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Let Us Do Good

The fire on a lit match casts no shadow.  If Christians are light, then why do we often rely exclusively on worldly means–signs, advertising, an attractive facility–to compete with the darkness to get noticed?  Jesus and the 1st century disciples didn’t have billboards or business cards.  And, while some of this is useful (Luke 16:8) for us, the greatest periods of growth in the Lord’s church came about by preaching truth and doing good (Galatians 6:7-10).

I. Acts 10:36-38.  Jesus reaped what He sowed.  While on this earth, He viewed every interaction as an opportunity to advance the gospel, so much so that He was known for going around and doing good.  Even when He spoke, He wasted no effort to show the world that God was among them (John 7:40-46).  So, our every word and deed ought to show the world Jesus (Colossians 3:17) to increase His kingdom.

II. Matthew 25:37-40.  Preaching truth and doing good is light in a world of darkness, and so different than any of the worldly efforts we could employ to get noticed.  And, because it is hard, we may grow weary.  Jesus promises to be with us (Matthew 28:18-20), so we are never alone.  If we persevere as a church and in our personal ministries to shine our light on a stand for all to see, we will be rewarded.

III. Ephesians 4:15-16.  So, we must view every interaction we have out in the world and with each other as an opportunity to show Jesus by preaching truth and doing good.  Rather than seeing the church as a refuge–God is instead (2 Samuel 22:2-3)–to escape the world, we must see it as a base to regroup (Acts 13:1-3) so we can serve.  Only by shining light can we compete with the darkness to overcome it and grow.

We must pray that God will give us opportunities to preach truth and do good and that we will see them.  Then we can serve as a church and develop personal ministries in every interaction and situation.

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I Want to Be a Soul Winner

In the movie version, based on the WWII story of conscientious objector Desmond Doss who saved 75 men on Hacksaw Ridge, the combat medic, exhausted and abandoned by his infantry company for dead, powerfully cries out, “Just one more, Lord,” as he lowers the wounded one by one down the cliff edge.  This should be our attitude towards evangelism, not just one aspect of church life that we’ll get to if we can or have time but the vehicle through which we conduct our Christian walk (1 Corinthians 9:16-27).

I.  Do you want to be a soul winner for Jesus every day?  Paul describes his preaching of the gospel that “necessity is laid upon me,” that “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel,” and that he has been “entrusted with a stewardship.” Are you similarly compelled?  What return are you making on the investment that has been entrusted to you (Matthew 25:14-30)?  How often we sing, “I want to be a soul winner for Jesus every day …,” but do we mean it?

I want to be a soul winner for Jesus ev’ry day, He does so much for me; I want to aid the lost sinner to leave his erring way, And be from bondage free.

II.  Do you want to be a soul winner and bring the lost to Christ?  Paul’s compulsion made it so that everything he did “in word or deed” was done “in the name of the Lord Jesus” Colossians 3:17.  Is what Christ has done for us through the gospel also convict us to “become all things to all people that by all means [we] might save some”?  Do you view your life as not your own because you were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) and so must persuade others (2 Corinthians 5:11-21)?

I want to be a soul winner and bring the lost to Christ, That they His grace may know; I want to live for Christ ever, and do His blessed will, Because He loves me so.

III.  Do you want to be a soul winner till Jesus calls for you?  It’s evident that Paul understood that his very eternal reward was at stake, and so being a soul winner was the operating system through which he lived his life (Romans 6:4-11) in Christ.  He wanted to run his race in such a way as to win the prize and the only choices were to be disciplined or to be disqualified.

I want to be a soul winner till Jesus calls for me, To lay my burdens down; I want to hear Him say, “Servant, you’ve gathered many sheaves, Receive a shining crown.”

Do you truly want to be a soul winner for Jesus?

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Called to Freedom

Floating along with the current of culture, the church fell asleep in its complacency and compromise as the stream changed direction.  Christians began to accept the world’s restrictions on our freedoms to worship and proclaim the gospel, and instead of awakening, we withdrew into the walls of our buildings.

I.  1 Corinthians 10:23-33.  God, of course, puts limits on our freedoms.  We must not sin.  Rather, in obedience to His commands, we must choose to be helpful, build others up, seek the good of others and not ourselves, and glorify God in all that we say or do.  Our humanistic culture we live in, though, seeks to externally regulate us and persecutes us if we do not submit to its dictates.  Now, as Christians, we know we should submit to our governing authorities (Romans 13:1), but Jesus said we should not give to the culture what is God’s (Matthew 22:21).  Our primary allegiance is not, then, to the current that has changed directions, but to where we are citizens (Philippians 3:20).

II.  Romans 12:1-2.  Sadly, many live lives conformed to the world rather than transformed by the gospel.  Asleep while the current of culture sweeps them to their destruction (Matthew 7:13-14), they have accepted the walls the world has erected for us: the gospel is too outdated or can’t compete or is hate speech.  Or perhaps the restrictions are personal: I’m too old or out-of-touch or have circumstances to overcome.  When we use our freedoms for ourselves, we retreat within those walls by dwelling on the past, complaining, or just playing church.  We know that all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27) and declare that if the church is not doing more, then it must be God’s will.  But, God wants us using our freedoms for Him (John 14:12-14), and then He will do more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21).

III.  Galatians 5:13-15.  When we, through love, choose to use our freedom in Christ to serve others instead, we turn our focus outward rather than inward where we will destroy one another.  The very nature of the church is to step outside of the walls where we have been driven by the culture to serve instead in deed and truth (1 John 3:16-18).  Using Jesus as our example, we choose to serve in whatever station in life that God has placed us (Titus 2:1-8) and reaching outside the walls of the world and waging war against it with very different weapons (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

You may be using your freedom in Christ to fight, but what or whom are you fighting?  Where is your focus?  Inward for self or outward to serve?

