[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our
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[00:00:25] Speaker B: Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you for being a part of this very special weekend.
It's been really great to be able to honor Cindy's memory and give glory to our savior at the very same time. When we talked about this, we said we don't want this to be heavy, we don't feel.
And so we've tried not to make it feel heavy, but there's had some heavy moments since Indy's passing. Man, I don't know. I have this salty discharge that goes for my eyes quite frequently. It's something that I didn't have earlier on. One of the benefits, I guess, of grief and sorrow is God softens your heart.
So I'm sure I needed that or I wouldn't be experiencing it. But I am honored that you're here. I'm glad a lot of our family can be here. My grandkids are in this service this morning, and I kind of feel she's getting a chance to look in on all this. Right. So I don't want to blow it. I want to do my best. So I'm glad you're here. I was thinking about what would be an appropriate just a brief message, but something appropriate for the dedication of this facility. When you think about neighbors helping neighbors, and that's really what we're to be about.
I thought about the story of the Good Samaritan, right? That catch popped in my mind and in my heart, because when you think of the story of the Good Samaritan, you think about someone doing for someone who could do nothing for them in return. And it's really what our Christian faith teaches us, that we are to be willing to give to others without expecting a return, that God will give the blessing for the work that we do in his name. And when I reread the story, it was interesting, the context in which you find the story of the Good Samaritan, because Jesus is actually he's being questioned and he's being questioned concerning the keeping of the Mosaic Law, the Ten Commandments. And Jesus gave the answer that the secret in following the Ten Commandments is found in following two commandments. And so as I thought about that, I thought, well, so the ten thou shalt nots could be fulfilled with two thou shalts.
And Jesus said, here's how you fulfill the law and all the commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And he said, the second is as powerful love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus said, on these two, thou shalts is the fulfillment of all that thou shalt not. And when you think about the Mosaic law, half of that law was directed toward how we treat each other.
Don't steal, don't kill, don't take advantage, and so forth. And so the idea there is that if we loved our neighbor as we should, we would never violate a law against our neighbor.
And then the other part of those ten commandments are directed toward God.
And Jesus was teaching the principle, if we love God as we should, we'd never violate a command against him. So the secret of it all is in this idea of loving God and loving our neighbor. And of course, the person who was asking Jesus the question wasn't satisfied with that. He said, well, who is my neighbor? I mean, I understand who God is, but who is my I want to be specific. I don't want to love the wrong people, right? That's what's implied. I want to make sure I want to do this right. He was a legalist. I want to make sure I get this right. And then in that context, jesus gives this beautiful story of the good Samaritan. Notice how it opens in Luke ten, verse 30. Jesus answered and said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. And let me stop long enough to say, no one plans to fall.
We fall all the time, but no one plans to fall. If you've ever stumbled and fell, you didn't get up and look at yourself and said, well, I'm glad I got that over with. I was planning that all day.
What's implied in the terminology a fall is that a person has experienced something they did not expect.
They have experienced something that they did not plan for. They've experienced something that they did not foresee.
And when I thought about that, as I read the narrative and the thoughts that I wanted to share with you this morning, I thought that we encounter people every day who are going through things unexpectedly. They're going through things they weren't prepared for. They were going through things they really don't deserve. And sometimes I think Christians get the rap of looking down on people when they stumble and when they fall. And we forget we as Christians stumble and fall all the time.
In fact, when you read Galatians, chapter six, verse one, the Bible says, if you're overtaken in a fault, meaning that if you are run down by something, chased down by something, you are overtaken by an experience. He says, those of you who are spiritual, the people who should respond, he said, restore that one, considering yourself, realizing that that could have been you. And the interesting word there in Galatians six, the word restore in the Greek language, it means the same thing as resetting a bone. I don't know if you've ever broken a bone. But if you've broken a bone, you want the people who are resetting the bone to be gentle.
You don't want to be rough with you. You want them to know what they're doing and you want them to be gentle. And so the idea there is that you can be overtaken in a fall. You can stumble and you can fall. And I would tell you, good people fall, good people stumble.
In fact, in Psalm 37, verse 23, the psalmist David wrote these words. He said, the steps of a good person listen to the Phrasing. The steps of a good person, steps of a good person are ordered by the Lord and God delights in their way. He's even pleased with their life. And then the next phrase says, though they fall, good people fall.
