Service To Humanity Series

Message

Service to Humanity

Nov 3, 2013

Two police officers saw an old woman staggering down the street. They stopped to see if she was okay, when they realized she had far too much to drink. Instead of taking her to jail, they decide to just drive her home.

They put her in the back seat of the cruiser. One of the officers decided to ride beside her to be sure she was safe.

As they drove the streets they kept asking her where she lived. All she would say as she stroked the officer’s arm is, “you’re passionate.”

They drove a while longer and asked again, but the same response, as she stroked his arm again saying, “you’re passionate.”

Both officers were not a little upset, so they stopped the car and said to the woman, “look, we’ve driven around this city for two hours and you still haven’t told us where you live.”

A little more sober now she replied, “I keep telling you, you’re passin’ it!”

Today marks a change in this program, “The Layman’s View.” Not only are we adding another radio station after a year on the air, but announcing something that has been in the planning for a while, called Christian Service Fellowship. It’s time to explain what this Fellowship is.

When enough study is done in the Word of God it is easy to see threads of specific themes repeated through the Gospels, which must mean such things are important in our walk with God. Years of study in religious history, which include learning of activities in the early church, caused awareness of requirements of Christians in all ages. However, we who promise to pattern our lives after Christ have, for the most part, relinquished our Christian duties to government that is all too happy to pick up where Christianity leaves off. The problem with government filling in the gap is that political leaders love to be your god and posses your soul buy taking from you to give back what you think you want. Government exercises power over you but God gives power to you. The mark of discipleship, which is loving one another, is held at bay by quarreling, while government holds us hostage by creating obligations through laws enforced at the end of gun barrel. It’s time Christians unite to reverse the trend and establish service to humanity under the guidance and authority of God and His love.

The term “Christian Service Fellowship” may sound like a nice group within a church that occasionally distributes food, but it’s not. One of those prevailing themes in the Word of God is “unity” yet our nation has 41,000 denominations that fracture the powerful potential of Christianity. The challenge then is bridging the barriers denominations have raised so the influential Christian community can reach its potential. What is the cost of this division? A world lost to governmental control, instead of individual responsibility under the leadership and control of our Creator.

The Christian cause was so well voiced in the “Liberty Song” written in 1768 by John Dickinson, that since has become the battle cry for many righteous causes, including the independence of the United States. Dickinson wrote, “Then join hand in hand, brave American’s all, by uniting we stand, by dividing we fall; in so righteous cause let us hope to succeed, for heaven approves of each generous deed.” However, Dickinson wasn’t the first to proclaim the idea that a divided entity cannot stand. Words spoken by the Master as recorded in Matthew 12:25, read, “Every kingdom which is divided against itself will be destroyed; and every house or city that is divided against itself will not stand.” Does this mean the kingdom of God suffers by our division? Of course. How can we then be in unity by loving each other while all 41,000 lines of thought demand to be right and declare others wrong? By claiming exclusivity to the truth, our efforts to bring the rest of the world to the truth of Christ is split 41,000 ways. How is a person desiring to be a Christian determine which of these denominations will lead them to God and His ways? Usually, one group recruits better than another, and then convinces the initiate of their point of view to birth a new right fighter. Would it be better to bring a person to God through Christ and equip them to be of service instead?

As grand as it sounds, Christian Service Fellowship is a method to bring Christians together who have heard the call to service, but are in self-sustaining churches more interested in maintaining status than reaching a hurting world. There are many main-stream churches involved in amazing and important missions and service, but not enough of them. Christian Service Fellowship is the way to bring people of like mind into service to God through hands-on action without calling them out of their established church.