Over the last few days, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about nothing.

More specifically, about somebody who did nothing.

Even more specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot about somebody who did nothing, but got everything.

Here’s what we know about this man, and it’s not a lot. In fact, the little we do know about him would probably make most people happy to not know more.

He never went to church.

He never followed the teachings of Jesus.

He never read the scriptures.

He didn’t seem to hang out with the best people, and wasn’t the person you or I would choose to date our daughters.

He had a rap sheet (possibly because he hung out with others who also had rap sheets).

His rap sheet wasn’t for petty theft, but he was a thief. A couple of guys who knew him made sure to point that out. Maybe he’d stolen from them?

He didn’t do a lot of praying. In fact, as far as we know, he only prayed once, and that wasn’t really even a prayer. It seemed to be more of a short conversation.

Thankfully, that conversation was captured, and I’ve got to tell you, if that man knew that he was only going to have 39 words that he spoke recorded for everyone to read forever, he chose them well. Especially the last 9. Here they are, as Luke recorded them:

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke‬ ‭23‬:‭39‬-‭42‬, emphasis mine)

And then, he died.

And then, he lived.

Jesus told him that they’d be together in paradise.

This man who never joined a church, never took communion, never served on a ministry team, never gave an offering, never raised his hands in worship, and never “repeated this prayer” after Jesus, got Jesus.

This man on a cross next to The King on The Cross is a beautiful reminder that all the bad we do can’t keep us from salvation, and all the good we do doesn’t get us closer to it. He only did the bad, and died before he could do any of the good.

And yet, this man who did absolutely nothing for God, still received everything from God because he recognized the mercy of God.

Today, my prayer is that you and I would recognize that mercy, too.

Have you ever heard someone quote a Bible verse that wasn’t actually a Bible verse? Like when a parent gets brave enough to walk into her teenage son’s room, takes a whiff, and manages to remind the son that the Bible tells us that “cleanliness is next to godliness” before passing out?

What about these?

“God helps those who help themselves.” Sorry, rugged, individualistic American Christian. It’s not in there.

“God never gives us more than we can handle.” Sorry, soft, consumeristic American Christian. You won’t find this one, either.

How about this one, quoted at a youth camp by a middle-schooler overwhelmed with how close he felt to his new camp buddies, and sad that the week was coming to an end? After wiping the snot from his nose, he took the mic and boldly proclaimed…

“It’s just like my favorite verse in the Bible: friends are friends forever if the Lord’s the Lord of them.” Yikes. That one isn’t even in The Message translation!

Here’s a link for those not familiar with where that line comes from. You’re welcome.

Sometimes, though, we can take a couple of verses and kind of meld them together in a weird “Bible study meets chemical lab” way, and the result sounds good, is true, and yet isn’t actually a verse in the Bible.

My favorite “science lab” verse? The command by Jesus that we are to be “in the world, but not of it.”

I realize that I just lost half my readership to Google for a few minutes, so to the four readers still here, I’d suggest using this time to get another cup of coffee. We’ll have lots to discuss once the others return.

Welcome back. Those of you who Googled in an attempt to find the verse already know that it’s not a verse, but it is Biblical. It’s important to establish that before I tell you what I really want to say. The truth in the “oft-quoted but not really a verse” verse comes from the prayer that Jesus prayed in John 17.

I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth. (‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭14‬-‭19‬ ‭CSB, emphasis mine)

The words are all there, as is the truth of the phrase. We really are to be in the world, but not of it. The problem is that we’ve gotten it backwards.

As believers, we’re to be in the world, but not of it. Unfortunately, too many of us are of the world, but not in it.

Need proof? Here’s an actual clip from an actual self-professed Christian at an actual prayer breakfast:

For too long – and now, in a more blatant way than I can remember – the church has practiced what I call “geographical evangelism.” We pull away from the world we’re supposed to reach in hopes that they will miss us, causing them to come find us in order to ask why we left. Of course, they rarely ever come looking for us.

One reason – and this will sting – is that they simply don’t miss us. That’s another post for another day, but if the world’s experience of the church is nothing but sour faces preaching about how bad the world is, then there’s actually not a lot to miss. Smiles and kindness are wonderful things that go a long way, even when the person with them is telling us hard things.

The second reason – and this will sting more – is that we sometimes aren’t any different from them. Too often, we’re living the same way, just in a different place.

