A Call to Action

I am going to continue to build on my last post here. I know the last post was a long time ago, especially if your work week was anything like mine but try to remember some of the points from last week because you are likely to hear some of them again.

You should remember that it all came down to two basic commandments that we were given by Jesus to live by. Those two are

“The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Last time we discussed how those two simple instructions related to our wrestling daily with temptation to do things that are not within those guidelines. This timeit is the same two guidelines but the temptation is slightly different. This time we are going to discuss what is commonly called the sin of omission. You see in James 4:17, we find the words, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.” James reminds us of how many times we see things in life and know what the right thing to do is but just neglect to do it, turn a blind eye and just walk away. James reminds us that when we know what is right to love our neighbors as ourselves and don’t do it, we have violated Jesus’ commandment and have sinned. We make excuses and we convince ourselves that God really doesn’t want us to do that, yet the fact is we know in our heart that we are just making excuses.

Let me share something that happened to me and my family that illustrates this very well. But first like any other Daddy, I have to start by talking about my daughter. My daughter loves dolls made by a company called American Girl. One of the challenges is that these dolls are very expensive so my wife and I must carefully put money away each payday in order to be able to buy dolls and accessories from this company. In one of the ads my wife noted that the company had a store in New York City that we could visit and it had a restaurant, movies and other activities that we could do with Beth. She would absolutely love it. So we started the saving process to do this as a vacation. We knew an extended weekend in New York City would cost us a couple of thousand dollars. I was working in New York City at the time and had gathered enough frequent guest points to cover the cost of the hotel as long as we stayed in New Jersey and took the train the city daily. That would save us about a thousand dollars. Around February of this past year we decided we had enough money to do the trip and let Beth know what we were planning. We decided to do it in March.

Eventually the big day came and we drove to the hotel in Newark and checked in. We decided to make it a long weekend and take in many of the other sites in New York while we were there but we wanted to make sure we did the American Girl trip early in the weekend since that was really the main reason we were there. We also wanted to do it the day after we arrived so we could get up early and have a full day there.

We woke the next morning and worked like a well oiled machine to get our showers and get ready for our trek to the city. I suggested we go to breakfast in Newark first so we would not have to find some place first thing in the city. We used the GPS and found the closest IHOP for breakfast. On the way there we noted that it was not in one of the best neighborhoods in Newark. In fact at one point along the way I got a bit worried about all the people just hanging out on the streets. But my fears quickly subsided when we drove a couple of blocks with no people hanging out before we reached the IHOP which was located on the edge of a commercial section of town. We got out of the car and went in and had a good breakfast. With a good meal in our tummies, we set out on the adventure only to be greeted in the IHOP parking lot by a young woman. She was dressed in old and dirty clothing and told us that she and her children had been the victim of a fire that morning and that they lost everything. She said that her children were hungry and she begged us to help her get something to eat for her children. Now I had been working in the city for a while now and I know a scam when I hear one. People do this stuff all the time in the city just to get your money so they can buy drugs. I told her I was sorry to hear her story but could not help. As I was leaving she said, “God bless you.” OK, yep that was another one of their scam tricks. Make you think they really are blessing you so you feel bad about not helping them get drugs. In the car my wife was my voice of reason. What if she really did need help. What would Jesus do here? But I didn’t have any cash. Ya, that was it, I had no cash. There is a drug store next door and I am sure they have an ATM inside came the answer. My wife pointed out that we put aside a lot of money for this trip and would not likely miss twe he money that would give this woman the cereal and milk to feed her children breakfast. So went to the ATM and withdrew some cash. We returned to IHOP and agreed that if she was still there we would give her some cash to help her feed the children. When we arrived she was still there and my wife rolled down her window and called the woman over. My wife then reached down and picked up a small Psalms and New Testament book that I keep in my car to read from time to time and slipped the money into the pages where it was visible. My wife then handed the woman the Bible with the money visible and told the woman, “Jesus loves you and this is a gift from God, not us.” The woman thanked us and related how her Bible was also destroyed in the fire and how she really needed one to read but was focused more on feeding her children. She took the book and the money and left the parking lot. At this point I was starting to feel really bad about my attitude. You see, I knew what the right thing to do was but I was making excuses to not do it. I was focused on all the reasons why we should not help people rather than why we should help them.

