One Leg Over The Fence

Pastor Deb Speaks on Christians who try to walk on both sides of the fence.

Last week I spoke to you about having one foot in the grave. I told you that it is a place most people don't even realize they are.  They aren't aware that they don't even need to move or make a choice to be there because that is the place they are in and it puts them inside their coffins just waiting for that final curtain call. I spoke to you from Ephesians 5:14 which tells us to – wake up from your sleep, climb out of your coffins, and Christ will show you the light. The choices that you make today will have all the affect on your life and your destiny. It is a choice for you to make in what kind of life you make for yourself and it is a choice every single day of how true you decide to live it.

God tells us that we need to wake up spiritually, that we need to climb from this place of death and we need to let Christ show us how to live and how not to die.

In Deuteronomy 30:11-15 this command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand or perform. It is not up in heaven, so distant that you must ask who will go to heaven and bring it down so we can hear and obey it? The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it. Now listen, today - I am giving you a choice between prosperity and disaster, between life and death.  Oh that you would choose life that you and your descendants might live!

See God's word says for us to choose life. It doesn't say for us to choose death because death is what we will get as long as we don't do anything at all.

I tell you all that to repeat what I told you last week. All of this having one foot in the grave business is something that most people aren't even aware of.

What I want to talk to you about now is those who are aware but somehow don't take the matter of climbing out seriously; the people who are straddling the fence.

Fence straddler's are an interesting bunch, because they are an uncomfortable sort of people. They don't fit in no matter where it is that they go – they aren't enough of a Christian to feel comfortable around the Christians and they aren't enough of the world to be comfortable in the world.

The reason why it's so uncomfortable is because God never intended any person who is a believer to be there for very long. His plan is to move you on or let you go but never to hold your hand while you have that one foot in that grave.

 "So called Believers" who are really fence sitters will say that God is good, kind and loving – and He will wait for me to wake up and start my climbing; and to that I say… that is a lie from the enemy Satan himself.

Satan wants you to think you have the luxury of time to wake up and time to begin climbing but with God – you will always see His point which is – Today, choose for yourself the path… life or death.

You can choose NOT  to wake up, and get climbing but don't deceive yourself into believing that you can have that one foot in the grave while you are doing it, because if that were really the case than none of us would have to get a move on. All of us would be able to sit back and chill out… and just go lukewarm.

NOPE, His plan is for us to make a decision and then live it.

We cannot blow hot one minute while we are hanging out at church or while we are with our parents or other believers and then blow cold the next while we are hanging out with our other influences because together that just makes us lukewarm.

Hot + Cold = lukewarm.

There are those people who speak all these strong words and such about God and His convictions but when those people get alone or they hang out with certain people they act totally different.

Jesus called those people hypocrites – that is what people used to call the actors of their times… God tells us to quit acting and start being.

I think personally the reason why there are so many hypocrites in the church is because people choose on a particular day to be a Christ follower but then they don't realize that it isn't a choice that you make one time and one time alone…. It is instead a choice that you make for yourself EVERY SINGLE DAY that you get up.

What are you concerned with God's will or your own happiness?

God's timing or your timing?

Being loved by others or holding fast to your convictions?

Are you more concerned with keeping up with your friends or letting them keep up with you?

Life is full of choices. Every day brings us new challenges and decisions for us to make. Every day is a new day, and every day means we either choose to live for God, by the standards He lays down in the Holy Bible, or we live to please ourselves by our own standards of right and wrong, like they did in the old days in Judges 21:25 when people did what seemed right in their own eyes. Sadly, I think the most horrible part of all this is that this IS HOW CHURCH is done today; churches have started to do what seems right in their own eyes… this has become normal. This is how people practice their faith. They think that the lukewarm church is a church that will get them to Heaven and they have been lied to because all that's happening is that they still stand with one foot in the grave. Fence straddlers love this lie… they find comfort in it because it doesn't convict and cause people to move!!!! Different lands have different gods. The Arabs of the Middle East serve Allah; East Indians serve the gods of Hinduism; the Chinese serve Buddha and American Indians worship the elements. Americas supposedly serve the God of the Bible, the Christian God, but do we? Here there are beautiful architecturally gorgeous churches just about everywhere you look; there are modern churches that seat tens of thousands of people. There are big churches, small churches, and "just right" churches, they are called many different things... even Centers instead of churches in case you're turned off by the word.