People who are right where they're supposed to be doing what they're supposed to be doing, they stumble and they fall. So never be guilty of dismissing someone who's going through something as being someone who obviously has done something wrong. Therefore they must obviously deserve what's happening to them.
You remember the admonition of Matthew seven where Jesus says, judge not lest that you also be judged. For with the same judgment you measure out, that measurement will come right back to you again. So I'm saying, as a Christ follower, I need to be compassionate as I look at people who stumble and fall, realizing the principles of the verses I've shared is that could have easily have been me.
And so I should treat them as the way I would want to be treated should I stumble and should I fall. And so this is Jesus'words, and so don't forget the context. He's talking about who my neighbor is. He said, the man falls into the hands of these robbers and they stripped him, they beat him and went away from him, leaving him half dead. What's obviously implied in the text is they leave him with nothing.
He's physically spent, he's financially spent, he's emotionally spent. Here is a guy at the very bottom of his life and, oh, suddenly verse 31, a priest happened to be going down the same road. Oh, help is on the way. A priest has come along, a religious man. And the Bible says a priest goes by and when he saw him, he passed by him on the other side. Now, that was unexpected in the story, right?
I mean, if anyone would have responded to a man when he's down and man when he's hurting would be a religious person, right?
I can tell you this morning I've been raised in church.
My family are all here. Her dad was a pastor. And so, can I tell you from experience, some of the meanest people you'll ever meet are religious people.
Can I tell you that?
Let me say it this way. Some of our regulars will get this. If you hadn't been hurt in church, you just didn't go long enough.
Hang in there, baby. Somebody will run you down to the glory of God.
And I mean, here's this guy. You would think if anybody's going to help a brother, it's going to be a religious man. I mean, a priest, for God's sake. And he comes by, sees the man's plight, and the Bible says he passes him by on the other side like he didn't see him.
Now. I could speculate.
And I will. It's free like the rest of it.
I would imagine when the priest saw him, maybe the priest thought, god's getting you for something.
That's always a common thought when a brother or sister falls. We knee jerk, and we often think, well, God's probably getting them for something. I don't want to get between what God may be doing in their life, so let's let it play out, right?
I mean, maybe that's the thought that they had. Maybe that they deserve the thing that they're going through. Remember Job when Job went through all that he went through job probably the oldest book of the Bible, and the devil basically challenges God and says, the only reason Job loves you is nothing bad ever happens to him. He's living a charm life if you just let me at him. The devil said, Lower the hedge. Job one, lower the hedge. Let me add him. He will curse you. He will renounce your faith. God responds to the devil and says, you don't know my servant Job. He's made of strong stuff.
Well, the story is he lowers the hedge and Job loses everything other than his life.
And you know how the first reaction of Job's friends were? They said, what did you do wrong?
What did you do to displease God that all these bad things should be happening? I don't want you to miss this in the text. Sometimes, religious people, instead of helping people, we can be very judgmental and critical of people.
And here this religious person just passes by. Not my job, not my deal. I am not going to get involved with this guy. And so religion doesn't help him.
By the a, let me just chase this rabbit a little further. There's a difference between religion and a relationship with Jesus.
You know that, right? You have that beautiful story in Acts, chapter eight of The Treasure of Candacei, the Queen of Ethiopia, as he's leaving the most religious city in the world, Jerusalem, and he's leaving Jerusalem as empty as when he got there.
And all of a sudden, he's reading Isaiah 53, and God sends Philip the Evangelist to engage with him. And Philip begins to talk to him about the thing that he's reading, and Philip has the opportunity to lead this man to Christ.
Now, the point I don't want you to miss is the man left the most religious city in the world as empty as when he got there. Sometimes you can go to the most religious places in the world and leave as empty as when you got there. Because the answer is not your religion. It's in a relationship to Jesus Christ.
John 14 six. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. So I'll tell you from the story. Religion will fail you. It will let you down.
And then the Bible says, secondly, who came his way was a Levite. The Levites were the keepers of the law. So I would surmise the Levite probably said, you did the crime, now you're going to do the time.
Maybe the Levite thought this guy must have done something wrong, and so now he's paying for the crimes that he's done. He passed him by on the other side. But look, verse 33, the Samaritan.
As this Samaritan traveled, the Bible says he came. No, and this is beautiful. He went to where this man was.
