Be In Human Services! Series

Choose Your Adventure

“Be in Human Services!” – Luke 10

Last week we concluded a series titled, “Your Mission”…

As a pastoral staff, we felt it was important to begin the year by remembering and refocusing ourselves as a church body to the Mission that God has placed before us.

Today, we want to begin a new series that focuses on the “Lifestyle Statements” that we believe is not just a calling to our specific fellowship, but to all believers!

In life we have choices. Everyday we are faced with decisions. Some are smaller in that they only affect us:

- What to eat?

- What to wear?

- What will I do with my free time?

Some are bigger, and affect others as well:

- Where will I work?

- Where will I live?

- Who will I marry?

We are constantly being faced with choices.

Life is a lot like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” Book…

These were children’s books designed to give you the choice of where the story would go at different points. With each choice, there was a consequence, good or bad. I used to read with my finger in place where the choice was, and read ahead to see what which choice was better, and this was successful until I ran out of fingers to hold the places!

Rarely does life present a “wait and see do-over” in our choices. In this series we’re not going to give you all the right answers, because God has a different adventure for each one of us.

However, we will give you the core principals of living that God lays out before us so that you can make the best choice for the plan that God has for you!

Today we want look at the choice of working in Human Services. If you are walking through life, you will inevitably run into a human. It’s unavoidable. Unless you live in the wilderness, which doesn’t apply to any of you because you are here now.

1. The Circle of Love

We all have what we’ll call a “Circle of Love”. We each reside in the middle of this circle, and the size is determined by the ways we will show and give love to others. But the edge of this circle is our limit. We won’t go any further than…

Luke 10:25-29 (NLT)

25 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” 27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” 29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Our religious lawyer in this passage has limits on his circle of love. And there’s a real danger in limiting our love for others:

- Testing Jesus instead of learning from Him

- Form a Legalistic view of salvation (We know it, but can’t apply it)

- Walk doesn’t match up with the Talk

- Life will be a constant attempt to justify our actions

Jesus is calling us to love without limits…

30 Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.

31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.

33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’

36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.

37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

Let’s highlight some of the ways Jesus instructs us to EXPAND OUR CIRCLE OF LOVE: