Rescue Me

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 24, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 69:1-18.

            When we think of the psalms, we tend to think of things like the twenty-third psalm.  We think of something nice, something peaceful.  We think of something comfortable.  We think of something that talks about God’s protection, about God’s love.  Something that says everything’s all right, everything’s fine.  No worries.

            And there’s nothing wrong with that.  That’s a message we need to hear sometimes.  We need to know about God’s protection, God’s peace, God’s love.  We need to know that, in the end, God will make everything all right, and that we don’t need to constantly worry about things.

            But you know, that’s not the only message we need to hear.  Because life is not always nice.  Life is not always peaceful.  And sometimes it does not seem like everything’s all right at all.  In fact, sometimes, it seems like everything is all wrong.

            And the psalms recognize that.  Our psalm for today, psalm sixty-nine, recognizes that.  The person who wrote this psalm is not peaceful at all.  He’s in trouble.  Big trouble.

            We’re not told what the trouble is.  And I think that’s deliberate.  The author of the psalm does not want us to focus on the specific trouble.  He wants us to focus on his prayer to God.

            Look at how the author of the psalm describes his situation.  He is literally drowning in his troubles.  He says, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.  I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold.  I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.”

            Have you ever felt like that? Like your troubles are about to overwhelm you?  Like you’re going to drown in them.  Like if something or someone does not save you, you’re going to be swallowed up by your problems?

            I’m sure that some of us have.  I don’t know exactly who, and I don’t exactly what the problems were, but I know there are some of us who have felt that way.  Maybe there’s someone here who’s feeling that way now.  

And by the way, that feeling has nothing to do with the strength of our faith.  Even if we have a strong faith, even if we firmly believe in God and believe in Jesus as the Savior, we can still feel like our problems are overwhelming us.  So if you do feel that way, please don’t feel like there’s something wrong with you or that your faith is not strong enough.  Don’t add guilt to all the other things you’re feeling.  It won’t help, and I don’t think God wants you to do that to yourself.

            And sometimes that feeling can last for a long time.  It did for the author of the psalm.  He says he has been crying out for help for so long that he is worn out.  His throat is parched.  Think about that--calling for help for so long that you’ve literally given yourself a sore throat doing it.  Then he says that he’s been looking so hard for God that his eyes are beginning to fail.  And still, he cannot find God.  He cannot see God, and he does not hear God answering his cries for help.

            Again, I am sure that there are at least some people here who have felt that way.  And again, maybe you feel that way now.  Like you’ve been crying out to God, like you’ve been looking all over for God, and--no God.  No God anywhere.  You cannot hear Him, you cannot see Him.  It seems like God is nowhere to be found.

            It’s a bad feeling.  It’s a helpless feeling.  And again, it’s not a matter of faith being weak.  You still believe in God.  You still believe in Jesus as the Savior.  It’s just that--you feel cut off.  You know God is there--somewhere--but where?  Where?  And why can you not feel God there?  You know God would never abandon you, but--why is God not responding to you?  Why is God not helping?  Why does God not seem to be doing anything?  God has to see what’s going on.  And you know God has to care, but--it does not feel like God cares.  You know God loves you, but--you feel cut off from God’s love.

            So the question is:  what can we do?  What can we do when we feel this way?  What can we do when we feel like we’re drowning in our troubles, and we’ve asked God to save us, and it does not feel like God is doing anything.

            Well, let’s look at what the author of the psalm did.  First, he acknowledges that this is, at least to some extent, his own fault.  He says, “You, God, know my folly; my guilt is not hidden from you.”

            It’s important that we recognize that.  Not in a way of making ourselves feel guilty about it.  Again, we don’t need to add guilt to all the things we’re already going through.  But sometimes, when things are going badly, we’re tempted to play the victim.  We’re tempted to feel sorry for ourselves, to blame fate or bad luck or even God for what’s happened.  And there are times when bad things happen through no fault of our own.  But most of the time, we had something to do with the problems we have.  Even if we did not initially create them, there’s usually something we did to make them worse. And it’s important that we recognize that and confess it to God.  If we want God to rescue us from our situation, we need to acknowledge that we had something to do with making the situation what it is.

            The next thing the author of the psalm did is go to God humbly.  He says, “I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face.”  “I weep and fast.”  “I put on sackcloth.”  Weeping and fasting and wearing sackcloth were signs of humility and mourning.  The author of this psalm is going to God in complete humility.  He does not make demands of God.  He does not act like God owes him anything.  He is making it clear that he does not have a right to God’s favor or God’s love.  He does not have a right to expect God to help him.  But he is asking for God’s help anyway.

            He is asking for God to help him.  More than that, he is begging for God to help him.  Not because of who he is, but because of who God is.  Listen to what he says, “I pray to you, Lord, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation.  Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink...Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me.”

            The author of the psalm is not relying on his own goodness.  He is not relying on anything about himself.  He is not asking for help based on who he is.  He is asking for help based on who God is.  He is trusting in God’s love and God’s mercy.  He asks for God’s help because he trusts that God is love.

            And notice, the author of the psalm does not say specifically what he wants God to do.  Rescue him, yes, but not rescue him in any specific way.  He does not tell God what God should do to solve his problems.  In fact, he really does not even ask God to solve his problems at all.  He just asks God to rescue him.  Keep him from being overwhelmed.  Keep him from drowning in his problems.  He leaves it up to God how to do that.  Whatever way God uses will be fine with him.  Just rescue me.  Somehow.  In some way.  Keep me from being overwhelmed.  Rescue me.

            I know that some of us have been through what the author of this psalm is going through.  Some of us may be going through it now.  And some of us may go through it at some point in the future.  Again, not because we don’t have faith, but because life can be hard.  Things can go wrong.  Sometimes really wrong.  Sometimes, so wrong that we don’t see how they’re going to be right again.

            When that happens, know that God understands.  And remember the words of this psalm.  Do what the author of the psalm does.  Go to God.  And in going to God, acknowledge that at least part of what’s going on here is because of the things we, ourselves, have done--not to make ourselves feel guilty, but because we need to recognize our own responsibility.

