Pride, Prejudice or Peace

Text: 2 Timothy 4:6-18

Focus: reconciliation

Function: To help believers forgive each other.

Form: Storytelling

Intro:

We have spent the last two weeks in the heart and mind of the Apostle Paul as he gives instructions to Timothy, his young charge and replacement.

He is near the end of his life, he knows he is going to die and in this last chapter of the letter, he is clearing up some personal items, he reflects on his life, and he worships God again.

I love this chapter, because it is a window into his very soul. It helps us understand preachers and what makes them tick.

Sometimes, we preachers like to swap funny stories of mistakes that we have made, or funny things that we have seen or done. My worse, was the first wedding I did. I decided to place the rings in the bible and pray over them. I was nervous and apparently I was rocking back and forth when the grooms ring rolled out of my bible, hit this little piece of carpet and rolled up to the shoe of the maid of honor.

I expected everyone to be praying with their eyes closed, so I got on my knees during the prayer and grabbed the ring off the floor, right under the bridesmaid’s dress.

Thank God that video cameras had not yet hit the retail market yet! I found out, my wife doesn't keep her eyes closed as well. I sure had some explaining to do!

There are funny things, and there are sad things.

A dear saint, and a retired preacher was in one of my churches. He would come two or three times a year to discuss his funeral arrangements. He was 96 when I buried him.

Preaching his funeral from this passage was important to him. “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith… a crown is laid up for me.” He had such hope and yet his story was one of profound sadness.

The last time he was in Church while he was still breathing, we honored him with a plaque given to him and his wife by the Governor of Pennsylvania. The plaque commemorated his marriage of 75 years. What a testimony he had!

Unfortunately, this part of the story gets pretty sad.

His wife didn’t come to the presentation. She loved him very much, that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t that she was too weak or feeble to come.

When I first came to the church, someone hinted that she suffered from depression.

But when I got to know my friend, and his wife, the story was much sadder. He wasn’t from our denomination, but he came from one that is pretty similar.

He enjoyed his pastoral work very much, and his wife was by his side. Until someone spread some gossip. Someone else took it a step further and blew an entirely innocent event out of proportion. He was falsely accused of infidelity.

That was the last time his wife went to church, 50 years before.

It was a great funeral, until… …Until the grandson of the man who made the false accusation stood up and tried to apologize. Except, he didn’t actually apologize for his grandfather’s actions, instead he explained that his grandfather had the person who distorted the first truth to blame…

It was a terrible, and untrue, scandal. But people love a scandal.

Now why do I bring all that up in this passage?

If you are a diligent student of the NT, you catch a name in this passage that might seem odd.

Paul praises some people, and criticizes a few others. He speaks of Demas, who, as “The Message” says, “got carried away by fads” and quit serving Christ.

He speaks of him as if his faith is like the seed planted in the rocky soil. It springs up, but the weeds do as well and it chokes out its effectiveness. He tells Timothy that he has assigned certain other people who worked with him to do some more work in other places. He is glad that Brother Luke, the author of Luke and Acts is still with him, taking care of him, even though he is in prison. He speaks of a pagan, Alexander, a man who made his living by making idols of the goddess Artemis (Or Dianna) of Ephesus. Paul’s message was threatening his livelihood and this man caused Paul a lot of trouble. If you have spent time in the NT, these stories are familiar to you.

But that isn’t the real scandal in this passage.

Paul says about Mark: “Bring him with you, for he is useful to me.”

I told the planning committees of the worship services that the theme would be: “Avoid self-righteous judging.”

Self-righteous judging doesn’t get us very far.

And in this case, Paul is the one who made the scandal up. But by the writing of this passage, he has repented.

The scandal? Well maybe not so much a scandal as a problem blown out of proportion. We know it’s over because Paul asks for Mark to help him. The scandal? Mark ran away. This is the same Mark of the gospel of Mark fame. He is the same young man referred to in Mark’s gospel who, in the garden of Gethsemane ran away the first time and the soldier was left hanging on to his robe.

Mark wanted to be God’s man. He was with the apostles from early on, since he joined the 12 when they went to the garden. He knew everyone and he wanted to be a part.

More than that, he was called by God into pastoral ministry.

So, when Paul and Barnabbas went on their first missionary tour, Mark, who was young at the time convinced them to let him go along.

And in the middle of the trip, he got homesick, abandoned them, and went home.

This left the Apostle Paul very angry.

And I guess I can see why. Paul is much older, he has already been beaten, persecuted, hunted down and attacked for his faith. Mark, being younger would have seemed to have more stamina, strength and endurance. Apparently, in Paul’s opinion, young Mark didn’t have the dedication. He was a quitter.

And that is important. Remember, throughout this book, and this month we have been looking at the sacrificial call that God has placed on our lives.

And apparently Paul is impatient. His attitude is understandable: “If I can do it, why can’t he?”

Maybe Mark thought he would get a bigger role in the ministry, or maybe he had a young bride back home, or if he wasn’t sure of his calling and commitment.

We don’t know why he quit. All we know is that when it came time for the second trip, Barnabas wanted to give young Mark a second chance and Paul refused. And they disagreed so heatedly, that they parted company and went their separate ways.

I want to ask God why he doesn’t just miraculously touch the hearts of Christians. They both had the best interests of the Kingdom in their minds. Why God doesn’t’ just touch them with love, or regret, or sorrow or repentance and change their hearts so we don’t have to go through this pain.

Why did God let my friend be falsely accused? Didn’t God know the damage that it would do to his wife?

Why? Why does God let these men of God who have given everything to serve him suffer persecution at the hands of other believers? Isn’t persecution from unbelievers enough?

I take heart in this. Church conflict is nothing new.

And yet the story, at the end of Paul’s life is this: “Bring Mark to me; he is useful to me.”

Paul and Mark have reconciled.

Maybe, sometimes, only time can heal. But then, there are sometimes when time just seems to make things worse. What is the difference? I guess, if we don’t learn the lesson from God, we are doomed to repeat it until we do.

Here is something even more significant in the story. It is Barnabas. Again, if you are familiar with the stories of the NT, you will remember that Paul started out as Saul, and he was persecuting Christians. He was on the way to the city of Damascus to arrest Christians and bring them back to trial in Jerusalem. On the way, the Lord appears to him and he is converted.

The problem was, he was one of early Christianities biggest enemies. And now, he is one of them and they have the same brains and suspicions as we do. They didn’t trust him.

So Barnabas sticks his neck out, vouches for Paul and gets him an audience with the rest of the apostles. Barnabas has a “second chance” and forgiving nature. As a matter of fact, Barnabas has a nickname given to him by the church: “Son of encouragement.” What a great name! Wouldn’t that be a great thing to have written on your tombstone?

So Barnabas has this generous forgiving nature. It is different from Paul’s “get ‘er done nature.” Both are necessary. And for many years, they were very effective together.

In Acts 15, where we hear about the split between them, the Chapter starts out with the two of them partnering together before the Council of Jewish Christians to convince them about a way to keep division from happening between the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers. They worked well together until someone’s pride and prejudice got in the way.

