“HELPING” BUILD THE KINGDOM

As I feverishly pushed the lawn mower around our yard, I wondered if I'd finish before dinner.  Mikey, our 6-year-old, walked up and, without even asking, stepped in front of me and placed his hands on the mower handle.  Knowing that he wanted to help me, I quit pushing.

The mower quickly slowed to a stop.  Chuckling inwardly at his struggles, I resisted the urge to say, "Get out of here, kid.  You're in my way," and said instead, "Here, Son.  I'll help you."  As I resumed pushing, I bowed my back, leaned forward, and walked spread-legged to avoid colliding with Mikey.  The grass cutting continued, but more slowly and less efficiently than before, because Mikey was "helping" me.

Suddenly, tears came to my eyes as it hit me: This is the way my heavenly Father allows me to "help" Him build His kingdom!  I pictured my heavenly Father at work seeking, saving, and transforming the lost, and there I was with my weak hands "helping".  My Father could do the work by Himself, but He doesn't.  He chooses to stoop graciously to allow me to co-labor with Him.  Why?  For my sake, because He wants me to have the privilege of ministering with Him. 

-- Rusty Stephens

#5123

CRIES TO GOD FOR DELIVERANCE

“Save me, O God,
    for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in the miry depths,

    where there is no foothold.

I have come into the deep waters;

    the floods engulf me.

I am worn out calling for help;

    my throat is parched….

But I pray to You, LORD,

    in the time of Your favor;

in Your great love, O God,

    answer me with Your sure salvation.

Rescue me from the mire,

    do not let me sink;

    deliver me… from the deep waters.

Do not let the floodwaters engulf me

    or the depths swallow me up

    or the pit close its mouth over me.

Answer me, LORD, out of the goodness of Your love;

    in Your great mercy turn to me.

Do not hide Your face from Your servant;

    answer me quickly, for I am in trouble.”  (Psalm 69: 1-3, 13-17 NIV)

We usually think of Jesus in the upper room as calmly and patiently preparing His disciples for their coming crisis; only in the garden are we shown His deep anguish over what lies ahead for Himself.  But if this verse -- "They hated me without a cause." (Psalm 69:4) -- occurred to Jesus as describing His enemies, surely He was also identifying with the rest of [Psalm 69] with its vivid description of overwhelming troubles and importune cries to God for deliverance.  What in the upper room was still under the surface was openly expressed in the garden.

-- John R. Cogdell in "The Humanity of Jesus Christ, as Revealed in Certain Psalms" 

#4817

THE CHURCH

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."  (Luke 19:10 NIV)

In God's benevolent economy, the church… provides a place of solace, a hotbed of godly values, a stage for spirited worship, an organism of relationships, and all the bountiful benefits Christians enjoy. But the church isn't the church so that we Christians can experience those perks. The church is the church so that other people can meet Jesus Christ and be captured by the Spirit and be incorporated into the Kingdom for eternity. A church exists, like Jesus, "to seek and to save the lost." The church is not in the business of coddling the cozy but rather of finding the fallen, and will inconvenience itself in order to reach out. The church exists to do what Jesus valued -- and did, Himself.

-- James D. Berkley in a sermon at First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Washington


#4614

OUR ONLY BOAST

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  (1 Corinthians 1:18 NIV)

Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us -- a crucified God -- must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.

-- John Piper in “Don't Waste Your Life”


#4074

ENCOUNTERING JESUS

To encounter Jesus is to take on the name of Christ. During a sermon preached at our congregation, Dr. William B. McClain, Professor of Preaching and Worship at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., told the story of meeting a South Korean tailor in Itwaewon, Seoul, named Smitty Lee. Dr. McClain asked whether the name "Smitty" was Korean, and the tailor told the story of his life being saved during the Korean War by an American soldier from Virginia who was called Smitty Ransom. The tailor further explained a rather familiar custom in that Asian culture, and summed it up in two simple sentences: "He saved my life. I took his name." That is indeed what happens when we encounter Jesus; He save our lives, and we take His name.

-- Zan W. Holmes, Jr. in Encountering Jesus


#3338