Remember that clip? In it, we see someone joking about not having sex in the morning with her fiancé, so she can make it to a prayer breakfast on time, and then reminding him that they can be together later that night. I don’t know this person, so I don’t want to, nor can I, judge her heart, but it’s not hard to judge her words. She’s not in the world – she’s at a prayer breakfast secluded from most of the “bad” people – but she’s just like it. She’s of the world, but not in it. It’s the opposite of the message Jesus was praying over us in John 17.

The reason we get it backwards is that we miss the last part of His prayer: that we would be “sanctified with the truth.”

Sanctified means holy. Set apart. Different from.

We are supposed to be different from the world that we’re in. Not in a prideful, “I’m better than you are” way, but in a noticeable, “you seem to have something that I don’t, and I want to know more about it” way.

For too long, the church has been in the world and of it, or of the world but not in it. But a new day is dawning, and the Lion is roaring, and His roar is calling His followers to a life that is set apart without being far apart.

A life that is lived in the world without being of it.

Even if that’s not aa actual verse in the Bible. 😀

In case you haven’t heard, Sound of Freedom, the surprise summer blockbuster starring Jim Caviezel, is getting a lot of attention. And as they say in ALL the Spider-Man movies, “With great attention comes great controversy.”

Ok, they say something like that.

You might say this is the little movie that could, despite the big movie companies trying to make sure it couldn’t. Moviegoers around the country have posted videos since it was released on July 4, showing all the crazy things that they’ve experienced while trying to see it. Reports of house lights being left on, movie theaters showing the film as sold out and then refusing to show it, and at least one person saying that the air conditioning was turned off servicing the one theater in the multiplex that was showing Sound of Freedom.

Of course, as with almost all things viral, it could just be a bunch of nothing that seems like something because it appears to be happening everywhere when it’s barely happening anywhere. (Wow! That last sentence was a ride, wasn’t it?)

But my point here isn’t to debate whether theaters are trying to keep people from seeing the movie (the company that produced the movie has issued a statement supporting the AMC theater chain that was linked to some conspiracy theories). Rather, my point is that there are people in power who definitely did not want this movie to be seen at all.

I won’t go into all the details here, but I’d encourage you to read about how Disney shelved the movie, and while we can’t know for sure, didn’t seem to have any intention of ever letting it get to the screens. Then there was the onslaught all over social media trying the movie to all things QAnon.

As I sat watching it, I kept thinking, “Why wouldn’t people want this released? Why was there such an attempt to discredit it? When did freedom become controversial?”

That’s a lot to think about during a movie, especially when the movie is already so compelling. But none of those questions made me want to write this. The question that prompted this post was a far more simple one:

“Why didn’t these same people make it hard to release Taken?”

Taken was the first release in a trilogy starring Liam Neeson, a man with a particular set of skills who used all of them to rescue his teenage daughter after she was taken by traffickers during a trip to Europe.

Same basic plot, but here are some important differences:

Taken is fiction.
Sound of Freedom is true.

Taken is about a father rescuing a daughter.
Sound of Freedom is about a man rescuing strangers.

Taken addresses human trafficking.
Sound of Freedom addresses pedophilia.

Taken shows a man relying on his strength to do the heroic.
Sound of Freedom shows a man relying on God’s strength to save the heroic.

Back to the question at hand: why wasn’t Taken linked to crazy extremists, or shelved by a major studio?

It could simply be because the world is different now than in 2008, the year the first Taken was released. Times have indeed changed, and we live in very polarizing times. But I think there is more at play here, and not necessarily by humans and movie studios.

We are at war with an enemy whose goal is clear: to steal, kill, and destroy (see John 10:10). Taken – while clearly portraying the value of a fictional daughter to her fictional father – didn’t expose that agenda. Sound of Freedom did. It speaks clearly about the value of every human being (even children we’ve never met), and boldly exposes the evil driving the very real world of pedophiles.

I think it’s the realness of Sound of Freedom that has rattled the cages of the enemy – and of those in his grip. As long as what we see is fiction, or far away, we aren’t moved. But when it hits home, we do something. That’s exactly what led to me running 50 miles on my 50th birthday, and I believe that it’s the movement of people to right the wrongs that has the enemy pulling out all the stops to, well, stop it.

If he can stop people from caring, then he can keep people in cages.

If he can stop us from shining the light, then he can keep people in the dark.

I refuse to let him stop me.

I refuse to live any longer like the problems aren’t right here in our own backyards.

I refuse to believe that one person can’t make a difference.

I refuse to believe that the goal of the gospel is my safety more than someone else’s freedom.

In short, I refuse to let the sound of freedom be taken, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

So stand up. Speak out. Shine on.

It’s time to let freedom ring…

…because God’s children are not for sale.