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Page 1: Compassion Sunday SermonCompassion Sunday Sermon By Pastor Chuck Williams, Hope Lutheran. ... CEO of Compassion International — he lived much of his early life in Africa, grew up

COMPASSION SUNDAY® 2017

A child is waiting ... for

notes

Good morning. Welcome to Hope on a beautiful Sunday morning. We’re happy to have you here. A particular greeting to you who may be our guests. If there’s some way we can serve you, would you indicate that in the welcome card you’ll find in the bulletin? And then an encouragement for everybody, members and nonmembers alike, to turn in the welcome card. Put it in the offering plate.

There are three opportunities today to respond to people in need: You can eat pancakes after the service and support the youth who are [going] on a mission trip to Jamaica this summer. You can sign up to walk or to sponsor someone who’s walking in the Crop Walk. (There are some pastors I know who are walking, and they need all the help they can get. If you want to, stop by the back table.) And then you can sign up to sponsor a Compassion child. You’ll hear about that in the sermon. We hope that there’s an opportunity for you to do that.

Jesus commanded, “Love one another.” We come to worship the God who is love, that we may learn to love one another. Jesus said, “No longer do I call you servants, now I call you My friends.” We come to worship the God who’s friends with Jesus. Let us sing praise to God and live and love in friendship toward the human family through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today’s lesson is from James 2:1-8 (NRSV) “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

“You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Today’s Gospel is from Matthew 25:31-40 (NRSV) “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all his angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will

Compassion Sunday SermonBy Pastor Chuck Williams, Hope Lutheran

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COMPASSION SUNDAY® 2017

A child is waiting ... for

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put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’” This is the Gospel of the Lord. You may be seated.

Please join me in prayer.

God, we are indeed grateful for Your faithfulness to us, for that grace, God, which transforms our lives through the life, death and resurrection of Your Son and that grace, God, which seeks to transform who we are as Your people living in this world as well.

So, God, as we gather once again this morning to hear Your Word for us, we pray that You would open our hearts by Your Spirit’s power, that You would move us, that You would challenge us, that You would guide us, that You would direct us. Speak to us, Lord, a word You see that You have for us, and in turn, God, may we respond however we, as Your faithful people, have the possibility of responding. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

After the resurrection, for a period of about 40 days, Jesus appeared to His disciples on a variety of occasions. He appeared to both assure them and also to focus them with words such as these: “You are My witnesses. I’m sending you into the world to continue My mission. Go and baptize, also teach all that I have commanded you.” And to Peter, He got explicit: “Do you love Me, Peter? If so, follow Me.”

Following Jesus was what God called the disciples to do then. It’s our responsibility as Christian people today, for if the Kingdom of God is coming into this world, the tangible ways it is coming [are] through the work of those who live a type of faith and who follow the teachings of our Lord and Savior.

Jesus gave us a commission when He said, “Follow Me.” And so today, I’d like to focus our following of Jesus on an issue that is close to the heart and mind of God Himself, and that is, ministry to the poor.

Did you know that God has a heart for the poor? Wess Stafford — he was the

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A child is waiting ... for

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CEO of Compassion International — he lived much of his early life in Africa, grew up there in the midst of poverty, and he sums up God’s position very straightforwardly. He says, “God says, ‘You mess with them, you mess with Me. You bless them, I will bless people.’” That’s very blunt, but Scripture itself is very straightforward.

In the Gospel we have this image presented as a judge of all people, Jesus returning in full majesty, in power, in glory. And He comes sitting upon the throne, and He comes to divide those who will inherent the Kingdom of God from those who will not. And the litmus test in terms of one’s salvation is how they treated the poor.

Jesus, in effect, says, “When you treat those who are least in My family with mercy, you are, in turn, showing mercy to Me.”

And the biblical mandate contains over 550 verses that deal specifically with God’s heart for the poor. For example, Proverbs 19:17 (NIV) tells us, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what they have done.” Or, Deuteronomy 15:11 (NIV) “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

Jesus Himself, in articulating His mission as He began His ministry, had the whole Old Testament to choose from, and what He chose was a section — verses from Isaiah [Luke 4:18 (NIV), quoting Isaiah 61:1]. These ones: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

When you read and study Scripture, you cannot help but notice God’s inclination to speak out on behalf … [of the poor].

Certainly, we all know that Jesus died on the cross because people matter profoundly to God. Sinful people like me, like you, matter profoundly to a Holy God. And so Jesus was sacrificed on my behalf. He was sacrificed so that I, who was a poor and helpless sinner in God’s presence, could be well and acceptable to a Holy God.

2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV) puts it this way: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

When you consider that God, in Jesus, has been about the work of helping the helpless — and by God’s definition, that includes you and me, because we matter to Him — it makes perfect sense that God would have a heart for the poor. And as followers of Jesus, so should we.

The biblical mandate is plain. It’s not about a political agenda. It’s not about

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a humanitarian philosophy. It’s about developing in each one of us a heart that represents God’s heart in this world. So, as Christian people, we are to be standing up for those who are helpless, giving a voice to those who have no voice, reaching out to those in need, both spiritually and physically.

According to one definition, this is what makes the poor, poor. It’s a fact that they cannot speak up for themselves. The World Development Report gives a definition of poverty this way. “Poor people live without fundamental freedoms of action and choice that the better-off take for granted. They often lack adequate food and shelter, education and health, deprivations that keep them from leading the kind of life that everyone values. They also face extreme vulnerability to ill health, economic dislocation, and natural disasters. And they are often exposed to ill treatment by institutions of the state and society and are powerless to influence key decisions affecting their lives. These are all dimensions of poverty.”

By definition, poverty limits the voice of those who are poor. It’s no wonder that Scripture admonishes us: Speak up for those who don’t have a choice.

Now, certainly there are all kinds of rationales I could articulate not to speak up for the poor, reasons like, you know, I work hard, I earn what I have, so should they. Or, there is so much poverty in this world, how in the world can I, as one person, ever hope to make any kind of significant difference?

And, you know, there may be some truth, in fact, to the hesitancies that we have to reach out to the poor. But again, bottom line, more than anything, Jesus is concerned about your heart becoming like God’s heart.

And so His teachings do not reflect any wisdom on why you should not reach out to those who don’t deserve it. Jesus’ focus is just the opposite, for He wanted you to get in touch with God’s grace, to reflect that in your life.

And so His teaching focuses us toward grace. Jesus said, “I came not to be served, but to serve.” So should you. “Love one another,” He said, “just as I have loved you.” And also, in terms of the Gospel’s words, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you in turn do it to Me.” In so doing, Jesus knew we would begin to develop a heart that reflects the image of God’s heart for all people.

You know, I have a dream. It’s not just my dream; it comes from Scriptures. It’s a dream shared by many in this congregation. It’s a dream that every small group, every youth group — indeed, every person in this congregation — would take personal responsibility for their ministry to the poor.

As I said, I know this dream is shared by others in our congregation who because of their faith, who because of life experiences, who because of exposure to poverty, have had the light go on in a way for them that it’s never gone on before. And I’d like you to have an opportunity to hear from a couple of those folks. We put it on a video piece, simply because of the number of

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experiences and the ability to get them to all the services. So let’s take a moment and look at their perspectives here on poverty and the poor.

[Video is shown.]

I’d like to follow up on that last piece there, that response piece. In the context of celebrating — offering some opportunities — but also celebrating what we have going as a congregation, because the reality is, we do much in terms of ministry with the poor. For example, Churches Unite for the Homeless. We’ve got a connection with that organization.

Folks have been working in the context of our congregation serving that ministry for many years, right here in the community. Also, in terms of Minnesota Food Share, which we were with in March there. We collected about 4,000 pounds of food and $2,800 in donations. And that is significant, and we need to celebrate that.

