking Christianity back to its roots.  He is saying, "What is said about Jehovah God in the Old Testament is what is said about Jesus in the New Testament and you and I need to love him, and if anyone doesn’t love him, let him be anathema, let him be cursed! 

And I looked at that and say, "What he's saying is that if you're going to live the Christian life, you need to know who Jesus is, the Lord of all of life, and you need to love him accordingly.  And then I ask myself this question, How do you make that sound manly?  In a chickified, feminized world….

I read an article the other day, I almost bought the magazine, but I read enough to satisfy myself that it wasn't worth buying, in Newsweek about folks who were having gender issues struggles, trying to decide if they were a male or a female.  You see, if you just obliterate what God has made us in the Creation Story, male or female, [I'm not denying that those aren't real problems] Its you handle them in the parameters of God's life or not.  If it doesn’t matter, then having a sex change operation is not living on the edge, it just doing what you want to do.  There's nothing extreme about that.  But, if you make up the rules as you go in life, it's both ridiculous and rebellious, so how do you make it sound manly when you say, "You need to love Jesus with all your heart" ?

There was a verse in here that puzzled me and nobody, no commentator ever gave me an answer to it.  Go back, real quickly at Verse 13.  Typically when the word, brothers, is used as Paul is addressing a church, he means men and women.  But in verse 13, he says:

"Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men."

I don't think he's telling the women at Corinth to act like men!  It's a word for masculinity, so, I'm wondering if there wasn't a significant approach to the men in the church to be men.  To know what it is to love Jesus and to live accordingly.  What does that look like? Men, you know, we like to hunt.  Go out and hunt things down, shoot 'em, and kill it!  Who is it that likes us when we do that? PITA?  That's bread, isn't it?  [Laughter] We like to fish.  Some real men like NASCAR.  [Laughter]  Some of you guys probably have your favorite car numbers shaved in the hair on your back. [Laughter]  Some men love the sea, we like manly things!  So, how do you make loving Jesus manly?  Stay with me, I know I'm random this morning, but just stay there with me for a few minutes.  If you love to fish, as you think about the environment that fish live in, water, where they can have a multidimensional movement and ours is only 2-dimensional, frontwards and backwards, left-to- right. They can go left-to-right, frontwards, backwards, up, down.  And think about casting that designed lure or worm where you want it.  Can't you imagine thinking about the God who made those fish?  Can't you take your love for fishing all the way up to the One who designed fish and when he was human, ate fish, and taught people how to fish?  What about the sea? Some of the manliest of men used to the sea cried out like babies, "Lord, don't you care that we perish?" And he stood up and rebuked the waves and the wind. Don't you think it would be a manly thing?

I remember when I was in the 8^th grade and I began to love football for the first time.  My first year of football, I was so small when I tucked my jersey in my pants you couldn't read the number because half of the number went in my britches. [Laughter] But I grew the next year, matured a good bit, earned a starting position on the team, and our football coach in middle school, junior high then, back in the dark ages, was a retired Army Ranger.  He had the gift of motivation; two ways - one as the shop teacher, his paddle that he used was a leather razor strap with a wooden handle put on it.  For those of you know what razor straps are, it hurt if you got hit by it.  But he was a motivational guy in the positive sense, too.  There was some way, somehow, Butch Greschel, before a game could have a bunch of 8^th grade boys ready to run through a solid brick wall.  I mean by the time we went out, I never had a coach who could give a better pregame talk than Butch Greschel.  Maybe it was because he knew what real war was about, I don't know.  But, tell me, if it's a manly thing for a coach to get you all charged up to go out and play some game in a 100 yard field by 50 yards, would it not be a manly thing with the King of all the Universe dies for you and says, "Would you be my witness, would you live a godly and a holy life for me?" What would be sissified about that? Nothing!  And he's telling the Corinthians, Look, if you don’t sharpen up your edge on who Jesus is and bow before him and obey him, you are not going to make it to the end.  And it's God's greatest command to love God with all your heart, it was no accident when he said, Maranatha, that Aramaic word.  The word, mar, is the word for Lord….and it was a prayer, Come, Lord! 

So he wants them to keep in mind who Jesus is and he wants to keep in mind that Jesus is coming back.  So, are you whining about walking with God or are you walking with this one who loves you so much? Where are you in relation to God's work? Are you being used? Or are you being helped and recognizing it's from God?  Where is God in relation to your work? Are you goal oriented, planned, taking action, or are you wasting life? No Christian should ever waste time!  But, if you've made those plans and goals, do you hold those plans and goals lightly so God can change them at any time?

My dear friend, it never pays to challenge God, he always wins, and sometimes he'll change our plans abruptly and he has the right to. 

And are you on God's playing field? And in the parameters that:

1.        Jesus is Lord!  Nothing is outside of his reign and rulership.

2.        That Jesus is coming back.

I want to and I want you to stand in between those two parameters and refuse to go outside of them, and make every effort to bring everyone you can that is outside of them, lovingly into those parameters so life can be lived as it is supposed to be lived.  Are you on the playing field?  He has clearly drawn the boundaries.  Jesus is Lord and Savior.  Jesus is coming back.  I said earlier there, "there is no such thing as a self-defined faith; that is both ridiculous and rebellious." It's just like Old Testament idolatry and some of these Corinthians were idolators.  If you make up a God in your mind and design him and put him on a piece of wood and you have to stand him up if he falls over, what kind of God is that, and that's the kind of God a lot of people say they serve, one made up in their own mind.  That's ridiculous! He can do nothing for you.  But if there is a God who created all this place we have by the word of his mouth, this earth, this universe, he's a God worth serving, so we have to ask the question, "Are we on God's field?" No boundaries, no life on the edge.  A life without boundaries is the easiest of lives.  No accountability; no right or wrong.  Do whatever you want.  However, there are boundaries to life.  We all know there's at least two: Birth and death.  And we know now why; God creates and God condemns.  We sinned, we've fallen short of his glory and death is the wage of that.

So the question today is this, "Are you on the field?"  I'm serious.  Are you on the field in your Christian faith.  You remember what football games are like, especially high school football games.  You know, you've got the game going on the playing field, the lights are down there, the focus is there, but out behind the bleachers or beside the bleachers, you've got a pickup game going on with a tiny football and usually some tiny kids and they are tossing the football, dreaming about playing.  That's the way Christianity is lived these days.  We've got our game beside the game.  The real game of life is out there where people are dying, people are getting sick, people don't like God. People are adulterers.  And the gospel can penetrate that and help those people, but God's people are over here in their side game where there's no risk and no boundaries, and no rules and no referees.  Just walking around doing anything or change the metaphor.  Are you on the battlefield? What do you think the comparison would be to a soldier who has been in Iraq in heavy combat to somebody who is really good at paintball?  Some of us are out there hiding behind plastic barriers having paintballs shot at us and shooting paintballs at other people thinking we're in the real war!