Going The Second Mile

Introduction

You know, it’s easy and increasingly easy, depending upon your age, to complain about technology. To complain about these devices. In fact, I could do a whole series of lessons, couldn’t I, on the sin that can be committed by using these devices. But there’s some good things about them too, aren’t they? Maybe the best thing, in my opinion, about these devices is the map feature. Remember how we used to have to do it? But now, virtually anywhere I want to go, I can type it into my phone, and almost instantaneously, I’m given three or four options of how to drive there. And that map feature not only tells me how to get there, but it gives me those options and it tells me the quickest way. Sometimes the quickest way isn’t the shortest way.

Not just when it comes to driving, either, do we? We like shortcuts. We like the quickest way to the next step. And we get aggravated when it’s otherwise. We get aggravated when we get lost, and we’ve gone way out of our way. We get even more aggravated when somebody else gets us lost and we go out of our way.

I’m going to tell you a story that happened to me several years ago when I was in college, at Florida College and in the Tampa area, and I lived in North Alabama, about nine and a half hour drive away. And one time after spring break, I was driving back to campus, and I got a late start. There was something going on at home, and we were doing that, so I got a late start. And I was picking up a buddy of mine in the Tallahassee area. So I was going to drive down, pick him up in Tallahassee, and then make my way. I came down from Alabama, hit I-10, and you go across and you hit 75, and you come down, that takes you right into Tampa.

Pretty straightforward and easy. Well, I picked up my friend outside of Tallahassee, and the friend’s name was Stuart. Stuart wasn’t the best driver. Well, let me rephrase that. He wasn’t the best navigator. But even knowing that, I was so tired and exhausted by that time of the evening that I told Stuart, I’m going to let you drive. I’ve been driving all afternoon and evening. And it’s not safe for me to drive. I’m going to crawl up in the back seat and go to sleep. And you drive us back. I said, you can’t get lost. Famous last words, huh? I said, oh, we’re going to get on 75, or I 10, excuse me, I 10 here. And I said, we’re looking for I 75. You can’t miss it.

More famous last words. I said, in fact, it’s not really, you don’t even get off. You just kind of veer, and you just you almost stay on interstate, but you’ve just changed interstate. I said, around Lake City, you’re going to see that turn, I-75 south, you can get on that. Easy. So I jump in the back seat, fall almost instantly asleep. Sometime later, I woke up in the back seat of my old Ford Maverick. And I looked out the windows and I could see big, like skyscraper buildings. And so I sat up and I said, Stuart, where are we? He replied, I don’t know. He says, I think it must be Lake City. And I said, they don’t have buildings like this in Lake City. One of those buildings was named Jacksonville something.

We were in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. If you can picture your Florida map, that’s not on the way to Tampa. He had missed the turn. We were in downtown Jacksonville. How we got off and then I don’t know. I was so mad. Because it was the middle of the night now. We had missed curfew. We were so far behind. This was before GPS and phones and so. I don’t know how to get from downtown Jacksonville back to Florida. I don’t have a phone to tell me how to do that. But regardless, I said, stop. And he said, okay, I’ll find a place to pull over. I said, no, just stop. Right now and get out. And so we switched in the middle of the street. We switched.

I got in the front seat. He started to get in the passenger site beside me. I said, no, you get in the back seat. And don’t say another word.

And so the only thing I knew to do was just drive around until I saw an interstate sign and take the interstate all the way back to 75 and go south. We got on campus about two o’clock in the morning. And I was so mad. Because we’d gone so far out of our way. And we don’t like that. I want the quickest and the shortest way. But there are times, spiritually speaking, when the shortcut’s not the best way. When the easy route is not the route we should take. And there are times our Lord taught us where we should intentionally go further. And so tied in with our annual family focus of being rooted and built up in our faith. I want to talk about going the second mile.

Being rooted and then built up in our faith means that I accept the challenges of Christianity. And I accept the obligations of Christianity that mean that I’m not always going to take the easy way out. That I am, as my Lord taught me, I’m going to go the second mile. Now that evening I didn’t want to go the second mile with Stuart. But when it comes to my Christian life, my responsibility to God and my obligations to you, I should be more than willing to go out of my way. And to do more and to go further. I want us to begin, not with our theme verse, but begin in Matthew chapter 26. I want to notice really just what seems as a casual statement of what Jesus does when he’s in the Garden of Gethsemane.

