I believe this morning we will begin by looking into Luke Chapter 10. If you will turn there, please.
When I chose the particular aspect of our theme, serving one another, immediately my mind went to this portion we know as the story of the Good Samaritan. Serving one another is a tremendous privilege, but it is sometimes very, very difficult.
We have discovered, for example—Dana, would you give me some of the pens out of my briefcase there, please, or hand it to me? Thank you. That is being served, you understand? That was really contrived. Thank you, brother.
I have come to recognize this whole problem of really learning to serve one another: to do it by love, to do it with discernment. I felt that probably the best way I could describe this morning is just to tell you about twelve years ago.
We moved into a community in the north part of Indianapolis. We had lived out in the country for many, many years, but now we moved into a new situation.
I had to face a very critical issue when I turned sixty-five, which was fifteen years ago. I felt like the Lord was saying to me, “I have been talking about fellowshipping with Me, being open day by day and honest in the mornings with Me.” And finally He said to me, “When are you going to begin to do that?”
Well, I have always spent time with the Lord. I have always been diligent in the Word. I have always felt like I was really in fellowship, but He seemed to say to me, “If you do not begin right now, you never will.”
That is, getting up early enough to be able to wait before Him, hear His voice, and have Him speak to me early. And so I began.
I began to share this in the little book Life’s Ultimate Privilege, in the opening of the book. You may have read it. We quite candidly tell about having to be honest and saying that we had been telling everybody else and preaching to everybody else, but God was saying, “Time for you to begin.”
Only that is background, because a very wonderful thing began to happen in a new way. I began to sense God speaking as I had not heard Him speak before. He speaks all day long, but He just wanted me to obey Him in getting up early.
When we moved into the city, I began to look into the area where I lived. We had one street with a dead end, and there were eighteen homes along the two sides of that street. We were in the middle on one side, and suddenly the Lord said, “This is your new neighborhood. I would like for you to claim them.”
As I began to walk those early mornings up and down the street, not knowing a lot of the individuals but recognizing that God had planted us there, I began to say, “Lord, will You open doors? Will You give me wisdom and discernment? Will You help me to understand my neighbors? Who is my neighbor?”
A new chapter has come this last month—actually, the last couple of months. I moved out of that neighborhood to another place about a mile or two away and into a new neighborhood. But my heart has still been back with those eighteen homes.
As I would walk in the mornings, I would stand before certain places and say, “Lord, I do not know what is behind those four walls. Only You know the deep needs of hearts. Will You somehow deal and work in their lives?”
It would be very interesting to give you some of the insights through the last twelve years that we lived there. When we moved, it was not easy, because I had learned to love and appreciate some very wonderful people on that block.
I say that because my theme this morning basically is: Who is my neighbor? How do I minister to my neighbor?
I think it is important for us to recognize, in serving one another, that there are several spheres through which we go.
First, there is my own home, or my household—those I live with, the immediacy of my family.
Then there is my household of believers. Let us call it my church family.
Then I think immediately after that, there is my neighbor.
And if I understand this, as we read a little further on, pretty soon you will find my enemies. How do I respond and become accountable unto God in their behalf?
When we look into Luke Chapter 10, we begin to discover some things. Would you bow for a moment now, and we will ask the Lord Himself to open the verses and the words and make them living and real to our hearts?
Father, apart from Your ministry, we just have ideas and thoughts and concepts. But we want You to speak to us this morning, and we pray that You will do this. We give You thanks for what You are going to do. We ask it in Jesus’ name.
One of the things that has always amazed me—and I think you have discovered this already—is that when God works, we want to systematize His working and His theology: one, two, three, four, five.
I believe in systematic theology, the sequence of thoughts and the way doctrine unfolds and progresses. But I am utterly amazed at the fact that you cannot bring revelation into that realm. You cannot say, “One, two, three, four, five, up to ten.”
When revelation works, God goes two, six, one, seven. You cannot predict it. I wish you could, because I have tried to groove Him. I have tried to get Him into a pattern.
