I want to ask you a couple of questions and then I want to present you with a challenge.
The questions are these:
Do you love the Lord?
Have you accepted Jesus as the rescuer and guide of your life?
Do you want to be a disciple of Jesus and follow him?
Then here’s your challenge:
Put your money where your mouth is.
Its an expression we’ve heard all our lives.
Its meant as a challenge for someone to indicate how serious he or she is about what he or she claims to believe.
The question is, if a person really believes what he or she claims to believe, how willing is that person to committ what is important to that person to the cause.
In the case of the expression, its money. In the case of our emphasis tonight, it is our time and our labor.
In this letter of James, we are invited to take the faith we have and put it into practice.
James asks us a very important question:
what good is it to believe in Jesus as our rescuer and guide if don’t then act upon our faith?
This poem by Wilbur Rees shares with us what James is saying:
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my
soul or disturb my sleep, but enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a
snooze in the sunsine. I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a
black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the
Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Are we asking for $3 worth of God?
Yes, its one thing to say we have faith, but its another thing entirely to do some thing about it.
The words we read from James says even the demons and evil doers believe in Christ. The question is, what are we going to do about our faith? Because faith with no hands on service to support it is no faith at all.
Its a dead faith, James tells us. There is no life in it at all.
How serious are we about our faith and what are willing to do about it?
But to tell you the truth, though it is important for us to ponder this question from time to time, I really prefer not to come at this issue from this angle.
Rather, I prefer to ask a different question:
Do you believe that you have the power within you, through Christ, to change the world?
The potential really does lie within you, you know. Within each of us. We can change the world.
Reuben St. Clair is a Social Studies teacher. Every year he challenges his students to do something to make the world a better place. Reuben writes on the board, “Think of an idea for world change, then put it into action.” The students who do this will get an automatic A in the class.
One 12 year old boy, Trevor, takes the challenge to heart, and in a big way. He devises a plan where he will do favors for three strangers, favors they can’t do for themselves, and those people will be asked to “pay it forward,” and do a deed for three more strangers, and so on. Thus starting a chain-reaction.
You can change the world.
At The National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies, in Dallas, TX, the closing session speaker was General “stormin Norman” Norman Schwarzkopf.
At the end of his talk, when General Schwarzkopf began answering questions, a very attractive and athletic-looking young lady approached the microphone.
As she started out, you could hear a slight tremor in her voice,With an ever-increasing emotional voice inflection, she described the PRIDE she, her sister and husband who were veterans of the United States Air Force all felt, having served under him. As a request from her father, she thanked General Schwarzkopf for his past and continued leadership.
She then asked what advice we as parents should give to our children as the next generation of leaders of this country. He said, tell them, “It’s ok to do your own thing, but do it PLUS 1.” That ONE something extra is to help someone else up a hill; be a leader and stay one step ahead in helping them meet their goals successfully. That’s the advice he says he’s given his own children.
You can change the world.
A musician and composer consumed with a love for music, Glen Holland’s true goal is to write one memorable piece of music to leave his mark on the world.
But instead, he finds his calling in the most unlikely place, sharing his love of music with his students — to let it fill their lives, the way it fills his. His students respond to his contagious passion, and as the years unfold, Holland finds himself on an unplanned path.
Time and time again, he was faced with choices and descisions that took him further and further from his dream. On his retirement, students both present and from his past gather. Those that have graduated have become sucessful. They believe it is Mr. Holland’s influence that has helped them to become the people they are.
One woman, who has become a state government official, stands on the stage and tells Glenn Holland, “Look around you. We are your opus, Mr. Holland.”
He never composed that one great work of art, but he had achieved true greatness in the way his life had changed others.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can change the world.
Tonight, we have the opportunity to act upon that transformative power. Tonight, we have the chance to become a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Tonight, we have the opportunity to cultivate the holy habit of hands-on service in our lives.
Before you are 14 opportunities, 14 places you can make a commitment and begin to make a difference.
Let me ask, what will the life of one child be like, if you take the time to lead them through Bible study and Christian nurture?
What will the life of the next individual be like, if you go to the effort to make them feel welcome here as you have felt welcome here?
This group of people who gather together on Monday evenings aren’t just a group of individuals who happen to be in the same room together. This group of people gathered here are a church.
We worship together, we share the Lord’s Supper together, we sing together, we laugh and cry together.
Look around you and see...dream what this group can be...
Can you Bible studies for children, youth and adults on Monday evenings? Can you see your faith and the faith of one another growing in fellowship together?
I can.
Within our Monday night congregation alone there are opportunities in all the areas listed on the commitment card...areas where each of us can serve in children and youth ministries, in hospitality and worship. In mission opportunities. Together we can change the world.
But lest you don’t believe me, I want to remind us once again of what happens to our faith if we don’t put it into action.
There is a story about a Roman aqueduct in Spain. It was built in 109 A.D. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men and women drank from its flow.
Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, “This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor.”
They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated.
The great violinist, Nicolo Paganini, willed his marvelous violin to Genoa — the city of his birth — but only on condition that the instrument never be played upon. It was an unfortunate condition, for it is a peculiarity of wood that as long as it is used and handled, it shows little wear. As soon as it is discarded, it begins to decay. The mellow-toned violin has become worm-eaten in its beautiful case, valueless except as a relic.
In Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Indiana meets up with his arch rival, professor Donovan. At gunpoint Donovan intends to send Indiana Jones after the Holy Grail. He turns to his colleuge and says:
“Step back now, Doctor Schneider. Give Doctor Jones some room. He’s going to recover the Grail for us.”
INDY laughs.
“Impossible?” Donovan responds, “But I want the Grail itself. The cup that gives everlasting life. Hitler can have the world, but he can’t take it with him. I’m going to be drinking my own health when he’s gone the way of the Dodo.”
Donovan he draws his pistol
“The Grail is mine, and you’re going to get it for me.”
INDY replies, “Shooting me won’t get you anywhere.”
“You know something, Doctor Jones?... you’re absolutely right.”
Then DONOVAN shifts his aim, just a bit, and SHOOTS Indy’s father, HENRY.
“The healing power of the Grail is the only thing that can save your father now. It’s time to ask yourself what you believe.”
Its time to ask ourselves what do we believe, and how much we truly believe it.
In a moment, we will be making our commitment to hands - on service. Before we do I invite you to join me in this service prayer. Let us pray.
Lord, I size up other people
in terms of what they can do for me;
how they can further my program,
feed my ego,
satisfy my needs,
give me strategic advantage,
I exploit people,
ostensibly for your sake,
but really for my own sake.
Lord, I turn to you
to get the inside track
and obtain special favors,
your direction for my schemes,
your power for my projects,
your sanction for my ambitions,
your blank check for whatever I want.
Change me, Lord.
Make me a person who asks of you and of others,
what can I do for you?
In Jesus name, Amen.
