Call to Care

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon
Sunday, January 22, 2012

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Over the last five or so years, our family has developed some new traditions. One of them involves our Thanksgiving celebration. On Thanksgiving, we typically go down to my wife’s family in Fairfield and enjoy gathering together and enjoy all those wonderful things, but we added something recently.

The Methodist church in town distributes meals to the people in the area who are less fortunate and having a hard time, so we deliver those meals. Our family has joined in the participation of delivering those meals and every year, when we do that, we come back with stories of the people we’ve met and the situations we’ve seen and it really does make you thankful to see the challenges other people are dealing with. But I believe it has also added a lot to our Thanksgiving. It made it much fuller, much richer.

But where does that Christian compassion and care come from? The first reading I read you from the book of Acts is the first evidence of Christian care ministry. I’ll just quickly summarize it again. There is a dispute that some of the people were not being cared for properly and so the twelve who Jesus had chosen plus the one replacing Judas were there wrestling with this dilemma. There were different groups of people and they were not getting along and one group felt neglected so they said, we need to find more people to help in this ministry, this ministry of caring for the needs of the people because we’re preaching the word and we’re focused on prayer and it just doesn’t feel right if we’re being distracted from that, so we need more help. So they chose seven. Seven’s a biblical number for fullness and seven is the number of the men they chose, and they picked them based on their spiritual qualities, being full of the Holy Spirit, people who had been with them throughout the time they had been learning from Jesus and ministering.

And one of them was known as being full of the Holy Spirit. That was Stephen. And another was known as an evangelist. That was Philip. But they chose seven and these men picked up the task of care ministry and that was the first evidence of care ministry, but I think it actually probably goes a lot further back than that. When we really try to analyze it, why do Christians care? Now I know lots of people care that aren’t even Christians, but why do Christians care? It seems like every Christian has compassion in their hearts, that they’re generous and they donate to causes that are good and they help support people who are going through difficult times. Where does that come from? How did it get there?

1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us,” and I think that’s the bottom line. God demonstrated His love first, right? That’s when He sent His Son. We just celebrated His birthday at Christmas time. That’s why He sent His Son, not just to be a beautiful baby or a wonderful teacher or a miracle worker, but He sent us His Son to be our Savior and the whole mission He was committed to was to die on the cross for our sins. He suffered, hung, bled and died on the cross to pay for my sins and your sins. God demonstrated His love that way and that love is communicated to us in our hearts. God puts His love in us by the Holy Spirit working in us and growing us and maturing us in our faith. He puts His love and compassion in us so that we begin to see things the way He sees things, to look at people the way He looks at people. That’s where it comes from.

Jesus commends compassion and care in Matthew 10:42, He says, “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” And then later in the book of James 1:27, we read, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

These passages indicate to us the heart of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is compassionate. He wept when people grieved, and He grieved His friend, Lazarus, when he had died. Jesus was filled with compassion for us. That’s why He was so committed to His mission to be our Savior, to die on the cross. That’s why we care, because He cared. We do it because He did it, but who do we care for?

Isn’t there a certain element of society that says we’re just not going to go and visit? We’re not going to waste our time. We’re not going to bother with them because we know where they are and we’re just not comfortable doing that? Well, I want you to look around this room and see. Are any of those people here? Is there anyone in this room who isn’t worth dying for? Jesus thought everyone was worth dying for.

In John 3:16, it says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” That’s pretty inclusive in my book. Think about all the people you work with, people you go to school with, people who get on your nerves and irritate you. Now they have to put up with you, too, so it goes both ways. Think about all those people in our world. Some people do horrible things. They have a past and baggage and histories of things they’ve done. God loves all of them. Jesus died for all of them. His compassion and care is for all of them and, again, because He did it, He calls us to do it.

I think as we look around the world, we can see the needs and we hear the stories. We hear, “Oh so and so just lost her father.” “So and so just lost their son.” Or “So and so was just diagnosed with a bad illness.” “So and so’s marriage is falling apart.” We hear these things over and over and over, but why do we hear them? I believe it’s because God, with His Holy Spirit, is encouraging us to be compassionate, encouraging us to act as He did, loving and caring toward those around us who are in need and are going through pain.

God loves them all and, as His children, we are called to do the same. But how can we? How can we possibly meet the needs of His people? How can we possibly reach out and do things that can be kind of intimidating, uncomfortable? Well, I believe that God equips us and calls us into ministry. He prepares and He shapes us and He molds us to do the things He would love us to do.