There’s a Crop Walk going on today in town. Hope Lutheran has had a connection with that effort in terms of reaching out to the poor as well for many years, and information about that opportunity exists in the south hallway. And so there is much that’s being done.

Another opportunity that I’d like to present to you — this insert that’s in your bulletin today is a Habitat for Humanity opportunity. And about three weeks ago, four weeks ago, we threw out an opportunity, and the response was overwhelming. More than a hundred folks said they’d like to be a part of a Habitat for Humanity house. And so we’re gonna do the “House That Hope Built.” We applied for a grant, and we received the grant — $20,000 — to get us going. And a task force is working on this. The property has been given to Habitat, there’s been a family that’s selected, and the wheels are moving forward.

And at this time, we’re trying to get all the ducks in a row, so to speak, and we need unskilled volunteers. We’re gonna need volunteers for help with food and for building and child care and all those pieces. But also, skilled help and material donations. And the more of those pieces we can get in place, the quicker the project can be moved forward and done, for a lesser price as well.

And so, I encourage you to consider that today. There may be a way that you can help and want to help, and that’s a critical piece as well.

Then today — we’re calling today “Compassion Sunday” because we’ve had a connection with Compassion International. You can see the connection. More than 200 children have been sponsored by members of our congregation, and that is significant. We need to celebrate that.

Right now, though, however, Compassion is an organization that works throughout the world. There are 17,000 children waiting to be sponsored. And that sponsorship means that they eat in a healthy way; they have education

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opportunities provided for them, they have faith opportunities provided for them, and health opportunities and good health care. And that takes place in the context of an organization that is second to none in terms of getting the money that you give directly to the children. And so, this is a good organization, and it is a way to make a difference in the life of one person, a child.

And that will impact their family and others as well, the whole community.

Also, in the south hallway today, there’s an information table about Operation Boot Strap. You heard that mentioned on the video there. That’s a Lutheran girls’ school in Tanzania, Africa, that provides educational opportunities for young girls and women in a culture that really has not provided that opportunity in the past. There’s a connection with Concordia College there, in terms of some girls that have come over to further their education. And I would simply encourage you to stop by any of these for more information. I can’t cover all the information in the time that we have here. But take some time to ask yourself where you would like to get involved and to look at the many opportunities that we have to make a difference.

In closing, I’d simply like to focus us on one last interaction that Jesus had with a young man. He came up to Jesus one day with the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” — the same issue that our Gospel text addresses today — and Jesus said, “You know the commandments, follow them.” And the young man replied, “I have worked to observe the commandments since my youth.” And the Scripture tell us Jesus looked at the young man with deep respect and admiration. He said, “You still lack one thing. Go sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and come follow Me.”

Now, I’ve got to tell you, when I read that Scripture lesson, I’d just as soon skip it because I don’t know what to do with it. It forces me to look at my heart. And when I look at my heart, I wish I was more compassionate, more merciful. You know, folks might tell me, “Oh, Pastor Chuck, you’re a kind, nice guy.” Well, I would like to be merciful, like God is merciful. And I know I have a long way to go there when it comes to having a heart like God. But at the same time, I also know the Spirit of God challenges us and says to me, “Don’t walk away from the poor. You can make a difference in the life of one person in this world.”

And in so doing, God says, “I’ll work on your heart.” And I need to trust God with that. And indeed, when I respond by reaching out to the needs of the poor, God is working there to shape and mold and move my heart to be more like His. What about your heart?

Let us pray.

God, we know we live in a world, a world that absolutely depends on Your grace. Without Your grace, it’s lost. God, it is a world characterized by brokenness and those who are outcasts, those who are poor in spirit and physically. God, You call us to be instruments of Your peace, instruments of Your mercy. And so we

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pray, God, that You would work on our hearts, that You would give us a response that is in line with our gifts and that, God, You would indeed take it and use it to make a difference for Your Kingdom. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Let us join in the statement of faith printed in your bulletin.

We believe in the presence of God, His nearness to protect, His love to comfort, His law to obey, His Spirit to guide, His Word to instruct, His grace to share through Jesus, the Son, who makes God’s presence vivid through His holy life, His painful death, His victorious Resurrection and continual intercession on our behalf before the Father in heaven. Our lives are rooted in this Gospel. This is a mystery, but it is also truth. This we believe.

Let us pray. Gracious God, we pray that You will move us to be compassionate toward the poor and that You will have compassion upon those lives who are in constant danger, that You will bless the efforts of those who seek peace.

All of these requests we make in the name of Him who taught us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Please rise for the benediction and our closing song.

The Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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What is the essence of Christianity? So many different things compete for our attention and our time. Do we give ourselves to that which is most essential? Christians will suggest all sorts of different answers to what matters most.

“Evangelism, sharing Jesus with people, this is what’s most important …”

“No, no, discipleship, bringing people up in the faith, that’s where it’s at …”

“No, no, no, worship, giving ourselves to God in praise …”

And on and on and on.

What is the essence of Christianity? What is the core? Jesus is asked this question in Mark 12:28 and, fortunately for us, He gives an answer. He tells us, He gives us His own perspective on what the essence, the core, the essentials of Christianity are. A lawyer asks Him, “What is the greatest commandment?” And Jesus says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” He doesn’t come up with anything new here. He is just citing Deuteronomy 6:4. And then Jesus does something odd. He’s only asked for one commandment but He gives two: “The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourselves.” Again, nothing new. He’s citing Leviticus 19:18. And in doing so, Jesus provides us with what He considers to be the essence of Christianity — love. Love for God and love for our neighbor.

Incidentally, two things that often compete for love are morality and theology. Some people think that being a Christian is all about having the correct theology, the right doctrine. Believing the right things, that’s where it’s at. If that is true then, as Tony Campolo notes, Satan is the ideal Christian. Because according to the book of James, the devil believes all the right things. Not only that, but he also shudders. In Paul’s great chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13, that’s read at almost every wedding, which also happens to be the chapter that helps convert Robert De Niro’s character Mendoza in the movie, The Mission, Paul says something quite fascinating: “These three remain: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.” Many Christians would not agree with Paul here. Many Christians would say, “No, faith is more important.” And then there’s morality, which often in our culture is understood narrowly as sexual purity. Of course, the people during Jesus’ time who were the most “pure”

Sermon: The Essence of ChristianityBy Matt Rindge, Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies at Azusa Pacific University

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A child is waiting ... for

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morally were the Pharisees. And they were the people of Jesus’ day that He criticized, that He castigated, that He had harsh words for. Christianity is not about the right doctrine. It’s not about being moral. Christianity is all about love. Bart Campolo says it best: “Love God. Love people. Nothing else matters.”

Loving God with one’s whole heart, mind, soul and strength — this is describing a passionate kind of love relationship with God. Viteszlav Gardovsky, a Czechoslovakian philosopher, was once asked, “What do you see as the most terrible threat in our world today?” Gardovsky replies, “The terrible threat is that we might die earlier than we really do die, before death has become a natural necessity. The real horror lies in just such a premature death, a death after which we go on living for many years.” We know people like this. My own grandfather passed away two and a half years ago. But something inside him died years and years ago. Jesus said in John 10:10b “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher is well-known for his statement: “God is dead.” Someone once said that after Nietzsche died, one of his students wrote on his chalkboard: “Nietzsche is dead. Signed, God.” Nietzsche’s father was a Lutheran pastor. One Sunday morning when Nietzsche was 11 years old, he was sitting in church, next to his younger sister. His father was preaching and, in the middle of the sermon, Friedrich stood up, grabbed his sister by the hand and started walking out the back of the church. His father was not extremely overjoyed and he called out to young Friederich, “Where do you think you are going?” Nietzsche turned around, pointed up to Jesus who was hanging on the cross at the front of the church building and he said, “Doesn’t that thing up there ever laugh or cry?”

