Care for Others

Today, we are wrapping up the sermon series “God Changes Us.” This series has allowed the book of Romans to lead us to see various ways that a relationship with God can or should change us.

We have seen the way God removes the power of sin. We have viewed what it means to have freedom through Christ. We have allowed ourselves to view ourselves as children of God. Last week our scripture showed us that we receive help from God.

You can find each of these sermons and all of our sermons on our You Tube channel. We end this series turning our focus to God’s desire for us to “Care for Others.” Our scripture comes from Romans 9:1-5. The words will be on the screen.

9 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! d Amen.

Please pray with me…

There is a story of some people showing up to church on a Sunday and as they are heading towards the church building there is a disheveled man in front of them. A man who definitely seems to be in need of some assistance.

The story continues with the people walking by the man and entering the sanctuary awaiting the start of the service. Around the time the service was to start, the man enters the sanctuary and walks down the aisle. He stops and begins to reveal himself. They discover that the man that they all walked pass was the pastor.

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What a vivid message this was for the people. Everyone of them had made the decision to not ask the man how they could help. Everyone of them was so focused on entering church for a Sunday service that they had forgotten the message given to them over and over again, Sunday after Sunday about Jesus.

We are to choose to be people who care for others. We are to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those around us. We are to decide that even if we might get a little dirty, we are going to be willing to stop and at least acknowledge that someone is there.

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There is a story that Jesus tells that reflects what it means for us to focus on others. He tells the parable of a shepherd who has one hundred sheep and discovers that one has wandered away. The shepherd leaves the 99 to search for the one until he finds it. He celebrates once he finds that lost sheep.

I have heard it said that a shepherd, if they are alone, would never leave the rest of his sheep to search for the one. A shepherd would never risk losing all of the rest of his flock to recover the one that walked away.

That may be the point. We are to not be like everyone else. A Follower of God through Jesus is going to choose to seek out those that are lost instead of focusing on those that are fine. We are to decide that we care about those that need assistance.

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It can be easy in the church for us to focus on the 99. We can end up getting so focused on those that are already in the church, those that are a part of our church family that we forget that there are people that are in need of hearing about Jesus.

There are those that are hurting. There are people out in the world that need help and are being ignored. Us, as individuals, and us as the church may be supposed to be the ones that help. The ones that allow for those around us to receive the love of Jesus.

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Our main scripture has Paul in some ways mourning the fact that many of his fellow Jews have missed the coming of the Messiah. It is very possible that a large number of his audience are not Jewish. He is revealing to them the concern he has for those that are like him.

He would be able to understand more than anyone else how this happened. If you know the story of Paul, you know that he did not believe Jesus was the Messiah at first. In fact, he did all that he could to disrupt and stop the movement of Jesus after Jesus’ death. He had followers of Jesus arrested. He agreed when followers of Jesus were stoned. He was the instigator against those early Jesus followers.

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That was before he meant Jesus or a better way of saying it, Jesus meant him. He was leaving Jerusalem and heading towards another town to disrupt the Jesus movement in that area when Jesus blinded him and called out to him asking Paul why he was persecuting him.

This is when Paul transitioned from a Jesus hater to a Jesus follower. We have Paul seeking out to destroy Christians to now spreading the message of Jesus to those outside of the Jewish faith. We will often use the word transformed. Paul became a new person. He became a child of God.

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Paul is desiring in our scripture the same for those that are Jewish but don’t believe. He is saddened that they are still focused on the law instead of the grace given to humanity by God. His desire is for all people to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to have God direct their lives.

Paul is in so much anguish that he would wish that he had not discovered what it means to be a follower of Jesus if those around him would have been able to discover a need to have Jesus in their lives.

That is what we are called to do. We are called to put the needs and desires of those around us before our own. We are called to want to have those we meet receive an understanding of the love of Jesus through being around us.

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Paul asks to be cut off if it means that others would discover a life with Jesus. He offers to God an explanation of who he is speaking of. He lists what God has already done for his chosen people. The people of Israel.

You have offered these people covenants. These are the people he had given the law to. The group that you walked with all of these many years. The group that the Messiah can trace his human ancestry through. But despite their relationship with God, they just can’t get their minds to believe that the Messiah has come.

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Here is why what Paul is willing to do should matter to us. We have those around us of the same nationality. We have those around us that grew up or are currently our neighbors. We have those around us that we may at one point have gone to church along side who are not followers of God through Jesus.

Paul offers to us that there is something that we should do. We should be willing to take steps, to create relationships that can allow for us to be able to tell them about the God that loves us and loves them and desires to be in a relationship with them.

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At this time last year, we spent eleven weeks looking at the importance of sharing the love of God with those around us. We offered a model that I included as a part of the newsletter a couple of weeks ago that can remind us of a way that we can share our faith.