1. Jesus Went a Little Farther

That might have more profound implications than we expect. Matthew chapter 26, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. You remember the Garden of Gethsemane. And what it means on this occasion, this is the scene where Jesus will be arrested based upon that kiss of the traitor Judas. He will from there go to the court to be unjustly judged by Jewish and Roman officials, and from there will go to the cross.

Takes just three of them further into the garden. But notice what it says in Matthew 26 and in verse 39. It says, after having told them to stay here and watch with me, verse 39 says, He went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, saying, Oh my Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. Now I know that introductory statement of verse 39 is a directional statement, is a geographical statement. He went a little farther. The spelling of that tells me that that was talking about him walking deeper into the garden. But couldn’t we change the spelling of that word farther and say that he went a little further? That by going deeper into that garden, he was accepting the consequences of the chain of events that were about to transpire.

And can it be said of our Lord that he went the extra mile? That he went farther and further. Look with me in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, we’ll see that this mentality of going the second mile, of going further, was the mentality of our Lord. Hebrews chapter 12. After talking about those faithful men and women of Hebrews chapter 11, we get to the apex, the pinnacle of a faithful follower, when he says, looking unto Jesus, Hebrews chapter 12 and in verse 2, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. That’s how Jesus went further.

He endured the cross. The New King James says despising the same. That really means the idea of just dismissing the same. Was there shame attached to what he was undergoing? Absolutely. He was stripped of his clothing, he was beaten, spat upon, and nailed to the cross between two known and admitted criminals. But he dismissed the shame and went anyway. And endured the cross and the humiliation and the suffering and the death that went with it. That’s our Lord. And he went further. As he would tell his disciples, we won’t turn over there, but as he would tell his disciples in John chapter 15, I laid down my life for my friends. That’s our Lord. And that Lord, now turn with me to Matthew chapter 5. It’s that Lord who exemplified in his life, going further, who would tell us and give us the challenging instructions of Matthew chapter 5, verse 41, after saying that this idea of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is simple and as justice sounding as that is, that’s not the principle we’ll live by.

2. Whoever Compels You to Go One Mile, Go Two

He says in verse 40, if anyone sues you and takes away your tunic, give him your cloak also. And then verse 41 famously, and whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. That’s doing more than what’s expected of us, and more of even what’s demanded of us. Now, we need to understand kind of the cultural context of that statement. Whoever compels you to go one mile, you go with them too. That wasn’t just a friend who asked you to go on a leisurely walk.

Oh, it’s a hospital further away than what you thought. This was an unfriendly Roman government who was compelling them. Josephus, we can read in Josephus Antiquities that the Roman law at that time was that a Roman soldier could compel a Jewish citizen to walk with them and to carry their what we would say their rucksack a mile. No more, but a mile.

And so you could be minding your own business at home, relaxing after a long day at work, and there’s a knock on the door, and the Roman soldier, who you despised anyway, would say, Here, carry my gear a mile down the road. And by law, Josephus says, you had to do it. And so you know what many of the Jews, I imagine many of the Pharisees probably invented this system, what they had done. In a sense, the Jews had invented the mile marker. And so the road leading away from their house, and maybe multiple roads, if there were multiple roads leaving down their house, they would step off a mile and nail a peg by the side of the road. That’s the legal limit. And I can imagine, depending upon your bravery and your attitude, that you would walk right up to that stake that you had put at the mile and drop that sack right there without your toes crossing that line.

Because that’s all you had to do by the law. One mile, no further. But then Jesus comes along. And says, when you get there, keep walking. Walk another mile. Now, let’s not become Pharisaical in our application of this non-Pharisaical statement. Jesus didn’t say, pull up that stop and put it at the two-mile mark. That wasn’t the point. His point was, do twice as much as what’s demanded of you. That’s the way he lived his life.

3. The Second Mile Christian Doesn’t Look for a Way Out

And in this foundational sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, he says, if you’re going to be a citizen in my kingdom, you need to have that same attitude. And so let’s talk about this second mile Christian mentality and how it might apply to our lives. Well, look at two principles, two applications, and then the lesson will be yours. The second mile, Christian, doesn’t look for a way out of doing what needs to be done. That’s not the mentality of our Lord. And it’s not the mentality of the citizens of his kingdom. We don’t look for a way out. We don’t look for an excuse of why that doesn’t apply to me. Let’s look at one passage of Scripture that’s very familiar to us in James chapter 1.