In Nietzsche’s later writings, he frequently expresses his disdain for Christianity. One of his primary reasons is that he was turned off by the passionless Christianity that was presented to him. A mundane, rationalist Christianity failed to attract Nietzsche. We often offer people a passionless Christianity and then wonder why they’re not interested. And we say, “Oh they’re closed to the Holy Spirit.” “Ah, their hearts are just hardened.” Well, maybe not. Maybe what we’re offering them is something that is not alluring or enticing, and what is tragic is that it should be. Jesus certainly was. Soren Kierkegaard says, “This age is in bondage to the law of indifference.” And that’s sad when we see it in society. It is a sin when we see it in the church.

Passion. What does it look like to be passionate? How does one develop a passion for God? Again, people offer a variety of responses. Some say, “Well it’s about getting these WWJD bracelets, right? Or my Christian T-shirt, or getting my fish on my car; and that’s how I express my passion for God.”

How do you develop passion? There are two things I want to touch on this morning. First, passion emerges from time spent alone with God in such a way where we are still and quiet and silent so that we can hear Him. Most of my “quiet” times growing up in the church were activities in which I was learning

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something, reading the Bible, writing down notes. But there is a relationship to be experienced. One of the primary differences between us and the people in the Scriptures is that we talk about God quite a bit while people in Scripture encounter God; they experience Him. Exodus 33:11 says, “Moses would talk to God face to face as a man talks to his friend.” Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” I wonder if there is a certain “knowing” that can only be experienced or found in the stillness. Henry Nouwen would say, “Solitude is the furnace of transformation, because it was the place and time where in my stillness I could allow God to speak to me about those places in my life, those ugly areas that God wanted to change and remove.” In 1 Kings, when the Lord tells Elijah He wants to meet with him and Elijah goes to the mountain, there is a great fire, but God was not in the fire. A great wind comes, but God is not in the wind. There is an earthquake, but no God. And then comes a still small whisper, and that’s how God comes and meets Elijah.

Last night was the first night in quite some time when I actually took time to be still, to be quiet. Most of our activity in life is merely that — activity, a rushing from here to there. Stillness involves listening to God and most of us listen as well to God as we do to one another, which is not good news. The act of someone really listening to you, being completely present with you, engaged with you, actually listening to what you are saying — this type of listening actually makes us uncomfortable because it is so rare.

We’re so used to the other type of listening: “Hi, how ya doing?” followed by the immediate: “Good, good.” I would annoy people in college because I would say, “How are you doing?” and they would say, “Good.” Then I would say, “Why?” And they would say, “Wwwwwwwhat do you mean?” And I would say, “Why are you doing good?” So, you can understand why I didn’t make a whole lot of friends. But the ones I did make I gave time to. Do we give God this kind of time?

Time in which we are still, alone and quiet before God so He can invade us, transform us, have His way with us?

The second area, which both describes a person who is passionate for God as well as being a vehicle by which we can become more passionate for God, is our expression of love and care for the poor. When I share this with groups, it usually seems as though it is coming from left field. “Well, I understand time alone with God, I get that — but why the poor?” And I say that loving the poor has nothing to do with any compassion or love I feel personally for the poor. For me, it simply has to do with one thing — with Scripture and with the enormity of passages in Scripture that deal with the poor. If you have no life, like me, you do things that other people consider boring, such as counting things in Scripture. And it may not seem like the most exciting thing in the world, but it is interesting. Oh, it’s interesting. Did you know, for instance, that in all of Scripture, there are 67 verses on the topic of adultery? Not encouraging it as a lifestyle, but discouraging it. 67 verses. In all of Scripture there is one verse, one

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verse that says that all of Scripture is inspired by God. There are two verses, in all of Scripture, that say Jesus is the only way to God the Father. Homosexuality is mentioned four or five times. There are over 560 verses in which God commands His children to love the poor. 560! Now, I am not saying we should discount the one verse about Scripture being inspired, the two verses about Jesus being the only way to the Father … but if we are going to lift these verses up as the hallmark of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, what do we do with the 560 verses about the poor? How do we deal with them?

It is quite interesting to see what these verses actually say about the poor. In Deuteronomy 15:7-8, as the Israelites are preparing to move into the land that’s been promised to them, God says, “If there be among you, in any of the towns the Lord, your God has given you, who is in need, do not be hardhearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor, but open your hand willingly lending enough to meet the need whatever it may be.” This is the word of God. Proverbs 19:17 says: “He who lends to the poor is kind to God and will be repaid.” A relationship is established between how we treat the poor and our treatment of God. Sodom and Gomorrah is often touted as the great epitome of God’s treatment of homosexuals. But Ezekiel 16:49 tells us why God destroyed Sodom. The prophet declares: “This was the sin of your sister Sodom, she and her sisters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous means yet she did not aid the poor and needy.” Sound familiar? Jeremiah 22:16 is fabulous. The prophet, speaking to the son of a former king about what his father was like as a king, remarks: “‘He judged the cause of the poor and needy and all went well, is this not what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord.” God says that “knowing Me” consists of defending the cause of the poor and the needy. Isaiah 58 is a classic because the Israelites are fasting, and they’re humbling themselves, and they are delighting to draw near to God, and they’re worshipping God. All things which we would regard as positive. And yet God says to them, “The day of fasting, of humbling yourselves is not the fast I have chosen. Is this not the fast I have chosen: to feed the hungry, to give water to the thirsty, to clothe the naked?” So many Christians in America say they want revival and so the thing to do is to get the Ten Commandments back in the classroom, to get prayer back in schools. Well, according to Isaiah 58, the Israelites were doing all those things and it was not doing them any good. They were missing out on God’s heart, which was a heart that cared for the poor.

When we get to Jesus in the New Testament, we come to the harshest, more severe sayings about wealth and the poor. Which is odd because we usually think of Jesus as a nice Mister Rogers kind of person, right? And so being a Christian is like being a kind of Mister Rogers, which means being really nice. We’ve reduced Christianity to being nice. The primary difference is that, while one has no need to get rid of a Mister Rogers, one does have a need to get rid of Jesus because He’s dangerous. We’re all familiar with the passage in Luke 19 where Jesus encounters a rich individual and the person wants to follow Jesus and Jesus says, “One thing you lack, sell all that you have, give to the poor, then come follow me.” And because we are so sophisticated, we know that

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we can’t take Jesus’ statement on face value. That’s obviously not what Jesus means for us. Jesus was obviously getting at the willingness of the man to let go of his treasure. And if the man was willing to let go he still could have kept his money and followed Jesus, right? And yet I wonder if we would interpret Jesus’ saying in the same manner if the man’s issue was adultery. What if Jesus said, “One thing you lack, stop fooling around with other women and then come follow Me”? Would we really say, “Well, no, the man doesn’t actually have to stop committing adultery, he only needs to be willing to stop. He can still fool around, just as long as his heart is in the right place and he doesn’t allow his adultery to interfere with his relationship with God.” None of us would understand Jesus’ comment in this way because it would sound absurd.

Now, why doesn’t our common interpretation of Jesus’ comment to the rich man seem absurd? One, because we have heard this interpretation so much that it has become common. And what is common becomes accepted. Secondly, Jesus’ comment actually speaks to us. It speaks to us because we have money. It touches us where we are. Why is it that churches preach about homosexuality? Well, I’m not gay and it doesn’t bother me because I don’t need to change in that area. So we will say: “Well, homosexuality is wrong.” “OK. But why is it wrong? “Because the Bible says.” “But doesn’t the Bible say that you have to give up all your wealth?” “Yes, but that’s not what it means.” We have become experts at distorting the Word of God. The clincher, of course, is Luke 14:33 where Jesus is speaking, not to an individual, but to the crowds. He says, “If anyone does not sell all their possessions, they cannot be My disciple.”