Now, what's significant about that? If you have studied the Bible, you understand that in that day the Jewish people had no dealings with Samaritans. They had nothing to do with one another. When Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, she was shocked that a Jewish man would be speaking with her. So the Samaritans had no dealings with the Jews. In fact, on one occasion when Jesus was traveling with his apostles, they were going to cut through the land that was owned by the Samaritans because it was shorter. And the Samaritans forbid them entrance into the land. And Sweet John, that just represents a lot of people, says, well, God, let's just call fire down from heaven and burn them out. Isn't that sweet? Let's just call in an airstrike.
And Jesus said, man, you don't know what spirit you're of. That's not what we're about. The point I want you to miss is these people had nothing to do with each other. And Jesus is using this story of a Jewish man leaving Jerusalem, on his way to Jericho, beaten and left for dead, passed by by a priest and a Levite. And the one that responds to him was the least likely one that would have responded the Samaritan.
And he goes to where this man is. He takes assessment of his injuries. The Bible says he took pity. He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. The wine, the alcohol probably had some antiseptic reaction to his wounds. The oil had some soothing reaction to his wounds. Then he doesn't stop there. He puts him on his own donkey. And the Bible says he takes him to an end and he gives coins to the innkeeper. Some scholars believe probably enough to cover expenses for a month. And then he says, look after this guy. Loosely translated, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense that you might have. He said, I'll cover it all. Don't charge this guy anything, tear up his card. I'm going to cover every bit of his expenses. I want this man whole. Now, this is Jesus'story. And then Jesus asked the question to this man inquisitive of who is my neighbor? Which of these three do you think was the neighbor to the man that fell into the hands of robbers? And the expert replied, well, the one who had mercy on him. And Jesus said, Duh. No, he didn't say that. He said, Go and do likewise. In other words, that's the commission for the Christian go and do likewise. A beautiful example of what this looks like is Acts chapter four, you have the launching of the church. In Acts chapter two, you have the persecution of the church thereafter. And what was happening in the Jewish economy of religion is as these people were turning from their religious roots and embracing the relationship with the Messiah who had been crucified and they were being told had now risen from the dead, and he now wants a relationship with them, that was the message. And as they were doing that, these religious people were being desynagogued. Now, what it meant in that day, if you were desynagogue, you were put outside the synagogue. You could not buy, sell or trade with anyone else.
You were blacklisted.
You couldn't do business with anyone. And what happened as a result of that is people were going through their savings.
They were spending the last that they had. They were in desperate need. And back then, there was no social net. You know what the social net was, was the church.
In fact, can I tell you, I think God has designed this thing so that when people are hurting, they should look to the church.
And can I chase that rabbit a little further and tell you? I think many times the reason to look to government and not to God is in many cases, the church has failed to help people when they're hurting. They got to have help somewhere who's going to help them? And so if the church makes themselves available and accessible, they'll become attractive to people who needs help.
And so by Acts chapter four, the people don't know what to do. There's no social network. So notice what happens. The people in the church began to share the things that they had. There's a Greek word that describes this interaction. It was called coinonea. Maybe you've heard of it. It's an interesting Greek concept. It means two things. It means to share something with someone. It means to share in something with someone.
That's two levels of interaction. To share something with someone is you may post up, hey, pray for me. I'm going through something. Pray for my family. You may tell somebody in a service. You may say to someone on the job, hey, pray for me. We're facing this this week that's sharing something with someone. That's part of Coin and EA sharing in something with someone is when you engage with that person and you say, how can I help you?
Not to get in their business or not to intrude into their life, but you make yourself available to do more than just thoughts and prayers.
You begin to say, I want to walk through this with you. If I can help you, I'm available for you.
And so that's koinonia. And that began to happen in that early church. And that's precisely the principle Jesus was trying to hammer into their thinking, is that we have a responsibility to help our neighbor.
In the story, it's interesting, and I'll kind of wrap with this. He identifies three types of mindsets.
And I would remind us all, there are at least three people sitting in our seat today. Have you thought about this? There's the person we are right in this moment.
There is the person we could be for evil, and there is the person we could be for good.
And in the story, Jesus identifies three people. He says, There are people you will encounter in life who will beat you up.
You'll do business with them. You may know some of them. They will beat you up. Their attitude is, what's yours is mine, and I'll take it. Takers, get all you can, can all you get. Set on the lid, spoil the rest.