The struggle I go through so often is this: when I systematize, we get theology; when the Holy Spirit reveals, He is constantly picking here and there—three, two, six. It is His prerogative to open as He will.
In fact, I should be honest: I am still waiting for five on one occasion and seven on the other. He just does not bow to my desire. Anybody understand what I am talking about?
The unpredictability of the Lord.
Let us read this portion, and then we will begin to ask the Lord to give some unveiling. In Luke Chapter 10, beginning with Verse 25:
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted Him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou?
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.
And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
Now we are introduced to this very familiar story we know as the Good Samaritan. It is interesting how this lawyer was probably under the fire, sensing God had been speaking to him, trying to justify and explain.
Let me just stop for a moment and say there will always be some tension and struggle between certain pulls. Here is my home—my first privilege and obligation—my family, those who are immediate. Then there is the pull of the church out here.
Every servant of the Lord that I know goes through the struggle between the immediate family and those outside in the church family. We all go through it. We are back to square one again: God alone can give us the wisdom and discernment to know the balance between the tensions.
I remember being at Yakima a number of years ago. A brother whom I had come to know and appreciate very much had a radio broadcast, and we often were with him.
One day he got a call from a local pastor in the city who said, “I would like for you to stop by. I have a need that you can pray about, and you can help and counsel.”
My pastor friend Bill stopped by and visited with the man for a few moments. The pastor said, “There is a lady in your neighborhood who really needs some help. Here is the address. I will just let you have the address, and you can go from there.”
He took the little slip of paper, looked at the address, and suddenly he was stunned by the fact that it was his own address.
He looked back at the pastor and said, “Pastor, I do not quite understand. This is my address.”
The pastor said, “Yes, your wife has been to me several times, pleading for help.”
Well, the immediate response is, “Oh, that fellow.” I knew Bill very well. I lived in the home. I knew the situation. I knew the struggle of seven children and a lot of details that were involved.
I was glad I was there, because I looked and said, “I think this just might be a very jealous pastor who listens on the radio. Maybe God is speaking through his heart. Just forget about it and ask the Lord. He alone can give you the discernment as to whether this is a real issue or somebody who is jealous of what you are in.”
I only mention that because everyone I know will go through the struggle between serving and fulfilling the need in my own home, in my church family, and so forth.
Bill had tremendous ministry in the Yakima Valley for many years. I watched him dunk apples with the kids. I watched him through the years, way back, and I knew that he was a good father. But I also know the accusations of the enemy.
So I just said to him, “Be very careful that you do not allow the enemy to accuse you. You are accountable to God.”
It brought back to my own remembrance a verse in the Song of Solomon. You might just turn there for a moment, since we are wandering around. Let us pick up a little principle here.
In Song of Solomon Chapter 1, Verse 6, the latter part says:
They made me keeper of the vineyards;
But mine own vineyard have I not kept.
Here, I think you get a little bit of a struggle between the vineyard out here that represented responsibility and my own vineyard.
I have preached for a number of years on the balance needed between that vineyard and my own vineyard. Then one day the Holy Spirit whispered and said, “You missed the key word.” It starts with the phrase, “They made me keeper of the vineyards.”
Somehow I missed it all. They made me the keeper. And the Lord said, “I did not, but they did. They gave you a job. They imposed it.”
I said, “Oh, thank You, Lord. From now on, I will recognize all the ‘theys’ out there who want to impose, and I choose to let You speak to my heart to know how to meet the needs of my own home and this vineyard out here.”
So I just give you that in passing. Remember, you will always have the tension between those who are giving you the burden and the things they think you ought to do, and the Lord Himself giving you the vision of the burden for your own home.
All tensions find their solution in the One Himself who meets our needs. Through the years, I began to recognize that as we progress and go on with the Lord, there are all of these pulls and needs and situations all around us.
Now we look at the story of the Good Samaritan, Luke Chapter 10, Verse 30:
And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?
And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
There are so many things I would like to tell you. First of all, the principle in Scripture is that going up to Jerusalem is going up to worship—being occupied with the Lord. Coming down from Jerusalem to Jericho is coming back to practice, out here in daily life and circumstances.
I had never really been aware before of all that was involved in this eighteen-mile journey down from Jerusalem. So I studied a little bit and was quite amazed at certain things I had not discovered before.
The circumstances surrounding this descent were dangerous and precipitous. They say that at that time there were probably twelve thousand priests and Levites living in Jericho. They were continually going up and coming down. This was their profession; this was their occupation.
I often pondered why Jesus went out of His way in this story to deal with a Samaritan and to pick this individual.
I knew that the Samaritans were a mixed people. When Israel had been taken into captivity, there were those left in the land and others coming in. There was a mixture of the Jewish people with these others coming in, and that became the Samaritans, as it were.
I discovered also that they had a mixture in their religion of Judaism and paganism. They adopted the Pentateuch as the sole sacred book and had established Mount Gerizim as the only place proper to worship.
When the exiles finally came back from Babylonian captivity, they started to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. These Samaritans wanted to help them in the rebuilding, but the Jewish people refused to have any help from this mixed group. It widened the breach—the gulf—between them.
By the time Jesus came on the scene, it was a wide breach. Those who would go through Samaria avoided it. They would go clear around. They would do everything they could to avoid that particular area.
The Samaritans taught that Messiah was no greater than Moses and would appear six thousand years after creation. This Messiah would live one hundred and ten years and would lead them through the true faith.
Now, if you ever have corruption and a mixed-up people, it is the Samaritans. And is it not interesting that on three occasions Jesus seems to delight to choose a Samaritan?
You remember the woman at the well? A Samaritan. Remember the ten who were healed? One came back to give thanks. He was a Samaritan.
Here in our lesson today, all the Jewish religious system is going up and down, this poor fellow falls into difficulty, and it seems like the Lord says, “Guess who this fellow was that stopped to help? A Samaritan.”
Now, I am not just sure why He is doing this. I have lots of problems with the Lord.
I do not think He is condoning the whole system or mixture of the Samaritan. I do not believe He is condoning that. I know He is exposing that religious system that was coming and going, insensitive to the needs of others.
Going up to worship, coming down to practice. Like early this morning, the Lord was saying, “We have all been in Jerusalem for a while, the last couple of days. Before long, we are going to go back to some very real situations to practice.”
The ideal is wonderful. The actual is something else.
I look back over many, many years, knowing dozens of you. We sit in fellowship at the table and respond to one another. I know some of the actual situations that some of you are in. You share them.
Here we are enjoying the fellowship, the wonderful privilege of Jerusalem, as it were, and ministering to the Lord. But now we go back down to Jericho, and we have to face the actuality of things.
I keep saying, “Oh God, how can I help them be prepared in the actuality of some of their circumstances?”
My wife told me yesterday about one of the families living in a rather difficult area, having their windows shot out by a BB gun and trying to protect the children around them. My heart cried, “Oh God, that is Indianapolis.”
They have wanted to get out of that situation for quite a while and into a better community, but they deliberately chose to move there to be a testimony. The actuality of things. The actuality of circumstances. What do you do?
Well, we face it. I think about all I can say to you this morning is that God alone knows how to break into situations that are totally impossible and put His own way upon them.
Can I just read some stories to you this morning for a little bit? Somebody says that is always better than when you preach anyway. I am noted for that all over Indiana, so let us fit our pattern.
What I would like to do is explain to you what I think is my real burden. How do we take all that we know, all that God has given to us in a conceptual way, and bring it into the practical reality of ministering to our neighbors and ministering to the needs around us?
I look back at my immediate neighbors on that particular block. Next on the south side of me was a Baptist deacon when we first moved there. He was moving about the community, a lovely Christian brother, in his electric wheelchair.
He could really get around. He was in our yard often, and I learned to love and appreciate him. Even though his vision was limited, he really loved the Lord.
I remember the day when he had a stroke and finally was in the hospital. We had ministered to him on many occasions before, shared stories, and had fellowship.
One day, as I waited before the Lord, I felt the Holy Spirit saying, “You need to go to the hospital. It is time.” I knew he had been in a coma for at least ten days.
That particular morning, I felt the Lord saying, “Tell the wife—lovely Christian—that she needs to release her husband and let him go. He is ready.”
How do you tell somebody that?
I stood at the bedside for a little bit, and I looked over at Carol. I said, “I do not know, but through the years, on a number of occasions, I have had to encourage the one who was an authority in the home—and you now are actually the authority in the home—that you have the privilege of releasing your husband to the Lord.”
She said, “Never heard of that.”
I said, “Well, let us pray about it. Let us consider it for just a few moments this morning.” I went on to speak of many situations back through the years.
You see, I do not believe that Christians need to let death come to meet them. We go out to meet death. Sounds brilliant, but I still believe it. We go out to meet it. We are the test. We are above it.
After we had prayed a little bit, she said, “Yes, I can do that. There are some deep longings in his heart that are not fulfilled, but I believe I can do that.”
We stood at the bedside, and she opened her heart and released her husband to the Lord. When we got through, there was a real sense of peace, as though the Lord had responded by saying, “That is good.”
We left the room. Thirty minutes later, two sons walked in—rebellious sons from a previous marriage. They stood there looking over their dad in a coma, and suddenly he looked up and said, “Oh, you have come. I am so glad. I need to tell you something.”
He warned both of them. He exhorted both of them, explaining to them, “God wants you to meet me up there, because I will be going very shortly.”
One hour after he had been released to the Lord, he went to be with the Lord.
Nothing in me. I am simply saying that here was my neighbor to one side, who prayed for my family. The sons who were away from home—and suddenly God brought them.
What I am trying to say this morning is that we need to expect and believe that God will order our steps in dealing with our neighbor.
Who is the neighbor? Well, it is not just people living next to you. From the context of this story, it is the individual who has gotten into a situation, a problem, a circumstance, and you can minister mercy.
You cannot do anything ahead of time or out of order. You cannot push. You cannot make a way. You can only wait for God’s timing and have the availability to minister mercy.
The neighbor in the back of us, across the fence, was an unusual situation. They had more trouble with my wife and me. He could not understand why I did not get a job. I was always going out on a plane someplace—not a preacher, you know. He could not understand.
I rototilled his garden. I did all these things, and he never appreciated it. Said the soil got so worked up it got harder. Anyway, I just had to say, “Well, thank You, Lord. It is all right.”
But we kept loving, ministering, and attempting to demonstrate the reality of the Lord.
He finally went off to a nursing home, and his wife was left there. She finally was taken to the hospital. I remember the day when the relatives called and said, “She wants you to come.”
I went into the isolation ward, all in plastic and gloves and all the rest. She said, “God wants you to pray for me. I need the Lord.” She had been a good Methodist all through the years, but she had never really been quickened and made alive.
I stood there in all that plastic, trying somehow to explain it. Her daughter was there weeping, saying, “Mother keeps saying, ‘You have, through the years, demonstrated.’”
I said, “Oh God, we did not do much demonstrating. We complained too sometimes.” But the Holy Spirit has a way to minister life in spite of you. Do you know that?
I am getting into subjectivity this morning, but I wanted to say to you: when I left that area these last couple of months, I thought of all the people across the street and on the other side.
Laotian people came with three suitcases and three children. Lovely Christians. God has worked in our neighborhood. A couple of doors down, a Black deacon moved in, who loves God in spite of his cigar.
When Ben opened up the Kroger bread route, he was going through Kroger every weekend and bringing in boxes and boxes of sweets. We delivered them through the neighborhood, and they took them down to his church downtown.
Anyway, God has peculiar ways of ministering in situations, if we are available.
Another neighbor was the president of the neighborhood society, a retired president of a big corporation. A Catholic brother. I would walk up and down the street in the mornings praying, and usually meet him coming back from early mass.
An ungodly man, and yet sensitive. He had been taking care of his wife for eight years in a wheelchair, completely out of touch.
I looked over at Bill and said, “Bill, would you let me pray for you?” I had given him books, which I do not think he ever read. “Bill, would you let me pray for you? I am amazed at the way you minister to your dear wife in her helpless condition, and in your own physical need.”
Here he was in his eighties. As we looked at one another, he wept and said, “If you would pray for me, it would be wonderful.”
How do you pray? “Oh God, awaken and open.”
I guess I am trying to say to you this morning, I believe that with ears sensitive and with availability, God will begin to give us the distinction between responsibility in my own home, then in my church family, and finally my neighbors round about.
I am asking the question now: How do we move from all the information and all the knowledge we have to bring it into practical reality and doing?
Well, I am going to blame Ben for this story. I think I ought to read it to you, because it will shorten it if I read it.
Let me tell you about an Argentine pastor. He arrived at the church service on Sunday morning with a well-thought-out message, which he knew the people would appreciate.
He had discovered the various Greek words for love and the contexts in which each was used in Scripture. He had excellent illustrations to explain them. However, during the early part of the service, he became convinced that he should not deliver the message.
When the time came to preach, he stood in the pulpit and simply announced, “My text this morning is: love one another.” That was all he said. Then he turned and went to his seat.
There were a few moments of embarrassed confusion as the song leader gestured to him, “Are we supposed to have another song?” But he simply sat there and ignored all of this for two or three minutes—a long time when no one knows what is happening.
Then he stood up and returned to the pulpit and announced, “Brothers and sisters, my text this morning is: love one another.” And he sat down as before.
His wife observed and began to think something was wrong. Yet after a few more minutes of them sitting very silently, she announced again, “My text this morning is: love one another,” with a loud stress on the word love.
This was repeated again, and when he sat down this fourth time, someone in the crowd of over one thousand people turned to someone seated next to him and said, “How can I love you?”
Strangely, someone else turned to another and said, “Is there any way I can show love to you this morning?” In a few moments, the church was alive with people talking about how they could express love to each other.
The pastor discovered later that there were twenty-eight people in the church that morning who were unemployed. Every one of them had the promise of a job before they left for home.
There were single-parent families having genuine difficulty making ends meet. Many of those needs began to be met that day. Many, many other needs began to surface. They were met that morning before people left for home.
In the weeks that followed, that pastor explained that if he had given his original message as planned, the congregation would probably have agreed with it and been challenged by his exhortation to love. But the unemployed and the poverty-stricken would have gone out without any practical meeting of their deep needs.
Amazing. For the next three months, when the time came in the morning service for him to preach, he would announce, “Brothers and sisters, my text today is: love one another.” Then he would sit down.
Immediately people would turn to those near them, asking how they could show love to them. The church would be abuzz with people helping meet the needs of each other.
Not everyone was happy with this. Some people got angry. Some said he was not paid to do this and even left the church. I mean, you know, that is kind of simple every Sunday morning, getting up and saying, “My text is…”
After three months, the pastor stood to announce, “Brothers and sisters, the Lord has given me a new text this morning.” The congregation burst out in applause.
He simply explained, “My text this morning is: love your neighbor as yourself.” And he sat down.
There was silence throughout the church as people began to think to themselves, “My neighbor. I wonder how I can show love to them.”
One or two people got up to leave. Others followed, and they returned to their homes, went next door to their neighbors, and asked, “How can I love you? How can I serve you?” It was a few days before Christmas, and a number of families found themselves agreeing to give away and so on.
I was tempted this morning to get up and announce, “My text is…”
What are you trying to say, Brother Vern?
Brother Sparks said to me through the years more than a dozen times, I know: “Oh, if we can live in the good of what we know.”
If we could live in the good of what we know.
Now, I know you are responding. Your heart is saying, “Oh Lord, I really need to know how to meet the needs of my family, the church family, and even those out there who do not like me—my enemies.”
Let me read one more story to you, because I think it sums up what I am trying to say.
I am convinced that there is the indwelling anointing that teaches us. John says, “You have an anointing that abideth within you.”
I can tell, as I look out over a group, that the anointing within is often registering, and there is that, “Mm-hmm.” I used to think that when people were doing that, they were getting something new. Then I realized that it is the Teacher who is explaining within them.
There is something within every one of our hearts this morning that is saying, “Oh Lord, I know so much. I have been privileged to receive so much up in Jerusalem, but when I go down to Jericho to practice it, I run into all of the struggles and difficulties.”
I have always loved Tony Campolo and his stories. My daughter-in-law and my son went to a praise gathering this last year in Indianapolis. Someone gave them money to go to the hotel and spend the whole time there, and they were looking forward to it as a time to be together and respond to the Lord.
Tony was there speaking. He was explaining a book that had, I believe, just come out called The Call.
That particular morning, he was the first one to speak. He shared his heart and the burden of the Lord God calling individuals and their responding.
Later that day, my daughter-in-law phoned. She said, “We got so convicted this morning after the first session. We went to our room and spent the rest of the morning praying and opening our hearts to the Lord.”
They are very busy for God, very occupied. But God broke through, because not only is there the anointing within that teaches, but there is the anointing that comes upon and settles upon.
It was like it did in this Argentine church, when the Holy Spirit came in and the anointing broke the rigidity of knowing and brought it into practice.
Well, this is the story Tony tells. I read it to you because it illustrates the same thing again I want you to get.
He says, “I was asked to be a counselor in a junior high camp. Everybody ought to be a counselor in a junior high camp at least once. A junior-high kid’s concept of a good time is picking on people.”
“In this particular case, at this particular camp, there was a little boy who was suffering from cerebral palsy. His name was Billy. And they picked on him. Oh, how they picked on him.”
“As he walked across the camp with his uncoordinated body, they would line up and imitate his grotesque movements. I watched him one day. He was asking for directions to the craft shop.”
“‘Which way to the craft shop?’ he stammered, his mouth contorting. And the boys mimicked in that same awful stammer, ‘It’s over there, Billy.’ Then they laughed at him.”
Tony says, “I was irate. But my fury reached its highest pitch on Thursday morning, when it was Billy’s cabin to give devotions. I wondered what would happen, because they in the cabin had appointed Billy to be the speaker.”
“I knew they just wanted to get him up there to make fun of him. As he dragged his way to the front, you could hear the giggles rolling over the crowd.”
“It took little Billy minutes to say seven words:
Jesus loves me,
and I love Jesus.”
“Only seven words. When he finished, there was dead silence. I looked over my shoulder, and I saw junior-high boys bawling all over the place.”
“A spirit of revival broke out in that camp after Billy’s short testimony.”
Tony goes on: “As I travel all over the world, I find missionaries and preachers who say, ‘Remember me? I was converted at that junior-high camp that morning.’”
“We counselors had tried everything to get these kids interested in Jesus. We had imported baseball players whose batting averages had gone up since they had started praying.”
But God chose not to use the superstars. He chose a kid with cerebral palsy to teach the message and speak to our hearts.
We are only trying to say one thing this morning: there is an anointing that works within and teaches us, but there is an anointing that settles in.
God delights to use the unlikely. Does that encourage you? Let me repeat it again: God delights to use the unlikely.
They say, “Oh God, that really encourages me.”
It is the anointing that settles in. Now somebody is going to say, “We will get some cerebral-palsy people.” You cannot set up God. I have tried.
You cannot set up God for the anointing to fall. He is unpredictable, most of the time.
More and more, I am becoming aware of the fact that the unpredictable God loves to minister through those who are least likely.
The next thing I am discovering is that He is usually late on my time schedule—not His, but late on mine—yet always just on time to speak to individuals.