We’re all familiar, of course, with the last sermon Jesus gives in Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus says that in the end, all peoples, all nations, will be separated into two groups — the sheep on the right and the goats on the left. And Jesus will say to the sheep: “Come with Me into the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world.” Why? “Because when I was hungry you fed Me. When I was thirsty you gave Me drink. When I was a foreigner you invited Me in. When I was in prison you came and visited Me. When I was sick you took care of Me. When I was naked you covered Me.” And they are confused. They raise their hands and they say, “When Lord, when did we see You hungry?” And Jesus says to them: “I tell you the truth, what you did for the least of my brothers you did it to Me.” How we treat these six groups of people is how we treat Jesus. We don’t like this truth very much. We want to create a large divide between our relationship with God and our relationship with people. And we say, “My relationship with God is more important. Relationships with people, oh yes, they’re important, but not as important.” So, I can be rude to my mother and then go to church and worship God and pray and, oh I just love God so much and I treat this person discourteously and I can be mean and impolite, but it’s okay because I really love God. Jesus won’t have that. He says to the goats: “Depart from Me into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels because ...” and then He repeats Himself, “... when I was hungry you didn’t give Me any food. I was thirsty, you gave Me no water. I was in prison, you didn’t come. I was naked, you didn’t cover Me. I was sick … I was

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a foreigner …” And the goats have the same question as the sheep, they’re just as confused: “When, Lord, when did we see You?” The implication being that if they had seen Jesus they would have cared for Him. They would have cared for Him because the goats really do love Jesus. In the story they recognize Him, they know Him, they call Him “Lord.” “When, Lord, when did we see You?” And Jesus repeats Himself again: “What you did not do to the least of these my brothers you didn’t do to Me.”

How do we respond to Scriptures like these? In a general way, there tend to be three responses one can have to Scripture. We can encounter Scripture and come away unchanged. No change occurs. The second possibility is that we encounter Scripture and actually come away changed, somehow transformed. And then, there is the third possibility, with which we are all very familiar. We encounter Scripture and we change the Scripture to adapt to us.

We’ve all experienced this “wonderful ability” to so distort God’s Word to meet our needs. It has become so common, yet hopefully there is still something in us that cringes when we hear someone treating the Word of God like that. We take the Word of God and we actually become its Lord. We tell the Word of God what it is going to mean. Dorothy Sayers would say, “It is not the business of the church to adapt Jesus Christ to men and women. The business of the church, rather, is adapting men and women into the image of Jesus Christ.” C.S. Lewis, I think he pointed it out very well when he noted, “The problem with Christianity is that people are attracted by bits of it and so they take the bits they like and they leave the rest behind.” There are over 560 verses that most of us and most of our churches have left behind. We’re satisfied with the tiny crumbs we have taken.

George Bernard Shaw said that God created us in His image and we decided to return the favor. Look at any church, any church in any country and the Jesus or God they worship is always somehow remarkably like the people in that particular church. So if you go to a black church, you will not find a picture of a white Jesus. And if you go to a white church, you will not find a picture of a black Jesus. You can go into a Chinese church and find a picture of a Chinese Jesus. People want a Jesus that is like them. Tony Campolo rightly notes that the God of most churches in America is predominately middle class, He’s very white and above all He’s very American. God supports us in anything we want to do in the world, right? I mean, we can bomb any country and whose side will God be on? God blesses who? America. I don’t think I have ever once seen a sign saying, “God bless” any other country. He doesn’t bless Afghanistan. He doesn’t bless Iraq. He blesses America. He’s on our side. He’s one of us.

Looking at these 560 Scriptures is important because caring for the poor is often wrongly perceived as some individual’s own agenda. “Oh that’s so nice; that’s so wonderful that you have a heart for the poor. How truly nice of you.” Caring for the poor is not something we do because we’re nice. We do it because it is what God Himself cares about. And it’s really a question of

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whether Jesus, in relating to me, will be my Lord or not. Will Jesus be Lord of me or will I be Lord of Jesus? And in too many churches it has become the dominant pattern for the church to be Lord over Jesus. But being Lord is the way Jesus wants to relate to us. Now for many of us, if we are honest, Jesus or God is much more like a Santa Claus to us. He is there to help me. To help me get the job, to help me do well in school, to help things go well with me. He’s there to help, and to help me. Do we ever think about how we can be of help to God? How we can help Him in the things He wants to accomplish in this world? How can I be of help to You, Father? How can I be used by You to further Your Kingdom?

Most of us are familiar with the statistics on poverty. They’re grisly. It used to be 40,000 kids dying every day. The numbers have improved only slightly. It’s about 36,000. About 60 percent of those who die every day die of hunger. About 40 percent die from preventable diseases such as diarrhea, measles and the flu. You will only find this kind of poverty in Africa, Southeast Asia and certain countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe. You will not find it in America. And I never experienced this kind of poverty until I went to Southeast Asia a year ago. I went to slum areas in Manila, the Philippines and Bangkok, Thailand. In the Philippines, if you’ve been there, you know they have this gigantic mountain. It’s called Smokey Mountain. It’s a mountain of nothing but trash. A gigantic mountain of trash on which families live. And the kids in these families spend their days scavenging through the trash looking for things they can recycle: glass, aluminum. And kids sometimes get killed because these enormous garbage trucks come to dump trash onto this pile and they don’t have the time to be concerned with kids running around or being in the trash.

Yet, Mother Teresa may be right when she said that the most damaging effects of poverty may not be the physical suffering. I am hesitant to say this because I don’t know physical suffering. I have not experienced it. But she says that the worst part about poverty is the emotional experience of the person as a result of the message they receive. And the message they receive, day in and day out, is, “I don’t matter, I do not matter, I do not matter, I am of no value. I am worth nothing.” If you have worked with any women who have experienced date rape or abuse, you can have a woman who has grown up in a wonderful loving home environment, have wonderful friends and it can take one experience of being raped that will change that woman’s life forever. She can spend years and years in therapy and counseling. It can take a lifetime to work through that one incident of abuse and the pain and grief that result are immense. With horrific poverty we are dealing with people who experience intense messages of rejection on a daily basis — “you are worth nothing, you are worth absolutely nothing.” So if I am hearing, “Jesus loves me, God loves me,” these messages will not compute because they do not match my experience. When Moses tells the Israelites in Exodus 5 that God is going to deliver them, the text says that they did not believe him. Why? Because of their cruel slavery. Their experience prevented them from hearing good news about what God wanted to do. Poverty is an experience that hinders people from believing in the news that seems too

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good to be true — that they are loved, that they are worth something.

News of poverty can be dismal, depressing, paralyzing. With a world in need, the last thing we want is to become paralyzed. The good news is that there are a number of people who have allowed Jesus to be Lord and who have responded to God’s heart for the poor. Rich Mullins was a Christian songwriter who wrote, “Our God is an Awesome God” and “Step by Step,” worship songs that are still being sung by many Christians. Mullins made quite a bit of money from the sale of his albums. But he never knew how much he made. He told his record company to send his checks to the elders at his church. He told the elders at his church that he wanted them to cut him, from this amount, a check for $25,000.00. He figured that was what the average American worker made in a year. So he would make 25 grand a year. And he would direct the elders to give all of the rest of the money to orphanages in Mexico, to organizations working with Native Americans in the Southwest United States. What a great example. Rich Mullins left us too soon.

John Wesley was a student at Oxford University. As a student he had a fixed level of income and a fixed level of expenses. His income that exceeded his expenses was given away to the poor. After graduating from Oxford, he became an extremely popular preacher/writer and went on to make a sizeable amount of money through the sales of his books. His income gradually rose and rose. But he kept the level of his expenses the same as when he had been a student and he continued to give away the excess income to the poor. Very different from our American philosophy: The more I make, the more I can what? Spend! That’s the whole point of making money, right? Wesley didn’t see money as an evil. Money was a good thing to Wesley because it was a vehicle through which God’s love could be expressed to the poor.