            And when we go to God, we need to go to God humbly.  We don’t go to God because God owes it to us to help us.  We go to God, not trusting in our goodness, but trusting in God’s goodness.  We go to God, not asking God to do anything specific, but just asking God to do something to rescue us.  Not necessarily to solve all of our problems, but just to somehow, in some way, keep us from being overwhelmed by them.

            Life can be hard sometimes.  But God is good all the time.  While we’re in this world, we will have trouble.  But if we go to God humbly when the trouble comes, God will keep us from being overwhelmed by our trouble.  No matter how bad things seem, we can always rely on God.

 

Heart Condition

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Proverbs 15:13-18.

            How’s your heart?

            I don’t mean the physical condition of your heart, although that’s obviously important.  What I mean is, is your heart cheerful?  Is your heart joyful?  Or is your heart heavy?  Is your heart sad?  You know, the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, used to ask people, “How is it with your soul today?”  He could just as well have asked, “How is it with your heart today?”

            We’d like it to be well with our soul, as the song we heard Lauren Daigle sing says.  We’d like our hearts to be happy, to be cheerful.  But often they’re not, are they?

            Now, no one can be happy all the time.  Much as we might like to be, it’s really not possible.  In life, there are things that happen to us.  We mess up.  People get mad at us, sometimes people we care a lot about.  We have serious setbacks--in our health, in our finances, in our relationships, in our work, all kinds of things.  I mean, even Jesus had times when he was down, so you and I have to expect it to happen sometimes, too.

            But even in those times, there’s an extent to which we can say it’s well with our soul.  There’s an extent to which we can still have a cheerful heart, a happy heart.  And our reading tonight, from the book of Proverbs, gives us some help in doing that.

            First, it tells us why this is something we should try to have.  It tells us that “a happy heart makes the face cheerful” and “the cheerful heart has a continual feast.”  And we all want that.  So how do we get it?

            It says, “The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.”  So there’s the first thing that will help us have a cheerful heart--knowledge.

            But knowledge of what?  I mean, they say that all knowledge is useful, and I suppose to an extent it is, but I know a lot about baseball, and I know a lot about ‘70s music, but I don’t know that it really helps me in life a whole lot.  It does make my heart happy, in some ways, but it’s a fleeting happiness.  That sort of knowledge is not the kind of thing that really gives us the long-lasting sort of cheerful heart the author of the Proverbs is writing about.

            What the discerning heart seeks knowledge of, really, is knowledge of God.  Not a full understanding of God, of course--human beings are not capable of that.  But knowledge of the greatness of God.  Knowledge of the goodness of God.  Knowledge of how much God loves us and cares about us.  Knowledge of the forgiveness and grace and mercy of God.  Knowledge of the chance for salvation and eternal life that is available through faith in God and in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            That kind of knowledge will make our hearts cheerful, no matter what the circumstances are.  How can we not have cheerful hearts, when we think about all that?  I’ve talked about this before, but it truly is an amazing thing to think about.  Think about who God is.  God is all-powerful.  God is almighty.  God is all-seeing.  God is all-knowing.  God is all-wise.  God is righteous.  God is holy.  God is perfect.

            Think about who we are compared to God.  Human beings are weak.  All of us are.  The president of the United States--regardless of who it is--is sometimes referred to as “the most powerful man on earth”.  God laughs at a statement like that.  The most powerful man on earth is nothing compared to God.  

            Think about the other things we are.  We have trouble seeing beyond next week.  We don’t know much of anything, really--if we did, a virus would not be causing the problems that it does.  The Bible tells us that God considers human wisdom to be foolishness.  And we human beings are certainly not righteous, or holy, or perfect.  Not even close.

            God is so far above and beyond anything we are or could ever hope to be.  There’s no comparison even to be made.  And yet, God loves us.  God loves us so much that God gives us the chance for salvation and eternal life.  God gives us the chance to go to heaven and with Him, to be in God’s presence even though that’s the last place we deserve to be.

            And God loves us so much that God does not even ask us to do anything hard to go to heaven.  We don’t have to live perfect lives or memorize the Bible or anything like that.  All we need to do is accept Jesus Christ as the Savior.  That’s it.  If we do that, God gives us salvation and eternal life in heaven.  That’s some incredible love.  Knowing that, how can we not have happy and cheerful hearts?  What greater thing could there ever be than that?

            That knowledge of the love of God, that assurance of salvation and eternal life, are all we really need.  They’re worth more than anything this world could ever offer us.  Listen to this:  “Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.”

            Now, I know that no one here is wealthy.  But we dream of it, don’t we?  That’s why things like the lottery are so popular.  When the Powerball gets way up there, almost everyone buys a ticket.  We have that dream of hitting it big, of having more money than we know what to do with.  And yet, if we did hit the lottery, would it really make us happy?  

Probably not.  We would still have problems.  Maybe not financial problems--and yet, we’d still have those, too, don’t you think?  We’d be worried about what to do with the money.  We’d have people coming to us all the time, wanting us to give them some or loan them some.  We’d be worried about how to invest it properly, so we did not lose it.  And even if we were trying really hard to do what’s right and handle it the way God wants us to, how do we do that?  There are so many worthy causes out there.  How do you choose?  The money would cause us all kinds of problems.  And of course, we’d still have all the other problems of life--health-wise, relationship-wise, all the other things that come with life.

Happiness--true happiness--can only come from inside ourselves.  And it can only come from inside ourselves if God’s Holy Spirit is inside us.  And that’s where the love comes from.  Listen to the next line:  “better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred.”

We can only have happy, cheerful hearts through love--the love we receive from God, and the love we give to others.  Money will not do it for us.  A fancy house won’t do it for us.  Huge meals won’t do it for us.  Having fun and enjoying life won’t even do it for us.  Because, at the end of the day, and at the end of our lives, none of it means anything.  The only thing that really means anything, the only thing that will give us happy, cheerful hearts throughout all of our lives--is love.  

