July 7, 2024
Morning Service

Jesus in preparing His disciples to follow Him used every opportunity to teach them.  Things they saw on the journey and situations they encountered became teaching moments for His disciples.  Hopefully you as parents and grandparents do the same thing with you kids.  When a mistake is made or a hard time is endured, I hope you sit down with the child and explain to them how God works in those situations and how they can learn from them to help them in dealing with similar situations in the future.  I feel we as church family have arrived at one of those teachable moments.  We need to ask ourselves the questions of why did we do what we did?  What can we learn from this experience?  We must also analyze how our enemy, who never misses a chance to work on us, will seek to sow discourse and confusion through this event.  First why did we do this?  Let’s let Jesus explain that for us as He is talking to the disciples about the end times in Matthew 25.

Mat 25:31-40 "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.  (32)  All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.  (33)  And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.  (34)  Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: (35) for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; (36) I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.'  (37)  "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?  (38)  When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?  (39)  Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'  (40)  And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'

            First off I want to dispel the thought that we are saved by the works we do.  Our salvation is given to us through our faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  It is then because of our salvation that we are led into the good works God has prepared for us to walk in.  When Jesus left the disciples He commanded them over and over to “love one another as I have loved you.”  As we follow Jesus and allow the Spirit to change us from the inside out we become like Him.  Our heart becomes compassionate for those around us, as His was, and a desire is created for us to love those around us.  Here in Matthew, Jesus shows us what that love will look like.  We feed those who are hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, and give a stranger a place to stay.  We find clothes for those who need them, visit the sick and those in prison.  These are not acts to earn our salvation, but these are acts that will be manifested in our lives because of the change salvation has made in our lives.  We see a need, and we will seek to find a solution.  It is what Jesus would do and we are not only imitating Him, but He tells us; “as you did it to the one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”  As we see someone in need and reach out to them to help, we are doing it out of our love for them, but much more we are doing it out of our love for Jesus.  These actions are the fruits of our salvation and it becomes who we are as an individual and as a church family.

 That is the why we did what we did.  We saw a need and tried to fix it.  Our job is to love those around us and put out the effort to make things better for them as much as we can.  But, as we know, things do not always end up as we had hoped.  We can do our part, but the party we are helping must also receive it and through gratitude change their ways allowing God to work through the gifts they were given and lead them to a better life.  We can only be faithful in doing our part knowing the results are not in our power to dictate.  God has a plan.  He is in control.

            I struggle sometimes with this.  When we do the right things I always want things to end up going in the right direction; I love a happy ending.  We, as a church family, came around this young man and did our part to love him and provide him a chance to successfully change his lifestyle.  We invested time, money and effort into him but did not get the ending we all desired this time.  Did we fail? No, we did not. We were faithful in investing and loving him.  Were our actions all in vain?  Absolutely not!  We are in this game of life for the long run and along the way there will be times that we feel defeated, but God has a plan.  This time may be a stepping stone setting up a future event God has planned for success.  We will not give up on our brother who is struggling.  We are called to be faithful, not to dictate the results.

 

 

 

 The next question is what can we learn as a church family from this?  The culture of drug abuse has brought our world to a whole different level.  All of us have been affected by it in some manner.  Many in our fellowship have escaped that lifestyle and are now walking with Jesus, but know they are only one bad choice from returning to it.  This is an epidemic that we must be ready to deal with these situation as they arise.  We need a plan to minister to recovering addicts that includes discipling them and holding them accountable for choices they are making.  This is not something I cannot do alone, or even with the help of the deacons; we must all be ready to do our part in the recovery process of our brothers and sisters.  Our enemy is as a “roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” but we are not afraid and will fight him for these who seek a better life.  This new world we live in stretches us beyond our comfort zone. We are very comfortable inside these walls and with our normal routine, but the need is outside and it stretches us to deal with it.  We are better together and we all need to learn more about the recovery process and be willing to be stretched in helping those in need.  It is who we are, but we need to do it wisely.  Jesus gave us this advice in Matthew 10.

 

 Mat 10:16 "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

            Paul commanded us also to walk in this manner:

 

1Co 16:13-14 Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.  (14)  Let all that you do be done with love.

            We must be aware of the people we are dealing with are not always truthful.  They often tell us exactly the things they know we want to hear from them in order to achieve what they have in mind.  We must trust the Lord to give us discernment in separating the truth from a lie.  We must strike a balance for ourselves between not being too gullible or too demanding. We must trust the Spirit to lead us in this.  We must learn to place our trust into them in layers as they earn it by their actions. Change is not instant; it is a process.  We cannot be afraid to hold them accountable, but must do it in a loving manner.  We must instill within them the God does love them just as they are, but he refuses to leave them that way as He desires us all to be like Him.  Change comes through yielding our will to His.

            Finally, I want us to realize we are in a spiritual battle that is escalading every day.  Our enemy loves to use situations like this to cause discourse and confusion.  He deceivingly whispered often in my ear last week of how this was a failure on my part that could do damage to our church family. Did he work on you too?  When we only put out limited explanation of what had happened out to you, did he whisper in your ear as well?  He is very good at his job and his job and has an agenda that rivals the one Jesus has for us.

 

Joh 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

            Our enemy will use every opportunity to fulfill his agenda to steal, kill and destroy.  The closer we walk to Jesus, the harder he will fight against us.  But, we are following the One who is the Giver of Life and He will use the hard times like this to make us stronger, not weaker.  We must be committed to follow Jesus whether our efforts to love someone brings the ending we want or ends up going the opposite direction.  We are called to love others and point them to Jesus, God dictates the results.  Our efforts will never be in vain as we seek to serve and glorify our Lord in all we do; He takes it from there.  I leave you with this command from the Apostle Paul to keep on keeping on.

 

Gal 6:9-10 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.  (10)  Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

            Let’s keep on our task together loving those around us and pointing them to Jesus.

 

Heavenly Father, thank You for calling us to follow You and thank You for guiding us through the tough times of life.  Renew our strength, courage, and energy to continue to love those around us as You have loved us.