I am sure if we think about our lives, we can all come up with times in our lives when we did not do the things we knew were right. One of the things about the Methodist church that attracted me was the church’s recognition that we are called by Christ to do the things that we know are right. We are called to a life of action by Christ and not a life of passive worship. In the Methodist Church this is very obvious through the work of local church missions, UMCOR, and many other programs that are aimed at finding the need and taking the action to meet the need. I find it rewarding to spend some time in different churches and rad the bulletin boards in the back to find more about the mission people on the boards. It is heartwarming to read the stories of real people making a real difference in the world. Clearly this is what we are called to do, to love our neighbor as ourselves. How can we truly love others while ignoring their needs for help? Would you neglect the needs of your family? Of course not. No more than we would neglect the needs of others in our community. As believers in Christ, we are all children of God, and if we are all children of the same God then we are all brothers and sisters of that same God. When you think of it that way, it kind of kills those excuses we use. How can we neglect the needs of our brothers and sisters? It is certainly a lot harder than neglecting a stranger.

You see our call to action goes beyond the confines of our extended family. We are called to serve the world in the name of Christ so all may know the good news. It is through our service to those in need that we can introduce others to the love of Jesus. Last time we talked about the love of Christ and the unconditional nature of that love.

The effect of the love of Christ in our lives is that it enlightens us, it unbinds us, and it strengthens us. We are enlightened by the Holy Spirit and we begin to think about life in God’s eternal kingdom rather than in terms of this mortal existence. We are unbound from our inequities through the sacrifice of Christ, and we are strengthened by His spirit living in us. It is purely by the grace of God that we are awakened to the greatest reality of our lives - God’s redeeming love, and the realization that we have a spiritual kinship with God and with all God’s created people. When we come to the realization of this spiritual kinship we can no longer ignore the needs of the world but must take action to help.

When we fully realize the depth of God’s love for us then it becomes a genuine response to that love that we want to share it with others. This is a basic quality of God’s grace and love: it creates enthusiasm for passing it on. It is through serving others in their time of need that we find the opportunity to share this love of God with the people we are serving. When people see us selflessly serving them in their time of needs, they can clearly see the love of Christ through our service, through us. We do not, however, serve in order to glorify ourselves or our service itself. We serve in order that others my more clearly see the presence of Christ in the world today. We serve so that others who do not know Christ my find Him in their trials and difficulties. We server because in John 21:17 we see Jesus issuing the command to “feed my sheep.”

Every believer responds uniquely to the love and grace of God through some form of Christian action according to the gifts God has given him or her. We can not expect that everyone will be called to mission service or that everyone would be called to any other specific form of service. We have each been created by God with specific gifts for service in Christ. When we accept Christ’s offer of salvation we receive the Holy Spirit and it is that spirit that can help us to understand our specific gifts. Certainly some will be called to serve in the mission fields but others will be called to serve through church administration or other ways. It is not important how we serve but it is important that we serve. Consider that God did not give us the gifts that He did to meet our own selfish needs but He gave us those gifts to use in service to others. When we refuse to use those gifts as God intended, as James points out, we have sinned.

What qualities and gifts has God given you in your life? How are you using those gifts to serve God and others? Our answers to these questions can give us a clear indication of how well we are responding to God’s call in our lives.

This concept is clearly reflected in the song, “They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love.” Listen to the words of this song and reflect on James' proclamation:

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

We will walk with each other through life. That means coming to the aid of those in need and walking with them hand in hand, picking up the tools and working with them.

As we go through life we will be presented with opportunities to serve others and to live a life that is Christ filled. It is our reaction to these opportunities that will make the difference in living a life that is Spirit led and living a life that is self led. When we put aside our own desires and pride, we have the opportunity to serve a world in need in the name of Christ and it is then that we become the hands of feet of Christ to a world that needs His presence more today than ever before. As you leave here and these opportunities present themselves to you in the days ahead, the same two questions we talked about last time are still the ones to ask. Let’s take a moment to review them again.

1. Will what I am about to do demonstrate my love for God?

2. Will what I am about to do build up or break down others?

You see although we are talking about sins of omission rather than sins of commission, the effects are the same. Either we demonstrate our love for God and others or we do not. In all actions of life we can demonstrate our love for God by doing what he commanded us to do. It is clear for us in John 14:15 when He says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Do we love Christ? If so, then we are clearly called to do as He commanded, those two simple commandments:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And Love your neighbor as yourself.

Like last time, it sounds simple enough but the challenge comes quickly when we try to apply it to our lives. When our own desires, pride, and other factors enter the equation it becomes a lot more complex. Well at least we think it is a lot more complex. I am sure God thinks it is all pretty simple for us. We just have all the layers of life to work through that we have added for ourselves. Layers that God did not intend for us to deal with but we put them there anyhow.

As we conclude, we should try to be aware of opportunities to serve in the days ahead. As we go through live, let’s look around and try to see those circumstances where we know the right thing to do but have not always responded in that way. Let’s look around for opportunities to love Jesus by doing as He commanded.

When faced with the choices of life in the days ahead, what will your answer be? Will it be an answer of excuses as to why you cannot or should not take action in the name of Christ, or will it be an answer of surrender to He who loves you unconditionally? Will you answer, “Here I am Lord, send me?”

Amen