This is a sermon recently delivered by Pam, the Director of CPx, while visiting North Carolina.

Why bother?

 

27 million people are enslaved

2.8 billion people live on less than $2 a day

2400 people groups have yet to have any viable Christian witness among them

 

I suppose they are the sorts of information you expect to hear from a visiting missionary. It’s certainly all true, but if you are anything at all like me, you are probably already depressed. If you’re like me at all, you’re thinking:

 

• How can I possibly even begin to change the lives of 27 million people who are enslaved? Sure, slavery is bad, but what can I possibly begin to do about that?
  
  
• Yes, it is depressing that 2.8 billion people don’t get enough to eat, but come on, 1 against 2.8 billion people? I have a better chance of winning the lottery than that. In fact, I think I’ll just focus on winning the lottery and forget the poor. Jesus did say that the poor will always be with us, right?
  
  
• 2,400 people groups have never heard of Jesus, but they live in such weird places in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, what can I do about that? I can barely pay for a tank of gas, much less help them. I just want to survive long enough to help my kid do his homework and get him to bed so I can do the same thing all over tomorrow. Maybe I need a missionary to come and help me.

 

Why bother? What difference can I make?

Even though the odds seem overwhelming, I think there are some good reasons for us to keep fighting the good fight and to not grow weary of doing good. In fact, one of the reasons I like Galatians 6:9 which says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up,” is because it implies that growing weary is a common thing. I mean, if people didn’t grow weary of doing good, then the verse wouldn’t be there in the Scripture. It would have no purpose.

I’d like to propose a couple of reasons why we should bother with the problems of the world:

 
1. God cares. Therefore I should care.

Have you ever cried out to God that you want to know Him – that you want to connect to Him in some way? Have you ever wondered why your spiritual walk seems to dull and boring and, well, ordinary? If you have then look with me at Jeremiah 22:16:

He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
       and so all went well.
       Is that not what it means to know me?"
       declares the LORD.

The “He” in this verse refers to King Josiah, a good king. Perhaps we do not know God as well as we would like because we are unwilling to embrace God’s heart for the poor and needy.

To tell the truth, I am not always convinced that God does care. I mean, when I look around me at how terrible the world is, I sometimes really start to wonder at what He is thinking, but He really has made his thoughts clear in His word. Let’s take a look at Psalm 10 together.

 

Psalm 10

    10 [The innocent] are crushed, they collapse;
       they fall victim to superior strength.

    11 The wicked say to themselves, "God will never notice;
       he covers his face and never sees."

    12 Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God.
       Do not forget the helpless.

    13 Why do the wicked revile God?
       Why do they say to themselves,
       "He won't call us to account"?

    14 But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
       you consider their grief and take it in hand.
       The victims commit themselves to you;
       you are the helper of the fatherless.

    15 Break the arms of the wicked and the evildoers;
       call them to account for their wickedness
       that would not otherwise be found out.

    16 The LORD is King for ever and ever;
       the nations will perish from his land.

    17 You, LORD, hear the desire of the afflicted;
       you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

    18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
       so that mere earthly mortals
       will never again strike terror.

 

I have to admit that it often seems like the bad guys are winning when I look around the world, but this Psalm says that this simply is not true. God not only is aware of what is going on, but he is providing for the poor, weak, and helpless. It has been said that the battle against evil in this world stands and falls on the battlefield of hope.

Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Mission, says, “The oppressor knows that the primary reason we do nothing is because we have lost any hope of making a difference. It is not that we lack power, compassion, courage or knowledge. Rather, we lack a sense of hope that allows us to take what we have into the fray.”

Let me tell you a true story (also from Gary Haugen). There is a country in which there is a booming business of forced prostitution. The local police even protect it and hunt down girls who try to escape. Some girls as young as 13 or 14 are kept in up to 60 brothels in a small area. A state appointed investigator said that there was no need to look into the matter. One woman was burned to death and the name of the perpetrator was on her birth certificate, but no one went to arrest the man.

Where could such a terrible state of affairs exist? America. Wisconsin. 1880s. What happened to change things so dramatically?

