Sunday's Message - Speak Louder

Here's the message I offered during the celebration services in First Presbyterian Church, Brilliant, Ohio and First United Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Ohio, on Sunday, September 27, 2020.

Matthew 21:23-32 (Contemporary English Version)

Jesus had gone into the temple and was teaching when the chief priests and the leaders of the people came up to him. They asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”

Jesus answered, “I have just one question to ask you. If you answer it, I will tell you where I got the right to do these things. Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”

They thought it over and said to each other, “We can’t say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. On the other hand, these people think that John was a prophet, and we are afraid of what they might do to us. That’s why we can’t say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize.” So they told Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Jesus said, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do.”

Jesus said:

I will tell you a story about a man who had two sons. Then you can tell me what you think. The father went to the older son and said, “Go work in the vineyard today!” His son told him that he would not do it, but later he changed his mind and went. The man then told his younger son to go work in the vineyard. The boy said he would, but he didn’t go. Which one of the sons obeyed his father?

“The older one,” the chief priests and leaders answered.

Then Jesus told them:

You can be sure that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will! When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe.

Speak Louder

There’s an old joke about a guy who’s looking to buy a hearing aid. And when he goes into the store, the salesman says, “We’ve got three models you might be interested in. The first one is like the Ferrari of hearing aids. It’s powerful, almost impossible to detect and it even has a racing stripe on the side.” The guy says, “That’s great. How much?” “Well, it’s $5,000.” The guy immediately says, “There’s no way I can handle that. Do you have anything that’s more like a Honda?” The salesman says, “Well, for $700 I can sell you one that’s weaker, detectable and unstriped.” The guy says, “Well at least we’re moving in the right direction. What about the third model?” The salesman says, “Well, we do have one that’s only $39.95. It’s just an empty box that you carry in your shirt pocket, connected to a black wire and an ear plug. It doesn’t really do anything, but when people see you have it, they’ll speak louder.”

Of course, there’s a reason I shared this story today. You see, when it comes to living the Christian life, that’s sort of what we do. We try to speak louder, you know, louder when we talk about those great promises we’ve made to God and louder when we tell others about all stuff we’ve given to him, particularly those things that we really don’t own ourselves or that we know God won’t be collecting anytime soon, you know, like our lives and our hearts and our hands.  I mean, often when we talk about our faith, we just turn up the volume to eleven, and even though doing this kind of thing often gets us a lot of praise, it really shows that we’ve actually forgotten one of the first lessons we learned as kids, that “actions speak louder than words.” Put another way, what we actually do says a whole more about who we are and what we believe than all the stuff we say. 

And you know, since I think that’s also the focus of the passage we just read from Matthew, that’s what we’re going to consider this morning, you know, how we can get to the point in our Christian living where our actions really do speak louder than our words. And you know, when we really think about what went on in this little exchange between Jesus and the chief priests and the leaders of the people, I believe we can find a pretty clear and simple three step plan that will enable our actions to do our talking for us.

And in my opinion, it all starts with something really simple. You see, if we’re serious about having our actions speak louder than our words, I believe it takes a willingness to listen. Now, for me that’s the first step. And I’ll tell you, I think that’s something we can see right at the beginning of the story. I mean, here we’ve got Jesus in the Temple, teaching the people. And along came some of the high and mighty, but did they care about what he was saying? Did they care that he was offering something that might be profound or meaningful? Man, did they even care enough to listen to what he’s teaching? Of course not, why listen when you’ve already got all the answers? My gosh, they didn’t listen to John the Baptist, why listen to this guy? No, instead they came to set what you could call a rhetorical trap, didn’t they? And even when Jesus crossed them up, they still weren’t picking up on what Jesus was saying in his counter questions. Instead, they were so fixated on what they thought and what they wanted to hear, not only did they assume that Jesus was playing their game, which I don’t believe he was, they refused to give any answer at all. You see, they just wouldn’t open their ears and their minds and listen. And what happened to them? They just stood there looking stupid.

And I’m telling you, right here and now, the same thing can happen to us. Man, we can become so absorbed in ourselves and what we want and what we think that we shut down and tune out. But you know, we don’t have to do that. You see, if we want to take up that cross and to follow him, and if we want to do the kind of things Jesus wants us to do, and if we want the faith we claim to be shown by lives we live, then we can make the conscious decision to listen and to do it with an open mind. And I’ll tell you, if we decide to do that, do y’all know what we’re going to hear? Man, we’re going to hear Jesus say this:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, “Love others as much as you love yourself.” All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets are based on these two commandments. [Matthew 22:37-40, CEV]

Now that’s something we’re going to hear. We’re also going to hear him say this to his disciples:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all of his angels, he will sit on his royal throne. The people of all nations will be brought before him, and he will separate them, as shepherds separate their sheep from their goats.

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created. When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”

Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink? When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear or visit you while you were sick or in jail?”

The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.” [Matthew 25:31-40,CEV]

You see, if we’re serious about having our actions speak louder than our words, I think we’ve got to be open and to listen. For me, that’s the first step.