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You Go, and Do Likewise

We often think that Jesus using a Samaritan, whom the Jews despised, to show kindness to a Jewish man was just to answer the question, “And who is my neighbor?” but the ‘And’ indicates that this parable goes much deeper.  There was a previous question posed by the lawyer: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

I. Luke 10:25-28.  Since we discover later that the lawyer was seeking to justify himself, his use of ‘Teacher’ was perhaps a bit smug.  He believed he knew it all, but Jesus, who knew all men’s hearts, answered both questions posed to Him in this passage as a great teacher would–with questions of His own.  The puffed-up lawyer answered correctly, but Jesus said he did not fully understand the implications of what it meant to love God with ALL of his heart, soul, mind, and strength nor his neighbor as himself (Matthew 5:43-48).  Love as Jesus loves, and he will live (John 15:12-13 and Romans 5:6-8).

II. Luke 10:29-35.  Speaking to Jews, Jesus first tells of two among them–a priest and a Levite–who ought to treat well a fellow Jew who has been beaten and robbed.  They don’t, however, as they pass by the poor man without taking any loving action to ease his distress.  It is a Samaritan, one who was not in the covenant with God and lived in the land that was once part of Israel, who had compassion instead.  More than just broadening their concept of who was their neighbor, Jesus challenged them on how love was defined.  An enemy of the Jews took sacrificial actions to care for and serve one of their nation (James 2:14-17).  Would they have done the same in return?

III. Luke 10:36-37.  Then turning the lawyer’s question back to him, the Teacher makes his student apply the head knowledge of the Law, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor …?”  Perhaps not able to say the name of his enemy’s race, the lawyer answers in honesty, “The one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus’ command, then, to what the lawyer must do to inherit eternal life is a command to us as well, “You go, and do likewise.”  Having found freedom in Christ, how should we use that freedom, then?  Not to indulge in sin but rather to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13-15).

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Greater Things Than These

Usually a death bed promise works the other way.  The one who will continue on promises to do something after the loved one is gone.  As further proof of the resurrection, Jesus, while still alive but soon to die on the cross, makes a promise to His church that through Him (alive again and interceding for us at the Father’s side) we will do greater things than He did while on the earth.

I.  John 14:12-14.  There’s no doubt that Jesus did great things in His three-year earthly ministry.  After all, He was God in the flesh.  But the King of Kings showed Himself to be the servant of servants with great compassion: touching the leper, raising the widow’s only son from death, multiplying food to feed the hungry masses following Him, casting out demons from a man long bound.  And while He did these things, He spoke of how we would become parts of His body (Matthew 16:18), bought with His blood (Acts 20:28) and disciplined to share in His holiness (Hebrews 12:7-11).  Why?  So that we might serve as He did (Galatians 5:13).

II.  Romans 12:4-8.  Belief in Him is essential for the various body parts to work together to do great works (John 10:37-38).  We are to walk by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7) and walk as Jesus did (1 John 2:6).  Not awkward like the participants in a three-legged race, we are to move together as one body, seeing ourselves as parts of the body contributing to its working and connected to the Head (Colossians 2:19).  Whatever your function, you are essential to Christ’s body serving properly.

III.  John 13:12-17.  We stand in awe of what the Amish can accomplish in just one day by working together … and without power tools.  But Jesus promises the body that we will do even greater things than what He did while in his body.  We certainly see His enemies powerless from the start (Acts 4:14-16) to thwart a unified body.  Even their efforts to smash the hornet’s nest in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1-4) backfired as the scattered disciples preached the gospel wherever they went.  So, as an individual body part, how are you serving in your personal ministry?  And, as a member of Christ’s body, how are you working together with others to serve and function as one body?

Jesus built His church with His own blood so that Christians around the world could serve together in local bodies and together be the body of Christ with Him as its Head.  It starts with you.  How are you serving as Christ did?

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As I Have Done to You

Our idea of ‘servant’ is probably in the context of ‘public servant,’ someone who should work for us but acts more like a king on an elevated throne.  Jesus the perfect king-servant showed that a servant is one who sacrificially helps others above self.  Indeed, the only way a biblical servant is above another is when he stoops to lift another up.

I.  John 12:12-33.  Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in full view of the crowds got everyone’s attention, especially those in power who wanted to hold onto their power.  A line was drawn in the sand, and Jesus’ challenge was heard: “if anyone serves me, he must follow me.”  To Peter and others who thought in worldly ways, following Jesus meant glory and honor … and power (John 13:31-38)!

II.  John 13:1-8.  Jesus illustrated that this wasn’t the case when He, through whom all things were made, removed the trappings of one above all others and did the work of the lowliest servant–washing feet.  Confused by this, Peter, who surely remembered Jesus’ transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-5), balked at this redefinition of serving (Philippians 2:5-8) and had to submit to its necessity.  With the later help of the Holy Spirit, he seems to have gotten it (1 Peter 2:21-25).

III.  John 13:12-17.  Before Jesus explained His actions, He “resumed his place” as their Lord and Master.  The disciples must have recalled their earlier conversation about who was greatest among them (Matthew 20:22-28).  That person, Jesus explained, is the wheat willing to fall to the ground to die to produce many seeds or the one who gives his life for a friend (John 15:12-17).  Just as Jesus would be the greatest servant for mankind, He calls us to do for others what He has done for us.

We have been given great freedom to choose how we live our lives.  May we not in selfishness indulge the sinful nature with that freedom but rather serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13), just as Jesus did.