And then there is Compassion, this particular organization. And what really gets people is the $32 a month. I’d be willing to bet that if sponsoring children was free, getting sponsors would not be all that difficult. But it’s the money. It’s the cost, $32 a month. Love does cost. It is interesting to consider whether love exists in relationships that involve no cost. Love cost Jesus a great deal. I emphasize this because most of our reasons for not loving have to do with costs. We say, “I would like to, I really would love to help but it just costs too much.” I was a student at UC Santa Barbara, and walking across campus I saw a person who didn’t fit in at all. He was in his mid-forties, very overweight and the closer I got to him the more I could smell something leaning more on the unpleasant side of the scent spectrum. His hair was very greasy and I couldn’t just walk past him because of a book that I’d been reading — Les Miserables, which I think is the most Christian book ever written, aside from possibly the Bible. And then there is this annoying phrase running through my mind: What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? This was before the bracelets became popular, but it’s from a book written by Charles Sheldon called In His Steps. And so, okay fine, I walked up to him, introduced myself. His name is Gary. We start to talk and I can tell that Gary is working up to asking me for something and

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I am assuming he is going to want some money from me. But I’m preparing myself to give to him. “What would Jesus do? He would give money, okay, okay.” So I am psyching myself up to give him some money and Gary says “Can I ask you a favor?” Okay, yes. “I don’t have a place to stay tonight, would it be okay if I stayed at your place?” Ohhh. God, why didn’t he ask for the money? So I take Gary to my dormitory room. This is somewhat awkward, not the typical thing, having a homeless person stay over in the dorm rooms. And he stays the night. My roommate was more comfortable with it than I was, Steve, a friend I knew in InterVarsity. We ordered pizza. We talked quite a bit, we got to know each other. I prayed that night before I went to bed, “God, please love Gary, reveal Yourself to him, show him how much compassion You have for him. Soften his heart. Father, I also ask that when I wake up tomorrow morning I am still a virgin.” Only because Gary was pretty big, a pretty strong guy. And I didn’t want to have to tell my future wife that I wasn’t a virgin. And I certainly didn’t want the story to begin with, “Well, his name was Gary …” Anyway, it turned out ok. The next day, my roommate buys him a $120 ticket to go to Florida so he can go see his family with whom he was estranged and had not seen in several years. But it did cost something. I mean, if we are going to love people, it is going to cost. But we don’t want anyone intruding around our personal space, that is the worst thing that can happen; but to love, we somehow need to let people intrude.

Compassion. The name actually means “to suffer with or to feel with.” The opposite of compassion is apathy: no suffering, no feeling. And the heart of God in Scripture is one that longs to suffer with His people. It’s very interesting, God’s attitude toward suffering, because He doesn’t always remove it. In some cases He does. But what He does do consistently is enter into the suffering of His people. That is the beautiful thing about the incarnation of Jesus on the cross, He doesn’t take away evil, He doesn’t take away suffering, but He is willing to share our pain.

I used to work at Lake Avenue Congregational Church in southern California. We would have these immense programs throughout the summers. In one week of day camp, we would take the kids to the beach on Wednesday, and to a place like Magic Mountain, Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm on Friday. In between was filled with crafts, games, basic fun. But some kids would complain. “We hate these camps, they are so boring, why can’t we do anything fun?” You think that’s bad, just wait until junior high.

So my supervisor, Dee Engel, who was the children’s pastor (though they couldn’t call her a children’s pastor since she was a woman so they called her a children’s director, though she did everything and more that a pastor would do) said, “Why don’t we start having camps for kids in our neighborhood who cannot afford to experience the Gospel simply because they lack the money it takes to come to our camps? We’ll do camps in parks and they’ll be free, one week at a time, three hours a day. The kids will come and we’ll have a Bible study time, we’ll have a craft time, we’ll have a game, sports time, we’ll have

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snacks. We’ll let the kids basically have a chance to be kids.” A lot of kids nowa- days, they really don’t get to be kids.

So, there was a 9-year-old girl, Cassandra, who came to camp. I still keep in touch with Cassandra; she is about to graduate from high school. On Friday, the last day of this camp, we’re sitting in a circle and I am talking about God as a Father and what it means for God to be our Father, and in the middle of my brilliant talk, Cassandra, like young Nietzsche, she stands up and she walks away. Later on in the day, I approach Cassandra and tell her: “I noticed you got up and I was wondering if you wanted to talk about why.” And I can tell by her body language that she’s not sure if she wants to talk about it. She eventually says, “Well, when I was 1 year old our dad left and I haven’t seen him since and I don’t even really remember him at all. So when you talked about God as a Father … it was just kind of hard to hear.” And I say to her, “Cassandra, God wants to be your dad, God wants to be your father.” And she looks up at me and she says, “Matt, I know that, but it’s still not the same.” Well, what am I going to say? “No Cassandra, actually you’re wrong, it is exactly the same, and here are 18 theological reasons why.” Because she is right, it is not the same. Her poor excuse of a father left and that is not what she needed. She needed the physical presence of a man in her life. And with Compassion, in some small way, I think, we are somewhat able to be a presence in the life of another person. And if we’re honest, we’ll say the benefit is mostly on our part, in being able to share in someone else’s life, a life very different from ours, and to experience in some small, minor way, the pain or suffering that people go through.

One of the beautiful things about Compassion is that it’s not simply a ministry that is about giving a handout to someone. Rather, it’s about trying to remove, to release people from this vicious cycle of poverty that it is almost impossible to escape from in the developing world. Tony Campolo was in Haiti and he encountered three young girls on a street corner. The eldest of them, who is about 15 says, “Sir, you can have me tonight for $10.” He asks the next youngest one, “What about you, can I have you tonight for that same price?” She nods in agreement. He asks the youngest one, who he says looks like she’s 11, “And I can have you for the same price?” She nods. He says, “Okay, this is my address. This is where I am staying, my hotel. Meet me here in two hours. Don’t be late.” He goes to the hotel, up to his room, calls down to the concierge, and says he wants every Disney video they have and he also wants banana splits — ice cream, bananas, sauce, everything. Bring them up to the room. The girls arrive, they eat and they fall asleep on the bed, one by one, watching these Disney videos. Tony is sitting in a chair and he says that two thoughts strike him. One is: “God I thank you. I thank you that for one night these kids can be girls again.” And then the other thought hits him: “I am leaving tomorrow and tomorrow they will go back to the same activity of being abused and molested by men. All I have given them is one night.” And that is really one of the beautiful things about Compassion, they’re not just in there for a day, they’re not in there for the week, they’re committed to the long haul. And

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they’re committed to bringing these kids out of hurtful environments, whether it is providing food, or medicine, and meeting educational, spiritual, social and physical needs. We see that a lot of these kids, after they have received a college education, they will return to their communities and invest so that there is indigenous leadership modeling for the kids, showing them it is possible to escape the cycle of poverty. They see one of their own who has come from where they have come from but have made it. That is what gives hope.

There was a pastor in L.A. who painted a mural over some graffiti. The mural read, “We somehow think the Church is here for us. We forget that we are the Church and we are here for the world.”

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It’s an absolute pleasure and privilege to be with you all this morning. I was very excited, and I told my wife it will be good to be in a more subtly warm climate than northern Ohio.

I fly a great deal. I travel quite a lot, and I added up my flights at the end of the year last year. I had flown 56 times. I know that many of you fly much more than that because of your job with Compassion and some of you less, but because I fly so much, I like to know what is going on with the flights and the aeronautic world. We happen to have an air traffic controller who is part of our family at RiverTree, and we have some pilots, and we actually have someone who oversees the airport near where we live.

So, I sat down with him and said, “So, tell me some things that are going on. Like those yellow masks that come down — do those really work and would they really do anything?” He said, “No, they are actually just to muffle the screams.” That was comforting. And the brochures that are in the pockets — you know they always tell you to read those before you take off, and most of us don’t do that. My wife does, because she is an extreme rule keeper for every time. I don’t look at them — there are no words printed on them. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. There are just pictures for all of us to understand. I look at them and think, “It doesn’t make sense to me that you would put your head between your legs during a crash,” and he said, “Well, that is to kiss your butt goodbye.”

