Intro: Did you see the figures at the start of services today? They’ll be in the newsletter too:
• 3,030 pounds of food collected and delivered to RRM
• $3,476.99 given to put a well in India. It’s actually enough to almost do 2!
• 210 letters, 19 pictures with notes sent to encourage the troops in Incirlik airbase in Turkey
• Enough detergent to wash 48,255 articles of clothing, given to Oblong Children’s Christian Home, and a bunch of sheets, pillows, and towels.
• We don’t know how many will be touched by help for the sick, especially kids who face heart surgery.
• And, all during this time, with the help of IDES, 10 storage sheds have been given and built for people who had losses from the tornadoes - $11,000 of raw materials, and some 500+ man (& woman!) hours.
Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. I am boasting about what God is doing through His people.
It’s a good start.
Matthew 25:31-46
MDA phone-a-thon – once a year, “locked up for good” to raise money for the MDA. They take your picture. It’s for a nice cause, and it’s done in fun. That’s what they do at MDA. I guess it works, but I can tell you, that’s as funny as prison gets. After the MDA thing is done, there’s no more funny in prison.
Today, we’re considering the last group mentioned by Jesus in “The Least of These.” I was in prison. Most of us can’t relate to that, and we don’t want to. Right away we’ve got to figure out what that meant in the 1st century compared to now. I’m going to bet that most of us also can’t relate to visiting someone in prison. Maybe by the end of this, that will be changing.
Prison in Bible times was different. It was almost always 1 of 3 things: a place where a person was held until his trial, until his punishment, or until a debt paid. Right away, that makes it different from most prisons in our country and most others today. Today, a person’s stay in prison is punishment in itself. They will remain there, based on the severity of their crime, and then be released back into society. I have my own set of opinions about the effectiveness of this. But let it be enough said that Scripture knows of no such system – a penitentiary, where people are committed to confinement and supposedly are penitent and then reformed until they are released. I’m not running for office, but if it were up to me to change the system, I’d start by making prisons something besides a place where criminals stay at our expense to get smarter and stronger and then get released. But I digress…
When Jesus mentions someone in prison, remember, why that person is there is not as important as the fact that he is there. Why he was there was much more likely to be for some unfair, oppressive reason than our modern prisons. Remember Joseph? He was put in prison 2X when he didn’t deserve it. Remember JB, the Apostles? They were imprisoned because they spoke the truth. That’s why I especially want us to think about people who are prisoners because of their faith in Jesus.
Something else that was different in biblical times was the conditions of prisons. Many of our modern day prisons in the US have gyms for workouts, libraries, and cable TV, as well as movie nights. Prisoners receive medical care and 3 meals a day. Most of them don’t do a thing for it. You and I are paying the bills.
That wasn’t the case in 1st century Roman prisons. Conditions were very often cramped, dark, and full of disease. Prisoners often depended on people on the outside to care for them, and that was dangerous, because a prison visitor was no longer anonymous. He might be associated with the crimes of the person he was visiting. If the visitor was a slave, he might be required to be a witness in court to his conversations with the accused, and the testimony of a slave was admissible only if it was given under torture. To visit a prisoner, he’d have to be lowered in by a rope, and he’d leave when the guards were willing to let him leave. Still, there was this slave named Onesimus who came to visit Paul in prison. It’s quite possible that he was risking his life every time he came to visit Paul.
Philemon 1:10-14 (NIV)
I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me. I am sending him--who is my very heart--back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced.
Onesimus came to Paul when he was one of The Least of These. We can learn from his example right away. When someone is in prison because he or she is a Christian, that’s someone we ought to remember. In fact, the writer of Hebrews says,
Hebrews 13:3 (NASB)
Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.
But let me take a minute to talk about prisoners in general, the kind in the US in the 21st century. I can’t speak from being one, but I can speak as a father of a real, live genuine prisoner, our son Jeff, and from the experience of visiting him in several jails and prison.
I asked Jeff what the average church member can do to help someone who’s locked up. He said that when you write to someone in prison, that goes a long way with them. Most prisoners are longing for any kind of contact with the outside. When you take the time to write them, it shows that you care and that their life still has value. He also mentioned that most prisoners are going to respond best to you having an interest in them first rather than hammering them with their need to repent and accept Jesus. In other words, they are a lot like people who aren’t locked up. He also said that most of them aren’t real educated and literate, so that it’s best to keep things simple – ask them what they like to do, how they spend their time, what TV shows and books they like. In other words, show them that you care.