And step two, man, we have got to be honest, and I’m talking about honest with others, but maybe more important, honest with ourselves. And isn’t that the point of the parable Jesus offered. And since, it’s been a while since I read it, let me read it again:

Jesus said:

I will tell you a story about a man who had two sons. Then you can tell me what you think. The father went to the older son and said, “Go work in the vineyard today!” His son told him that he would not do it, but later he changed his mind and went. The man then told his younger son to go work in the vineyard. The boy said he would, but he didn't go. Which one of the sons obeyed his father? [Matthew 21:28-31, CEV]

Now that’s what Jesus said. And even though the guys who wanted to trap him said it was the second son, personally, I think that’s only half right. You see, even though the one who actually did something was head and shoulders above the guy who didn’t, I really don’t think that either son pleased their old man. Instead, I believe he wanted his sons to hear his request and then say “yes” and then do it. I mean, dah. You see, to be obedient, the words and the actions need to go together.

And for that to happen, we really need to be honest in what we say and do. In other words, on one hand, we certainly shouldn’t say one thing and do something else. On the other hand, though, we really shouldn’t shoot from the hip and speak until we’ve thought through want we’re saying. And to avoid either hands, we really need to be honest with ourselves, you know, about what we’re actually willing to do and not do. And I’ll tell you, although this may surprise you a little bit, I think a good example of someone who actually did this was that rich young man who came up to Jesus a couple of chapters ago. Remember, he wanted to know how to inherit eternal life and he came to Jesus because he must have assumed that Jesus knew. And after Jesus talked about obeying some of the Ten Commandments and the young man said that he had, “Jesus replied, ‘If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own! Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come and be my follower.’ When the young man heard this, he was sad, because he was very rich.” [Matthew 19:21-22, CEV] Now, I’ve got to tell you, I have a lot of respect for that guy, because he could have made all kinds of promises and then done squat, but he didn’t do it. He was honest with Jesus and himself, and I think that’s important, because we can apply it to ourselves. You know, in my opinion, the real question of faith isn’t “Will we give our lives to Jesus?” Man, let’s get real; we can do that every day and twice on Sunday. For me, the real question is “Will we give our cell phones or will we give our cars or will we give our televisions to Jesus?” Giving our lives involve words. Packing up our televisions and giving them to the Salvation Army involves action. And sadly, if I’m honest with myself, for me, the answer has been “no.” And I know that because I haven’t done it. Man, I haven’t even given Jesus my Comcast cable. You see, if we want what we believe to be shown in how we live, maybe we should stop talking and start doing. But that’s only going to happen when we’re painfully clear about what we’re willing to give. You see, for our actions to speak louder than our words, man, we’ve got to honest with ourselves, and that’s the second step.

And step three, I think we’ve got to be willing to be accountable, and I’m talking about accountable for both what we say and do. In other words, in my opinion, we need to be willing to hear Jesus say to us what he said to those Jewish leaders:

You can be sure that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will! When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe. [Matthew 21:31b-32, CEV]

Now don’t get me wrong, I sure as heck wouldn’t want Jesus saying that kind of thing to me, although I have said more than once that, if you happen to be behind me on Judgement Day, I really hope you’re wearing comfortable shoe and brought a lunch, because I believe that there are plenty of things which I’ve done or left undone that God will probably mention. Now, in the end, I believe I’m saved by grace, but that doesn’t mean God will let me completely off the hook.

And personally, I think that applies to everybody. We’re going to be accountable to God whether we want to be or not. But I’m not just talking about being accountable to him. We need to make ourselves accountable to others. You see, maybe I’m not the best person to determine whether I’m actually denying myself, taking up my cross and following Jesus. And even though God will be our ultimate judge, maybe this is something we might want to know right now. Therefore, we might want to lean on the opinions and observations of folks we really trust. And let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. There’s a story about a young man, filled with the Spirit and ready to share the gospel to anyone who’ll listen. Man, he is fired up. And when he goes in this small dinner, he notices an old farmer, just sitting all by himself in the back. And so the young man goes up to him and says, “Brother, are you a Christian?” The old farmer smiles and says, “Son, you’re asking the wrong person. Ask my wife or my children or that waitress over there if I’m a Christian. They should be able to answer it far better than me.” Now that my friends is what I mean by accountability, something we will never know, if we’re not also willing to listen and to be honest about what we hear. Being accountable, that’s step three.

Now, I think it’ll always be tempting to spend more time talking about what it means to follow Jesus then actually living it. And that just makes sense, because words are incredibly easy to say and that’s probably why they’ve been called cheap. Of course, I don’t think faith should ever be cheap. In fact, based on what he said in our passage, I think Jesus actually believed that our actions speak louder than our words. And if we’re interested in showing that we think this applies to us, in my opinion, there are three things we can do. Step one, we can be open and listen. Step two, we can be honest with ourselves and others. And step three, we can intentionally hold ourselves accountable. And I’ll tell you, if this is what we decide to do, folks won’t need a hearing aid to recognize the one we follow.