Why We Do What We Do

I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but many airlines are now giving away free headphones. You used to have to buy them, and now they are giving them away free and I discovered why. USA TODAY ran this article that said many commercial airlines are now being equipped with antiterrorist missiles. I don’t know if you saw that or not, but this is truth. It is so shoulder-launched missiles can be intercepted in the air. So, when I asked what is the deal with the headphones, he said those are to muffle the sounds of the missiles being launched off the jet. So we fly, and we pray and we shed tears. Many of us are away from our families, and we ask the question, “Why do we do what we do?” What makes us continue day in and day out?

I know that you are all intimately and painfully aware of the fact that 30,000 children around the world die from poverty or poverty-related, preventable diseases every 24 hours. That’s why we do what we do. So, I happen to have

Gate CrashersBy Greg Nettle, Senior Pastor, RiverTree Christian Church

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30,000 BBs in these two pitchers just as a reminder of what happens every 24 hours. And that’s what keeps me getting on flights. It’s why we do what we do. It’s why we link arms and we partner together.

The Reality of “Hell”

I want to talk to you this morning about two things: hell and the Church. As a local pastor of a church, I am very aware that those two words go together occasionally. But today I don’t want to talk about those two words in that light. I want to talk with you first about hell. Some people don’t even believe in hell today.

A young girl came home from her date with a young man that she had been dating for quite a while, and she was forlorn, so her mom asked her what was going on. She said, “Mom, I am very sad. Jeff asked me to marry him tonight,” Her mom said, “Well, what’s the problem?” And she said, “Mom, Jeff told me that he is an atheist and that he does not even believe in hell.” And her mom said, “Honey, marry him anyhow, and I am sure that between the two of us we can prove to him that he is wrong and that there is a hell.” Some of you understand that, don’t you? How many of you have said at one point or another, “My life is a living hell?” How many of you have heard someone say that? Statistically, with all of those here and those watching around the world, someone could say that right now — that your life is a living hell.

So, let’s talk about hell. It’s kind of interesting, the world “hell” doesn’t even occur in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word “Sheol” does, and it means “grave.” The word “hell” isn’t introduced to us until the New Testament. Specifically, Jesus uses the word “Gehenna,” and He only uses it 12 times. And when Jesus uses the word “Gehenna,” He doesn’t typically speak about hell.

It is some place in the afterlife, some place in the future. He typically talks about Gehenna as something that exists right now, on this earth, in this place, in this time.

Horrific Child Sacrifice

When Jesus talked about hell, He was actually talking about a specific place that people would know. It’s a real place in real time. So why did the Valley of Hinnom end up being referred to and known as “hell”? Well, we have to go back to the Old Testament to understand that there was a king that arose, and his name was Josiah. He brought about a lot of reform to the land, and I want to read to you about it in 2 Kings 23:10. The Old Testament says the king defiled the altar in the Valley of Hinnom so no one could ever use it again to sacrifice sons and daughters in the fire as an offering to the god Molech. So Josiah comes in and he tears down this altar that had been used in the Valley of Hinnom to sacrifice sons and daughters.

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Molech was a pagan god who was worshiped years and years ago. And as horrific as this seems to us, people who were very devout followers of this pagan god proved their loyalty to Molech. And that if they truly honored him would be asked to bring their firstborn child to the Valley of Hinnom, where that child would be burned alive and sacrificed on the altar. So, the Valley of Hinnom was a horrific place of child sacrifice. This was a place that good Jews would avoid; they didn’t go to their Sunday picnic at the Valley of Hinnom, and they stayed away from it.

Eventually, the valley began to be used as the town dump. It was the place where the corpses of executed criminals would be tossed and discarded. Now, if you have a big pile of trash starting to build up, how do you reduce it? They didn’t have trash compactors back then, so how did they reduce the size of the trash pile? They burned it — and pretty soon, because the piles were so large, the fires burned night and day.

Children Still Suffering

Now, when I was growing up and it was still legal back then, we had a burn barrel in our back yard. Some of you might have had those as well. And it was a big deal once that burn barrel had burned all the way down. If I had been good all week long, for my dad to take me with him to the town dump was a big deal. We didn’t have much to do in our small town. And eventually, this dump, this Gehenna, would be a smoldering fire day in and day out, night in and night out. There were dogs in this dump, and they weren’t nice pets like we have today. They were wild, ravenous beings that would fight over the scraps in the dump. You could hear their high-pitched whining as they fought one another, and you can imagine that as they clashed, you would hear the gnashing of teeth.

So, pretty soon you would have a fire that never went out, night or day, and where you would hear the whining, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Does that sound familiar? Gehenna was a real, physical place where things that had lost their value and their worth would be tossed. Now again, Jesus used the word “Gehenna” in Matthew, Mark and Luke 12 times, and every time Jesus talked about it, He was referring to a real place in a real time that real people would understand. At times, when Jesus would speak of Gehenna, just like you are sitting now, people sitting there could smell the stench of the fires as the junk burned.

How many of you have traveled to a place where children are tossed aside? Where they are devalued, where they are not considered of great worth, where they are even sacrificed to the pagan gods of the age? Places where if you were to hear the word “Gehenna,” you would understand exactly what Jesus was talking about. Places where in fact you have smelled the stench in your

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own nostrils. When Jesus was talking about hell most often, He was talking about places just like that — places that exist like that right here and right now on this earth.

Becoming a Gate-Crasher

So, let’s move away from talking about hell right now, and let’s talk about the Church for just a couple of moments. In Matthew 16:18, a very well-known verse, Jesus said, “I will build my Church and not even the gates of hell will stand against it.” Now the Church that Jesus talks about as assaulting the gates of hell is not some bunch of passive, cloistered, self-righteous, prophecy-reading pansies. The Church that Jesus is talking about is composed of a bunch of messed-up sinners like us, who understand God’s grace and the importance of linking arms and storming the Gehennas of the world.

So, do you know what that makes us as the Church? That makes us gate crashers. We are committed literally to crashing the very gates of hell and extinguishing the fires of Gehenna that exist right here and right now that Jesus is talking about. And it is one of the many, many things that I love about Compassion International. It’s one of the reasons that we, as the local church, choose to partner with you, because we watched your commitment to working with the local church and working in countries in the most desperate parts of the world to extinguish the fires of “Gehenna” of children who have been cast aside. I am also painfully aware to flip to the other side of the apathy that we have exhibited as the Church in many parts of North America when it comes to caring for kids on the margins. I assume that responsibility beginning with myself.

But I am here today to encourage you, because I believe that there is a great awakening that we are seeing in many countries around the world in the Church, but specifically in North America. God’s spirit is on the move in the lives of leaders of the Church, and God is choosing to use each of you as part of Compassion International to ignite the movement that is happening within us.

Persistence Pays Off

About six years ago, a man named Brent Bercher approached our church in RiverTree. Brent was an Advocate that was trained by you for Compassion International. He asked if we could do a Compassion International weekend at RiverTree, and of course I told him no. He asked me again and again and again, and I told him no, no, no. Now, I had very valid reasons. I didn’t know that much about Compassion International, and for me to stand up in front of our church and endorse an organization, telling people to invest their money into an organization that I didn’t know much about — I wasn’t willing to do that. And secondly, to be very honest, probably the more predominant reason was that I didn’t want funds drained out of our cash flow at RiverTree and have people

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start sending their money to Compassion International to care for kids around the world.

