I once read an article about Andre Agassi, you know the famous tennis player.  I think it was in people, but I found a similar article here. I remember being shocked to read that Agassi hated the game of tennis, even though he was extremely good at it. From a young age Agassi’s dad pushed him into tennis, and according to Andre his dad hung a mobile above his crib made of tennis balls.  His dad built a machine he appropriately nicknamed the Dragon, which spit out thousands of tennis balls a day, and Agassi was forced to hit tennis balls hour after hour until he thought his arm was going to fall off. According to the article he would plead with his dad to let him stop.  When his dad would take him to the courts and hit balls at him, Agassi would sometimes purposely hit the ball over the fence so his dad would have to go get it, and he could catch his breath.

Agassi was a champion at a game he hated.  From the outside he appeared to have drive and fire, but on the inside he had no love for the game.  His heart wasn’t in it, and even though he had a passion for winning, he had no passion for the game he was so good at.

He was wearing a mask, and putting up a front.  In fact that front hid a lot of things about Agassi, like the fact that he used Crystal Meth often while playing the game, and his long blond hair was really just a wig. Agassi filled us in on those facts when he wrote his autobiography Open.

Why would you write things like that about yourself and let the whole world know that you were a fake?

The pressure of pretending to be something you are not may have caught up to him, or perhaps his heart just wanted to be exposed.  Maybe he just wanted to get back at his dad.  Or maybe he did it for the money.  I don’t really know but I suspect after years of trying to be something he wasn’t, he finally wanted to be who he was, and start living a life of truth and freedom.

And that’s where we stand as the church.  It’s time to start asking the hard questions.  No longer can we stand by being luke warm.  We can’t pretend to be following anything when we’re sitting down.  We’re not moving at all except the fidgeting we do during the sermon.

We’re pretending to be a follower, but really our heart isn’t in it.  Maybe we’re here because our dad hung tiny bibles on a mobile over our crib, and maybe we’re the epitome of “clean living”.  On the outside we appear to have drive and fire, but on the inside we have no love for the game.  We’re pretending to be something we’re not.

Hey Baby Bird!  Be Free!

We’ve given the message that if you don’t love God you can still sit in church out of guilt and God will bless you.  You believe that you are better off in church because even though you don’t really believe, if God is real at least you’re getting points for being there.   Nope, neither of those is true.  God cares about your heart.  God wants your obedience yes, but only if it stems from love.

God doesn’t force you to hit “tennis balls” all day until you love Him.  That’s not how He works.  In the Parable of the Two Sons we get a good picture of how God operates.  God frees the son to do as he wishes, always loving and always hoping for the son to return.

If church is a burden for you, if serving the community is a burden, if loving people is a burden, than be free!  I hope that you will someday return to us with a love for God, an appreciation of Him and His church, and a love for our community.

Maybe if you just started thinking about things in that light you will be free to love God.  He’s not forcing you to come to church. He’s not going to hit scripture after scripture at you making you memorize it hour after hour, He just wants you to love Him.  From that love the things that you used to see as a burden are actually a blessing.  That drive and fire will mix with passion and from that passion you will find true meaning and purpose in life.

Through Christ’s death and resurrection we are free from the shackles of slavery.  God prefers we use that freedom to love Him and to do good, but the choice is yours.  What do you want to do?