Maybe Paul was proud of his commitment and in a self-righteous way, judged Mark for not being as committed. Maybe he was prejudiced against him because Mark was Peter’s nephew.

What we do know is this, Paul exaggerated the significance of Mark’s homesickness.

Paul made a mountain out of a molehill. He’s a quitter! I can hear him shouting at Barnabas.

And I can hear Barnabas, gently, in return saying, “but Paul, God is a forgiving God!”

And finally, years later, Paul has forgiven him.

What does it take for believers to reconcile?

Why doesn’t God just take away the feuding?

Do we see the danger of gossip? Do we see the danger of saying things, even true things about others in order to bolster our own importance? Why can't people just accept the fact that we are still far from perfect?

Paul exaggerated the significance of Mark’s homesickness.

I find a clue in that. The clue is exaggerating the significance of someone else’s sins.

Jesus said, “Do not remove the mote in your brothers eye because you have a log in your own eye.”

Well, again those who have studied it hard know I manipulated that. It says, don’t try to remove mote when you have a log… …first remove the log from your eye.

For me, the solution is real simple: I have enough to worry about myself, and my own relationship with God, and the purity and sincerity of my own heart to worry about judging someone else’s motives, purity and relationship with God.

I had this guy in a church who was one of the worse singers I ever heard. But man, did he have a heart for worship! He would stand behind me, and just shout out the praise choruses way off key. But it didn’t bother me it truly was: “a joyful noise!”

So I asked him to testify about why he enjoyed the singing so much.

And instead, he gave 10 minutes on why everyone who wasn’t as excited as him probably wasn’t even really a Christian.

Afterwards, proud of himself, he asked me what I thought. I avoided answering him until later in the week when the significance of the moment wasn’t so big in his mind.

I told him that to judge others sincerity was a sin. I quoted the scripture about the log in your eye and the mote in your brothers and told that it means, you will never be perfect, so you have no right judging the sincerity of others.

I love the way that passage is worded in “The Message” ^1-5 "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

I want to be more like Barnabas than Paul.

So what is the solution? Be like Barnabas, the son of grace, the son of encouragement. We need it now more than ever.

Preserving the Missionary Call

Text: 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Focus: Sacrificial living

Function: To help people refocus on Missionary call

Form: Expository

Intro:

Last week we saw how, when we are focused on Christ, we have a missionary call.

This week, we are looking at how easily we can be distracted from our calling.

The missionary call is a call to avoid the distractions presented by the culture around us and persevere in our real calling.

Paul is in prison and he is trying to keep Timothy focused on his job.

So he tells him to watch out for distractions that come in easily, that are very powerful and are issues that can easily get us off mission.

The way I see it, from this passage, there are three:

Through the selfish interests of others. 2). through persecution from others, and 3). Through inattention to scripture.

Avoiding these three distractions, can help us preserve Jesus' command to prove love our neighbors with at least the love we have for ourselves with the Missionary call, the great commandment.

So look at these distraction. THEY ARE REAL. And when we are experiencing them, they seem to be all important to us. But we need to see them for what they really are.

When I say they are real, I mean they are well crafted.

A few weeks ago, I finished the book Ezra in my morning devotions.

They had political battles among the people living in the land when they were trying to rebuild Jerusalem.

Their enemies were clever. They contacted the king, reminded him of how rebellious previous kings in Judah had been and scared him into thinking that he had to do something about it.

The king, being far away, sent a letter back to the people who lied to him, thanking them for warning him and ordered the Israelites to stop rebuilding the temple and the walls to Jerusalem.

So the Jews were just as clever, and when the next king came into power, they sent their own letters showing how the government had proposed to rebuild the temple, in order to bring back the blessing of God and the next king ordered it to be rebuilt. They only had to wait 20 years. And the temple was finished.

Distractions are clever and sometimes they work. Sometimes they stop the people of God from accomplishing the will of God.

And God is completely sovereign, even over distractions.

Half the time, they are a test, to see if we will trust God.

It isn't a test to prove us false, but tests designed to bring us blessing as people who are courageous enough to walk by faith.

So the first two distractions that Paul warns Timothy about come from outside sources.

The first is the selfishness of others.

My dad used to tell me, all the time, when I first went into Christian ministry. He would say: “Son, just because you are working with Christian people, it does not mean that you are always working with Christian values, convictions and principles. They, just like you, are still sinners. Be quick to forgive and as a pastor, try to lead them into what God is doing in their lives.” In other words, don’t be offended by the sins of others, even when it becomes personal. It is a distraction.

He was right. But at times, you can’t work around the selfishness of people. Sometimes, people don't want to be led, they want to be justified, even when they are wrong.

Paul warns Timothy about just how they have infiltrated the Church and how as time comes closer and closer to the end, it will get worse.

Listen to vs. 1-6 from the Message: ^1-5Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They'll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they're animals. Stay clear of these people. ⁶These are the kind of people who smooth-talk themselves into the homes of unstable and needy women and take advantage of them…”

The core problem is “self-absorbed.:”

And it really distracts us from the Missionary call.

It isn't what God called us to do in the Church.

It isn't what God called Timothy, the pastor, to do with the Church.

Paul’s advice: “Don’t give into this problem.” “Timothy, don’t fall to that level.”

I have often thought that if people are using their gifts, sacrificially obeying Christ and doing Kingdom work, they won’t to fall into that trap.

Let me tell you a story. It is ridiculous, and sadly, it is completely true

One day, I get a call in my office from a woman from another Church. It almost made me to not want to publish my office hours.

“Pastor Reynolds, are you the pastor of NOT THIS CHURCH?” She asked.

I told her yes. She told me that her pastor suggested I call her for some advice.

Apparently, this woman’s church had switched from Mission mode, to Maintenance mode. In maintenance mode, all the pastor is called to do is to: “take care of them.” In mission mode, the job is to lead them into doing the great commandment.

She was stuck in maintenance. She thought it was all about her.

I asked her how I could help her.

She told me she was from another similar congregation and that one of my parishioners, she named him, was her next door neighbor.

She asked me if I could get him to stop using loud profanity in his back yard because his actions were so unchristlike.

If she could have seen me, she would have seen a confused twist of my lips. I knew the man had a temper, but he was raised very plain Mennonite and his family were some of the gentlest people I knew.

I asked her if she knew why he was swearing so loudly in his own back yard.

She told me he was swearing at her dogs. I asked her why. They barked. It happened every time he tried to enjoy his back yard.

He had a nice back yard.

Through the course of the conversation, I found out that she moved the dog kennel to the corner of her garage, right across the driveway from his back deck. She moved it because her dogs barked all the time and it annoyed her and her family.

I asked her why she was asking me for help.

Her answer was the she had went to him personally, and now, according to Luke 18, and her own pastor's advice, she was bringing it before the leaders of the Church.

She said it didn't make a difference that she was Mennonite and I was Brethren, there really is only one Church.

I asked her if her pastor really told her to talk to me.