It’s really kind of sad, you know?  We see so many people looking in so many places for happiness.  They think, “If only I had this, then I’d be happy”  “If only that happened, then I’d be happy.”  If only I lived in this place, if I had these things, if I got this job, then I’d be happy.  They keep looking for happiness somewhere else.  And when they get somewhere else, they’re not happy.  And so they look in another place.  And another.  And another.  And they never find it.  Sometimes people search for their entire lives for happiness and never find it.  That’s really sad.

And what’s sadder still is that the happiness they’re looking for is right there in front of them.  It’s right there, and they cannot see it.  All they need to do is trust God.  All they need to do is accept Jesus as the Savior.  All they need to do is invite God’s Holy Spirit to come in.  The happy, cheerful heart they want is available to them.  In fact, God is eager to give it to them.  God wants nothing more than to give it to them.  But they cannot see it, and so they don’t take it.  It’s very sad.

But the good news is that it’s not too late.  As long as we’re on this earth, it’s never too late.  So if you don’t have a happy, cheerful heart, and you want one, now’s your chance.  Trust God.  Accept Jesus as the Savior.  Invite God’s Holy Spirit to come into your heart.  Let God’s Holy Spirit lead you and guide you.  Feel the incredible love God has for you.  Accept the incredible love God has for you.  And then, after you’ve accepted that love, share it with others.

“The cheerful heart has a continual feast.”  That continual feast is available to you.  Don’t wait until later.  Let’s dig into that feast now.  Tonight.

 

Repaying Evil

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 17, 2021.  The Bible verses used are 1 Peter 3:8-18.

            I don’t know how many of you are on facebook, but if you are, you’ve noticed that every once in a while there’ll be a saying that just takes off, “goes viral” as they say, so that you’re seeing it everywhere.  There’s one that’s been going around for quite a while know that is a quote from the singer Eminem.  It said, “I don't care if you're black, white, straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor. If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you. Simple as that.”

            We like that.  It sounds really good.  It sounds really inclusive, right?  I’ll accept you however you are.  Whatever you are, it’s okay, as long as you’re nice.  What a great attitude!

            The trouble is, it’s not really a Christian attitude.  What I’m talking about is the part that says, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”  Because the implication is that if you’re not nice to me, I don’t have to be nice to you.  I can treat you in exactly the same way you treat me, whether it’s good or whether it’s bad.

            Jesus said, “Do to others as you would like them do to you.”  Not do to others as they do to you.  Do to others as you’d like them to do to you.  In other words, we’re not supposed to treat people the way they treat us.  We’re supposed to treat people the way we’d like them to treat us.  Jesus said that if someone demands our shirt, we should give them our coat, too.  Jesus said if we’re hit on one cheek, we should turn the other to them.  Jesus said we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

            In our reading for today, Peter says something similar.  Peter says, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult.  On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

            That’s a really hard thing to do.  I’ll tell you right out that there are plenty of times I don’t do it.  There are plenty of times I don’t repay evil with blessing.  There are times I don’t repay blessing with blessing.  It’s a really hard thing to do.

            Peter goes on to talk about why we should do this.  And this is important, because I think we get it wrong sometimes.  

I remember the stories I heard when I was a little kid.  I don’t know if you got the same stories when you were a little kid that I did, but a lot of times in those stories, the hero of the story, the nice guy, goes to the bad guy, to the bully, and treats him or her with kindness and respect, and as a result the bully changes his or her behavior and becomes nice.  

Well, it’d be great if real life worked that way, and maybe sometimes it does, but there are a lot of times when it does not.  In real life there are a lot of times when we treat the bully with kindness and respect and the bully just takes advantage of the situation and bullies us farther.

Peter did not tell us to repay evil with blessing because that will make the evil person change their ways.  It might, or it might not.  If it does, that’s wonderful.  But that’s not why we’re supposed to repay evil with blessing.  The reason we are supposed to repay evil with blessing is because it’s the right thing to do.  It’s what the Lord wants us to do.  And it’s what Jesus actually did.  

Not only may doing that not change anyone, Peter said that we may actually suffer for repaying evil with blessing.  But he said that if we do, we don’t need to worry about it.  We’re in good company.  Jesus did that, too.  Jesus suffered, and even died, for our sins.  Jesus suffered the ultimate evil, and he repaid it with the ultimate blessing.

The only reason we’re supposed to do this is because it’s the right thing to do. Jesus showed us that.  Peter says that for our trouble, we may have people talk about us.  They may say all kinds of stuff about us that’s untrue.  They may even threaten us.  But Peter says it’s okay.  He says it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

            Still, of all the things the Bible tells us to do, I think this may be the hardest.  We like the gospel according to Eminem a lot better.  We like the gospel that says, “If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you.”  That’s a lot easier than the gospel that says, “If you’re a jerk to me, if you threaten me, if you talk about me behind my back, I’ll still be nice to you.”  We know it’s what we’re supposed to do.  But it’s really hard to do it.

            I wish I had a nice, simple way that made it easy for us.  I don’t.  As I said, I struggle with this as much as anyone.  So, instead, what I’m going to do is talk about some things, that, when if really think about them, might help us do these things.  Here they are.

            One of them is to remember that we don’t know someone else’s story.  All of us are shaped by a lot of things.  The family we grew up in.  The place we grew up in.  The people around us when we were growing up.  The experiences we’ve had since we got older.  The jobs we’ve held.  The people we’ve worked with.  The places we’ve lived.  The things we’ve gotten involved in.  The chances we’ve had.  These and all kinds of other things all contribute to make us who we are.

            And that can be for good or for bad.  If I’d grown up in a different family, if I’d grown up in a city rather than on the farm, if I’d grown up with more money or with less money, if I’d been better looking or worse looking, if I’d been more athletic, if I’d gone to school in a different place, if I’d gotten a different job, if I’d never met Wanda, I might be different in a lot of ways.  I don’t know what those ways are.  I might be better or I might be worse.  There’s no way to know.

            And there’s no way to know about other people, either.  So when we run into people who treat us badly, who are not nice to us, who basically act like jerks, we need to remember that.  We need to remember that we don’t know what went into making them that way.  That does not justify bad behavior, but it can make us more understanding of bad behavior.  It can help us make allowances for people and treat them well even when they don’t treat us well.

