10/30/22 Matthew 25:31-40 “Risk Taking Missionaries!”

28 Oct 10/30/22 Matthew 25:31-40 “Risk Taking Missionaries!”

10/30/22    Matthew 25:31-40       “Risk Taking Missionaries!”

Every week I get the honor and privilege to stand here and gaze out upon you wonderful people in cyberland (go figure that one!) and I give thanks that we are all here.  I think that it is amazing how we all come from different backgrounds and we end up with this wonderful faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are all similar in some respects but we are also very, very different from each other.  It is only through God that we are brought together and we should be very thankful for that.  To continue this line of thinking a little, how we all got here today is also varied as we all came by different roads, vehicles, apartments and houses.  But I think there might be one thing that we all have in common.  At one point or another, we probably all looked into a mirror.  Today, we had to check our hair and maybe our makeup.  Sometimes we get all contorted as we try to look at the back of our heads.  My barber used to give me a hard time because of the way that I combed my hair.  He called it the low maintenance look because I only have to comb my hair once a day.  But we pretty much all look in a mirror at some point in a day.  I think that it is really too bad that we don’t have something like this for our churches.  What happens to churches is that they roll along doing things that they think are fine but they really aren’t functioning very well.  The trouble is that we cannot see this from the inside of our church.  It all looks fine but we may have a great big cow lick in the back that we can’t see.  Today, we are going to look at another way to help us move forward in the way that Jesus wants.  We will be talking about risk taking mission and service.

Shawn Raloff tells the story that took place during World War II in England as the British needed more coal production if they were going to have any chance of winning the war.  Winston Churchill got all the labor leaders together to try to get their support.  After he presented his case, he asked them to stand with him and picture in their minds a grand parade which he knew would take place in Piccadilly Circus after the war.  First he had them picture the sailors marching as they had kept all the sea lanes open.  Then came the soldiers who had come home from Dunkirk and then they had gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa.  Then came the pilots who had driven the enemy from the sky.  And finally, there would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner’s hats.  Then someone would shout out, ‘And where were you during the critical days of our struggle?’  And thousands and thousands of throats would answer, ‘We were deep in the earth with our faces to the coal!’  Doesn’t a story like that just warm your heart?

The point that I want to bring out of this story is that we all have a job to do and all of our jobs are very important.  Not all of them are glamorous but all are important.  Along these same lines we are also not all made to go to Africa to be missionaries.  Doing this would indeed be a risk taking mission but we aren’t all made for this.  Also, this isn’t really the type of risk we are going to be talking about.

Driving race cars, sky diving, and running into a burning building all have a high degree of risk but they aren’t nearly as risky as working for God.  When you work for God then you will risk being changed.  You will not be the same person when you get done with a Godly mission project.  You will have changed.  This is the type of change that scares us the most.  We seem to be absolutely petrified if there is a chance of change or failure.  For the most part we are very content to stay exactly the way we are because we are comfortable.  Well, this isn’t what Jesus wants from us.  Oh, He wants us to keep our homes and our health and most of our physical comforts.  But He wants us to stretch out to help others, the least of His people.  He wants us to get out there and be His arms and legs.

So, this means that He doesn’t want us to write a check to the church and call it missions.  Now some of you have no choice in this as that is about all you can do.  However, there are many people here today that have ideas on how to help someone or maybe you even have a great idea for a huge mission project.  In these cases, God doesn’t want your money.  He wants you.  He wants you so that He can change you and others through the project.  And for those of us who are unable to do some of the physical things involved in missions, God wants us to support these other people 100%.  We are to help our missions in whatever way possible.  These are the things that are so very important to risk taking missions and service.  It involves you in a personal way.  When you get personal with your mission and service, then the receivers get personal in return and all kinds of good things happen.

I read once about a small church whose attendance was about 30.  You see God works in small churches also.  Anyway, a woman and her young child came to their service one Sunday.  They were alone and they were struggling.  This small congregation reached out and took care of these two people.  Some people were a little reluctant but they eventually came on board.  They adopted this young family and helped them with whatever they could.  The mother was really grateful.  As I said last week, single parents have no place to go.  So let’s be alert to these families and help them.  Anyway, we all know that God works in ways we could never imagine.  Attendance at this small church began to increase.  The general attitude became much more positive and soon some young families started to come.  All of this happened because this little congregation decided to do some risk taking mission work.  When we are working for Jesus, then we are helping the least of His people.

We do have a little problem in our small churches that we do have to overcome as I digress from the message for a minute.  In many cases, we seem to think that we don’t want to grow.  Neither church that we used to serve holds many people as we could shoehorn 70 in one and 50 in the other.  They thought they were full and therefore were satisfied because everything is going well.  This is not God’s plan.  You all know of people in the area that need some help in one way or another.  There are single moms with children and single dads with children that have absolutely no where to go.  I know this because I was a single dad with children and I didn’t feel welcome anywhere.  Our church and society are made for couples and families and not for single parents.  This is just one example of the needs of our community.  If you get to helping and inviting and just forget that you are small, then things will happen.  God will provide room for anyone and everyone you invite.  Don’t worry about the small things like whether or not there is room.  Take care of the big things like your friends and neighbors.  And by the way, we did these things in the church that was packed at 70 and it exploded.  They had to build a new church and now the average attendance is around 70.  God works in big and small churches.

