Walking with Bilbo – The Purpose of Adventure
Sycamore Creek Church
January 13 & 14, 2013
Tom Arthur
Luke 5:1-11

Peace, Friends!

Today we continue in a series based on The Hobbit.  We’ll be walking with Bilbo, the main character in The Hobbit, as he transforms from an unassuming three foot six inch hobbit to the unexpected hero of the story.  Along the way Bilbo will find his clear purpose because of the adventure he goes on.

Many of us struggle with purpose.  Part of the reason we struggle with purpose is because we don’t often see ourselves clearly.  I struggle with this myself.  I often tell myself and others, “I’m not a very good counselor.”  I probably say this because when I was a psychology major in undergrad, I intended to be a therapist.  But then I did an internship and didn’t like clinical work at all.  So I redirected my studies toward research rather than therapy.  But then the other day I told someone that I wasn’t a very good counselor as they were sitting in my office seeking some help working through a problem.  After two different hour-plus-long meetings, this person said to me, “You say you’re not very good at this, but you’re actually really quite good.”  Hm…Maybe I don’t see myself as clearly as I think I do.

We all struggle with seeing ourselves clearly.  We say things like:

I’m the humblest person I know.
I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.
I can be spontaneous if I have enough time to prepare for it.

All jokes aside, here’s some examples of how we don’t see ourselves very clearly:

• We think we’re poor, but in reality, we’re exceedingly rich.  According to globalrichlist.com, if you make $40,000/year like I do, you’re one of the top 3.17% richest people in the world.  If you add in benefits (health insurance, housing allowance, pension, etc.), then you’re in the top .82%!   If you make $20,000/year, then you’re still in the top 11.16%.
• Single folks think they’re unattractive or will never find a life partner, but I look at them and think, “Wow, some day they’re going to really be a blessing to someone!”
• I was reading some research the other day that showed that women tend to rate themselves further from an “ideal” than men do.  They think men want someone who is skinnier than they are, but the average woman in America is very close to what the average man finds attractive.
• We all tend to think we’re basically “good people” but we ignore the little things that add up, including our inappropriate motives.  For example: we focus on the things in others that annoy us and downplay the things in ourselves that annoy others!
• David Myers, in his introductory psychology textbook reports: “Most people see themselves as better than average. This is true for nearly any subjective and socially desirable dimension. In national surveys, most business executives say they are more ethical than their average counterpart. In several studies, 90% of business managers and more than 90% of college professors rated their performance as superior to that of their average peer. In Australia, 86% of people rate their job performance as above average, and only 1% as below average” (1998, p. 440, emphasis mine).

I recently met Whitney Banks, the adoption recruiter for Wendy’s Wonderful Kids.  She works with teenagers who need to be adopted.  She told me that almost all of the teenagers she works with think they won’t be adopted because their many problems and their age make them unadoptable.  So I asked her how many of the current teenagers she’s working with will she find a home for.  She said she will likely find a family for almost every single one of them!

In The Hobbit, when Gandalf tells the dwarves he’s chosen Bilbo, an unimpressive hobbit, to be the “burglar” for their adventure, the dwarves are pretty skeptical of Bilbo and Gandalf’s judgment, but Gandalf says, “There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.”

If you haven’t sent the movie or read the book, this trailer will give you a glimpse of who Bilbo is, and the struggle he has to see himself clearly:

The Point
Here’s the point I want you get out of this message: Adventure with Jesus pulls out the clear purpose of our lives.

While we struggle to see ourselves clearly, when we go on the adventure that Jesus is calling us on, the clear purpose of our lives becomes evident.  Let’s take a look at one example of how this worked with one of Jesus’ followers, Simon, later called Peter.

Luke 5:1-11 NRSV
¹ Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,  ² he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.  ³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 

Here we find a casual encounter between Jesus and Simon: Jesus simply gets into Simon’s boat because he needed to get away from the shore where people were crowding in on him.  Many of us are at this stage of the adventure: we’ve had a casual encounter with Jesus.  But this casual encounter leads to…

⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  ⁵ Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Here the casual encounter turns to an invitation to trust.  The invitation to trust includes doing something counterintuitive and unexpected.  For Simon, who was a professional fisherman, it was the invitation to put out again to fish after a long night of catching nothing. Simon is the expert fisherman here.  Jesus is a carpenter.  What does he know about fishing?  Surprisingly, Simon accepts the invitation.  The acceptance of this invitation to do something counterintuitive and unexpected leads to…

⁶ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.  ⁷ So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.

The acceptance of Jesus’ invitation to do something counterintuitive and unexpected leads to an unexpected adventure.  Simon and his companions caught so many fish that the nets began to break.  They had been fishing all night and hadn’t had anything significant happen.  But when Simon accepts Jesus’ invitation to something counterintuitive and unexpected, unexpected adventure ensues.  This unexpected adventure leads to…

⁸ But when Simon Peter saw it, [ON KNEES] he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”  ⁹ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;  ¹⁰ and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

This unexpected adventure that Simon finds himself on leads to a deeper trust through surrender.  He falls down at Jesus’ feet.  He recognizes that he’s standing in the presence of the Lord, and he surrenders to him symbolically by kneeling before him.  This act of surrender leads to…

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

This act of trust in and surrender to Jesus leads to an unexpected twist in the purpose of Simon’s life.  He will no longer catch fish, but instead he will catch people.  This unexpected twist in the purpose of Simon’s life leads to…

¹¹ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

This unexpected twist in the purpose of Simon’s life leads to a complete and total surrender to that purpose.  Simon leaves everything and follows Jesus.  There is nothing more important to Simon than this new clarity in the purpose of his life.

Again, here’s the main point I want you to get out of this message: 

Adventure with Jesus pulls out the clear purpose of our lives.