            Another thing we need to remember is that all of us, each and every one, are God’s children.  That’s true of the nicest person you’ve ever met, and it’s true of the biggest jerk on the planet.  Each one of us is one of God’s children.  That means that every person we see is our brother or our sister.

            That can help.  It can help when we’re dealing with someone we’d rather not have to deal with.  It can help us to remember that God loves that person every bit as much as God loves me.  After all, we say that nothing can separates us from the love of God, right?  So nothing can separate other people from the love of God, too.  That person we don’t like, that person who did not treat us well--that person’s a child of God, just like we are.  That person is our brother.  That person is our sister.  Again, that does not excuse bad behavior.  But it does help us remember that we need to treat each person with respect and love, no matter what they say and no matter how they act, because they’re family, just like we’re family.  We’re all part of the family of God.

            There’s one other thing that helps, too.  It helps when we remember that we claim to be Christians.  Because as Christians, we don’t follow some other human being.  We follow Jesus Christ.  And Jesus Christ did not say, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”  Jesus said you can curse me and I’ll love you.  Jesus said you can beat me and torture me and I’ll forgive you.  Jesus said you can kill me and I’ll die so your sins can be forgiven.

            If Jesus had said, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you,” none of us would be saved.  Because none of us has been nice to Jesus.  Oh, maybe sometimes we are, but not always.  There are a lot of times we ignore Jesus.  There are a lot of times we pay no attention to Jesus at all.  In fact, there are plenty of times we deliberately do not do what Jesus told us to do.  If Jesus had said, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you”, we’d all be lost.

            But Jesus did not say that.  And as people who claim to follow Jesus, we should not say it, either.  You and I, as followers of Jesus, are called to love everyone.  Even the people who we think don’t deserve our love.  After all, Jesus loves us, and we don’t deserve his love.

            So let’s try to love everyone the way Jesus loves them.  Is that a tough standard?  Yes.  Will we always meet it?  No.  But we can try.  And we can keep trying.  Let’s not just be nice to people who are nice to us.  Let’s show Jesus’ love to everyone.  If we do, we’ll be a lot closer to being the people God wants us to be.

 

God's Love, Our Hope

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 51.

            One of the most important parts of the Christian faith is hope.  The Apostle Paul says that God is a God of hope.  He also says that, in the end, there are three things that will remain:  faith, hope, and love.  He says the most important of them is love, but faith and hope are very important, too.

Our psalm for tonight shows us why hope is so important.  Look at what the author of the psalm says about himself.  He says, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”  He says he has done what is evil in God’s sight.  He says that he was sinful from birth, and in fact he was sinful before he was born, because he says he was “sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

            That’s someone with a pretty low opinion of himself.  The author of that psalm is definitely not trying to make anyone think he’s better than he is.  He’s not trying to fool anyone.  He’s not even trying to fool himself, which is always a temptation.  He is quite honest about who he is and what he has done.

            Can you relate to that?  There are times when I can.  I mean, I like to think of myself as a pretty good person, but when I’m honest with myself I know I fail a lot.  I know there are plenty of sins I commit over and over again, every single day.  I know I’m every bit as much a sinner as anyone else, and probably more so than a lot of people.

            When we think of ourselves that way, it can be easy to get discouraged, even depressed.  And when you look at the author of the psalm’s description of himself, you might think he’d feel that way, too.  Again, he says he’s been a sinner since he was conceived, he has done evil, he’s always being confronted with his own sin.  It’s no fun to think of yourself that way.  And yet, the author of the psalm is not discouraged or depressed at all.  He cries out to God, but not in desperation or despair.  The author of this psalm cries out to God in hope.

            He hopes for mercy--the psalm starts off by saying “Have mercy on me, O Lord, according to your unfailing love.”  He prays that God will “wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”

            The author of the psalm says this in complete hope.  He knows he’s a sinner.  He knows God has no obligation to have mercy on him or do anything for him at all.  And yet, he has every hope that God will have mercy on him.  It’s not a forlorn, desperate hope.  It’s a completely confident hope.  He has said all these terrible things about himself, and yet he says to God, “Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow.”  

            And in fact, he has more hope than that.  He believes that God can do more than just wash away his sins.  He believes God can make him a completely different person.  Listen to this:  “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me...Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”  

            Think about all the things the author of this psalm is saying.  He knows he’s a sinner.  He knows he’s failed.  He knows he has no right to expect anything from God.  And yet he asks all these things of God, and he asks them in complete confidence, without fear.  He is completely hopeful that God is going to do what he has asked.  He believes God will have mercy on him, God will wash away his sins, and God will make him a new person, a person with a right and willing spirit.

            Can you relate to that?  That one might be a little tougher.  Do we have enough trust in God to believe that God will do those things for us?  Do we trust God enough to believe God will have mercy on us?  Do we believe God will wash away our sins?  Do we believe God will truly make us new people, people with a right and willing spirit?

            It can be hard to trust God that much.  It’s hard because we know we don’t deserve those things from God.  And we know God has no obligation to give them to us.  There is no real reason for God to have mercy on us and wash away our sins and make us new people.  And so it can be hard to believe that God will actually do that for us.

            And so the question is, do we really believe that God loves us?  Because that’s the only reason God would have to do those things for us--love.  In fact, it shows how faith, hope, and love are related, because it’s our faith in God’s love that gives us hope.  The only way we can believe that God would have mercy on us and wash away our sins and make us new people is if we believe God loves us.

            So, do we believe God loves us?  Do you believe that God loves you?

            That’s not always easy, either.  We’ve said that God is not obligated to do anything for us.  So God does not have an obligation to love us.  And we know that we have done nothing to earn God’s love.  So why should God love us?

            The thing is, love is never something we earn.  If someone says, “I’ll love you as long as you do this and that and something else”, that’s not really love.  That’s a business transaction, a quid pro quo.  Love, to be love, is always a gift.  Love has to be a gift.  It’s not something we deserve.  It’s something we’re given, freely and willingly, with no expectation of anything in return.

