Modern life is all about convenience — instant food, instant communication, instant entertainment; the list could go on.
But according to David Eldridge, pastor of Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, “one of the things we must crucify is the desire to have convenience as the idol of our lives.”
Tenets of faith
The Christian life isn’t convenient. Building a relationship with God isn’t instantaneous and winning people for Christ doesn’t always happen in an instant.
“The tyranny of convenience” has interrupted the Christian walk, Eldridge said.
Preaching from Luke 5 at the 2019 Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference held at Dawson Memorial Baptist on Feb. 25, Eldridge described two key tenets of the Christian faith: Jesus is the only source of forgiveness, and Christians are called to preach to the lost.
When Jesus healed the paralyzed man in Luke 5, His first words to him were not “Get up and walk” but instead “Your sins are forgiven” (v. 20).
There was no need for the high priest and a sacrificial offering, Eldridge said. “Jesus is turning everything upside down with His ministry,” Eldridge said. “Jesus said, ‘I am the sacrificial lamb. I am the temple. I am the Great High Priest.’”
Christians, saved by God’s grace, are commanded to share that good news with the lost, but “there is an inconvenience in the task,” he said.
Just as the people in Luke 5 removed the tiles in the roof to get the paralyzed man to Jesus, Christians should be removing the tiles in
unbelievers’ lives and pointing them to Christ.
“Behind every profession of faith is someone who carried that paralyzed person and pointed them to the sufficiency of Christ,” Eldridge said. “Who carried you? Who moved those tiles for you?” (Jessica Ingram)
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