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HOW TO GET A BILLION MILES TO THE GALLON

A car that gets billion miles to the gallon! Who could turn down an offer like that?

Well, before you get too excited, let me read you a bit of the “fine print.” Yes, scientists tell us that it is possible that at some time in the future, we could have vehicles that go immense distances on very small quantities of fuel. But the fuel they’re talking about is antimatter.

“Oh, Pastor Lonnie,” I can hear someone saying. “I didn’t tune in to your program today to hear you talk about science fiction matter-antimatter engines. I’m here to hear the Gospel preached!”
Well, fear not. There’s a gospel lesson to be learned here. And the idea of antimatter engines isn’t just science fiction. Believe it or not, antimatter is being used in medical tests right now, even as we speak. If you know anyone who’s had a PET scan, they’ve actually had a few million matter-antimatter reactions go off inside their skull! But the energy released was very small, compared to what an ounce of antimatter would release. It would take less than an ounce of the stuff to power an expedition to Mars and back!

The reason? When antimatter reacts with matter, tremendous energy is released.
And the spiritual lesson? When Jesus’ teaching, which often runs counter to conventional wisdom, bumps up against the matter of daily life—watch out! When we put Jesus’ words into action in our lives, it can release huge amounts of energy—world-changing amounts in fact!
Consider for example the life of a man named Albert. Not Albert Einstein, but a close friend and contemporary who shared the same first name.

As a boy, he was anything but brilliant. He found school studies to be difficult. But because learning came hard for him, he simply concentrated all the more on it. And apparently it worked.
He earned his first Ph.D., in philosophy, at age 24. Then he went on to study theology and earned a doctorate in that field the very next year. It took him another year to earn a doctorate in music. And so by age 26, young Albert had three doctoral degrees.

But he’d made a compact with himself five years earlier to spend the first 30 years of his life doing the things that brought him the most joy: that is, learning. But from then on, he would devote his life to service for others.

And that’s why, in 1905, Albert Schweitzer entered medical school. It took him seven years to earn his M.D. degree. He graduated from medical school at age 38. Now he had the key to a successful, profitable career as a doctor of medicine. Surely with such a background as his, he could become a physician serving the very elite of society.

But that wasn’t his plan. You probably know the story—how he spent the rest of his life—more than 50 years—Serving the poorest of the poor in one of the most isolated mission stations in Africa. In fact, when he first went to the village of Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa, in 1913, there was no hospital for a doctor to practice in. So he and his wife set up shop in an abandoned chicken coop, and in the next nine months they treated over 2,000 patients.

When I read that, it really warmed my heart. Because it made me think of H. M. S. Richards the founder of this ministry, and how he first began his radio work in the chicken coop behind his house.

You know, when a man or woman has a mission, when they have a call from God that they are sure of, it doesn’t matter where they are, or what it smells like. What matters is the fulfillment of the mission that God has given them.

And so doctor Albert Schweitzer dedicated his life to serving the people of Africa. What made him do it? Throw away a life of great opportunity serving people who couldn’t afford to pay him for his services.
Before we answer that question, let me ask you: Did Albert Schweitzer throw away his life?

Few of us would actually say so. Because, try as we might, most of us will never accomplish anything on the scale of what he did.

So, what was it that made Schweitzer such a great man?

In an article written the week before he died in 1965, Albert Schweitzer reported that the true secret to his success in life “lay hidden for me in Jesus' saying: ‘Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.’ ”

The bedrock on which Albert Schweitzer founded his life of extraordinary service and almost superhuman success was the words of Jesus.

If anyone ever got a billion miles to the gallon out of the fuel of their life, I’d have to say it was Dr. Albert Schweitzer. And the way he was able to do that was to place his foundation on the rock-solid words of Jesus.

You know, there are all kinds of guides to success out there these days. The self-help sections of bookstores have never been fuller. And I won’t deny that there are some good ideas in those books. But none of them has met the test of time like the words of Jesus. And that’s why we’re going to be focusing on Jesus’ teachings in His parables for the next three weeks. We want to bring these powerful words to you and challenge you—and challenge ourselves—to let these words really bump into our lives, and see what happens.

Like the antimatter I mentioned earlier, when the teachings of Jesus bump into the real world, energy is going to be released—lots of it!

One of the first parables in the Gospel of Matthew is the story of the two men who built their houses—one on solid rock, the other on sand. Let’s read it together, from Matthew 7:25-27:

“ ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall!’ ” (NRSV).

Those are strong words! Do you believe what Jesus said? “If you live according to My words, your life will have a firm foundation, but if you don’t, you’ll be building your life on a sand dune.”

I mean, do you really believe it? Do you live your life as though you really believe that?

Or are the words of Jesus just a little outrigger on your life? Something to consult on Sunday morning, or when there’s a special problem you need to solve.

Friend, let me confess to you—that even in this preacher’s life—I have to admit that the words of Jesus sometimes seem a little bit nebulous, a little bit flighty. Not something solid that you can build a life on.

By comparison, the things we see around us every day, the lumber and brick and mortar and stucco and concrete and steel seem so solid. You can build on these things, you can build with these things.

But friend, let me tell you something. The operative word here is SEEM. A recent article in Discover Magazine carried a description of matter that raised my eyebrows. It seems that even the protons at the center of the atoms that make up matter are really only about 2 percent matter—the rest is just empty space!

So, even the material world is mainly—well, just about nothing. Nothing solid at all!

That’s something to consider if you’re one of those people—like me—who naturally tend to rely more on things we can see and touch than on the words of Jesus.

And now here’s another thought to add to that: scientists tell us that even the things we can see and feel and touch make up only about four percent of the universe. The other 96 percent is “dark matter” and “dark energy” that we can’t see!

Now let’s get back to the words of Jesus. “ ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. . . .’ ”

We’ve had a bit of a physics lesson today. But we’ve talked about these things in the physical world simply to turn our minds to the spiritual world.

The words of Jesus are the very words that brought this universe into existence. When God said “Let there be light,” it was the words of Jesus that brought these things into existence.

And so I want to challenge you today—and to challenge myself today, as we begin this study of the words of Jesus—take these words for what they are: something more solid than anything you can see or feel or touch in all the world. And build your life on them.

Albert Schweitzer is just one example of a man who built his life on the words of Jesus—but it certainly seems that he got at least a billion miles to the gallon out of his life. And his life goes on in the work of thousands of others who have been inspired by his example. The Albert Schweitzer hospital in Gabon, Africa, continues to treat thousands of earth’s neediest people.

I want my life to be solidly founded on the words of Jesus. How about you?