            That’s the kind of love God gives us.  But still, it can be hard to believe it.  If it’s hard for you, think about this.

            If you think about it, love is the only reason that God would’ve created us at all.  What other reason could there be?  God is complete in and of Himself.  There’s nothing we can do for God that God cannot do without us.  In fact, God could probably do everything better and easier without us--the chances are we just mess things up and get in the way.  God does not need us at all.  And God was complete in heaven.  Yet, God created all this other stuff, all this stuff that God, in and of Himself did not need.  God created the universe.  God created the earth.  God created the land and the oceans and the plants and the fish--and everything else. 

God did all of that--for us.  For you and for me.  So we would have life.  So we would have a place to live that life.  So we would have food to eat and clothes to wear and everything else.  And God created lots of us, so we could always have someone to love and so we could always have someone who loved us.  So we would never have to be alone.  God created all of this just for us.  It’s all God’s gift to us.  The only reason for God to do that is love.  

            Our knowledge of God’s love is what gives us hope.  A God who loves us will always show us mercy, if we go to God and sincerely ask for it.  A God who loves us will always forgive our sins and wash them away, if we go to God and sincerely ask for that forgiveness.  A God who loves us will always give us another chance to be new people, the people God wants us to be, if we’re truly willing to take that chance.

            God wants to create a clean heart in us.  God wants to grant us a willing spirit.  If we truly want those things, God will always give them to us, because God loves us.

            God will give them to us, but we need to be willing to receive them.  And the way we show that is by doing what the author of the psalm does--offer God our hearts.  He says, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”

            The way we receive that clean heart is to give it to God.  The way to have a willing spirit is to join our spirit with God’s Holy Spirit.  If we are willing to allow God to lead us, if we are willing to surrender our desires to God’s desires, if we are willing to give up our own will to follow God’s will, if we really mean what we say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done”, then we will have that clean heart and that willing spirit.

            That does not mean we’ll suddenly be perfect.  We won’t be, not while we’re on earth.  Even if we truly desire to let God lead us and surrender to God’s will, there will still be times when we mess up.  We will always have to battle our own sinful nature, and no matter how hard we try to we’ll still slip sometimes.  But when we do, we simply need to ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness again.  And we can ask that in confident hope, knowing that God loves us and that God will give those things to us if we ask for them sincerely and willingly.  And God will give us yet another chance to be the new people God wants us to be.

            You and I can always rely on God’s love.  It’s a love that gives us hope.  It’s a love we can count on.  It’s a love that we always be there for us, because it’s a love that’s given to us as a gift from God.

 

The Example of Stephen

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 10, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Acts 6:8-15; 7-1, 51-60.

            The stoning of Stephen.  Older Christians will probably remember hearing about it, but it’s a story we don’t seem to talk about much anymore.  Most church school materials don’t talk about it.  When I googled it, the most recent church school lesson I could find on it was dated 2010.  There are not many Bible studies on it, and most of them are old, too.  I don’t remember the last time I heard a sermon preached on it.  And I’m guilty of being part of that, because I don’t believe I’ve ever preached on it before, either.  But it’s an important story.  And given the state of the world, it’s a story that may become more and more relevant to us as Christians.

            We don’t know anything of Stephen’s backstory.  He’s first introduced to us just a few verses before what we read today.  He’s one of seven people that the twelve apostles choose to oversee the distribution of food among the followers of Jesus, so that the twelve can devote themselves to ministry.  Stephen is described as “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”.  And that’s all we learn of Stephen until the verses we read today.

            As we read it, some of you probably thought of some parallels to the story of Jesus.  Stephen was “full of God’s grace and power” and he “performed great wonders and signs among the people”.  We don’t know what kind of wonders and signs.  Did he heal people the way Jesus did?  Did he feed people the way Jesus did?  Could he drive out demons, calm a storm, turn water into wine?  We don’t know.  But whatever they were, they must have been pretty impressive.

            Opposition arose to Stephen among the religious leaders of the time, just as it did with Jesus.  And just as with Jesus, these religious leaders tried to argue with Stephen.  And they had about as much success arguing with Stephen as they had arguing with Jesus, which is to say none at all.  Stephen had the wisdom of the Holy Spirit behind him, and there’s no greater wisdom than that.  So Stephen won all the arguments.

            And so, just as with Jesus, the religious authorities made up some stuff against Stephen.  They accused him of blasphemy.  They hauled him in front of the Jewish court, the Sanhedrin.  And again, just as with Jesus, the religious authorities stirred up the people and produced a bunch of witnesses to lie about what Stephen had said and done.  

            And as all this is happening, people look over at Stephen.  And we’re told “his face was like the face of an angel.”

            We don’t really know exactly what that means.  After all, none of us has ever actually seen the face of an angel, so we don’t know what that would look like.  It could mean that there was some physical change in Stephen, that his face took on some sort of unearthly glow, like we’re told happened to Moses after he would be in God’s presence.  That’s possible, but I don’t think so.  We’ll come back to that.

            But Stephen is sitting there, listening to all these lies.  And finally, the high priest asks Stephen, “Are these charges true?”  

            This is where the parallel to the story of Jesus breaks down.  Jesus, as you may remember, made no attempt to answer the charges against him.  He was silent.  Stephen was not silent.  Stephen makes a fairly long speech.  We just read the end of it.  He goes back through the history of Israel, starting with Abraham, then Joseph, then Moses.  He talks about how the people rejected Moses, and by doing so rejected God, and so God turned away from them.  

And then Stephen says the part we read.  He tells them that they are just like their ancestors.  He calls them “stiff-necked people” who are resisting God’s Holy Spirit.  He tells them that they and their ancestors have prosecuted every prophet God ever gave them.  They killed the one who predicted the coming of the Messiah.  And then, then killed the Messiah himself.  

Now, Stephen was not a fool.  When he said this, he knew what the reaction of the religious authorities would be.  He knew that he was pretty much condemning himself to death by saying what he said.  But he said it anyway.  