I gotta warn you, when someone comes to me with the problem of “someone else’s sin” I am generally suspicious when someone comes to me with someone else’s sin. I remind them that there is nothing them and I can do about someone else. I always play the part of pastor and lead them into how they are responding and what attitudes do they need to correct in light of Christ.

So, I replied with the scripture, “As much as is possible within you, live at peace with all men.”

You know where this is going.

I asked her if that scripture meant anything TO HER about how she could solve the problem.

She hadn't a clue. Finally, I gave up and told her right out, “why don't you move your barking dogs, away from your neighbor’s deck, because that would be a fulfillment the verse.”

Of course, she had her rights to her own property, and the right to put her dogs where she pleased.

So she told me, “well, I am going to tell him I talked to you.”

And I said to her, “If he asks me, I will give him permission to swear at your dogs as long has he doesn't take the name of the Lord in vain.”

To which, she hung up the phone. Of course, I didn't tell him to cuss her dogs out. He never asked and she never moved the dogs.

Selfishness distracts Kingdom work. Did Jesus ever intend for pastors to be taking sides over such petty issues between believers? Or, does Jesus want us to lead people into faithfully responding to the great commission?

The Church has done itself a disfavor. It has allowed people to become selfish. It has fallen to the level of the culture that keeps up its marketing scams, that tell us we deserve bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger appetites, and smaller bodies. The selfish attitude of our culture tells us that more is obviously proof of God's blessing. But it isn't.

Listen to these words from Jesus to the Church culture that has a self-absorbed attitude instead of a servants heart. To a church that maintains itself instead of following the missional call:

Revelation 3:To Laodicea

¹⁴Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church. God's Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God's creation, says:

^15-17"I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You're not cold, you're not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, 'I'm rich, I've got it made, I need nothing from anyone,' oblivious that in fact you're a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless.

¹⁸"Here's what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that's been through the refiner's fire. Then you'll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You've gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see.

Second distraction: Persecution. This also happens from external forces.

Look at verse 12: ¹²Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

ALL. Expect it. It is proof of being faithful.

He mentions city after city where he was persecuted.

Persecution comes from 2 sources: The first source is unbelievers.

And sadly, it comes from those believers who are still selfish.

So go back to the lady and the dogs.

I guess I should have been grieved, but the selfishness of that woman was so blatant that my cynical side took over and I found her actions to be so incredibly childish and self-righteous that it was amusing. You can either laugh, or cry about that kind of behavior. I chose to laugh.

I told Kathy what I said: “If he asks me, I'll tell him he has my permission to swear...”

And I admit, sometimes my sense of humor gets me in trouble because it offends people, especially people like my wife who are pretty black and white thinkers.

And Kathy said, “but what if she reports back to the head deacon, or chairman of the board here? Won't you get in trouble? How will you explain that you didn't mean it, you were just showing the lady that she needed to repent of her dogs annoying her brother in Christ and do something about it herself?”

I said to Kathy. Here is the problem with believers who are self-absorbed. They are so busy acting like Christians that they forget to act like Christians. She was so upset about the language, because that was a provable sin in the life of her neighbor, that she refused to look at her own sin of inconsideration. Her sin that was legitimately upsetting her brother in Christ.

All of this. Her wasting my time with a petty dispute that she was in complete power to change. But more than that, her wasting God's time with a petty dispute against her brother in the Lord is a complete distraction to the mission. Was she right? Should her Christian neighbor stop cussing loudly in her backyard?

Of course. She had legitimate proof of his sin.

But in whose eyes was she justifying herself? Certainly not in the eyes of God.

She has the log in her eye while trying to remove the mote.

If she would have just stopped and remembered that she is left here on this planet because God has a job for her to do and that job is about preparing her family, and herself doing God's work in bringing the lost to Christ, the issue with her neighbor would have been changed.

We get distracted by issues. At the time, they seem huge. From her perspective, this so called Christian man was using foul language in front of her children and she, as a good Christian mother should, needed to protect them. How could she explain to her kids that it is sometimes okay for believers to speak like this?

In the process of educating her kids, it was important to her to change his behavior.

She had convinced herself that her behavior and cause were just. And the reason was because she was refusing her missionary call. She was refusing to live for Jesus. She was more interested in justifying herself than doing the work of the Kingdom. THAT IS WHY I AM SUSPICIOUS OF PEOPLE COMPLAINING OF THE SINS OF OTHERS.

And quickly, the third distraction is in abandoning scripture.

Paul says, The Word of God is inspired. It is here to reprove, rebuke, teach and train.

Inspired literally means: “God breathed.”

For this woman, it was only God breathed when it justified herself not when it reproved or rebuked herself.

And this is the role of the pastor. To be able to learn, and live this book, as the God's breathed revelation of Himself, His passion and His desire to His pastors and leaders.

This is a call to Pastor Timothy. Use this book. In it you will be able to teach and train, and if necessary, you will be able to reprove and rebuke.

I hate those last two jobs, but sometimes it is necessary and I don't shrink away, not matter what it costs me. As God said to Moses, Choose leaders who fear me more than the people so that they will be faithful. I try the same thing.

And, if we forget the principles and their importance, we will allow others to be distracted.

I saw a comic. A rich couple were coming out of a beautiful church. She was wearing a fur robe, he had a top-hat. She said to him: “That preacher is pretty good at not offending us while he is preaching that book.”

The comic, in the New Yorker magazine implied that he should have been offending them.

I remember a man in my church, who was paid staff, but a lowly position being offended at the Board Chairman. The Board Chairman had a business, a struggling business, but he employed 5 people, 2 of which also attended the Church. The staff member was poor and for some reason, never lucky enough to get out of it. These men were at odds with each other, and it was a real case of class prejudice, the poorer class judging the class that was not poor.

He came to me all excited and wanted me to correct a great sin in the Church. He told me that heard the board Chairman's son talking about a beer commercial he saw in such a way that validated the drinking of beer.

What was I, the boy and his father's pastor going to do about it? After all, it was my job to rebuke the boy and the father.

I told him to mind his own business, the sins of others were not his problem, he had a history of distrust with the man and his motives for coming to me were suspect.

I used the scripture that Love means we believe the best, not the worst about one another and that he should repent.

You see, Satan wants to distract us from legitimate calling and mission with other issues.

And the man of God, knows and uses the Word of God as it applies to his individuals congregants in their own context, not in their concern for others.

This pettiness will cease when we focus on our mission.

Focused on Jesus, the Missionary Call

Text: 2 Timothy 2:8-13

Focus: Jesus Example for us.

Function: To help people embrace, go along with, the sacrifice of Christ Jesus

Form: GOK

Intro:

A good friend of mine attended a Bible study that I lead in Bible College. He was an artist. God called him to leave his home, move to Quito Ecuador where he managed the print shop for radio Station HCJB.

In that position, he complete the life-work of Jim Elliott. Jim Elliott was also a missionary to Equator. He went with his companion up a long river to a tribe that had never heard about Jesus before.