That's the type of person that's out there. The second type, they don't beat you up. They'll pass you up.
Good luck with all that.
They'll never lift a finger to help you, even though they may have the ability to do so. And then the third type of person and this is where I hope we'll all be that's the person who will help you up.
Now, understanding when you help people up, we're limited.
Sometimes people hesitate helping people. They don't know what to do.
Heard about a guy that took these first aid courses. He really wanted to help people. He wanted to be prepared in case he drove up on an accident or whatever. So, man, he went for weeks, and he took all these first aid courses, and he was sharing what happened to the class the following week. He goes, Guys, man, I had an opportunity to use some of the things that I've learned. I was going down the road the other day, drove up on a terrible accident, man, it was trauma. And as I walked up on it, oh, man, there was blood. And he said, Guys, I want to tell you, I remembered everything I learned in this class. I remembered if I could just put my head between my legs, I would not faint.
Sometimes we don't help people because we feel inadequate. We don't feel we can. Sometimes we don't help people because we feel like I'm underresourced. I don't know how to do it. Here's what's interesting about the story. This man used what he had to help those he could here's what I know. God will never call me to account for the things that I don't have. He will never call me to account for abilities that I don't have, for skills that he didn't give me. What? He will hold me account according to Romans 1214, he will hold me account for the skills he's given me.
How did I use my time? How did I use my resources? What did I do for other people? He will call me to account for the things that I did with what he had given me. And all I'm suggesting to your heart that when you align yourself in that position to say, I will help those that I can help, then God has already gifted you. He's already blessed you with everything you need to make a difference in someone else's life. Let me give this to you. And we'll close.
I remember two friends who would take walks down the beach.
They met every morning, and there was a tropical storm that had blown through the area. And so after the storm, they kind of wondered whether or not the walk was still on. So they texted one another. One said, hey, I'm still going, man, if you want to meet me. He said, yeah, maybe a little late, but I'll meet you.
So when they got to the area of the beach, it was obvious there was a lot of debris on the beach. He looked way down the way and he saw his friend. But he saw as he got closer to his friend, he saw his friend reaching down and getting something from the surf, from the sand and throwing it back into the surf. And he didn't really know what was happening till he got up closer and he realized there were tens of thousands of starfish from the storm that had washed up on the shore. And he saw his friend as he would locate a live starfish and there were tens of thousands of them still alive. He would take that living starfish and throw it back out into the surf.
He goes, man, what are you doing? He goes, Man, I'm trying to save starfish. He goes, I see that.
But he said, you can't save them all. And besides that, what difference does it make? And the man held a starfish up in his hand and said, make a big difference to this one. And he threw it back in the surf.
What can a church do?
Tens of thousands of people, millions of people in the metroplex. Can we save them all?
I wish we could.
Can we help them all? I wish we could.
Sometimes you get overwhelmed and you say, man, what difference am I making? Let me tell you, it makes a big difference in the people that you can help.
It'll make a big difference to someone.
So I just want us as a church as we launch the CRC as its own charity. I want us to realize that we want to be a people that's about helping people who are hurting. We talk about it. You don't reach people till they get reachable. Then everyone is reachable when they're broken. And so we want to be a church that loves the broken, that helps them to their feet, that says, look, we can't do it all, but we'll do what we can with what we've been given to help you, to help our neighbor. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for this service, the time of celebration, time of commemoration.
And now as we close, it's a time of dedication.
And Father, first and foremost, we dedicate that building to your honor and to Your glory.
Father, we pray that building will be a center and a launching place for ministry and for opportunities to help people, perhaps even in ways that we haven't even considered. There may be people in this room or people watching online that will bring ideas to the table that we could involve partnerships that we haven't considered, that we could engage with.
So Lord, I pray that you'll help us as we move forward.
So, Lord Jesus, we dedicate the building to you.
We honor Cindy's memory.
Thank you, Father, for all that you're doing in and through the lives of those that are being touched by this ministry.
And Lord, I ask that if there's someone in the room or someone watching who may never have placed their faith in you that this might be the moment, this would be the morning when they just pray. A simple prayer like this and say, Lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I trust all that I know about you come into my heart.
Forgive my sin, be a reality in my life. And Father, I'll thank you for ask this in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