Like Jesus, Stephen could have avoided death.  He could have compromised.  He could have recognized the authority of the religious leaders.  He could have backed off, backed down, soft-pedaled things.  But, like Jesus, he would not do it.  God’s Holy Spirit had led him to do what he did and say what he said.  And Stephen was not going to compromise or soft-pedal what God’s Holy Spirit had led him to do.  Stephen was going to follow God’s Holy Spirit wherever it led him.  I think that’s why Stephen’s face was like the face of an angel.  He was at peace, a heavenly peace, because he knew he was following God’s Holy Spirit.  He would follow the Holy Spirit wherever it led him.  Even if it led him to his death.

We admire Stephen for that, of course.  But, as I said, we don’t really talk about his story very often.  I wonder if the reason why is that the story of Stephen convicts us.  We see Stephen’s incredible faith in Jesus, a faith that was so strong that he was willing to die for it.  And we admire Stephen for the strength of his faith.  But thinking about the strength of Stephen’s faith makes many of us realize how much weaker our own faith is.

Now, I don’t mean to judge anyone, and I don’t mean to criticize anyone.  The only ones who know how strong your faith is are you and God.  But could you do what Stephen did?  Could you stand up in front of a hostile group of powerful people, and openly proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?  Could you do that, knowing that these people you’re talking to have the power to kill you, and in fact probably will kill you after they hear what you’ve said?

You’ll have to answer that question for yourself.  And maybe it’s a question we cannot answer for sure until we’re in the situation.  Speaking just for myself, I very highly doubt that I could do what Stephen did.  I’d like to think I could.  I wish I had that much courage.  I wish I had that much faith.  But if I’m honest, I’m pretty skeptical about it.  I doubt that I could do it.

Let’s look at it another way.  Suppose we took the threat of death out of it.  Could you just stand up in front of a hostile group of people and proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?  

Suppose we took the hostility out of it.  Suppose the group is neutral.  Could you just stand up in front of a group of people and proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?

In fact, let’s take it still farther.  Suppose the group is a group of your friends.  Could you stand up in front of a group of your friends and proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?  And if your answer is yes, here’s another question.  When’s the last time you actually did that?

Again, my point is not to judge you.  I’m not saying we’re all going to hell if we cannot do these things.  And also, I cannot presume to know the answer for you.  I hope you’re better at this than I am.  I don’t doubt that some of you are.

But here’s the thing.  We think about these questions, and we think of them as hypothetical.  We think of them as theoretical.  We don’t really think our faith will ever be tested in this way.  And so we don’t worry about it very much.

And maybe our faith won’t be tested in this way.  Living out here, in our small towns in the middle of South Dakota, there’s probably a pretty good chance that it won’t.  A pretty good chance--but I would not say a zero chance.

There are people all over the world who are having their faith tested in ways they never thought possible.  And it’s not just people in places half-way around the world.  There are pastors in Canada who have been jailed for holding church services that the government did not approve of.  There are pastors in the United States who have been threatened with jail, and with large fines, for holding church services that the government did not approve of.  We want to think it cannot happen here, but there is no reason it cannot.  The people in the places where it did happen probably thought it could not happen there, too.  But it can.  It can happen anywhere.

Are you ready for it, if it does happen?  Am I ready for it, if it does happen?  Again, I cannot answer for you.  But for me, the answer is, probably not.  I don’t think I’m ready for it, if it happens.  So what can we do to get ready?

Stephen was able to do this because he was “filled with the Holy Spirit”.  So if we want to have the courage Stephen had, if we want to have the courage God wants us to have, we, too, need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That’s something we pray for.  We pray for it every time we take Communion--part of our Communion liturgy asks that God’s Holy Spirit be poured out onto us.  We pray for it at various other times, too.  

We pray for it--but are we really serious about it?  Do we really want to be filled with God’s Holy Spirit?  Or do we really want to do things our own way, and just have God’s Holy Spirit in the background, something to rely on to bail us out when we get into a tough spot?  

The reason Stephen was filled with God’s Holy Spirit is because he was obedient to God’s Holy Spirit.  He had decided that he was not going to do things his own way.  He was not going to wait until he got into a tough spot to call on God’s Holy Spirit.  He was going to live his entire life, every bit of it, being obedient to God’s Holy Spirit.  Again, he was going to do what the Holy Spirit told him to do, and say what God’s Holy Spirit told him to say, regardless of the consequences.

So it seems to me that’s where it starts--with a decision.  A decision to follow God’s Holy Spirit, no matter what the consequences might be.

We make that decision not fully understanding what the consequences might be.  When Stephen first made that decision, he probably did not fully understand the consequences, either.  He probably did not realize that the decision he made was going to lead to his death on earth.  But he made it anyway.  And because he had made that decision, he was able to follow through on it, even at the cost of his life.

It’s not an easy decision.  It was probably not an easy decision for Stephen.  It’s not an easy decision for us.  But we need to think about it.  We need to pray about it.  And we need to do what we can to get ready.  Because if we wait until the test actually comes, it may be too late.

Stephen’s faith is an example to us.  May we follow his example, and have the courage he had.  May we decide to follow God’s Holy Spirit, no matter what the consequences may be.

 

The Key to Peace

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on October 3, 2021.  The Bible verses used are John 14:23-27.

            Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

            That is one of the most wonderful thoughts in the whole Bible, don’t you think?  To be at peace.  To feel the peace of Jesus Christ in our lives.  To live lives that are at peace.

            Do you feel that peace?  I hope you do.  I hope we all do.  But I doubt it.  Not all the time anyway.  Maybe sometimes we do, but I suspect a lot of times we don’t.  

And don’t get me wrong, that’s not a criticism of anyone.  It’s just that life throws an awful lot of things at us.  Life can be stressful, for all kinds of reasons.  We have health concerns.  We have relationship concerns.  We have concerns about our families.  We have concerns about our finances.  We have concerns about our jobs.  We wonder if our lives are really making any kind of a positive difference.  We wonder if our lives matter, whether anyone would even notice if we were gone.  

And that just scratches the surface.  There are all kinds of ways in which life is very stressful.  And when we undergo all that stress, it’s really hard to feel any kind of peace.  We hear those words of Jesus, and they sound really good, but--they also seem kind of impossible.  It sounds great in theory, but in practice, that kind of peace just seems like something that’s never going to happen to us.