In their attempts to just meet the tribe, when the tribal leaders offered some of their women to them as a token gesture of friendship, and they refused, the tribe snuck into their camp and murdered them.

Elizabeth Elliott, his wife, instead of burying her head in sorrow, getting angry with God, letting grief overtake her life, letting fear of the people who murdered her husband went back to the tribe, preached Jesus to them and many of them accepted Christ.

My friend was assigned the management of the project whereby their language was first translated into English, then it was given written words based on the English character set. The written language was taught to the people, and then, the Bible was translated and they have the opportunity to see God's revelation of Himself in the written word.

The project, from beginning to end spanned two lifetimes, 2 generations.

Some of them suffered hard. Some of them studied hard and participated in work that would seem pretty boring to a person like me. Some of them lost their lives. And no one, no one, considered the project worthless, the lives that were sacrificed for the sake of the gospel as having been wasted or any of the effort to be in vain.

These people were true martyrs, and heroes of the faith.

Not only did they bring Jesus, but they also brought better agriculture, better medicine and shored up the lives of families.

And beyond that, my friend tells me of the cultural exchange. The beauty of the people that he got to know and work with. He incorporated their art and the fabric of their culture into the teaching and work. It wasn't just a mission to turn a pre-industrial culture into a Western culture. These people were highly civilized, but not in our fashion. But they brought a relationship to Christ Jesus to them.

What if you were Jim Elliott's mom and dad? What if you were Elizabeth Elliott?

What drives people to give their lives to God and to make that kind of sacrifice?

When Christians have done so much for God and lived such sacrificial lives, what does that say about us?

When I was 13, I heard a message given to your based on Isaiah 1. God is calling out to the heavens and the earth with a plea. God says: Who will go? Whom can I send? And Isaiah answers: “Here I am God, send me.”

I responded to that message and came home. I told my dad God called me into mission work. Dad said, “no one gets called into mission work without having a place God has called them to.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but dad was asking me to ponder: “Missions, or Service to God.”

I didn’t know where, I just knew I was called, and the only foreign place I knew of, where missionaries gave their lives in service was Haiti. My youth pastor was raised on the mission field in Haiti and I heard all kinds of stories, some terrible, some wonderful, about life in Haiti, and sacrificial service to Jesus.

So, when I went to bible college, it was clear that Pastoral ministry was the track I was to take. I talked to the department head and he said this to me, I will never forget it, he was quoting Keith Green when he said: “In Matthew 28 Jesus said go. He said that to everyone. It isn’t whether or not you are called to missions, it is whether or not you are called to stay behind. “Phil” he said, “Phil, this land needs pastors who will lead people into sacrificial lives where they stop focusing on themselves and start focusing on Jesus. There is a mission field right outside the door. There is a mission field downtown in this city where people are just as desperate as they are in Haiti. You, You respond to God’s call to go, and leave the place up to God.

A few weeks ago, Ruth Woods, from Ladies aid said this to me: “Pastor, my grandson left the service of this world to join the kingdom of God. He studied and is now in L.A. starting a church. One of his parishioners needs a kidney. He got himself tested and they found him to be a match and now he is giving a kidney to God.”

Elizabeth Elliott’s husband was killed, she spent her life in the jungle, my friend, Mike gave up the comfort and security of his job here in the United States as a graphic artist to raise his kids in a foreign land and continue that work. Ruth’s grandson gave his own flesh in service of the Kingdom.

If these saints, people just like you and me, not people in ancient biblical times, but people who live in our own lifetimes can live such sacrificial lives, then why do the petty things about our own comfort, and who looked at us funny, and how our needs aren’t being met.

It isn’t about us. Paul says, Remember Jesus Christ…

I don't know how you feel about it, but when I see people like that, it seems to me that the things that I get angry and upset about are pretty petty.

Why follow this missionary call?

Focused on Jesus.

That is what Paul is talking about.

When his life is over, and they write on his tombstone, he wants this phrase: Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.

This is the command, this is the call: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.

Jesus Christ, raised from the dead is His gospel.

He is chained for good news. And he says: God's word reveals Jesus. He is chained for the gospel, but God's word is not chained. God’s word, not chained. Gospel=God’s Word.

God's word is good news. When I think about guys like the one who wanted to burn the Quran, or the church that says it is standing up for God's word and is abusing people are funerals, I think, apparently, they haven't read this verse.

Then we move into one of the first praise choruses recorded in Christian history.

This early Church was being persecuted. Many were killed and hunted down by the Romans, just because they believed in Jesus.

And these songs reminded them of how great and faithful God is.

This song is both a warning, and a call to remain faithful.

They were comforted with this song.

And the whole things starts with a condition. The whole song is 4 If, Then statements. If we die, we live, if we suffer, we reign, if we deny, we will be denied, if we lose heart, he won’t.

If we died with him is the beginning condition.

I loved the way Ruth Woods started her statement to me: “My grandson left the service of this world to join the Kingdom of God.”

From the King James Version, If we be dead with him.

Paul said: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live...”

When we move into that role of being crucified with Christ, we move into that role of privilege that the rest of this hymn proclaims.

If we share His death, we share His life. If we endure, we reign. If we deny, we too will be denied, but when we lose faith, He is faithful, He will help us through.

We are His body. We are His. We are His to encourage, strengthen, redeem, lead, feed, comfort, empower, equip and use.

This Hymn. Keep the faith. Don’t stop. Remember the reward. Don’t quit. And trust Him to give you the strength.

I hired a youth pastor. I told him the first day that he worked for me. “If it is up to me, you will not fail in this job.” I am here to give you whatever support, grace, forgiveness, help, encouragement, and personal discretion that you need in order to fulfill your duties to God’s family.

What I didn’t say was: “This is me, my style, my expectations, my performance standards and since you work for me, you have to adapt.”

In that last line, Jesus is saying the same thing to us. “I am here to encourage and equip you. And when you run out of gas, or ideas, or hope, or even faith, I promise to be there to assist, with my miraculous power, in your weaknesses. Just don’t quit on me.” It isn’t membership, because membership implies the privilege that the club is there to serve you. It isn’t just a partnership, because that is still a contract. This is family. More than family even. This is our body. When the knee joint doesn’t work right, we don’t cut off the leg, we go down to Dr. Poe and get it fixed right up.

During that time, we are in pain. During that time, the entire body suffers. During that time, the other bodies around us love us and are willing to help us.

So what about that denial. What about that “Just don’t quit on me?”

Think of where the Children of Israel would have been had God had not encouraged Moses when we wanted to quit on them, when his leadership caused them to endure tremendous risks and change.

Think of where the Children of Israel would have been if Moses hadn’t encouraged God, when God got tired of the way they abused Moses, or refused to have faith in Him.

If we are faithless, He is faithful. If we are faithless to Him, He remains faithful to us. If we don’t have faith, it isn’t His fault.

TLB: ¹³Even when we are too weak to have any faith left, he remains faithful to us and will help us, for he cannot disown us who are part of himself, and he will always carry out his promises to us.