I know we all have it in us. When we see something on TV, a terrible tragedy has happened, our hearts go out, all of us, our hearts go out to them. We want to do something, but we have no idea how. Sometimes the need looks so great, it’s like, “How can we possibly respond to that?” Well, I believe God does equip us, and I believe the secret to being able to do these things and being effective in doing these things comes from our relationship with Him.

When we were in seminary, they always told us, “Your ministry will come from your personal relationship with God. If you’re weak in your devotion life or you’re not very active in your prayer life or you don’t go and worship God from your heart, how do you think your ministry is going to be?” Jesus illustrates this in John 15. He says, “I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you’re like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burn. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

I think there are three things we have to focus on if we want to be effective in serving God, if we want to respond to the call to be caring and compassionate to the world around us. First, we need to have that strong devotion life. Pick up those small devotion booklets that we give out. Every three months, they come out and you get a new one. And they encourage you day by day to walk with the Lord and draw your strength from Him. We need that because we are fed by the Word of God. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” We are fed by the Word of God and equipped for ministry that way.

The second thing we need to focus on is our prayers. You hear those things. So and so just lost their job. Or they’re having a hard time with their parents because their parents are moving into senior housing and it’s just a really difficult time. Or so and so has Alzheimer’s, things like that. We hear these things all the time. Our response should be natural and immediate. Pray. Pray for that person. Pray for that person. Lift them up to God who can do all things, things that are way beyond our comprehension. He can do it. Not only is this a blessing as we lift them up but we tune into God’s direction at that time. When we’re talking to Him from our heart, He might put something on our heart.

An example of this is when I was a pastor on the north shore up in Minnesota, there were a couple of little gals from Texas. Every summer, they would come up from Texas and their dad had been a pastor and they were just the sweetest gals. They were so devout. And one morning, they both woke up and God put on both their hearts the same thing. “Go see Gertrude Gunderson.” That’s what they thought. So they got themselves ready and they went. That morning, her husband died while they were there. That’s the way the Holy Spirit works. He guides us. He encourages us. He nurtures us during our prayers, during our worship, during our study of His Word. He guides us and directs us to the places we need to be to share the love He’s put inside all of us.

And finally, the third thing we need to focus on is our worship life, just like you are doing today. Being active and faithful in worship where God can bless you and strengthen you and equip you, it’s like an oasis when you’re weak where you can come in and just be filled with God, filled with His joy and filled with His love. An active worship life does that. Be strengthened by the fellowship of believers, seeing your friends and loved ones here at church.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” So as we draw near to God and are strengthened in our faith, He equips us for the tasks He has waiting for us.

Now I’m going to get into what we can do, what we can do here, what our church is already involved with and what you might join in or maybe you’re already doing some of these things, but I just want to go through a list describing ministries we’re already affiliated with, we’re already connected to, we’re already doing and I want you to be quiet in your spirit and listen and see if God might call you to some of these things.

If you’d like to grow in your faith and be equipped for Care Ministry, the Stephen Ministry Training Program is a wonderful opportunity. It’s very rigorous training. It goes from September to March. If you’re looking to take the next step in your spiritual growth and looking for something that will challenge you but also be rewarding, it might be the opportunity for you.

Other opportunities for training include being trained to be a facilitator of a support group for somebody who’s grieving or for somebody who’s gone through a divorce. Maybe you’ve had experiences like that in your life. Maybe you’ve survived the loss of a dear loved one and you’ve hung onto your faith and God has shaped you and equipped you to minister to others going through that. Maybe sometime in the past, you’ve gone through a divorce and you know that deep pain and how it changes your world and how difficult that is, and maybe God has equipped you to help those who are going through a divorce.

The opportunities to serve here in Care Ministries are limitless, and I’m going to read just a list of what we’re doing now. But if there’s something on your heart to do, if God is nudging you in a direction and we’re not doing it yet, let’s get it going. Come to me and we’ll work together and make it happen.

Perhaps God is leading you on a mission trip, a short-term mission trip. Every year, we send a medical and evangelism mission team to Honduras. It happens at the end of June and beginning of July. We go there and we do hands-on ministry where we work with children and adults and we really get connected to them and understand the difficulties of their lives and we hear the challenges they face daily and we share our faith with them. A lot of times, when you pray with them, they bless you and they pray with all their heart and soul and it’s really something to experience that.

