I met up with an old friend the other day who works on the doors in South London. He told me a story which needs to be shared.

A doorman friend of his was involved in a row recently, where he stepped in to intervene. During his intervention, he took a couple of hits to the side and eventually managed to get the assailant to the ground.

It was only when he got up that he noticed some blood coming from a wound and it turned out he hadn’t be punched at all; he’d been stabbed.

Some guys from his team took him to the nearest A&E where a nurse asked him: “What can we do for you?”.

He replied – just for fun:  ”I’ve got a headache.”

She looked at him with scorn and said: “I don’t really think we can help you with that.”

He smiled back at her, pointed to the knife still stuck in his side and said: “Well, do you think you can help me with this then?”

Needless to say the nurse had a sudden attitude change.

I recently took a CVM seminar on hidden addictions called ‘Elephants in the room’. The whole premise of course is that sometimes in life we miss the obvious. For men especially all kinds of stuff goes on in our lives and yet often it remains unacknowledged and unchallenged. The constant invisibility of our sin is another story which needs sharing.

Jesus talked about sin being so serious that you’d be better off gouging an eye out or cutting off a hand rather than letting them cause you to sin. Of course he wasn’t being literal but just making a strong point, which is that, like the knife sticking out of the bouncer’s side, we shouldn’t attempt to co-exist with stuff that is killing us.

In Christian men, sin kills our potential to live passionate, abundant and guilt-free lives. It’s the blade in our sides making us bleed out all our focus and energy. Co-existence is not an option, but we can be deceived into thinking it is.

For the bouncer, it was his mates that got him to A&E. A bit like the paralysed man whose friends took him to Jesus (where the main thing that he received was forgiveness from sins), you have to wonder how much we need our Christian mates to carry us to Jesus too…

In their prayers for us, in their straight talking to us, and in their regular meeting with us, our godly brothers are indispensable. They stand with us and hopefully love us enough not to let us get away with any hidden elephants. If we look around and see no one there, we’re in trouble!

It makes me think of who’s got my back. Who’s got yours?

We all agreed. For about half an hour we summed up the exact reasons why Rik had decided to stop reading the bible, going to church and believing in Jesus. Like farmers tossing the lame sheep to the side for destruction, we set the world to rights.

Looking around the table I saw something that terrified me. I saw that I was sitting with people just like me. Average. Human Christians stumbling through life, yet giving the impression our faiths were complete.

I took an unwanted trip to the men’s room for a change of scenery.

When I returned to the table I confessed I hadn’t text, called or emailed Rik since he stopped coming to church. I then asked the group who was the last person to speak with him, after all, he might have died.

It turned out that none of us had bothered to check in with our friend we used to pray with. But, all of us had the audacity to write him off as a man of little faith.

We decided to get in touch with him a few weeks ago. As it happened, we found out that for various reasons Rik had put his faith in Jesus to one side. Some of the reasons for this were immensely complicated, and some, he admitted, were of his own doing.

Rik started to come to church again not long after our conversations, and is now slowly turning his wayward eyes back to Jesus.

Men, Paul makes it clear in his letter to the Corinthians that  “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

Consider this:

Luke 15:3-7 (Jesus to his disciples)

“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.”

So, we need to follow that example when it comes to our friends and family who fall away from faith. We need to lead the chase. How easy it is to sit around pub tables surrounded by Christians after the evening service and discuss those who have tossed away the Bible. This Christianity thing is not a a secret society with a code of conduct. Its a body. A big fat body with room enough for us all. And we need all parts for it to move forward. Lets go looking for the amputated bits.

Lets go into the nightclubs, the pubs and cinemas, the fancy restaurants and beyond. To the ends of the earth we need to search for our friends who have become entangled, because Jesus did the same for us. And the beauty of it, the majesty of it, the clarity of it, can come down to one simple action.

“Hey man, where are u? I miss u fella, (not in a weird way). Let’s meet this week sometime for a beer and some food. Text back, Alex.” Text message sent at 0934 hours.

Last weekend a few of us went out for beers we couldn’t really afford. As we spoke about the hilarious stories we had written that week and some of the bizarre encounters we had faced, the conversation meandered to thoughts about sex (again). My lack of experience in this area became quickly apparent and the lads were baffled with the fact I am waiting until my wedding night to do the wild thing.

As they prodded my faith and asked the typical questions, I realised that for these men, I was probably the only Christian they knew. We shared what each of us believed and after half an hour of pointless theological debate, I told them the parable of the sower. I explained that some people hear the message of Jesus and reject it, some make up a song and dance and then reject it, and some build their entire lives on it. I told them I wanted to be the latter.

We each sipped our strawberry beers (which were on offer at the bar) before one of the seniors said something that will stick with me for a long time to come.

He said this:

“Alex, I’m not Christian, in fact I believe in everything. My faith is like the water. I believe in energy, the stars, and the waves. I do horoscopes and Buddhist meditations a lot. I guess I’m spiritual. But the thing is I have really vivid dreams. And last week I dreamt a guy with a bible came into my house and started telling me about Jesus. He explained the whole thing brilliantly; from the start of the book to the end, and showed me where Jesus fitted into it all. He then asked me if I would believe in him, and so I said yes. As soon as I did, he smashed my living room up. He trashed all my horoscope stuff, broke all my ornaments and my Buddha on the mantle piece. He even tore up my books about energy. I woke up and realised that Christianity is wrong. You can’t just smash people’s s**t up. That’s well rude!”

When he told me this I knew that the man in his dream was no crazy Christian with too much testosterone, it was Jesus. My faith in the sovereignty of Christ received a jump start at that moment and it occurred to me that Jesus still uses his original parables to share the message of God to those who have yet to put their faith in him. I shared this story with my dreamer-friend.

Jesus At The Temple

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.”It is written,” he said to them,” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.”

My friend smiled and thanked me for “Shedding light on his dream”. That was the end of our “God” chat for the evening. Brothers, it is so easy to get entangled with our daily lives but we need reminding of what Paul said to the church in Corinth:

“God always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.”

Sleep well.