Game Changer Series
Game Changing Events
November 14, 2010
VIDEO: MARCUS DUPREE
One tackle changed everything. Many would say Marcus missed his calling.
What about you?
Perhaps you’ve been so busy pursuing a career that you’ve missed your calling.
Moses’ career was tending sheep. His calling was bringing freedom. It wasn’t until He was willing to “throw his stick on the ground in service to God that God could use him.
Let me explain what I mean
Exodus 3:1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.
10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Moses then comes up with a series of logically sound and important excuses why he’s not the man for the job. Including this one…
4:1 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?” 2 Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. 3 The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then the LORD said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 5 “This,” said the LORD, “is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
The game changed for Moses and his stick that day.
The prayer surrounding this short 3 week sermon series is that somehow the game changes for you and then you in turn will help change the game. Just like Moses did.
Today we are going to look at two events in Scripture that should rip the helmet off our heads. The goal of this morning is to knock the wind out of our predictable game plans as a church.
Flannery O’Conner once said “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
We will leave this morning unsettled, but by the end of this series we will finish inspired to do amazing things in the months to come.
Event 1: The Neighbor On the Road
Luke 10:30 Jesus said: “A [child] was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the [child], he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the [child] was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
“Wait, preacher, it says man, not child.” I know but doesn’t it hit harder when you think of this person as a child. Forgive me for taking so much liberty with the Scripture, but we have to start somewhere. After all, a man can take a punch much better than a 10 year old boy can. If anything, we can start by looking out for the women and children first.
I put a child in Jesus’ parable because every day over 26 thousand of them belong there.
More than 26,500 children died yesterday of preventable causes related to their poverty. Statisically it will happen again today tomorrow and the day after that. Almost 10 million children will have died by the time the clock strikes midnight closing 2010.
What I wonder is this, “why does the crash of a single plane dominate the pages of newspapers around the world while the equivalent of 100 planes filed with children crashing daily never reach our ears?” (107) Bear with me if I put a kid on the Samaritan road, but we need to feel this. We have ignored too much as a church.
James 1:27 Widows and orphans in distress (this is true religion)
There are more widows and orphans in the world today than there were when these words were written.
At the last count there are 12 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone due to aids.
If you didn’t already know this, we aren’t really fulfilling our job as preachers. “How could the great tragedy of theses orphans get drowned out by choruses of praise music in hundreds of thousands of churches across our country?”
It’s not enough just to know the statistics either.
Statistics themselves can be one more way of walking on the other side of the Samaritan road. Even me using a statistic like the death of 26.5k poor children a day obscures the humanity, dignity and worth of the first child in that number. What number does it have to reach in order for me to care as if it were my own child?
Stalin himself said it this way, “One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.” It’s just too overwhelming. Ultimately their someone else’s kids and we have too much to worry about already with our own. We actually can experience compassion fatigue.
We need to go beyond the statistics. We need to feel the tragedy. Let’s take a moment and fight the fatigue.
26,500 children die everyday of preventable causes related to their poverty. Close your eyes and imagine just one of these kids on your doorstep.
Sometimes things will happen that we cannot change the channel, turn the page or write the check to keep at a safe distance.
Matt. 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Children are not statistics to a God that counts hairs on heads.
This is no different than the religious leaders of the Good Samaritan story ignoring the broken man on the side of the road in order to get to church on time. So, Northampton, who has been your neighbor?
“Today we live in a media-saturated, Internet connected, cell phone equipped world in which everything that happens anywhere is instantly available everywhere… Yet only about 4 percent of all US charitable giving goes to international causes of any kind.” (102) The reality is, God has eliminated the excuses of lack of awareness, access and ability and has placed us all on that road where the good Samaritan walked.
How many church folk walk by every day. And then a rock-star came down the road and stopped to recognize a neighbor.
Ladies and gents. Meet the 21st century good Samaritan.
VIDEO: “Bono and Brian Williams”
Event 2: The Stranger at the Gate
Another way of walking on the other side of the road is to classify people as different or somehow less than us. (This is how the holocaust was accomplished.)
This is no different from the way people reacted to the sick and lame in Bible times.
Luke 16:19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ 25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
This warning from Christ should be heard more today than ever before.
The problem facing our world today is not terrorism, political corruption, climate change, HIV or AIDS or even poverty. The biggest problem in our world is the disparity between the rich and poor. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now 75 times richer than the poorest ones, as opposed to back in the 1800's it was 4 times difference. The chasm is increasing every year. This is the actual root of the other problems I just mentioned.
