LIVES THAT HAVE IMPACT: Today many define impact in terms of Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and YouTube hits.
- There is a presumption within many in our society today that having 1,500 friends on Facebook, a million followers on Twitter, or a YouTube video with 100,000 hits is evidence of a life of impact.
- Even among those who aren’t online, there can still be the thought that it’s the big things that represent a life of impact.
- Someone does something dramatic – rescues a child from a burning building or establishes a new organization – and we focus on that as evidence of a life of impact.
- Now, I’m not saying it’s an intrinsically bad thing to do what I’ve just mentioned. It’s not evil to have 1,500 Facebook friends or a million followers on Twitter. In fact, you can use that platform to do some good.
- I’m not saying that there is no value in those dramatic actions where we play the hero or when we accomplish some great career goal. There is value in those things.
- The issue we’re dealing with this morning is that those are the places we look for all of our impact, when in fact I believe there is another direction that we should be looking.
Start With The Right Goal: When we consider where to invest our lives, we need to remember that people are what matter most, so focus on touching lives.
- Our society tries to convince us that power, position, property, possessions, or prestige are most important. The Bible tells us that it’s people.
- What do I mean? The Bible tells us that Jesus died for people. The Bible tells us in Genesis that it’s people that are the supreme part of God’s creation. When this world burns away in Final Judgment, it’s people who will outlast it.
- This is a simple truth, but one that we lose sight of. We need to invest our lives in people.
- What does it mean to invest our lives in people?
- I mean that we should spend our time, money, and love trying to push people in the direction of God. Reflecting the love and mercy we’ve received from God, we show that to people in the expectation that we can point them to Christ.
- To put it another way: when you enter heaven someone day, after you see Jesus, you will not be surrounded by your money, your possessions, or your titles. You will, if you’ve lived your life wisely, be surrounded by people – people whose lives you’ve touched.
- My friend George Pauley passed away recently and when I think of all his years as a loving pastor, I can only imagine his welcome into eternity. He invested over 80 years in people.
THE FACEBOOK IRONY: The strange thing about Facebook and other social media is that we have never been more interconnected and yet never been more lonely.
- It is supremely ironic that we’re more connected than ever before yet more lonely.
- We have Facebook to keep up not only with our current friends, but also old co-workers, former neighbors, and high school friends. We have Twitter to know what everyone is doing all the time.
- And yet surveys reveal that we are lonelier than ever before.
- How can that be?
a. The bonds on Facebook and Twitter are extremely shallow and no substitute for real friendships.
b. We see people seemingly living wonderful lives and feel like our’s pale in comparison.
c. We allow the busyness (partly created by our technology) to push us to spend more times on our machines and less in actual relationships.
HOW DO I LIVE A LIFE OF IMPACT? For impact, think small.
- Acts 9:38-39.
- The story in Acts of Dorcas (a.k.a. Tabitha) is telling for us this morning.
- There is a strong reaction to her death: they send two men to Lydda to get Peter, presumably in the hope of him being able to raise her from the dead (v. 38); when he arrives, there are tears all over the place (v. 39).
- Notice that it was robes and other clothing that she made for them. She didn’t give them anything huge – it was a relatively small thing, but something that made an impact.
- It’s not the big things that make the greatest impact. It’s the small gestures. The small, caring, thoughtful actions.
- It’s the small acts of love that touch the heart that make an impact.
- Examples of such things:
a. A phone call before a doctor’s appointment.
b. A text that says I know your heart is hurting and I’m praying for you.
c. An offer and a follow-up of praying for someone.
d. Taking a dessert to someone’s house who’s having a bad week.
e. Mowing the grass of someone overwhelmed by having their spouse in the hospital.
f. A card in the mail during a dark time in their lives.
- Touching hearts is not hard – we’re just looking in the wrong direction.
- We’re looking to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as the place to make an impact. In reality, those are places to make a shallow, glancing impact. It’s not anything that anyone is going to remember for any longer than it takes to load to the next video.