You know, we made the comment in our Bible class this morning that when it comes to lying and those different things, that many times we make the mistake of looking at New Testament passages that were addressed to Christians, and we want to apply them exclusively to non-Christians. Now, do they apply to non Christians? Absolutely. Nobody should be lying. But that passage applies to us. James 1 and all of James chapter 2 is one of those passages that I fear that we want to pass the buck. When he says in James 1, verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. And we want to point to those people, to our denominational friends, and say, see, there are things you need to do in order to become a Christian.

There’s conditions that have to be met. It’s not just faith only. And don’t misunderstand me. That principle, that false doctrine is destroyed in James 1 and 2. But Paul, or excuse me, James, by inspiration, didn’t write this to a group of false teachers who were teaching some false doctrine of faith only, and that you didn’t have to meet conditions. He wrote this to Christians. Now, again, the principle might apply to that doctrine. But James wrote this to Christians. And said, be doers of the word and not hearers only. Deceiving yourselves. There’s the key that he was talking to Christians. People of the world aren’t deceiving themselves. They know what they’re doing. They just don’t care. But it’s you and I that can fall into the trap of self-deception, of thinking that I’m living the Christian life.

I’m checking all of the boxes. And I’m really just a hearer of the word. And not a doer. I’ve checked the right boxes. I obeyed the gospel, past tense. I’m a member of the church. And I’m not just a member of any church. I’m a member of the right church. Where we do things by the book. We have a history of that. We have slogans for that. A book, chapter, and verse. We speak where the Bible speaks, and we’re silent where it is silent. We take great pride in that. We take great pride that in our worship services we only do those things that we see authority for in the scriptures. We take great pride in the fact that we teach the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from our pulpits and our Bible classes.

In fact, isn’t this the case here? That we demand that the truth be spoken from this pulpit. And if I, if any other preacher preaches something contrary, we’ve got two steps, don’t we? Number one is we’re going to correct him. And he’ll need to get up here and make that right. If he doesn’t, we’ll run him out of town on a rail and we’ll get somebody here that’ll teach the truth. Because I’m going to go to church where the truth is taught. And now that’s good. All of that is to be applauded and commended. But am I a doer of the word and not just a hearer? Do I go to church where the truth is taught? But then go out there and just live my life as if the truth wasn’t taught on Sunday.

You see, what James is telling us is that coming to the building and hearing a sermon, listening to the painful truth of God’s word isn’t some kind of spanking that squares our account with God, and then we get to go and just live our lives how we want, we’ll come back to church and get our spanking next Sunday. That’s not what. It’s a discipline to get us to change who we are once we leave the building. We’re deceiving ourselves, James says, if just because we go to the right place where the truth is taught, that I’m all good. James says, be doers of the word, and not hearers only. The Apostle Paul would put it a different way in the book of Philippians, chapter 2. His concern about his absence, his necessary absence and separation from them.

Paul would say in Philippians chapter 2 and in verse 12 in this familiar passage, what were they to do when Paul wasn’t right there spoon feeding them the gospel? What were they to do when Paul wasn’t right there looking over their shoulder and going, uh uh? Philippians 2 verse 12 tells us, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. We understand that when Paul says, work out your own salvation, he doesn’t mean separate and apart from God, but he does mean separate apart from Paul. I can’t be there all the time. You have to accept the responsibility of learning and applying practicing the commandments of God.

Work out your own without me, Paul said.

And the second mile Christian is going to do that. The second mile Christian is going to accept the responsibility that I have to not only hear the word of God, listen to it, but I’ve got to be the one who makes the application in my life. I’m the one who has to work at changing my heart that will spill out into the change of my behavior. I’m the one who have to sometimes make the difficult choices and painful decisions to be able to apply the word of God in my own life. And I’m not going to look for a way out of doing that. I’m not going to say that doesn’t apply to me.

If I don’t do that.

You may have heard this. It’s entitled Everybody, Somebody, anybody, nobody. It can be applied to a lot of different organizations, but this version says a church has four members. It’s called everybody, somebody, anybody, and nobody. In the church there was an important work to be done, and everybody was sure that somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was everybody’s job. But everybody thought anybody could do it. And nobody realized that it was everybody’s job. Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that everybody blamed somebody when nobody did what anybody could have done. Did you follow that? Isn’t that kind of the way it is? Things are left undone because somebody else will do it.

Things are left undone because I’ve already done.

4. What’s the Least That We Can Do?

Now this is one of those scenarios that none of us would admit to being that type of Christian. Nobody proudly raises their hand and says, I’m the one-mile Christian. Another one says, I got you beat, I’m a half-mile Christian. I don’t even do that. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, if we do back to James 1, when we do what James says we’re supposed to do, we look into the Word of God as a mirror. Because the Word of God is a mirror because it shows us, it strips us down and exposes us and shows us for who we really are. But thanks be to God, it’s a different kind of mirror as well, because it shows us what we can be if we’ll submit to the potter’s hands.

But if we’re honest with ourselves, this is too often our mentality. What’s the least that we can do? Here’s your illustration, and I know so many of my illustrations paint me as a poor student in school. You draw your own conclusions. Do you remember you have to write papers? Didn’t you love writing papers? You always got that paper assignment. And teachers are smarter than their students. And they know all of the tricks and the manipulations that students might. And so they make sure that used to, I saw this evolution in my education. They used to say so many pages. Well, then I would write real wide, I love margins when it was paid. And I would skip a line, and so the teacher said, okay, now that doesn’t work.

Pages doesn’t work. And so it’s words. And I’re not going to count the pages, we’re going to count the actual word. How many words? And so you’d have a 600-word paper assignment, a thousand word paper assignment. And were you the student like I was? I counted the words as I went.

The assignment was for 600 words. I wasn’t going to write a thousand words. That’s 400 extra words.

One time, this is how bad of a student I am. Maybe I shouldn’t say this in front of the kids here, but don’t do this, is my motto. One professor gave us an assignment for 600-word paper. And so I had to, I had to rewrite the paper three times. But I got it to where there was exactly 600 words.

Now I don’t know whether he ever counted the words or not, probably not. But I would, what’s the least I can do? I was the very epitome of that’s a good enough student. That’s good enough. That’ll get me a C. And that’s a little bit of cushion because a D would pass. And if we’re honest with ourselves, sometimes we approach our Christianity that way. Don’t we? Where’s the line, God? And I’ll I’ll bring my toes right there.

How much do you want me to do, Lord? What I’m really asking is, how little can I get by with? And we bring that mentality, think of this. We bring that mentality to a Lord who went further, who despised the shame and endured the cross, who laid down his life. We bring that mentality and that service to a Lord who says, if an unfriendly government compels you to go one mile, you double that. And we think he’ll be pleased. Turn to 1 Corinthians 15, verse 58. We’ve used the language this morning of being a second mile Christian. We could have just reordered the sermon and said, Are you a 1 Corinthians 15, 58 Christian? Because we know 1 Corinthians 15, verse 58, don’t we? Many of us, most of us probably could quote it by heart, or get close to it at least.

1 Corinthians 15 verse 58 says, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Always abounding. What does that mean? Literally, the word means to overthrow, to go beyond, always going beyond in the work of the Lord. Always going the second. And really, abounding would mean the third and the fourth mile in the work of the Lord. But we bring this attitude, this service to a Lord that says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. All your soul, your might, and your strength. We want to bring this service and this attitude to a Lord who told a similar respondent to go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come and follow me.

Conclusion

And we think we can do just enough. And he’ll be pleased. Let’s go the second mile. Go the second mile with yourself. Go the second mile with others, and go the second mile with God. Go a little farther into your garden of Gethsemane and love him with all of your being. That’s the commitment that God asks of us when we become a Christian. Would you make that commitment this morning? Deciding not to take the broad and easy path, but I’m going to take the narrow and the more difficult path. And I just learned that it’s twice as long. But I’m going to take it anyway. Because it leads to eternal life. And it’s the path and the decision that would please my Lord. Would you respond positively to the gospel this morning?

Can we help you in any way? Then let it be known as together we stand and as we sing.