Now there are some ways to help us to know if what we are doing is actually risk-taking service or not and some of these come from Shawn Raloff again.  The first and most important facet of this type of service is that it comes from the Holy Spirit.  When we come up with an idea for a mission, it should come from our hearts and it shouldn’t be something that we think should be done.  The Holy Spirit will give you the idea and it cannot be your idea.  An example of what I mean here is this.  We are doing this sermon series on church development.  I don’t do many series like this because it is too easy for me to start to think that I know that you need to hear something.  I’m not smart enough to know what you need to hear.  However in this case, it was the Holy Spirit who nudged me to do this idea.  It has been the Holy Spirit who has helped me with ideas.  This is the same way for missions and service.

So, if you don’t know the Holy Spirit or Jesus or God, then repent and ask them to live in your heart.  This will be the beginning of a life more wonderful than anything you can ever imagine.  Sharon and I and many of others listening today are living proof that Jesus provides us with a life that is far beyond our imagination.  Go to Him today.  I would also like to say that you don’t necessarily have to have this relationship with Jesus to do risk taking missions.  But by doing these missions you may find that Jesus is changing your life and you come to Him.  If you talk to people who have gone on short term mission trips to the poverty areas of Mexico or Africa or in our own Spirit Lake Nation, they will tell you that they came back changed people.  They will also tell you that it is a change for the better.

Another trait of Godly service is that there is no such thing as a big or small project and God doesn’t discriminate as to which project is which.  There are no favorites.  If the Spirit is putting something on you mind to do, then do it.  There is no project whether it is big or small that God cannot do.  He can do anything and one of our favorite pastimes is to try to put limits on God by thinking way too small.  Therefore, any time you get an idea, jot it down and let’s talk about it.

No one has to know where it came from which brings us to another trait of Godly service.  This type of service needs no acclamation.  If part of the reason that you are doing something is so that people will know that you are doing something, then you are doing this something for the wrong reason.  If God wants something done, He will get it done.  If He thinks you need the credit, then He will give it to you.  Don’t worry about it!  Just do it!

And along these same lines, don’t worry about the results.  When you start a mission project, just go along and complete it the best you can.  God will make sure that it is done the way He wants it done.  We have to realize when we do these things, there is a definite need present.  We don’t do risk taking mission unless there is a need and God will take care of this need.  We need to do things that count in the world of God and not our world.  Mother Teresa did her mission work in the poorest areas of India.  She didn’t worry about anything.   She just served the people.  If you take a mission trip to a poverty area, you won’t have to worry about the need.  It is there.  God will help you to reach these and others and it is not for you to worry.

We have touched on this before when we talked about radical hospitality, passionate worship and intentional faith development.  Risk taking missions is also a life style.  When you start to think like this all the time, your lives will change and it will be for the better.  Jesus wants you to have the best life possible.  Don’t listen to all the critics who say that we have too many rules or that Jesus has to be more like this or more like that.  Listen to God and read the Bible.  This is where we get the right information, the correct information.  When you start to do the things that Jesus did, then you will be taking the biggest risk of all when you have a new lifestyle.  Can you imagine what it would be like if, when every person you met, your first thought would be, “I wonder if they have had enough to eat today?”  or “I wonder how it is with their soul?”

When we start to think like this, then things will begin to happen all over.  Our lives will get infinitely better.  You will find depths of love that you have never seen before.  You will not only find this love in your personal lives but it will be everywhere.  No matter what God wants you to do, you will end up like the coal miners in our opening story.  You will be shouting for the Lord with the kind of fire that only He can ignite in you.

Tom Evans tells us the true story of Lewis Lawes who became the warden of Sing Sing prison in 1921.  It was the toughest prison in the country at that time and when he retired 20 years later it had transformed into a much more pleasant prison.  This was because of his wife, Catherine.  She was a young mother with 3 small children when they arrived and people told her to stay away from that prison.  But she couldn’t be stopped and she immediately attended her first basketball game with her children sitting with the inmates.  She figured that she and her husband were going to take care of these men and they would take care of her.

She was always helping these inmates.  She found a convicted murderer who had gone blind and she asked him if he read Braille.  “What’s Braille?” he asked in return.  She taught him Braille and he would later weep because of his love for her.  She also found a deaf mute and she went to school to learn sign language so someone could communicate with this poor fellow.  Many people said that Catherine Lawes was Jesus Christ in her 16 years at this prison.

Then one day she was killed in a car accident.  The warden didn’t come to work that day and an acting warden took his place.  Everyone knew or sensed that something was wrong.  The following day, her body was resting in a casket in her home, three-quarters of a mile from the prison. As the acting warden took his early morning walk, he was shocked to see a large crowd of the toughest, hardest looking criminals gathered like a herd of animals at the main gate. He came closer and noted tears of grief and sadness. He knew how much they loved Catherine. He turned and faced the men, “All right, men, you can go. Just be sure and check in tonight!” Then he opened the gate and a parade of criminals walked, without a guard, the three-quarters of a mile to stand in line to pay their final respects to Catherine Lawes. And every one of them checked back in that night. Every one!

Catherine Lawes, the warden’s wife, knew about risk taking mission when she was the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in that prison.  Jesus loves you so much that He will never leave you as you take on His missions.  I challenge you to be risk taking missionaries.  I challenge you to work for the least of God’s people.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.