I have been asking, you know, this is just the second opportunity I have had to speak to you: How do we break out of all the information and knowledge we know?
Some of us have been to Jerusalem. Some of you have been to Richmond for many years. Now we go back down to Jericho. Impossible situations. But God. But God.
Part of my amazement is that when God breaks in to speak, as He did that day in Indianapolis to my son and daughter-in-law, they came home with the book The Call and all that had happened to them in their room that day.
I said, “Oh God, You have been answering, but You do it so differently than I anticipated.”
I just have to say, I appreciate what Dana was saying last night: God’s church is a lot bigger than we realize. God is working in a lot of situations out here, much more than we will ever realize.
I have had to shamefully say that I have a wonderful son and daughter-in-law and three lovely grandchildren who are teaching and working in Grace Community Church up in the north part of Indianapolis.
I am embarrassed that they are not in our house, but in a bigger house. In fact, they have four services on the weekend—two on Saturday night and two on Sunday morning—with between six and seven thousand people attending.
But God has peculiar ways. You cannot give revelation. The called and the chosen—chosen to see.
I keep praying this morning, “Oh God, we are the called according to Your purpose. We are called today for the holy calling to be serviceable.”
Why, in the midst of even a precious congregation like this, do You choose out in Your own way as You will?
One morning, after my daughter-in-law Patty had looked up the brotherhood—they have plural eldership and all the New Testament functions, very interesting—she turned to the elder who had been speaking that morning and said, “John, have you ever read a book called The Ultimate Intention?”
John looked back and said, “Why do you ask?”
Patty said, “Well, I kind of recognized a few phrases and statements and concepts.”
John the elder said, “Well, let me tell you. Fifteen years ago I was down in Texas, young in life, high energy, working for a guy. I got all involved and so frustrated and burned out that I left the ministry.”
“I was floating for a number of years until someone came to me one day and said, ‘Here is a book you might be helped with,’ and handed me a book called The Ultimate Intention.”
About that moment, John looked down at Patty’s little name tag, and it said, “Patty Fromke.” He said, “That is interesting. I believe the guy who wrote that book—his name was Fromke. No, he has been dead for many years.”
But he said, “My life has changed. I am here today because I saw the difference between just living in the redemptive box and living in the larger purpose box—alive unto what God wanted for Himself.”
He said, “Would you be related to that guy?”
She said, “Well, he is not dead. In fact, I could set up an appointment for you.”
So I started meeting with John. It was his turn once a month to speak four times—two Saturday and two Sunday—and it has been very interesting.
I am not trying to name-drop. If you knew the struggles we go through when, month after month, John says, “I am going to be speaking on this, this, this, and this,” I say, “Thank You, Lord. I get to minister to six thousand people this weekend.” Only You could do that.
One day he said, “I keep quoting you. Would you meet with all the elders?” I said, “Oh, I do not think so.” But we did, just once.
What are you trying to say this morning? Availability.
God alone knows how to bring the neighbor into your life, and situations into your life. The more we discover that there is a reserve grace—the supply we can live by day by day—then there is the special grace that falls in given situations.
I call it the anointing that comes from above, the anointing that settles in. Expect it and believe God.
There are so many times when I recognize: only the Lord can break the law of sin in the lives of individuals.
There are some these days whom I have watched through the years, and my heart cries out, “Oh God, they know so much. They have all the books in the bookstore, including mine.”
How do you break through from what we know to begin to love one another?
We could end the service this morning in a lot of ways by saying, “Our text is,” and everybody begins to reach over and say, “Frank, how can I help you in your needs that nobody knows about?” Are you following me?
Well, I do not know. But my burden is, “Oh Lord, bring us to the place where, with expectancy, we are saying, ‘Help me to learn to serve one another as You open the door and You make a way.’”
I will just add a few more things now in closing this morning, because it seems to me that in the actuality of things, most of the fellowship—you know, some of you may not know—we live in central Indiana.