It may have sounded impossible to the disciples, too.  Jesus said this to them just before he went out to the garden of Gethsemane.  Judas had already left, on his way to betray Jesus.  The disciples did not know that at the time, but they did know that they were in danger.  In a little while, Jesus would be arrested, beaten, and killed.

I assume, when that happened, that the disciples thought back on this, this last evening they had spent with Jesus.  And they thought of Jesus’ statement about peace.  And they must have thought:  Peace?  How in the world can we feel peace?  The Messiah, the Savior, has been killed.  And they may be coming for us next.  It feels like we’ll never have peace in our lives again.

But if they thought about it some more, they may have realized that Jesus gave them the key to how they could feel that peace.  He gave it to us, too.  It was in the first two sentences we read tonight.  “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The key to feeling the peace of Christ is loving Jesus.  And the key to loving Jesus is to obey his teaching.  If we obey Jesus’ teaching, God will be with us, and we will have peace.

Simple, right?  Well, in a way, yes.  It is simple.  It’s just not easy.  

We’ve talked about this a few times, but Jesus’ teachings are not always things that are easy to obey.  Jesus told us to do things like love our enemies.  Jesus told us that if someone takes something from us, not only should we not ask for it back, we should give them more.  Jesus told us that we must deny ourselves and take up a cross to follow him.  Jesus said we should expect the world to hate us, just like it hated him.  

Those are all hard things for us to do.  They are for me, anyway.  There are lots of times I don’t feel like loving my enemies, even though I know I should.  If someone takes something from me, I sure want it back.  And I sure don’t want to give them some more.  There are some ways in which I can deny myself, but there are a lot of ways in which I don’t, and I really don’t have much desire to.  

And I most definitely don’t want to be hated.  I don’t know anyone who does.  I’ve never been this super outgoing person who’s always surrounded by his posse or something, but I do like it when people like me.  And I don’t like it when they hate me.  And I really don’t know anyone who does.

This is, as they used to say, where the rubber meets the road.  Because I suspect all of us here would say that we love Jesus.  One of our favorite old hymns is “Oh, How I Love Jesus”.  But do we?  Do we really love Jesus?  Because Jesus said if we love him, we’ll obey his teaching.  If we don’t want to obey Jesus’ teaching, can we really say that we love Jesus?

This is why it’s hard.  We want to feel the peace of Jesus Christ, the peace that he promises us.  But a lot of times, we really don’t want to do what it takes to get that peace.  We want to find a shortcut.  We want to find a way to get the benefits of feeling the peace of Christ without having to pay the price.  And Jesus says it does not work that way.  So what do we do?

Well, here’s the good news about this.  Jesus knew this was going to be hard for us.  Jesus knew, quite frankly, that a lot of us would find it impossible.  In fact, some of the disciples might have found it impossible.  So, Jesus told us we do not have to do it by ourselves.  

Listen to what else Jesus said:  “All this I have spoken while still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

Jesus did not just leave us to do these things on our own.  When Jesus left, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, came.  And the Holy Spirit will teach us how to do this.  The Holy Spirit will teach us how to obey Jesus’ teaching.  The Holy Spirit will teach us how to love Jesus.

And so, we come back to what it seems like we come back to so many times:  God’s Holy Spirit.  We need to open our hearts and open our souls to God’s Holy Spirit.  We need to feel God’s Holy Spirit with us.  We need God’s Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us and teach us.  That’s the only way we can obey Jesus’ teaching.  And that’s the only way we can feel the peace of Jesus Christ.

If we have God’s Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us and teach us, we will be able to do all the things Jesus taught us to do.  We will be able to love our enemies.  Our possessions won’t be so important to us--we will know that God will take care of us and will give us what we need.  We will be able to deny ourselves, because our focus won’t be on ourselves, it will be on Christ.  We won’t care what the world thinks about us, because we will know we have the love of Jesus Christ, and that’s all we really need.  And that will give us peace.

Now, I don’t want to sound like this is some kind of magic formula.  Again, it’s simple, but it’s not easy.  God’s Holy Spirit will do all this for us, but we have to allow Him to do that for us.  God’s Holy Spirit will not force His way in.  We need to invite Him in.

And the best way I know to do that is to pray.  Now, I don’t want to sound like prayer is some kind of magic formula, either.  It’s not like all we have to do is say a quick prayer and boom!--God’s Holy Spirit comes in.  It’s not that easy.

At least, it’s never been that easy for me.  If it is for you, that’s awesome--I don’t mean to be limiting what God can do.  But for me, it’s always been a process.  I pray for God’s Holy Spirit, and over time, I start to feel God’s Holy Spirit.  I start to feel peace.  And then, I let the doubts and the worries and the fears come in, and I start pushing God’s Holy Spirit away.  So, I need to spend more time praying for God’s Holy Spirit.  And, over time, I start to feel God’s Holy Spirit again.  But for me, at least, it takes time.  And sometimes it’s a matter of two steps forward and one step back.  Or maybe one step forward and two steps back.

But it’s a process, and it takes time.  If it does not work that way for you, if you can feel God’s Holy Spirit instantly and never stop feeling Him, that’s great.  But if you’re more like me, where it’s a process that takes time, I want to tell you this--don’t give up.  Keep at it.  Stay in the process.  Even when it feels like you’re taking steps back--even when it feels like you’ve taken a lot of steps back--keep at it.  Keep praying for God’s Holy Spirit to come to you.  It’s worth the effort.

  If we keep praying for God’s Holy Spirit to come into our hearts and into our souls, eventually, we will feel that.  We will feel God’s Holy Spirit as part of our lives.  Then we’ll be able to do the things Jesus told us to do.  We’ll be able to obey Jesus’ teaching.  We will love Jesus.  And we will have peace.  It may take some determination, some persistence, on our part.  But having the peace of Jesus Christ in our lives is more than worth it.

 

The Best Way to Show Love

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 3, 2021.  The Bible verses used are 1 John 5:1-12.