That model uses the word BLESS to offer us a way to build relationships with those we meet. It Begins with prayer, is followed by Listening, followed by Entertain or spending time with those God places before us. Next comes Service and then if possible, we share our Story.

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In order for us to discover who God has placed around us for us to share his love with, we need to be in prayer. If nothing else, we need to find a way to have some time with God in prayer so that he can help us discover who he needs for us to invite to worship on a Sunday morning.

The rest of the steps depends on how well you know this person. You may already know their story. You might already spend time with them. You might already serve them in some way and also allow them to serve you.

If that is the case what’s left? All that is left is to invite them to learn about God. Ask them to consider going to church with you one Sunday. If that seems like too big of an ask then see if they would join you for our time of food and spiritual conversation on Wednesdays. A chance to learn about God and to ask questions related to God.

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Scripture informs us of the need to share the story of Jesus with those around us. By the way, if you feel led to share your Jesus Story during one of our services or if you need some help in how to tell your story contact me so we can discuss it further.

We have Jesus’ last word to his disciples within scripture were for them to spread the word about him to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. We have spoken about this before about what these areas can mean to us.

Jerusalem would be someone in close vicinity with you: A friend, a neighbor, a relative. Judea would be someone who is like you. This can occur in a number of different ways: You may have the same hobby, you might work together, you might see each other at a restaurant or gym.

I view Samaria as people that you might not like or who might not like you. Samaritans were considered unworthy of being around the Jewish people, but we have Jesus spending some time in Samaria. The ends of the earth would be anyone who is left. The point being that there is no one who we shouldn’t be willing to share the love of God with.

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Paul was given the mission by God to serve those that would have been the ends of the earth. He may be writing these words to the Romans because his mission wasn’t to the people he is speaking about. God has him focusing on the Gentiles or those that are not Jewish.

Paul hears this message of what God has called him to do and spends the rest of his life living out the message given to him by God. We find him in the book of Acts make three journeys as a free man and one journey, a journey that has him end up in Rome, as a prisoner.

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Our first reading focused on a man named Jonah who was asked by God to warn the people of Nineveh about their destruction if they didn’t change their ways. The people of Nineveh would be the people of Samaria to Jonah. He would prefer to see them die than to be saved.

In fact, when God asks for him to serve him in Nineveh Jonah goes in the opposite direction. Jonah wants to get as far away as he can from the mission given to him by God. He wants the people of Nineveh to not hear God’s warning.

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He ends up on a ship, and the ship ends up in the middle of a deadly storm. The sailors believe that someone is to blame. Jonah knows that he is the one to blame so he tells them to throw him overboard to his death.

Did you catch this part of the story? Jonah would prefer to die than to help the people of Nineveh. He probably believes that his hope is lived out when he gets swallowed by a big fish. We have him live in this fish for three days before he repents and tells God he will do what he wants.

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It is my hope and expectation that you will not end up being thrown overboard off a ship or swallowed by a big fish in order for you to be willing to repent. We will all sin. We need to seek forgiveness each and every day. We also need to seek to care for those around us.

We need to be willing to listen to God and go do what God desires for us to do even if we don’t want to follow the will of God. We need to believe that God is asking because he wants us to be a part of His big plan.

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That is what often gets missed regarding this story. God has a tough task that he asks Jonah to accomplish for him. This should tell us that Jonah wasn’t just somebody showing up at Synagogue and attempting to follow the rules.

Jonah must have been someone that God has trusted before and is now asking for him to do something tougher. He is trusting that Jonah will be able to go amongst the enemies of the Jewish people and lead them to believe that they need to repent.

When we decide to follow the will of God it becomes possible if not probable that God will ask more and more from us. He will push us out of our comfort zone and just like in the case of Jonah having us do something we don’t really want to do.

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This leads us to our text for today, Jonah shows up and tells the people of Nineveh what God told him to say, and it leads to the people repenting of their sins. The rest of our text is the reaction that Jonah has to their repentance.

Instead of being happy, he is angry at God. He tells us why he didn’t want to go; he knew if he went they would repent. He didn’t follow the will of God originally because he knew that God would lead them to change their ways and that was not what he wanted.

In fact, he is so upset that he asks for God to end his life. God saved his life after he was thrown overboard but he is telling God what I had mentioned before he would prefer to be dead than to be alive as the person who saved the people of Nineveh.

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We are to be people of thanksgiving. We are to always thank God for the love that he has shown to us and the love that he shows to those around us. We are to look for ways for us to serve God even if we are asked to serve those that we have had conflict within the past.

Our God loves us. Our God desires for us to care for others. He desires for us to be his hands, feet, and voice to the world. He wants us to decide that we are going to serve him by helping and caring for those around us.

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We have a choice. We can be like Paul or we can be like Jonah. Let us decide that we want to be more like Paul. Let us desire to be of service to God and those around us. Let us go to God in prayer and ask for God to place us in situations where we can serve him. Let us decide today that we are going to care for those around us.

Let us pray…