Ride Your Bike

Like many kids, I had a couple different bicycles growing up.

I had a small bike that a learned to ride on.  It was fast and tough.  That made it easy to do jumps off of ramps and do burnouts when my parents weren't looking.  (No mom!  I always am careful when I ride!)  I loved that bike.

After I grew and that bike got too small, my dad bought me a ten speed.  It was even faster, but I learned really quickly that it wasn't a very good bike to do jumps on.  I guess it was a more grown up bike for a more grown up kid.

I was so grown up that I got a job.  I was a paperboy when I was 11.

Yeah, it was a different time.  I don't think that you can be an 11 year old paperboy anymore, child labor laws and everything.  But having a bike meant that I could get my job of delivering papers done a lot faster.

Unfortunately, by the time I got my paper route, my bike didn't work as well as it used too.  Because I was a kid who rode hard, my gears were messed up.  I couldn't actually pedal.  The wheels turned and the brakes worked, but I couldn't pedal to make it go.

Because I was a determined little guy, I figured out how to still make it move.  I could put my foot on one pedal, and without putting my other foot over the seat, I could push off with one leg and coast once I picked up enough speed.  I didn't know how to fix my bike, and my dad always had projects to work on in the old house we lived in.  Sure I wished my bike was fully functional, but I made it work.

And that made my paper route go so much faster.

Walking my paper route took just over an hour, what with all the dogs to pet and cats to chase.  There were always places to explore and things to stop and look at.  If I pushed my bike, I blew past those things and finished my route in 42 minutes.  (Yes, I timed it.  I'd gotten a new digital watch, and that's what you do when you're a kid with a new digital watch.  You time things.)  Because I did my paper route before school, I had that extra time to get ready and I didn't have rush as much.

I was pretty pleased with myself.  I'd saved myself 20 minutes by using my half-working bike to do my route.  This went on for several months

Then one Saturday, my dad said he had time to fix my bike.  He got out some wrenches and lubricating oil.  He flipped the bike over, tightened this, oiled that, adjusted this set screw, and reset the gear cable tension.  Finally, my bike worked again.

Of course I rode it right away and boy, was it fast.  I could get so much more speed from pedaling then I ever could from just pushing off.  I could pedal the bike faster down hills and not coast.  I could bike fast enough that I could get up hills three times as fast as before.

On Monday morning, when I did my paper route, I saw just how much faster I was and I was blown away.

23 minutes and 45 seconds.  (Thanks digital watch.)

I could do my route in almost half the time then I could before and in one third of the time as walking.

Finally, I was doing it the best way and my mornings became much less rushed.

I thought of this when I read this passage from Galatians 1:6,7.

"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel -- which is really no gospel at all.  Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ."

Paul is writing to a group of people who have been given a beautiful, fast, fully-functioning bike, and instead of riding it, they're starting to 'push off' or even worse, they're starting to walk.

They have the full gospel of Jesus Christ.  It's a gospel of grace, a gospel of love, a gospel of inclusion, a gospel of freedom.  But they've become enslaved by people who have taught them that you have to 'do' something to earn God's love.  They have to live into certain behaviors, or rituals in order for them to be a part of the family of God.

And Paul is ticked.  This is the strongest letter of admonishment that Paul writes.  He spends the rest of the letter telling them that Christ has victory over the idea that we are judged by what we do.  He tells them that as children of God they have been given the grace of Jesus Christ and that allows them to live into the full freedom of that grace.

He's telling them, "Get on the bike and ride!"

Friends, where have we lost sight of the gospel?  Where have allowed ideas to come into our minds and hearts that stop us from living in freedom?  Do we believe that we have to do things right for Christ to love us?  Do we believe that for others too?  Have we given up the joy of knowing that in Christ we are fully acceptable to God and that allows us to tell the world of our joy in a way that they can see a genuine picture of who Jesus really is?

I don't want to give up what I already have been given.  Christ has given me his love, purpose, joy and hope. To live in a way that's not governed by those things reflects a perversion of the most beautiful thing imaginable.

Today, ride your bike.  Live into the fullness of Christ's love for you.  In Jesus, you are acceptable and loved of God.  That will never, ever, ever change.

Blessings,

Pastor Scott