- The acts of love will resonate within their hearts.
- Obviously it would be good if there weren’t so many lonely people, but the sad reality that this is where we are as a culture does create an even greater opportunity for us. Those folks are hungry for love and the small acts that we do resonate even more deeply because of their hunger.
- Essentially, the culture we are now in serves to multiply the small acts of love that we share.
- In preparing this sermon, I asked our Wed evening Bible study to write down someone who had impacted their lives. The responses focused on little things people did that touched their heart.
WHAT'S THE REASON THAT THIS WORKS? Your heart fills their need.
- Acts 9:39 – “widows.”
- It’s a telling detail in v. 39 that it’s the widows that gather around Peter. Why is that important? Well, back then there was no Social Security. Further, it was a society where women had relatively little power and options for supporting themselves. I said a moment ago that Dorcas did a small thing for them – making them clothing. But in their tenuous situation, a little gesture like that was a big thing because they probably didn’t have the financial resources to be able to afford much. Her heart (displayed in her willingness to spend her time and money on the clothing) met their need (having few resources to be able to make it on).
- It’s those moments when we’re feeling a little vulnerable, a little scared, a little unsure, a little questioning, a little fearful, a little needy – and then someone steps up with a heartfelt action or word that fills that need.
- It’s the heart that makes the difference.
- Knowing that someone thought about me, cared for me, was concerned for me – that’s powerful.
- People have no defense for that kind of thoughtful love. It touches every heart.
- Examples:
a. The widower who feels lost without his wife there taking care of all the things that she took care of.
- A golfing buddy just swings by every day for a few weeks after the funeral to see if he needs anything.
b. The woman going through a divorce.
- The co-worker who invites her to lunch (and pays) just to have some time to talk.
c. The dad getting used to the empty nest.
- A friend brings it up at work and talks him through the process.
d. The teen getting ready to head off to college.
- Someone writes him a heart-felt note saying how much potential she thinks he has.
- In my own life, one example is the evening that we had to exercise church discipline. It was a tense and difficult thing, but the right thing to do. Later that evening, my Area Minister Mike called to see how things had gone and to say he’d been praying for me. It was meaningful for me because I was feeling unsettled because of the difficulty of the situation.
- As an example from our church’s life, I want to point to Vera Baker.
- She was never on Facebook or even turned on a computer. Yet her words of compassion and her heartfelt cards touched so many lives.
- Life is hard and we all need a little encouragement and a little mercy.
WHY DON'T WE DO MORE OF THIS? Three of the biggest reasons are (a) we’ve bought into the Facebook lie; (b) we’re self-centered; and (c) we’re unwilling to put our heart out there.
- This isn’t that hard to do, yet few are doing it. If more were doing it, we wouldn’t have the loneliness epidemic that we have.
- Why aren’t people doing this?
(a) We’ve bought into the Facebook lie.
- We’ve come to believe that “broadcasting” on social media is proof of really living the life.
- I’m not against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in and of themselves. They serve a purpose. I enjoy scrolling down the News Feed on Facebook. But if I think that accumulating 1,500 friends on Facebook is evidence that I’m really living a life of impact, I’ve gotten off-track.
(b) We’re self-centered.
- Another reason is that many of us don’t really think a lot about living a life of service and trying to impact those around us. We’re focused on ourselves.
- This is a tendency that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube exacerbate: the desire to focus on self. We’ll talk more about this in other sermons in this series, but suffice it to say that God wants us to look beyond ourselves.
- Jesus said the Son of Man came to serve, not to be served.
- Sometimes we don’t want to get into the mess that people’s lives are.
(c) We’re unwilling to put our heart out there.
- Finally, a third problem is that many of us are too shy or timid to share from our heart.
- There can be a lot of reasons for this, from a lack of confidence in anyone wanting to hear from us to fear stemming from rejection’s earlier in our life.