The Cost of Discipleship

Text: Luke 17:1-10

Focus: Being willing to serve

Function: To help the congregation focus on God instead of themselves.

Form: Bible Study

Intro:

I love the way the NRSV introduces this passage with the heading: SOME SAYINGS OF JESUS.

Most often, they translators put these things in there to help us find passages when we are flipping through pages looking for something.

But, there is no category here.

5 Things, in just a 10 verses:

1). Be careful what kind of example, or what temptations you give to others, because God is very concerned about the safety and security of Children. (nuff said)

2). Be careful about allowing sin. If someone sins, rebuke them. Again, God cares about the example we set. (repentance and quickness to forgive)

3). If someone sins against you, keep on forgiving, even 7 times a day. (you must forgive)

4). Have faith (you can't manufacture it -mustard seed)

5). The Cost of Discipleship. (rewards for ourselves? Or for God?)

In one sense, none of it sounds related, but it isn't unrelated at all.

The shoes up front, are here to remind us from the scripture, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who share good news.

Did you ever hear of the missionary who spent his entire life serving in China. He is sailing home from overseas and he finds out that the President is on his same ship.

When they land at NYC, there is a band and a crowd and cameras and reporters. When he finally makes it down the gangway, the crowds are gone and he is alone. No one notices him.

He spends the night in a dingy hotel and begins to feel sad because no one was there to greet him.

And in prayer, he is questioning God about it, asking God when it is his turn. And God says to him, “you aren't home yet?”

That Missionary was reminded of the last part of this scripture. No servant, after spending the day serving the master in the field comes into the house and hears the master say, thanks, take it easy, good job today, you deserve a break and I'll serve you. No the servant continues to do his job, after bearing the brunt of the workload, doesn't get his rest until the master is served.

Jesus is talking about the cost of discipleship.

They are all related. The servant is to keep himself as an example toward others. Remembering the importance of the salvation of others in the eyes of God. He doesn't want us to think that this is about us, getting our needs met, that people are here for us. No, the servant of God lives for the welfare of others.

Then he deals with sin in two places. Sin in others and sins committed against you.

In both of these, he calls us to be leaders.

First in those who are sinning. We are to exhort them to change, and be quick to forgive them. Leadership in purity, and leadership in forgiveness. And remember, the goal is repentance.

Then, the leadership in forgiveness is taken very personal. If he sins against you 7 times a day, and comes back 7 times a day, keep on forgiving that person.

Can we do that?

I love a book I studied in Bible College that was based on this entire passage. The title? “Have we no rights?”

The Author's point, we gave our lives to Christ and to His cause. We become soldiers in His army. And the commander, for the greater cause of the mission, uses both equipment and personnel in order to gain the objective. The soldier gives his rights over the the cause. The same with us.

Then faith. Faith isn't something we manufacture. When we are in the midst of service, being faithful, God supplies the faith. We act on it, but we don't create it. God gives us this partnership to take risks with Him.

And again, He ends with the point: “It isn't about you.” We serve the Master. It is about Him.

Here is how to tell a spiritual person in the Church. It is about Jesus, they are quick to forgive, they lead people into doing the right thing, they care more about Jesus' glory than their own.

What does this have to do with Love Feast?

In the Love feast, Jesus is inviting the disciples into His circle. He knows that they are going to be famous leaders. He knows that except for Philip, every one of them will die for their faith. So He stops them with the cost of discipleship.

Servanthood.

It is expressed in two ways. They eat together, a sign of equality. They, washing their feet. This is a symbol that they truly do live to serve each other instead of being served.

Then he shared the bread and wine with them. He excuses Judas. Judas will die but not for Christ. He will die for the inability he has to forgive himself, to accept the price that Jesus paid for him

Jesus Concern for the Poor

Text: Luke 16:19-31

Focus: Jesus Concern for the Poor.

Function: To help people catch Jesus’ passion.

Form: Bible Study

Intro:

Luke 16 is the Chapter that I call “inconsistent.”

To be clear, it is not inconsistent with Scripture, but it is inconsistent with a lot of theology. It is almost to the New Testament what The Song of Solomon is to the Old Testament.

I mean, the OT has all these rules, regulations, stories of people accomplishing great things by faith, stories of the great people of faith making huge mistakes and sinning terribly, and all the failures of God's people to live sacrificial lives where they loved both God and their neighbors. And then, there is this love song. And people have chosen many ways to explain it. It is a story about our relationship with God, it is a template for worship, to “the people of Israel were merely a rather hot- blooded group of people.

I have never preached on it, but I have seen some good bible studies that are geared toward couples giving principles for increasing intimacy and respect between marriage partners. But you certainly can't preach that in a church with children attending.

The point is this, what do you do with it?

Has anybody ever really figured out the first parable about the unjust steward? I mean this: Jesus says: “Make friends by the means of the wealth of unrighteousness so that when it fails, they will receive you into eternal dwellings. They who are faithful in the little things, will be faithful in much. He who is unfaithful in the little things, will be unfaithful in much.

This is really odd. Is Jesus really saying that it is okay to cheat? That the wealth of unrighteousness will make friends that will give you eternal rewards?

Jesus says that the master of the unjust steward praised him for his shrewdness. Did that mean that the master was a scoundrel and a thief and he recognized the skill of his steward who was also a scoundrel and a cheat?

In the message, we read it completely interpreted that the shrewdness of the steward was praised, but it should be done in a righteous way.

I don't know. Jesus' statement, “friends for eternity” certainly cannot be talking about friendships in hell, and rewards by friends in hell because hell is a lonely and desolate place.

You are not going to go there and have a party with your friends. It is dark and lonely.

So what does it mean? Jesus isn't really talking about the virtue of cheating.

Jesus then goes on to tell the Pharisees that they have to choose between God and money. They cannot serve both.

You cannot serve money and God.

Do we believe that?

Do our lives reflect that?

My dad did the most good work in his pastoral ministry while serving as the head of maintenance at Fort Wayne Bible College and pastoring small churches or doing evangelistic crusades.

He was president of the Plant Managers Association in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Indiana University, Purdue University Fort Wayne offered him the position of being the head of their maintenance facility.

That school served over 15,000 students. FWBC served at the most, 600.

People would drop off old food at the college to help second career married students who were living in poverty while they were studying.

Dad's ministry was to those second career men, who got saved late in life, had a lot of rough edges on them and dad was their mentor, bringing the grace and patience of God to them while they worked for him in the shop.

I remember an entire week where my whole family was sick as dogs because we got ptomaine poisoning from some canned food that was donated because we were too poor to buy decent groceries.

So, when the big State school offered my dad an executive position, with a salary increase of 600 percent (no exaggeration), we jumped around for an entire week crying for joy that we were going to be rich. And the salary offered would have been riches.

Then Friday night, dad came home from work and had a family meeting. He said: “God called me to be here, and I am not going to trade my soul, or my calling, for money.”

Not a soul in our house was disappointed. I understood that serving Jesus means that it is going to cost us something, maybe everything.