And finally, after a couple of years of nagging, Brent was allowed to speak to the one adult fellowship Sunday school class that we had left at RiverTree. We had moved to Thrive groups and Home groups, and out of that weekend about 20 sponsorships ensued. Brent continued to nag me, and God continued to work in my heart and in the hearts of the leaders of RiverTree. So, we began to heavily research Compassion International. I made my first trip to Ecuador with Greg Birgy, and I discovered the life-changing transformation occurring because of the ministry of Compassion, right here and right now and for all of eternity. As we examined the finances, it became very clear that it was like no other organization in the world that we could discover had the financial credibility and integrity that Compassion has sustained over the years.

Investing in the Kingdom

So, thank you for your integrity personally as you handle finances globally. I cannot begin to tell you the importance of maintaining that integrity so that church leaders like me can stand in front of the church today and say, “We’ve checked it out, and this is a place you can trust and this is a place that is good for an eternal Kingdom investment.”

So, God began the work of molding the Church and my life at a very personal level, and two years later we had our very first Compassion International weekend. There were 400 children sponsored that weekend, and that was very fun. We began to take trips to Ecuador, Peru and Africa and encourage people to go meet their children and go see the work of fires being extinguished firsthand. Here is what we discovered along the way: The more generous we are as the Church, being mindful of the things of God, the more generous God is with us. The more generous we are as individuals, being mindful of the things of God, the more generous God is with us as individuals.

I believe with all of my heart that God is looking for churches today that will take Kingdom resources that He entrusts to them and use their leverage to move others toward him and places like Compassion and care for people on the margins of society. When He finds those churches, it is a biblical principle: He will entrust those places with more Kingdom resources as we’re faithful. And if God can find individuals who will take those Kingdom resources and not use them for their own benefits and pleasures, but rather be a funnel to the people who are on God’s heart, He will entrust us with more. He is looking for gate crashers, and the Church in America is awakening.

Never Too Young to Get It

A few months ago, I was reading the headlines in our local Sunday newspaper

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and came across this one: “Kids Collect Stuffed Animals to Send Overseas.” I thought it was a cool idea. Nearly 1,500 stuffed animals were collected. Our daughter Tabitha turned 9 years old this past year. She wanted to have a big gymnastics birthday party like her friend had had. I am not big on spending money on birthday parties every year, and yet that is what she wanted, but I said we were not going to do that. And so I went to this fundraiser golf outing for the children’s ministry, and after the golf outing there was an opportunity to be a part of raising funds. One of the prizes was an outing for 25 kids at the local gymnastics place where she wanted to have her party. It included everything, and yes, I bought it. It was a good cause.

I talked to my wife about it, and I said the biggest problem with the big birthday party is that she will get presents from me and you and grandparents, and get at least 25 things that she doesn’t need. So instead, what if we asked her friends to bring cash donations to the little girl that we sponsor through Compassion International? We thought that was a great idea, but how would we sell this to our 9-year-old? I sat her down and said here is what we want to do: “Mom and Dad will still get you birthday presents, but what if we ask your 25 friends to bring donations instead?” And Tabitha, without a blink of an eye, said, “I like it.” So with the money we sent, our sponsored child was able to buy new bunk beds for the whole family instead of them all sharing a bed like they had before. Do you know what my little 9-year-old Tabitha is becoming? A gate-crasher.

Extinguishing More Fires

This journey has become very personal to me because of you. This past year, I made three trips to Ecuador, meeting more than 40 high-impact leaders. The fires could be extinguished through partnerships with Compassion International. The leaders returned to their churches with the stench of Gehenna in their nostrils and said we have to put out the fires. My wife, Julie, and I traveled to Quito this fall with all of our church elders and spouses. We spent time with our little girl who we sponsor. She is now 11 years old and doing wonderfully. She shared with us that she would like to be a doctor someday. The fires are being extinguished for her.

Then the men from our church worked on housing projects due to the devastation of recent earthquakes in the Compassion projects. At 70, do you know what my dad is? A gate-crasher. This past fall, we held our third Compassion weekend, and more than 1,000 children have been sponsored. We are learning to be gate-crashers. My wife and I recently received our license to be foster parents and have a girl coming this weekend. We did that because there are 17,000 children in Ohio alone who intimately know the smell of Gehenna. If we don’t crash those gates for them, who will? You see how personal this is? Much of it began because there was a man named Brent Bercher who Compassion trained as an Advocate volunteer who leads so many

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of us to partner with you.

My purpose here today is not to elevate the Church, but to help you understand that there is this amazing awakening going on in the Church in North America. I believe that with all of my heart, and we desperately need you all. You are very rapidly approaching 1 million child sponsors, and that is a “Yeah, God!” But please, can I challenge you to begin to imagine the sponsoring of 10 million children? I know that change and growth are challenging. But what are we? We’re gate-crashers, and if not us, then who?

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This morning I’d like to take you to an isolated spot on a dangerous road in the Middle East known as “The Bloody Pass.” The road, at the time of this event, was more of a narrow path — a twisting, turning path with cliffs and caves on either side — lots of places for thugs to hide. This particular place, “The Bloody Pass,” got its name because of the violence that commonly occurred there.

Unfortunately, one poor man happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was attacked by bandits and left half dead, tossed to the side of the road. He was bleeding and certainly would die without help. The bandits even took his clothes.

Recognize this story? It’s one of Jesus’ most well-known parables — The Parable of the Good Samaritan.

In fact, most of us have heard it so many times that we tend to gloss over it, thinking, Yeah, yeah, the Good Samaritan — help people in trouble and stuff … got it. But today, I want to slow down and take another look at this familiar story. I want to shine a different light on Jesus’ words — a light that could quite possibly change your life.

Listen to the story again … (Read Luke 10:25-37 NIV.) First, I want you to notice the setup for The Parable of the Good Samaritan. What prompted Jesus to tell this story in the first place? Verse 25 says that an “expert in the law” wanted to “test” Jesus. In other words, this man, who knew the Old Testament and Jewish law backward and forward, inside and out, was trying to trip Jesus up.

When the man asked, “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” How did Jesus respond? He said, basically, “Hey, you’re the expert. What does the Law say?” The “Law” Jesus referred to here is the “law of Moses,” or the first five books of the Old Testament.

The expert then recited what Jesus calls in Matthew 22 the greatest and the second greatest commandments: He answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In return, Jesus responded, in essence, “You got it. Do those two things — one, love God with your whole being and, two, love your neighbor as yourself — and you will live.” That’s it, pure and simple, discussion over. Right? Wrong — the expert of the law wasn’t about to let it go at that. He was determined to ask Jesus a question He couldn’t answer. So he said, “OK, Jesus, tell me this: Who is

Who is My Neighbor?A New Take on a Familiar Story

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my neighbor?”

I can just imagine the expert folding his arms across his chest, a smug grin on his face that says, “I got you now!” I can also imagine Jesus looking the man square in the eyes, pausing a moment, taking a deep breath, then saying, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho …”

Who is my neighbor? That’s the question I want us to consider today. Who is it, exactly, that God calls us to love just as much as we love ourselves? And beyond that, once we know who our neighbor is, what do we do? How do we show that we love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves? Jesus answers the question in a beautiful story of compassion in action. Let’s review this story and see what it has to say to us today.

After the man was beaten, robbed and left to die by the side of the road, along came three men, and the point of Jesus’ story is how each of them responds to this poor man in his time of extreme need. The first two were religious people — a Jewish priest and a rabbi. They knew God’s Word. They held positions of authority in the synagogue. People looked up to them as leaders. And what did they do when they saw the critically injured man lying on the roadside? They “passed by on the other side.”

The third man — not a religious professional like the priest and rabbi, not even Jewish but a native of Samaria — stopped. Why? Because, Jesus says, “He took pity on him.” Now, as you might already know, the Samaritans and Jews were longtime, sworn enemies. But not only did the Samaritan in Jesus’ story feel compassion for the Jewish man barely clinging to life, but he also got involved. He took immediate action to help. The Samaritan used wine and oil as antiseptics to clean the man’s wounds, then he bandaged them. Next he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he paid the innkeeper to care for him.

So what message did Jesus want to get across? Remember, He told this story to answer the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” So what is the answer? Let’s read verses 36 and 37 again. Jesus said, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Now let’s fast-forward to today. Jesus ended His conversation with the lawyer with a powerful command: Go and do likewise. That command — go and do likewise — rings through the centuries and lands squarely on our shoulders today. Make no mistake — the mandate to love our neighbor as ourselves is just as much the responsibility of God’s people today as it was 2,000 years ago. But just like 2,000 years ago, the question for us today is, “Who is our neighbor?” The Parable of the Good Samaritan gives us the answer. It’s simple — like the

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man on the side of the road, our neighbor is anyone in need that we are in a position to help. Let me say that again: Our neighbor is anyone in need that we are in a position to help.

Scripture has a lot to say about those who are in need — the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the discriminated against. In fact, did you know that more than 560 verses from Genesis through Revelation deal with the responsibility of God’s people to the poor and oppressed? More than 560 verses!

Listen to four of them:

... whoever is kind to the needy honors God. — Proverbs 14:31

“Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered.” — Proverbs 21:13

“... if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness.” — Isaiah 58:10

“If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” — 1 John 3:17

And there are at least 556 more verses that say, basically, God expects His people — that’s you and me — to care for the poor and oppressed in our world.

We are blessed when we do this and held accountable when we don’t.

God has a heart for the poor, and He wants us to have one too. More than that, like the Good Samaritan, He wants us to move beyond having a heart for the poor and just feeling pity for their condition, to taking action on their behalf — in His name. He wants us to be His hands and feet and voice for those in need. He wants us to be their champions, as Proverbs 31:8-9 says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

I like the way the great theologian John Stott put it: “The perspective of Scripture is not the survival of the fittest, but the protection of the weakest.”

Let’s revisit Jesus’ story, but now imagine it in today’s terms. Imagine that instead of a man left for dead on the side of the road, there is a child. This child is one of 135 million children born into our world each year to begin their journey on the road of life. For children born in the United States and other developed countries, generally that journey is a relatively smooth one. More often than not, most of them receive the nurture, protection and learning

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opportunities they need to survive and thrive on the journey.

However, for one-quarter of the children born each year, like the child I want you to imagine today, the road of life is like the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It’s a dangerous journey filled with the bandits of poverty, hunger and disease. Without mercy, these bandits strike children when they reach the place in the road where they are the most vulnerable — “The Bloody Pass.” And tragically, many of these little ones are lost along the way. Each and every day, nearly 27,000 little ones younger than 5 lose their lives to these bandits because no one came to their rescue as they lay dying on the side of life’s road.

Of course, lots of people pass by our child on the side of the road. Like the Jewish priest and the rabbi, many of them are religious people. Like you and me, they are believers and good people, seeking to live lives that are pleasing to God. So why do they — why do we — ignore the child’s cries and pass by on the other side?

For many of us, the needs of the world’s poor are simply too large, too overwhelming, too discouraging. It’s not that we don’t care, but with nearly 1 billion people existing on less than a dollar a day, saving one child beaten up and left half dead by poverty just won’t make a difference. Others of us think that taking care of the world’s poor children is a job better left to governments and all those big international organizations like UNICEF. Others of us think, I’ve got my hands full taking care of the children in my own life. This other child — he’s not my child; he’s not from my community; he’s not even from my country. Therefore, it’s not my problem.

But — and I want you to hear me on this — that’s not how God’s Word directs us to think about, and deal with, the world’s poor and oppressed. Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan makes it clear: Whenever we see someone in need and have the opportunity to do something about it, we must.

The Good Samaritan didn’t pass by on the other side thinking, There are lots of people who get mugged on this road. I won’t solve the problem by helping just one person. Or, I’ll leave this problem to the government and its agencies. They’re much better equipped to help this guy. Or, This guy’s not from my family or my community or even my country. Therefore, it’s not my problem.

No, as Jesus relates, the Samaritan man got involved. And he didn’t just get involved — he went out of his way, he went the extra mile to help an individual in great need. He used his own resources — his oil and wine, his donkey, his money — to help. He enlisted the assistance of another — the innkeeper — to care for the man. He followed up with the man to make sure he had fully recovered. And then what does Jesus tell us? “Go and do likewise.”

I want to close with the story of a more recent, real-life Good Samaritan and a specific challenge.

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It was 1952, the Korean War was raging and Everett Swanson, an American evangelist, was on a preaching tour of Japan and Korea. Everett shared the Gospel with thousands of troops, and by the end of the tour, the young evangelist had led many to Christ. Certainly, he could have gone home satisfied that his mission for God’s Kingdom had been accomplished — and accomplished well.

But one thing hounded Everett Swanson — troubled him all the way back to the United States. While in the city of Seoul, Korea, he had noticed scores of children who were living on the streets, orphaned by the war. They huddled together to keep warm and begged for coins. The plight of these little children touched Everett’s heart. But one morning before departing for home, he had an experience that did more than touch his heart — it changed his life.

On an early walk in the city, Everett glanced up when a flatbed truck stopped a few blocks ahead of him. Sanitation workers emerged from the cab to gather up trash from doorways and alleys and gutters along the street. They threw what appeared to be piles of rags onto the truck bed.

As he came closer, Everett noticed that the workers were kicking the rag piles before picking them up. That made sense; rats were common. One rag pile lay in a doorway not far from Everett. He reached it about the same time as one of the workers. That’s when he noticed that the pile was not just a tangle of rags. A small arm extended from the pile, and Everett began to make out the shape of a child sleeping underneath it. Opening his mouth to warn the worker not to kick the pile, the words stuck in his throat as he caught sight of the cargo on the flatbed truck.

The horror of what he was witnessing suddenly dawned on him. The workers were not there to gather trash. They were gathering the bodies of children who had died on the streets overnight. Those who had survived another night of that bitter Korean winter would be awakened by the kick of a sanitation worker, checking for signs of life, only to face another day of hunger, cold and despair.

Everett couldn’t get this horrific image of Korea’s abandoned children out of his mind. Like the rabbi and priest in Jesus’ parable, he could have simply left the country and washed his hands of the whole matter — not my children, not my country, not my problem. But he didn’t.

Not sure how to help these poor children, but determined to do whatever he could for those left to die on the streets of Seoul, he returned to the United States and started asking people to commit to contributing a small amount of money each month. He planned to use this money to provide for the needs of destitute Korean orphans.

Everett Swanson’s efforts steadily grew as more people caught the vision to follow Christ’s command to “go and do likewise.” Now, more than 55 years later,

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what Everett started is a thriving organization called Compassion International. Through the years, Compassion has enabled hundreds of thousands of people to reach out to impoverished children around the world who have been left by life’s roadside. Today, I want to challenge you to catch the vision, too. You can rescue a child in need, a child ravaged by the bandits of poverty, by becoming a Compassion sponsor.

As a sponsor, you can lift a child up from the side of the road. You can see that he or she receives an education. You can provide that child with regular medical care. You can make sure that a child learns about proper hygiene and nutrition to grow healthy and strong. Most important, you can provide this child with the Good News of God’s great love and the hope of eternal life through salvation in Christ. As a sponsor, your own life will be changed, too. You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are following Jesus’ command and pleasing your heavenly Father. Your perspective and heart for the world will expand. You will acquire a greater appreciation for life and a more thankful heart. You will experience the richness and joy of watching the child you love and support grow into a confident, productive adult — able, in turn, to help others in need on the side of life’s road.

As Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan demonstrates, there is great power in one individual reaching out to another, just as Christ Himself reaches out to each one of us on an individual basis. I pray today that you will join me and the thousands of other caring people who have taken up Jesus’ challenge to “go and do likewise,” who are changing the world, one child at a time, through Compassion sponsorship.