Colossians 3:1-5
There’s not a one of us that has not heard the familiar saying, “Where the rubber meets the road”. In all manner of varying contexts, this idiom speaks sounds aloud its truth. I think of the Olympian — the 100 m sprinter. Four long years he has poured his life into training — six hours a day, six days a week; what he eats and drinks, what time he goes to sleep, what time he rises again; his whole life is one of complete discipline in order to run a 10-second race. All that training and discipline is good and well — it’s indispensable; but how many know, it is in the race where the rubber meets the road?! Medals are not won in the gym but on the track! Take the soldier. He never stops training and preparing for war, but again, how many know, wars are not fought and won on the field of training but on the field of battle?! Many a well-trained army had it won on paper only to find that when it came for the rubber to meet the road, they were outsmarted, outfought, and lost the battle miserably!!! In other words, it’s one thing to have theory/textbook principles and it’s another thing to convert that knowledge into experimental practice!! One does not equal the other!! Yet there are some today who fancy that because they are well-taught and well-trained in theology, even at an academic level, this makes them experts in Christianity.
The call and the challenge of this sermon is for the rubber of our theology to meet the road of our experience.