In fact you don't have to travel too far at all in America to be able to see a church; some with steeples, some without, some singing old hymns and some singing new worship songs….To the outside looking in – we look like we are a godly nation. We can do all these things that make us look holy, but all these things don't make us Christians or make God personally real to us at all.  It is instead the choice that each of us makes every single day that will make Him real. Our choice that God tells us to make is about us deciding what it is that we love. We are told that we live in this world, but we are commanded by Jesus himself to not love it. God says we must love him with all our heart, strength, and mind. Fence straddlers are too preoccupied to do that because fence straddlers are in love with the world. Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." That's a pretty straightforward comment I know… but I truly believe it. 1 John 2:15 -17 Stop  loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. And this world is fading away, along with everything it craves. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever.

What is it in your life that you cannot seem to get a handle on – no matter how hard it is that you try?

Who is it in your life that you give MORE TIME TO than God?

What concerns you most… your physical body or your spiritual body?

Your money or your heart and mind?

 Your so called friends or the one true friend?

Could you be a fence straddler and not even know it? Not after tonight you cant.

"Choose you this day who you will serve! Since the days of old, Christians have been called on to make the tough choices…Today you have the toughest and easiest choice to make…. Tough because it is going to take some real work and effort and "please dear God… You will lose some friends over it!" but easiest because all you have to do is ask for forgiveness and put Jesus first in your life and serve Him and you will just have  diverted your whole destiny.  Or are you happy just being the "churched" Christian who marches with one foot on high ground while the other drags behind you in the grave? Will you be just a part-time Christian, with a full time occupation with the devil as your employer, the first one to go to church and pray but then will quickly head back to the feeding trough with all the other swine that belong to this world? The other swine might be fooled by this sort of Christianity, the church that you go to might be fooled by it, even your spiritual leaders, parents and friends might be fooled by it… but Jesus is not. He just says that you are lukewarm… and He is going to spew you out of His mouth. Don't be a person that makes Jesus throw up! God knows there have been many… There are so many people who cannot make a decision for themselves. They live for the gray areas in life and they do not want to EVER think that there are absolutes in this life that we live. But to God He is all about the black and the white, the right and the wrong, the good and the evil, the light and the dark, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the gold and the dross, the friends and the enemies. IF you are not a friend of God – YOU are His enemy. If you aren't working for HIM – you are working against HIM. I pray that CYM is a no fence sitter zone! Because fence sitters are stuck – they aren't going anywhere. Their foot is in the grave and they aren't waking up and climbing out of their coffins. Do not PLAY CHURCH. It hasn't moved you or your family any closer to God yet… and don't give me a line of bull telling me that your family goes to church and yet they do all these other things that show that they are God's enemy and that you believe they are going to Heaven. I'm sorry… I think that I'll believe my Father in Heaven over you on that one… What happens to the lukewarm before Jesus comes? Where do they go? There are only two places for them to go -- they go either totally hot or totally cold. Luke warmness disappears before Jesus comes. Before He comes again, the fence straddlers disappear. There's no more middle of the road. Either you're going to be 100% solid in your relationship with Jesus, or you will have abandoned Him altogether. Jesus made it very clear that the dividing line between the hot and cold will be your relationship with Him. And to get us to make that decision sometimes – He will get us to point of making us mad and shaking us up, consider this a small earthquake. There are too many people who are out there performing good works to make it to Heaven. Too many out there who are cheapening what Jesus has done for them to save their souls. It is time to quit the fence sitting and decide what side of the fence you want to graze on and be part of.

*listen to this message!*