Einstein had a moment of clarity once when he wrote; “More and more I come to value charity and love of one’s fellow being above everything else… All our lauded technological progress – our very civilization – is like an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.”
Statistics of ‘Despair’ity
• If your income is $25,000 per year, you are wealthier than approximately 90% of the world’s population. If you make $50,000 per year, you are wealthier than 99% of the world.
• 93% of the world’s people don’t own a car.
• The problem is that we think owning a car and making $25k a year is normal. It’s simply not. We don’t believe we’re wealthy but we are.
• “The total income of American churchgoers is $5.2 trillion dollars (that’s more than 5 thousand billion dollars.) American Christians, who make up about 5 percent of the Church worldwide, control about half of global Christian wealth.”
• Only 9% of American Christians tithe.
• Of the money that American Christians do give, only 2% finds it’s way outside of this rich country. The other 98% go right back into American buildings and programs. (217)
• For every thousand dollars of income American Christians make, just 6 pennies find themselves outside the gate.
For the sake of clarity, let me just tell you plainly that God has laid millions of beggars at your gate.
“It’s not our fault that people are poor and broken, but it is our responsibility to do something about it.”
There’s a subtle nuance that we need to notice in Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus.
Did the rich man actually ever abuse Lazarus? No. How then did the rich man end up in so much trouble with God? His sin was one of indifference. It was the sin of omission, not commission. It’s just as bad. It may even be worse.
Jesus was angriest when confronting men who were great at avoiding sins of commission and horrible at committing sins of omission. Even though they tried not to do wrong things, they never tried to do the right things. Jesus simply did not tolerate it.
Read through Matt. 23:13-33 and you will see some heavy name calling going on. Jesus will call them hypocrites seven times, blind guides twice, blind fools, sons of hell, whitewashed tombs, snakes and a brood of vipers all in 21 verses.
The Pharisees had gotten themselves so twisted up, they could not see when they were offending God.
Jesus explained how this happened to them in
Mark 7:6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
They were like frogs in a kettle. They simply got so wrapped up in “traditions of men” they stopped seeing things with a Godly perspective. When it came to justice in the world they had blind spots.
They were too wrapped up in the right plans for the temple building program, the right candidates in Roman politics, the right amount of taxation, the right clothes to wear at the right times. It was all for appearance.
If it happened to the Israelites, if it happened to the Pharisees. What makes us think we are immune to holding on to the traditions of men?
America is not the first nation to claim to be God’s chosen one and still not live like it.
We can no longer be as Johnny Cash sang, so heavenly minded we’re no earthly good.
If the good news is going to change the world, belief is not enough. “Worship is not enough. Personal morality is not enough. And Christian community is not enough. God has demanded more.” Also, the world needs more.
2 Cor. 5:19b he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
How can we reconcile people to God if we haven’t met them where they are to bring them to God. People don’t care what you know about god if they are dying from hunger or don’t have a place to stay that night. It starts there.
Paul knew this. That’s why he continued in…
2 Corinthians 8:13 Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. 14 At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, 15 as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”
We have to face the reality that when some of the world is rich and the rest of the world is poor, it indeed creates a moral and practical dilemma. It’s a dilemma that is so difficult, we have simply ignored it.
We can ignore it no longer. The game is changing.
Exodus 3:7 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.
Like Marcus Dupree driving a truck or Moses watching sheep, somewhere along the way perhaps you settled for a career and have forgotten about your calling.
The difference is that today the stakes are even higher. If Moses started in exile with nothing but some stupid sheep and a stick, we have no excuse.
Look at it this way…
Every Lazarus outside our gate, every broken man on the side of the road is a slander to God’s name and reputation and we should take it personal enough to do something about it.
It’s not that we aren’t doing anything. It’s that we could be doing so much more.
“God never asks us to give what we do not have. But he will not use what we do not give.”
We’ve run out of time this week, but we won’t leave you hanging too long. Let’s tack a “To Be Continued” on the end of this one and invite you back next week. We have specific ways in mind to encourage you to obey your calling as a rich Christian.
**** I am indebted to Mr. Richard Stearns’ book “The Hole in Our Gospel” for much of the content of this sermon. The quotes and page numbers you see here are mainly from this book. It’s well worth the read.