Simon’s life is transformed because Jesus saw something in him that he did not see in himself.  Later Jesus renames Simon to make obvious what Jesus sees in him:

And I tell you, you are Peter,and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.  (Matthew 16:18 NRSV)

So if adventure with Jesus pulls out the clear adventure in our lives, there are two things I want you to do this morning:

1. Go on an Adventure Following Jesus

I want you to join the adventure of throwing it all in with following Jesus, and risking your reputation, way of doing things, money, time, everything, so that you will find Jesus’ purpose for your life, a purpose Jesus knows you’re ready for, but you’re not yet so sure about.

J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit, was a philologist, someone who studies language, academic at Oxford University.  Philologists aren’t supposed to write children’s fantasy stories.  Yet he jumped into the adventure of writing The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and risked looking silly in front of his colleagues.  In the end he found the purpose of participating in the creative act of God as what he called a “sub-creator.”  He found that he had an impulse (or a purpose) to create, because he was made in the image of a creator.  And hundreds of thousands if not millions of people have loved his stories ever since.

Linda Kidrick, a new attendee at SCC, accepted the adventure of celebrating Christmas differently this past year.  She attended our Christmas Eve service and tried to focus on the reason for Christmas.  Here’s what her experience was like:

Join the adventure of investing in the lives of our children (Kids Creek) and youth (StuREV), and take the risk of giving up some of your time and find the purpose of changing the life of a child or youth.

Join the adventure of being a steward of the money God has given you by taking the risk of living simply and giving generously and find the purpose of money in your life is really to bless other people.

Join the adventure of inviting your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors to church and risk feeling silly or embarrassed and find the purpose of being one step in someone having a life-changing encounter with God.

Join the adventure of a local mission (Maplewood, Open Door, Holt Senior Care), and take the risk of getting to know a group of people you didn’t know before (and were maybe even a little afraid of) and finding the purpose of sharing God’s compassion with others.

Each of the small groups in our church makes a commitment to serve in some local mission.  The elderly in nursing homes are often a forgotten people in our culture who don’t get much attention or much companionship.  The Agnostic Pub Group meets on the fifth Thursdays at Holt Senior Care home on Willoughby and simply plays games with residents.  It’s a little out of some and a lot out of others’ comfort zones.  At our last visit, we had about eight senior citizens joining us for cards.  One of those was a widower who rarely ever comes out of his room.  That night he and all of us laughed, talked, joked, smiled, and had loads of fun.  What an adventure to follow Jesus into the forgotten places of our culture!

2. Seek a Spiritual Guide or Spiritual Friends

Coming back to the problem we have seeing ourselves clearly, it is so important to have a spiritual guide or some spiritual friends who help us see ourselves better than we can alone.

In The Hobbit, Gandalf the wizard sees something in Bilbo that he does not see himself.  He has a kind of confidence in Bilbo that Bilbo doesn’t have in himself.  Bilbo reads about the dangers of the adventure with the dwarves and faints, but Gandalf never questions for a moment whether Bilbo will join the adventure:

Who is the Gandalf in your life inviting you out the door on to the road of adventure? Who are you seeking out intentionally to mentor/guide you?  This can’t always be me, the pastor.  I simply can’t provide ongoing personal guidance to a hundred and fifty people.  So who do you sit down regularly with over coffee to talk about life, someone who isn’t always a “Yes Man” in your life?  Who asks you the hard questions? Who is willing to be honest with you but is also encouraging?

If you’re a guest here today, I want you to know that you can’t find this kind of community in a big group setting like this.  It’s virtually impossible.  You’ve got to get into a small group of some sort.  It’s not the only way to receive this kind of guidance or to have spiritual friends, but it’s the best way we know as a church to try to provide an environment where these kinds of things can thrive.  So join the adventure of a small group, and take the risk of opening up and giving a true account of who you are and finding the purpose of authentic community.

Last Tuesday four dads gathered at McDonald’s with their kids to have fun and talk about being dads.  We shared one thing we were thankful for being dads in 2012 and one thing we learned about being dads in 2012.  It was a great conversation with fellow dads who see things about being a dad that I miss.

A couple of Sundays ago, I was talking with the small group at Pizza with the Pastor about how I felt like I didn’t have enough passion in life.  I was surprised to find that two people said they were at this church & were even following Jesus because of my passion!  Wow.  I didn’t see that coming.

One day I was having a particularly bad day.  Mark Aupperlee, a volunteer here at our church and a friend of mine, knew about how bad my day was going.  He called me and left a message on my voicemail simply saying, “I’m here with you on this adventure.  I’ve got your back.  I love you.”

Who are those kinds of people who provide spiritual guidance in your life, who see things in you that you don’t see in yourself?

Sycamore Creek Church
Imagine being part of a community that was on the kind of adventure that brought out these and other new purposes in your life and the lives of those around you, purposes you couldn’t see before but Jesus can see right now.  If only you’ll trust him enough to let him get in the boat of your life and lead you on the adventure of your life!

Imagine being part of a community where there were people along the entire spectrum of the adventure.  People who were new to the path.  People who had been traveling for a long time.  And imagine them sharing their wisdom with one another in shared guidance and mentoring.  That’s the kind of community we’re trying to create at SCC!

At the beginning of Bilbo’s adventure, Gandalf says of him, “There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.”  And as Bilbo is getting ready to go in to meet Smaug the dragon, Tolkien as the narrator tells us, “Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago.”

Prayer
God, help us to accept the invitation to adventure that Jesus puts before us, and to find the clear purpose of our lives.  Amen.

For further discussion on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/tomarthur01/posts/10100244064669254?comment_id=4206226&ref=notif&notif_t=feed_comment