One woman decided that she would not take “No” for an answer. At great risk of personal danger she went into brothels and researched conditions there. She lobbied Congress, she hired body guards to protect her from the death threats she received, she finally won a hearing at a convention in Chicago. Extra police were brought in to calm the riots and she was placed under investigation herself. She must have felt like, “Why bother. It costs too much.” She did keep plodding ahead and eventually such practices were shut down even in America. And, for a long time, such things were not heard of in American. But, last Sunday’s Kansas City Start reported that 17,000 women per year are brought into America to work as slaves in brothels. And that’s America in 2007. Who will rise up this time and say, “No more?”

 

2. God works through humans

 

The second reason we should bother is because God chooses to work through humans. Usually, even when God works in a miraculous way, he waits for a prayer or for someone to ask him to do something. I must say that every miraculous healing I have ever heard of has happened because someone asked God to do something. At the very least, God asks us to pray. Could God heal with no one praying? Of course. But he doesn’t usually seem to work in that way.

Consider a couple of passages of Scripture with me for a minute. James 2:15-18:

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 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? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

Looks like God expects us to do something. Could God clothe those people without us? Can God give everyone their daily bread without us? Absolutely, and yet, he invites us to participate.

Consider with me the story where Jesus feeds the 5,000. According to John 6, there were a whole lot of hungry people and the disciples couldn’t imagine how to feed so many of them. In fact, it would have taken a whole year’s wages to feed them all. So, they look to Jesus. Now, Jesus could have done lots of things at this point. He could have taken a rock and turned it into enough bread to feed everyone. He could have made fish fall from the sky. He could have done the miracle with manna again and bread would have fallen from the sky. Once God even made meat fall from the sky. He could have done that again. Instead, Jesus takes an offering from a small boy: five loaves and two fishes. Peter says, “Why bother with that? How far will they go among so many? People won’t even get one bite.” Jesus just takes that bread and the fish and starts filling up baskets and tells the disciples to pass out the food.

Several things strike me about this story. First, why did Jesus take the boy’s loaves and fishes? Surely the family really could have used them themselves. They probably were hungry and not so rich. And, such a pitiful offering anyway. Not even a drop in the bucket compared to the need. But Jesus wanted to give that boy a chance to participate. Can you imagine that boy later on that week when he is telling his friends that story? “Then Jesus took MY loaves and MY fishes and fed everybody.” Can you imagine how proud he will be that it was HIS loaves and HIS fishes that were used to perform a miracle? It’s the same pride I feel when I see a person in the Sudan have a safe place to sleep because I invested my few dollars in them. It’s the same pride I see in the eyes of people who donate to our All Nations church planters when they see and hear what miracles God performed with their offerings. They think, “Because of my hundred bucks a guy in Nepal finally has dignity and knows Jesus.” “Because of my prayers, a guy in Guatemala now has a garden to feed his family with.” “Because I cared enough to give up a night on the town, an AIDS baby in Mozambique has a loving family, food in their belly, and a church to attend.” Let me tell you, it’s a fantastic feeling.

Something else strikes me about this story. Jesus did not pass out the food himself (according to the account in Mathew). He gave the food to the disciples and told the disciples to distribute it. What if the disciples had said, “Thanks Jesus, we’ll store this up for a rainy day.” And every time Jesus handed them another basket the disciples said, “Wow! Jesus really loves us and blesses us. Look at all the food he is giving us.” It sounds ludicrous, but we do the same thing. When was the last time we saw a raise at work as another opportunity to bless others rather than to raise our own standard of living? God chooses to bless us so that we can be a blessing to others. Are you passing on the blessings he has given you? Are you bothering to pass on whatever the Lord gives you?

It’s worth it to get involved in the lives of others. Ask the Lord how. To get involved politically? To give financially? To go around the globe to deliver a message? To go across the back alley to show love? Maybe you need to sign up for something like the All Nations newsletter and begin to read and dream about the possibilities. Perhaps you need to get trained to help the poor or to go cross-culturally. Without a doubt, God has purposed to work through you to rescue someone. And when you start, it will feel scary and frustrating, but when you see God change you and change someone else, you will be riding on cloud 9.

Don’t suffer from a lack of imagination. Imagine what God can do. Not what you can do. Then remember that God said that he would hold your right hand and take the first step and then the next and then the next. And then make a difference one person, one minute, one dollar, one letter at a time. If God can feed 5,000 through the offering of one small boy, imagine, just imagine what he will do with your offering.