Over the past 7 years, Carrie and I have been in a lot of court rooms, jails, and prisons. We’ve managed to learn a few things from being there that I think will help you care about people who are in prison:
(Things I learned from visiting jail and prison:)
1. Prison is a sad place, for people on the inside and the outside. Families are split up. Freedom is gone. Often, there are barriers to even touching the prisoner. Moms leave in tears. Children leave asking, “Why does Daddy have to be there?” The people inside are generally sad too. If I had to make a fun chart, visiting a prison would be somewhere below going to the dentist or a funeral or having an infected ingrown nail.
2. Visiting is uncomfortable. You have to empty your pockets, show your ID, be stamped, wanded, possibly frisked. You have to pass through several locked doors. You have to obey strict rules. And that’s for the people from the outside. It’s much more uncomfortable for the people on the inside.
3. There’s a stark difference between the freedom we have on the outside and the loss of it. You can visit only on certain days, during certain hours, for a certain length of time. Your clothing has to meet certain standards. You can’t bring anything in. You can’t take anything out. Freedom is gone. It’s the reason people are desperate enough to try to escape.
4. Like any other visit, showing up shows that you care about someone. Even complete strangers tend to be grateful if you somehow end up visiting them.
5. People can change, no matter where they are. Many people have met Jesus while in prison – a place that seems as far from Him as you can get. It makes sense that there are prison ministries like ARM and Prison Fellowship. It makes sense that there are prison chaplains and correspondence courses and other ministries to reach out to prisoners. There’s even a state prison that has a Bible college in it in Angola, LA.
Part of the ministry of Jesus wasn’t just one of healing in the physical and spiritual sense, but there was also an element of freeing the oppressed.
I notice in Matthew 25:41 that the eternal fire is prepared for the devil and his angels. That’s the original purpose and reason for Hell. The reason people end up there is that something has gone terribly wrong. I also notice that the only place where God confines anyone to prison is in this sense as well. Evil spirits are confined to prison. Satan is imprisoned. Jesus holds the keys to death and Hades.
It reminds me that God didn’t create us to go to Hell or to be imprisoned. He created us to live in real freedom – the kind that comes from knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. That’s the only way to be truly free.
So, Peter says,
1 Peter 4:15-17 (NASB)
Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
Today, there are people around the world who are suffering because of their faith in Jesus Christ. It has been going on since the Church began, and while it has ebbed and flowed, it has never stopped. Because of Communism, Islam, and Hinduism, there are 52 different countries that restrict or are hostile to Christianity. In these countries, every day, believers are harassed, exiled, tortured, killed, or imprisoned because of their faith.
Most of them are in countries where we would end up in prison with them if we were there. But one thing we can pray for them, and we can write letters to them.
I first learned about this through VOM, and one Sunday our Sunday School class did this. You have received information about different believers who are in prison today because they dared to profess the name of Jesus. We are going to allow a few minutes and ask you to write a letter of encouragement to that person today, to pray over it, and to let us get it in the mail this week to send it off to them.
This will raise some questions. Yes, many of these letters do get through to the people on the other end. Even when they don’t, the news that letters were sent encourages these people, and their guards who are over them receive the witness of Christians caring for one another. Many of these prisoners send word back, saying that just knowing they were not forgotten was the encouragement that helped them not give up.
Writing these in English to these people does make sense. They often can read English, or can find someone who can.
Receiving these letters does not increase hostility against them. And in the few cases where it did, the prisoners report back that it was worth it to them.
We want you to just encourage these people. Remind them you are praying for them. Tell them if their faithfulness inspires you to live for Jesus. Remind them that God notices their situation and loves them.
There are 4 things not to do.
• Don’t include your address or other personal information like that.
• Don’t write anything critical of the government where they are being held, because these letters are most like read by them first.
• Don’t include the name of the Church, or of any other organization because we don’t want them to be accused of collaborating with a foreign organization.
• Also, don’t write in cursive. Write only in block style lettering.
We’ll give 7 minutes to do this, then 1 minute to wrap it up, and then I’ll guide us through sealing and addressing them. The last part is when we collect them and ask you to include $1 with each letter if you can. That’s how we’ll pay for them to be mailed overseas. If you can’t include a dollar, don’t sweat it. If you can include a few dollars, please do so to cover for those people who aren’t sweating. Once we have them all back in, we’ll pray, and this week, our words will go out to one more group of people who are “The Least of These.”
(allow 7 minutes. Give one minute warning. Give instructions about how to fold, seal, and address each letter. Ask for $1. Pray. Collect them)