            What would you say is the best way you and I can show love to people?

            Well, there might be a lot of things.  We can go visit someone who’s going through a hard time.  We can support the local food pantry, doing what we can to see that people have enough to eat.  We can give someone a ride to the doctor’s office when they’re not feeling well.  On a larger scale, we can give to charities that feed people or provide clothes for people.  In a United Methodist sense, we have UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, which helps people in the wake of natural disasters around the world.  We also, of course, can give to our local church, and I hope you feel confident that it will use the money wisely.  

            And of course, this only scratches the surface.  There are all kinds of things we can do to show love to people.  If we really thought about it, we could use the entire time left in worship coming up with ways to show love to people, and we still would not come close to listing them all.

            But, while those are all good things, none of those things is the best way to show love to someone.  The best way to show love to someone is to do whatever we can to help them accept Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            The Apostle John, in our reading for today, wrote this:  “This is how we know we love the children of God:  by loving God and carrying out his commands.”  Let’s think about that for a minute.  The way we know we love the children of God, is by loving God, and carrying out his commands.  So, if we don’t love God and carry out his commands, we don’t really love the children of God.

            And maybe you’re thinking, now wait a minute.  I know people who don’t love God.  I know people who don’t even believe in God.  And yet, those people are good to their families, their good to their friends, they support the community, they even help people in need sometimes.  They may not believe in God, but they do all kinds of good things, things that help people.  How can you say they don’t love the children of God?

            Well, first of all, it’s not me saying it.  It’s the Apostle John saying it.  But again, let’s think about this.  I also know people like those I’ve just described.  I know people who don’t believe in God, and yet do all kinds of good things in the community and help people in all kinds of ways.  And that’s fine.  I’m glad they do those things.

            But those things, while they are good things, only help us in our lives on earth.  They help make our time on earth a little better, a little easier.  But that’s all they do.  

            That’s not nothing, of course.  But you know, our lives on earth are short.  Maybe a hundred years or so, at the most.  For some of you younger people, maybe that sounds like a long time, but it really is not.  In fact, which each passing year, I realize more and more just how short one hundred years really is.  

            And compared to eternity, one hundred years is basically nothing.  The Bible tells us that a thousand years are like a day to God.  What’s a hundred years?  A long lunch?  A hundred years is the blink of an eye compared to eternity.

            If we don’t love God, our entire focus will be on the world.  And again, I’m not saying what happens in this world is unimportant.  When we have the chance to help someone in this world, we should.  That shows love for God, too.  What I am saying--and what I think John is saying--is that our main focus should not be on this world.  Our main focus should be on eternity.

            That’s why John goes on to say this:  “everyone who is born of God overcomes the world.  This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world?  Only the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God.”

            Again, we should help each other in this world whenever we can.  But as Christians, our main focus is not on what happens in this world.  Our focus is to overcome the world.  And our focus is to do whatever we can to help others overcome the world, too.

            Think about the life of Jesus Christ, while he was on the earth.  Jesus healed a lot of people, and that was awesome.  But think about those stories of Jesus’ healing.  Jesus would heal people for a while, but then he would stop.  

There were more people he could’ve healed.  We’re told at various times that people from all over would bring people to Jesus to be healed.  Jesus could’ve spent his entire time here on earth doing nothing but healing people, and he would never have run out of them.  There would still have been more people who needed healing.

And the same goes for feeding people.  We read about times when Jesus fed large numbers of people with just a little bit of bread and a few fish.  And that was awesome, too.  But again, there were lots of hungry people Jesus did not feed.  He could’ve spent his entire time on earth doing nothing but feeding people, too, and he’d never have run out of hungry people.

But Jesus did not do that.  He did not spend his entire time on earth healing people and feeding people.  Why not?  Those would’ve been really good things for him to do.  Think of all the people he’d have helped.  Think of how many people’s lives he would’ve made better.  Why not do it?

The reason, I think, is because if Jesus had done that, the message of salvation and eternal life would’ve been lost.  People would’ve believed in Jesus--but they’d have believed in him as a miracle worker.  They would not have believed in him as the divine Son of God.

Plus, if Jesus had done that, he might not have been killed by the Pharisees.  Maybe he would have--you never know.  But a guy who was just a miracle worker, a guy who could just heal people and feed people, would not necessarily have been a threat to them.  Maybe they’d have just let Jesus go.

And that might sound great.  But--the point of Jesus being killed was to take the punishment we deserve for our sins.  It’s the reason the divine Son of God was sent to earth in the first place.  If Jesus had not been killed, he would not have fulfilled his mission.  Salvation and eternal life would not be available through faith in him.  And you and I would still be subject to taking the punishment for our sins that we deserve.

Jesus cared about the lives of people on earth.  He did things to make people’s lives on earth better.  But that was not his main focus.  His main focus was on salvation and eternal life in heaven.  As Christians, that should be our main focus, too.

John closes this passage with this:  “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Again, it’s not that our lives on earth are unimportant.  It’s that our lives on earth are so short compared to eternity.  When we do something nice for someone, we’ve made their day better, and that’s good.  Again, we should do that when we can.  But our focus should be on helping people receive salvation and eternal life.  And that can only be found through faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

I want to make clear that those two things are not exclusive of each other.  We’re not talking about an either/or.  We’re talking about a both/and.  James said, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”  And that’s true.  I am not suggesting that the things we do to help others in this life are not important.  They’re very important.

The point is that we should not stop there.  Because we could say the opposite, too.  If we take care of someone’s physical needs, but do nothing to help them receive salvation and eternal life, what good is that?  It’s important to help people on earth, but it’s even more important to do what we can to help them receive salvation and eternal life.  

The only way we can love the children of God is to love God.  The only way we can love God is to keep His commands.  And the very last command of Jesus Christ while he was on earth was, “Go and make disciples.”  Not heal people.  Not feed people.  Not make people’s lives better on earth.  “Go and make disciples.”  

The best way we can show love to people is to do whatever we can to make disciples of Jesus Christ.  By doing so, we will do what we can to bring them to salvation and eternal life.  There will never be anything we do that will be more important than that.