So Jesus goes into this description, and the Pharisees, who loved money and its security more than God, scoffed at, ridiculed and mocked Jesus' teaching about money.

But wait a minute, did I just leave that first parable unexplained? Did Jesus really say that it is okay to cheat and lie to your employer?

No. That is not what Jesus is saying.

Jesus is saying, that God will condemn the people who refuse to love their neighbors as themselves.

Jesus will condemn the people who just write off the poor as being lazy.

And you may be thinking that I am starting to talk about politics. I assure you, I am not.

This is the passion of Jesus' teaching.

This chapter is really a question of repentance. Repentance for not loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.

Remember the story of the Good Samaritan. The Pharisee, wishing to justify himself said: “and who is my neighbor?” He tried to make an excuse, any excuse to not care for others. So Jesus' answer is this: “Even you enemy is your neighbor.”

I am thinking in the back of His mind He is thinking: “You aren't getting out of it that easily buddy.”

So what is the first part of this chapter? The point Jesus makes certainly doesn't fit with our theology. It seems to contradict the commandment: You shall not steal. It seems to contradict the Biblical principle that all business transactions must be win-win for both parties. Believers can never take advantage of another person's misfortune for personal profit. These are righteous and just business principles.

Well, I have done a lot of research on this because I do not believe that the Bible would contradict itself so completely.

You know that at the time of Christ, the Jewish people were under terrible bondage to their Roman masters. The taxation was crippling them.

People couldn't pay their taxes, so they had to sell their land to those who had been luckier than them. Pretty soon, most of the land was sharecropping under rich masters who used their new positions to further indebt them.

It was a sort of “you load 16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt.”

The steward, decided to give the sharecroppers a break. Now I know the text says “it was reported to the rich man that the manager was squandering his resources...”

I am not saying that the manager was noble in his intention. But the stories are directed at the Pharisees. They are not teaching passages on how to do business. The reason why Jesus praises the steward is because the man had decided that the system was wrong, and he wasn't going to take part in the wealthy man's getting away with taking advantage of his poor neighbors anymore.

Jesus tells us that he does this in order to garner favor with the people that he has been a part of taking advantage of because of his position with his master, not because he was repenting over the abuse of the poor.

But repenting over abuse of the poor is certainly the theme of this entire chapter, and it was the main reason why the Pharisees wanted to put Him to death. He confronts just how unjust their religious practices truly are and they find out that God isn't pleased with the status quo.

So the verse: “Make friends by the wealth of unrighteousness” is a statement that we are called to be involved in changing structures and systems that take advantage of the poor.

At Beech Grove Church, a consortium purchased all the land around the church in order to build a horse racing track.

I was called on to speak at the big zoning hearing about it. It was a media event, and a sound bite from my speech made it on the Indianapolis TV news stations highlights of the year at the end of the year.

I oppose gambling because the industry exploits the poor. And I spoke to how evil that is.

A young man, who worked for the architectural firm that was planning the attached casino came to me and asked me how come he was a faithful Baptist, a deacon in his Church and I had just called him Satan for building a casino.

Of course, I never used that word, he put it on himself. But my answer was this: “you cannot serve God and money. You may have to change employers.” He hung his head and walked away, sort of like the rich young ruler.

Listen, Jesus died on the cross to purchase our salvation from sin. But they killed Him because He confronted the way they loved money more than God or their neighbors.

And in response to that, we come to today's text: The Rich man and Lazarus.

In this parable Jesus is explaining to them just exactly what will happen if they do not repent.

He shows them how a rich man refuses to repent.

And the proof of his refusal to repent is not listed in the things that this man quit doing. There is no mention of making it to worship every Sabbath. There is no mention of his commitment to stop lusting after women. There is no mention of his commitment to pay his tithe. There is no mention of his commitment to stop drinking to excess every night. There is no mention that he refused to worship idols anymore.

Yet this man ends up in torment, and there is no mention of vice, or any other thing that we consider sin.

His only sin is “ignoring this poor man who was laid at his doorstep.”

His sin was not one of commission. It was a sin of omission. He refused to love his neighbor as himself.

I love going to Tijuana. A month and a half ago, Kathy and mom spent Friday night in Fort Wayne with my grandkids.

I was bored and decided to go to the Greene shopping center.

They had a band playing music. They had a fountain for kids to cool off in. They gave free towels to dry off with. There were street performers and vendors. The place was packed. I looked around, I saw 2 black youth and one black couple. Then I thought about Rachel. The woman in Tijuana last year who taught Jane how to make a piñata. She is so happy, so full of the joy of the Lord, so much at peace, and living in incredibly difficult life just to survive with her husband and her kids.

I wondered what she would think of me if she knew how easily I have access to this wealth. From the mountaintops in Tijuana, one can look across and see San Diego, but she has no real clue what we have.

I wonder if she would look at the extravagant wealth and desire it for herself? Would she wonder what it would take to get here herself? Would she sell her soul and her Christian values to just live here? Or, would she just look at me and say: “How can you stand there, look at me, tell me you love me in the Lord, care for me a week and then feel comfortable coming back to this?”

Would I be ashamed? Is it easier for me to help her simply because she doesn't know what she is missing?

Are we supposed to feel guilty for being so blessed?

What was the rich man's sin?

It was his refusal to care for this man at his doorstep.

I think of the story of the boy and the starfish on the beach.

A tropical storm leaves a whole colony of starfish stuck on the beach in a high tide. Thousands are exposed to the sun and are dying. The boy is walking down the beach throwing as many as he can into the surf.

An older man comes along and says to him: “son, there are thousands here, there is no way you can make a difference for them all, your efforts are futile compared to the size of the problem.”

The boy picks up another starfish, throws it in the sea, looks at the man and says: “it made a difference to that one.”

The rich man refused to take care of the one starfish who was sitting right on his doorstep and was condemned for it.

God’s Concern for Evangelism

Text: Luke 15:1-10

Focus: Evangelism

Function: To reinvent a missionary vision.

Form: Bible study

Intro:

This week, someone on Facebook said: “if churches didn't have youth groups and preschools, churches would never have to face a scandal like you are going through.”

So, I sent him a private message saying, well, we could just have these really high standards, certain looks and attitudes, the right words, the proper family background before anyone is allowed to come to Church.

I then said, with that kind of attitude about sinners, your perspective would mean that only the righteous are allowed in here, and everyone who doesn't meet your standards can just go to hell for all you care.

He answered, not send them to hell, but casting out the immoral one so that their flesh will be destroyed in order to preserve their souls for eternity.

I guess he didn't get it, so I suggested we could have youth groups, but we would have to enforce a policy where all the girls wore burkas.

So, he asked me what kind of youth group we allow in our church, and I told him that they were just like me, not a righteous one in the bunch. We are all a whole lot of people who need a savior.

And the good news is this: Jesus is more interested in bringing people back to him than anything else.

Let us look at today's scripture and see just how much.

This is the first two of three stories about it. The Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son, which follows our text this morning.

The look at the lost sheep and the lost coin morning leads us to the parable of the prodigal son.