Maybe Shining City is the ministry you need to partner with. That’s a ministry that sends missionaries to China not every other year, but every year. We’re constantly supporting a lot of wonderful projects and works there.

Maybe you need to be part of our youth mission. We need adult supervisors or counselors on a youth mission trip.

The Dominican Republic is a destination chosen by the Project 52 people in our congregation. This is a ministry that is based on a response to a father who lost his teenage son tragically, and he formed this ministry to do wonderful things for other people who’ve lost loved ones. They go every year to the Dominican Republic and do a lot of neat things there.

Maybe it’s a local mission God is calling you to be a part of, maybe the Share the Heat program we have going out in the narthex right now. We’re helping the homeless stay warm and we’re working with Joppa Ministries to support this situation. Now we might try to judge them and say, “Why are they on the street?” Or “Why do they live like that?” But that’s not what Jesus did. His heart just went out to them. He loved them and so He didn’t judge them. He just acted in compassionate ways. So that’s what we do with the homeless here in Des Moines. We act compassionately, demonstrating God’s love, hoping that will connect them to God.

We’ve already participated in the Giving Tree program, a wonderful ministry that every year helps many, many families and we receive wonderful thank-you’s from these families, talking about how blessed it was to be remembered and experience God’s love through the gifts that we’ve given.

Another ministry that we do every month on the third Sunday is we go to a local memory loss care facility and provide a chapel service. It’s a really neat opportunity to interact with the people who live there and we can’t help but think, “Someday that could be me.” It could be me. It could be you. What a wonderful thing to be compassionate to them now.

You could be part of the Freedom for Youth ministries, which works with atrisk kids in the city of Des Moines. They do a lot of wonderful things, mentoring and teaching and serving meals and things like that.

Maybe you could support the 30-Hour Family that our youth do every year. It’s a wonderful ministry where they raise money to feed hungry people throughout the world.

Last summer, we did the backpacks for kids where we collected backpacks to help low income families prepare their children for the upcoming year of education.

Maybe Agape Crisis Pregnancy Center is a place for you to be involved. These young women find out they’re pregnant and again, we could judge them and we could treat them in a callous way, but they need help. They need love. They need compassion. They need encouragement and support. Maybe that’s where you need to be.

The Urbandale Food Pantry does a lot of wonderful things to assist families in our communities. Meals From the Heartland is a program where we make inexpensive meals that are wholesome, and they ship them worldwide to help fight hunger. Habitat for Humanity is a well-known organization that many of our members have participated in to help provide housing for those in challenging situations.

These are just a few of the opportunities here, and maybe God has put something else on your heart, something new and wonderful that He’d like to use. Last night when I spoke about this, somebody said, “Do we have a prison ministry?” I said, “No, but I sure would love to see one start.” Wow, that’s the way God works. He puts it on our hearts. He nudges us.

Sometimes, it takes courage to act, so I want to give you an idea of what the impact of this care and compassion can be. Now doing caring things is no substitute for preaching the gospel, but I believe the two work together. The two work together. When we lived in New Jersey, we were visited by two young boys who were either Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses, I can’t remember which, but they stopped at our door and I invited them in and talked to them for awhile. After awhile, I asked the one young boy, “Why did you become Mormon?” He said, “When my mom was sick, they helped us a lot.” That reveals a lot, doesn’t it? It’s not so much the ideas that people are interested in but the demonstration of love and compassion that makes the powerful impact.

Now just think about this in your own experience. If you go into a store and they don’t treat you right, are you going to go back? Probably not. But if you turn that inside out, if you go into a store and they do a great business and wonderful deal and you get a great bargain or you just feel like you were really treated right, you’re going to go back. You’re going to go again. You might even tell other people about it. That’s the impact of our love and compassion on the world around us. It might be the bridge that somebody crosses to get to Jesus. That’s pretty humbling to think about.

St. Francis of Assisi said a lot of really neat things. Have you ever read any of his writings? Very, very interesting. But this is the one that everybody remembers: “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.” You know what he’s saying. Do the loving and compassionate things God is calling you to.

And finally, Matthew 9:36-38, “When Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.’” Jesus looked at those people. In the Greek, it actually says, “It’s like His heart moved inside of Him.” He was so concerned about their suffering and their pain and that’s what He’s put in us. We all have that compassion and love.

But it takes courage to respond to the Holy Spirit’s guiding and do what He’s calling us to do. And I want to encourage you today to let that compassion out. Let the Holy Spirit guide you and lead you as you serve and give God’s love in Jesus’ name. Amen.