Sunset Park Cleanup!

This past Saturday, April 25^th was our first all-church project for Renew.  We partnered with Keep Middletown Beautiful, a local non-profit organization, to come together with folks in the community to landscape and paint at Sunset Park for about 4 hours.  In total, about 40-50 people from The Oaks showed up to help. It was a beautiful day for the project, with 85 degree temperatures and not a cloud in the sky. As volunteers showed up at the park, the folks from Keep Middletown Beautiful directed them to jobs and everyone went cheerfully to where they were assigned.

People from The Oaks served in a variety of ways. Some  went to the basketball courts to paint the backboards and poles, and then on to the volleyball courts to paint the poles there as well. Afterwards, they looked like brand new courts. Others dug out sod around trees and benches, hauled it all the way across the park, and came back to mulch the areas for a nice, clean finish.  Another group of people drove around the park in a truck, picking up and hauling away dead branches and trimmings scattered everywhere.  The biggest project, which took about 2/3 of the volunteers, was the massive task of painting the chain link fence around the tennis courts. It was daunting and it was tedious, and nobody who served was able to come away without a significant amount of paint splattered all over their face, hair, and arms.

Although the folks at Keep Middletown Beautiful said over and over how bad they felt that we had such “messy jobs,” none of our people complained. It was extremely encouraging to see the joy that flowed out of serving the city together in community.  There was clearly a spirit of mercy, humility, and servanthood present in our people.  They were excited to serve, and it was rewarding to see solid results from our efforts. We enjoyed the free lunch provided for us too, especially the homemade desserts!

This project should remind us that when the body of Christ comes together to serve our city with humble hearts, we can have a very real impact.

The Backwards Economy of God

How many times a week do you go out of your way for somebody else knowing that they can’t pay you back?  Think about it: when a proposition of inconvenience or a request for “a really big favor” comes your way, what goes on in your head? If you’re anything like me, I’d bet that what goes on is something along the lines of a cost/benefit analysis.  Your brain will ask you questions like:

• Do I have a sense of duty or obligation to this person?
• How much will this inconvenience me?
• Will sacrificing my time and my plans pay off in the end?
• Will this favor put this person in debt to me, so that I can call on them in the future?

Does any of that sound familiar? It may be subtle; it may be completely subconscious; in the end, however, what it reveals about our hearts is that we view our time and energy as commodities to be traded and dealt with in terms of what type of return we will receive.  Will the benefit outweigh the cost? And if it will, we’ll often do that favor, go the extra mile, and inconvenience our busy lives under the guise of benevolence and charity. But is it really charity to do something that ends up paying you back in the end?

God has a different system. In Luke 14:12-14, Jesus says:

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.  But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

It’s counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Even more: it’s revolutionary.  Why should you go out of your way for somebody who has no means of repaying you? It won’t benefit you. You may not even get a “thank you.” You may leave and feel as if no one has noticed the act of mercy that you’ve done. But Jesus promises that our Father in heaven notices.  The work we do in the name of Jesus is not to be done for the sake of getting praise, recognition, or even feeling good about ourselves. Instead the work we do must flow out of our  love for God and our love for other people, regardless of how we benefit from the transaction.  

Remember that Jesus did not come in order to receive recognition from man or earthly gain. He came with the mission of losing everything in order that we might gain eternal life.  How can we dare cling to selfish pride, thinking that if we are to help others it must somehow benefit us emotionally or economically? We have no grounds for this type of thinking. Instead, we should serve with compassion, humility, and grateful hearts.  In doing so, we not only serve the needs of our neighbor; we also glorify God, which is the only way we can say “thank you” to the One who gave everything for us.

Mercy is not Optional!

This past week I had the privilege of attending the Beauty for Ashes conference at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville.  I sat under the teaching of Dr. John Perkins and Randy Nabors, both of whom are heroes of mine in the field of mercy ministry.  I left the conference  energized and excited about the mission God has called us to in the city of Middletown.  I also left with a renewed conviction that practicing Biblical mercy is not optional;  it is a calling placed firmly upon every Christian’s life.  

In order to clarify what I mean when I say “mercy,” let me offer this definition taken from Randy Nabors:  Mercy is “compassion toward those who are in need, resulting in action to alleviate that need, through acts of charity leading towards self-sustainment.”

I want to share two passages from Scripture that emphasize the imperative of mercy that is placed upon every believer’s life.  First, consider the words Jesus uses to announce the beginning of his earthly ministry:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19, italics mine).  Many folks try to relieve the emphasis on the poor in this passage by arguing that Jesus simply meant “the poor in spirit.”  While I believe the poor in spirit are included in this passage, I believe it is wrong to limit this passage to the spiritually poor.  The fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe said “I have come to preach the gospel to the poor.”  This message of Jesus is supported by the life of Jesus.  If he ONLY meant the “poor in spirit,” why did he spend so much of his time on earth dealing with those who were physically poor?  Why did he hang out with the downtrodden and the outcast?  Why did he feed the hungry, heal the sick, relieve the oppressed if His only mission was to preach good news to the spiritually poor?  The first words of Jesus’ public ministry call us to both evangelism and mercy.  

The second passage I want you to consider comes from Matthew 25.  In this passage we encounter what Jesus’ final words will be to us on the day of judgment. What factor does he use to separate the righteous from the unrighteous? 

To the righteous he says: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” When the righteous are confused and ask when they saw Jesus in these various states of poverty or despair, he answers: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:34-36, 40).  He uses the same determining factors to disqualify the unrighteous, saying that whatever they did not do for the least of these, they did not do for Jesus.  Notice that the factors Jesus lists are all acts of mercy and compassion towards the poor. 

I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking that we are saved by our good works.  We are not. We are saved ONLY through the great work of Jesus.  He lived the life of perfect obedience we should have lived and He died the horrible, painful death we all deserve.  Through faith in His life, death and resurrection, we are now children of God.  Our works do not justify us.  Our works do not save us; Jesus does.  That being said, Jesus makes it very clear in Matthew 25 that mercy shown to others is a inescapable result of our salvation. Tim Keller captures this point well in his book Ministries of Mercy when he writes,  “A life poured out in deeds of mercy is the inevitable sign of true faith.” 

 After all, wasn’t the act of Jesus coming to earth to live and die in our place the ultimate act of mercy?  How then can we consider showing mercy to others as optional?