All three stories are given to explain to people, especially to believers and the leaders of the faith, just how important it is to God when the lost return to Him.

I am still loving Dan's devotion at the last leadership team meeting when he said, “the whole story of the bible can be summed up in 4 words: `God wants everyone back.'”

And the reason why these three stories are right here in this passage has to do with what we read in the first verses.

¹Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

Have you ever said that about somebody? (PAUSE)

Has anyone ever said it about you? (PAUSE)

The Pharisees reacted to Jesus being with sinners.

Why?

They would never let themselves spend time with that kind of people.

Why might we be accused of the same thing?

Let me ask you some more questions:

Have you ever been harmed by someone's sin?

Have you ever been taken advantage of?

Have you ever been robbed?

Have you ever been cheated?

Have you been lied to and made a fool of?

Has anyone ever taken advantage of your good nature, kind and gentle spirit?

Has someone ever harmed someone you love dearly?

For Jesus to “hang” with sinner, the implication is that He is willing, perhaps already has, forgiven them.

Is that fair? Is that fair to you?

When we think of the concept of forgiving sinners “out there” we have these noble feelings of grace, the goodness of God, the purpose of that cross, the glory of resurrection, the joy of someone loving themselves enough to receive redemption.

And the neat thing about that last statement is that most often, when someone chooses to love themselves enough to find redemption, it is because believers like you and me physically demonstrated unconditional love to someone who believed they were not worth it. And they began to believe that God loved them also.

That is what we love about our message, about the gospel.

And when it is “out there” it is full of noble causes and feelings.

But what if we get burned in the process?

And that is where this story comes to play.

In my opinion, the story of the prodigal son is misnamed. It isn't about the prodigal son, but about the elder brother who resented the grace given to the sinner.

We can resent it for many reasons, like: He got to sin and get away with it, he made a mockery of all my hard work, it doesn't seem fair, when is it my turn? Those were all the thoughts in the elder brothers mind.

And all of that makes it hard for us, right now.

But here we are, and this is what Jesus says.

Look first at the lost sheep.

100 sheep, one wanders off, the shepherd leaves the 99 and spends his energy on the 1.

To me, that kind of gives a great perspective on pastoral ministry.

How does the shepherd know it is safe to leave the 99? What if they all wandered off?

Well, you have all heard the simile: “Like sheep to the slaughter.”

It means that sheep are communal, they stick together.

So, there is relative safety with the 99, enough safety for the shepherd to trust them while he goes to save the 1. Ultimately, the church grows one person at a time.

The Pharisees represent the 99. They know they are righteous. They can't understand why the shepherd doesn't spend his time honoring them for being so righteous.

They think it is about them.

But Jesus tells us where his passion is. It isn't that he doesn't care for the 99, no, he believes that the community, and its power will keep them together.

But the Pharisees lost sight of the importance of the one.

The importance of the one.

What is the passion of the shepherd?

· The Pharisees couldn't accept a missionary call. They were the keepers of the system and if the rules of the system are going to be broadened, in their opinion, if the circle of what it means to be faithful is going to grow, then it may not be about them.

· That is what happens when we let the faith move into maintenance instead of the mission that Jesus gave it.

• Jesus is moving from maintenance mode, to Missionary mode.
• The second worse sermon I ever heard happened when Annual Conference was in Orlando Florida. It was Sunday morning, and the preacher stands up and says: “Jesus died.” “Jesus died and that was it.” And then a long pause. “Jesus died, the disciples were sad, they got together to comfort each other, and the Church was born. The Church is a community held together by inspirational stories, allegories and superstitions.”

What was completely missing was the fact of Jesus' resurrection.

The Church was born in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on the 120 like tongues of fire.

And it all started with Jesus.

So the shepherd, verse 5, takes the lost sheep, lays it on his shoulder and then calls his friends for a celebration.

I have never been a shepherd, physically caring for those wooly animals, but I have seen them. A full grown sheep, a mature sheep, isn't going to fit on the shepherds shoulder.

As we mature, we follow. We follow because when we were baby Christians, the Shepherd went and found us and brought us back to Him.

That act, placing the sheep on his shoulder was a bonding maneuver.

Because of the love of the shepherd, the sheep wasn't going to run away again.

It starts right there with Christ, our job is pointing them there. Worship is for God’s sake, but it is evangelism, as it also brings people into the presence of Christ.

Then, a woman loses a coin. All that she has to live on. Her desperation explodes into a panicked search of her house for that coin.

It means life to her. And when she finds it, it is a treasure.

When God finds a lost person back in his arms, it is a treasure to Him. He gave His life to bring everyone back.

Now, the lost son: HE SQUANDERED GRACE.

This prodigal, he squanders away his own future share in his inheritance. The father tells the elder brother when the younger brother returns: “all that I have is still yours.”

There is this implication that although the son was lost, the father is fair to the elder.

But the brother doesn't see the value in it. He resents grace. He wants daddy to call his brother “the black sheep” of the family.

But to God, the son was dead and now he is alive.

Have you ever wondered why the father would give his son his share early?

I mean, isn't that an insult?

“Dad, I don't want to wait until you die, all you are good for to me is what I can eventually get out of you.”

“Daddy’s dying, who has got the will?”

What a terrible person, this prodigal. What wickedness!

Why would the father do that?

The father would rather let him go than keep him there by force. He loved his son, and wanted a son obedient from the heart.

What about times when our best efforts fail?

What about when we give our Christian duty, which should be very sacrificial, and our sacrifices are taken advantage of?

It feels a lot like betrayal.

Because, when the son returned, he came from his heart. Sometimes, really bad things need to happen to get us back to our missionary calling.

God’s Concern for Sacrificial Living

Text: Luke 14:25-35

Focus: Counting the Cost

Function: To ask people to live for God.

Form: GOK

Intro: I have told the story how I received Jesus at 4 years old and actually felt him come into my heart.

I was not allowed to be baptized into the faith until I was 12 years old.

And the reason for that was this scripture.

Jesus warns us to “Count the Cost” of being His disciples, otherwise our faith is insincere.

The concern centers around the importance of baptism.

Just what does baptism symbolize? Look at Romans 6:1-11 (read)

Buried with Christ, dead to sin, free from its bondage.

I want you to get the theology here. People are afraid to die when they know that in their life, they have done wrong. Christians are afraid to die when they know that although they are Christians, they still do things they know they shouldn't do.

They still turn their heads away from the poor, the sick, the other, the sinner. They still spend more on their pleasure than on the things that those less fortunate need, just to survive.

A few years out of High School, I sold appliances for a big department store. I was warned when I took the job that a certain woman there, who claimed to be a very strong Christian was ruthless in stealing away sales from other salespeople in her department.

I was new to the department, and struggling to grow my own client base when she stole a rather large sale from me, and I asked her how she slept when she was taking food from my children's mouth?

She said: “I promised my son a new snowmobile for Christmas and I have to grab every sale I can.”

When those things happen, even though it was 40 years ago, I still have to stop and forgive her again.