For the last thirty years, God has allowed us to move from one fellowship to another, whether it be in Bloomington University, Purdue campus, Kokomo, or Anderson. We have had a number of fellowships, with the eldership coming together at least once a month to pray and seek the mind of the Lord.
In the midst of all of this, we have come to discover some of the same problems in each of the fellowships.
The other day I was reading from Daily Bread, and there was a statement that Oswald Chambers makes which hits the practicality of where we live.
What will keep us serving the Lord in our church and community when the going gets tough? Although we may be sensitive to the needs of others, that alone is not enough.
Nor should we be driven by a need or a desire to be appreciated or loved by others. Our needs are deep, and only God can satisfy them. The more we try to satisfy them with anything else, even the Lord’s work, the more dissatisfied we will become.
Even love for God’s people, His sheep, will not keep us going. People can be unlovable and insufferable. We may come to resent them.
No, the only sufficient incentive for service is our love for the Lord. It is the love of Christ that compels us. No other motivation will do.
In My Utmost for His Highest, he says:
If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and brokenhearted.
But if our motive is to love God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow man.
He goes on by quoting Peter’s statement: “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” And He says, “Feed My sheep.”
The principle I am getting out this morning is this: my love runs out. Some people I can love. Some people I have to ignore because I just do not like them. I find them very difficult.
When that happens, I have always had to look up and say, “Oh God, I thank You for this little word Chambers gave years ago.” I discover that You shed Your love abroad in my heart.
This is the only way I can love some individuals who are unlovable. Now, that is not your fellowships, but we have problems in Indiana. I expect maybe there are problems other places too.
What do we do? What do we do when we are faced with the lesson of the Good Samaritan?
I know of a seminary professor who had a whole class of students, and he wanted to make this very clear to them.
One semester, he set his preaching class in a very unusual way. He scheduled his students to preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan.
On the day of the class, he choreographed his experiment so that each student would go, one at a time, from one classroom to another, where he or she would preach a sermon on the Good Samaritan.
The professor gave some students ten minutes to go from one room to the other. To others, he allowed less time, forcing them to rush in order to meet the schedule.
Each student had to walk down a certain corridor and pass by a derelict man who had been placed on the floor, deliberately planted there, obviously in need of some sort of aid, as he moaned and cried out, “Help.”
The results were surprising and offered a powerful lesson to all the class. The percentage of those good men and women who stopped to help the fellow in the hall was very, very low.
Especially for those under the pressure of a shorter time period. The tighter the schedule, the fewer were those who stopped to help the needy man.
When the professor revealed his experiment, you can imagine the impact on his preaching class—all these future spiritual leaders rushing to preach a sermon on the Good Samaritan, while almost all of them walked past the beggar at the heart of the parable.
They had a sermon to preach, and he wanted them to live it.
Well, here we are this morning. Time for me to close. Can I ask you a question?
Do we expect the anointing of the Lord to come into situations?
We need the anointing within that teaches, but the anointing that settles in upon us suddenly breaks through, as it did with the cerebral-palsy boy. And God begins speaking.
Remember, He is the One who ministers to the needs of people. We are available.
This morning, Father, we bow to acknowledge that serving one another is such a privilege.
We so much need to know the anointing within, but also the anointing that comes upon. I am praying that somehow these struggling words this morning will be Your opportunity to awaken us to the fact that, as we go, as the Samaritan went that day, he saw and he was available.
Help us today to be available.
I believe there are some very, very wounded, hurting people that You brought to this campus. They have come out of difficult situations.
Give us the sensitivity. Do not let us be matter-of-fact. Do not let us just go through the order of things.
But today, give us that openness to be able to turn to somebody at our side and say, “Is there something I could pray with you about? Some burden, Lord, that I could share with you? Is there some particular concern that we could stand together in?”
Oh Lord, I am not able to say this morning. You communicate to hearts.
We will give You the praise, the honor, and the glory. For we ask it in Jesus’ name.