When in anger, I went to God and asked Him for justice, all he said to me was this: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

In the years I had a sales career, I quickly learned that I couldn't answer the question to a potential client who asked me: “How can I know I can trust you?” with “I am a Christian man and a man of my word.” Several times I have heard this statement: “all that means to me is that you can lie, misrepresent your product, cheat me out of what we agreed upon and go to your Church Sunday morning and all is forgiven.”

It is a sad commentary. And here is the thing, although we know that we have the right intentions in our hearts almost all the time, sometimes, if we are honest, we admit that we are not always pure.

Because we are Christians, we do repent, and we do make amends.

Here is the difference. When the Tax Collector, Zacchaeus, found grace given to him by Jesus, he paid everyone 4 times what he stole from them and then gave the rest of his wealth to the poor. Money had been his God, and now he was serving a new master, Jesus.

Jesus said, you cannot serve God and things.

But listen to it “the meek” from “The Message”

⁵"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are — no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

I have had several people ask me these last few weeks: “Where is God in all of this?”

What is God's concerns about these things?

And, coincidentally, this month, from the book of Luke, we are looking at God's concern for four things, for personal sacrifice, for the poor, for money and for evangelism.

God and money is the 3^rd week. We have to choose who we will serve. Will we serve ourselves and our money? Or will we serve God and His concern for the poor, both spiritually and physically poor?

Jim Wallis is so right: He preaches that Jesus spent 3 years teaching about God's concern for the poor and outcasts of society, and 3 days becoming the sacrifice for our sins.

The religious leaders put Jesus to death because He told them that their religious ceremony means nothing if they didn't actually open up their hearts to generosity.

He was crucified for our salvation, bruised for our iniquities and by his stripes we are healed.

He was crucified for our salvation, but they killed Him because He exposed their hypocrisy in using their religious ceremonies as an excuse to not care for the poor as their neighbor.

Apparently, this is a really big thing to God.

And there is a genuine revival taking place among Bible believing Christians, both from the right and the left to become “full gospel.” And I don't mean the full gospel that incorporated the Charismatic movement of the 70's, but full gospel in the fact that it integrates both the saving grace of Jesus and His call for us to continue His work of changing culture to care for the least of these.

It spreads from the right to the left, Rick Warren, a prominent Southern Baptist leader says it like this: “there is a second reformation…”

The Holy Spirit is moving the Church forward, just as Jesus promised. There is resistance to this movement because just as it confronted the materialism of the religion of the ruling class during Jesus' time, it contradicts the powers that be today.

So, back to Romans and the meaning of being baptized. In the passage we read: “We too are buried with Him in baptism.”

But look again at the last verses from that Romans 6 passage in “The Message:” Here it is again, Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.

It was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end.

“The end of death-as-the-end.”

Peterson nails it with this statement. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:55-56: O death, where then your victory? Where then your sting? For sin--the sting that causes death--will all be gone; and the law, which reveals our sins, will no longer be our judge.

Up until that time, humanity lives in the fear of death, and the reckoning with God.

But when Jesus died on the cross, Sin, the sin, and the power of sin for everyone who is humble enough to trust in Him died with him.

Both the sin, and the power that sin has over us.

When I think of that potential client, and his phrase, which literally means this: “I don't accept Christianity because it gives you an excuse to not live up to your own standards because all you to do is say one little prayer, and `poof' it is taken away.”

They ask “if Grace covers sin, Where is personal responsibility?”

And of course, we want to shout back, that isn't true. We believe we are called by God to do good works.

But what about that lady who took advantage of me claiming herself as such a great Christian lady, and the way the rest of the sales staff laughed about her version of Christianity?

Was/is she forgiven?

Absolutely!

But wait! Does that mean it is okay for us as Christians to take advantage of others? Does that mean it is indeed okay for the strong to exploit the weak? Does that mean that Jesus will not separate the sheep from the goats and send those people who claimed to be believers, who preached in the name of Jesus, who raised the dead in Jesus name, who healed the sick in Jesus name, who had all the right words but none of the actions... ...will He not send them to punishment in the judgment?

Think about these words: “I was naked and you didn't clothe me, I was hungry and you didn't feed me....” And He will say: “in as much as you didn't do it to the least of these MY BROTHERS, you didn't do it unto Me.”

He calls the prisoner, the poor, the sick, the hungry His Brothers. He wants us in that family, right along with Him.

So what about my co-worker?

I am not going to condemn her to hell, the Lord is the one who separates the sheep from the goats. I don't actually know what good she did with her wealth and spirituality.

And I forgive her. I certainly wouldn't wish the terror of God's judgment on anyone, even my worst enemy, let alone a person who thought in her heart she was doing good. I don't want vengeance on my behalf, not to the peril of her soul. Never. We are called to forgive, no matter what, if we want to be forgiven.

But what about her?

Back to this morning’s text: “Count the cost of being my disciple.”

Look again at verses 26-27: ²⁶‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

I love the introduction to this passage in our text: “The Cost of Discipleship.”

It seems to me that my co-worker suffered from a lack of cost-counting. It seems that serving Christ was merely an insurance policy to keep her out of hell.

As Romans 12:1 says, “consider yourself to be a living sacrifice for Christ” we make that claim, we consent to that call, but when it actually comes down to doing sacrificial things, we climb back off the altar.

But Jesus said, it is a change of life. It may cost us our life, it may cost us our wealth, it may cost us our status in the community. It certainly will change what we do and how we do it and maybe even who we work for.

Well, here we are. I have done a pretty good job of talking about “the other” in a way that doesn't actually step on our own toes.

But we now ask ourselves the question, how do these people fall into sin like this?

Is it a lack of “Counting the Cost?” or “Does the randomness of sin and temptation affect every one of us?”

Yes, and yes.

We are saved, and kept holy by Grace. I mean, Peter’s heart was right, but he denied Christ. God was the love of David’s wife, but he seduced someone else’s wife. Good people who went wrong.

But it is very clear, that when the only thing that the life and ministry of Jesus Christ means to us is some sort of insurance to keep us from punishment at the judgment, we will be much more vulnerable to temptation. We will know how easy forgiveness is.

In “The Cost of Discipleship,” Dietrich Bonheoffer, one of the last men to be executed by the Nazi's during WWII for preaching against this mentality that some people were more deserving than others said it like this: “That kind of grace is cheap grace. The grace the Jesus gives us is costly. It cost Jesus His life, and it costs us to be in partnership with it.”

Jesus said, “the one who follows my must take up His cross and follow me.”

Every person is vulnerable to sin, and God's grace covers it for everyone who trusts Christ.

We cannot earn it. But Christianity is made a mockery of when people claim Jesus as Lord and Savior and yet they do not follow His teachings. And the sad thing is, too many have claimed to follow Christ, but have an heart that still wants to live for themselves.

Let this lesson, this week be a call to surrender.

The Cost of Discipleship

²⁵Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, ²⁶‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, ³⁰saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” ³¹Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. ³³So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

About Salt

³⁴‘Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure heap; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’