This is the second of 8 sermons on a series Entitled “God Solves our Problems”.
Last week we heard how the promise of eternal life changes our perspective on problems, allowing us to see problems with an eternal, godly perspective instead of an urgent, human perspective. And we saw how, with our permission, God puts us into a training program to help us learn to live godly, holy lives.
This week, we see biblical models of leadership which solve many of our problems.
In our first reading, we see the ideal wife – a woman who is strong, caring, wise in the ways of business, hard-working, and leads her children and her household servants. She is able to earn money from her skills and with it buy land and start additional businesses. She takes care of her family with beautiful clothing – and gives to the poor. She respects God and her husband, and partially because of her, her husband is well-respected in the community. She rises early and goes to bed late.
And her reward? Her husband and children love and respect her, praising her to all. And the neighbors also praise her and her works.
It is worth noting a couple of things which are not mentioned. This woman has not been torn by making the modern decision between family and career – she has them both, for she has decided to not only work in the home, but to work from the home. She is there for her children and she is a strong financial contributor to the family, finding a career in her business pursuits which she runs from the house because it keeps her near her husband and children. She truly has it all, and her life is in balance. Children, husband, God, and business are all mentioned in her life.
There was a time when having it all was more common than we like to believe. The farm family worked together. The store owner’s family worked together. The smith and the carpenter and the pastor’s family all worked together on the same plot of land instead of traveling a half an hour twice every day to spend 8 hours apart.
And then, there was a time when we decided as a society that this ideal simply could not be followed – a woman simply had to make a decision between career and home, between the office and the kitchen, her family and her employer.
But you know, in the last couple of decades technology has amazingly enough become our friend in this area. The Internet is full of people who are selling home-made craft items or services while working from home. Even Facebook allows you to set up business pages from which to sell your products and advertise them. I have a friend in Georgia who sells model car kits over the Internet and makes a good living. I know another person who sells wooden moose carvings – still another sells cheap New Testaments, and another works from home as an AT&T inbound telemarketing agent – the company routs calls to her between certain hours, she makes $15 per hour, and she never has to leave her home, working as many hours – or as few hours – as she wants to. I know of a woman who earned $100 per hour worked with her online business. And for 10 years our entire family worked from home. It takes a bit of courage and willingness to experiment a bit, but it can be done.
But back to the woman in Proverbs. Did you notice that her joy, her rewards, her income comes from doing things for others. First and foremost, this woman is focused on other people – her husband, her family, her neighbors, her servants, and her God – she is not focused upon demanding things for herself but assumes that she will find joy and meaning and love by providing for other people.
This is perhaps the key lesson to be learned from the Proverbial woman – and from our James reading – The lesson is that when we focus upon what we want and desire and need and must have – things go wrong. Our life wilts and dies, but when we focus upon what others want and desire and need and must have - our life blossoms into a wonderful, fulfilling, joyful time!
James wrote: What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
In other words, when we focus upon our needs, trouble brews, fights happen, arguments come forth, and divorce stalks our families.
So how do we get what we want?
James continues:
You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
The flip side is to ask God with good motives. Do you need a job? You might want to try doing what Saundra did many years ago.
One day, years before I met her, my wife Saundra needed a job. She heard about a job selling advertising at the local newspaper, but she delayed in going to the office, and when she finally applied she found out a woman much more qualified than her had been given the job the day before. Many people would have prayed for another job, or for something to happen to the woman who got the job.
Instead, Saundra prayed for the woman to receive an even better job. An hour or so later, the newspaper called up Saundra. It seems as though that other woman had been offered a different job at another company making considerably more than the newspaper was offering, and would Saundra like the job?
You see, God understands when you need help. For example, God knows when you need a new car, but God also knows when a used Ford Focus will get you there, and God knows that you don’t really need a BMW, even if you’ve been asking for one for the last five years.
In our story with Jesus and the disciples, the disciples were arguing about who was in charge. You can almost imagine Jesus rolling his eyes, so he sits down and says: Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
But what does this mean?
Are you willing to give up your prerogatives, your place in society? If you have been listened to for years, are you willing to be ignored in the next meeting? If you’ve had your way, are you willing to let someone half your age have their way – and help them succeed even though you know the better way? If you were the best, can you help the worst become the best?
In modern leadership training, the subject always rolls around to types of people. Everybody works differently. And the human resources types, the personnel and staffing managers always tell us that there are people who are focused upon tasks – getting the job done – and there are people who are focused upon people – having good relationships with the people around them. And so the human resources types and the staffing managers tell us that we have to hire the right people for the job, with enough task-oriented people that the jobs will get done and enough people-oriented people that there won’t always be fights.
And we sometimes see that in the church. The church wants to have a fellowship dinner and there are some people who are very focused upon the most efficient way to serve a fellowship dinner, they’ve done this for 30 years, they have the process down to a science, they know what is efficient and works and gets the job done! Get ‘er done!
And then there are people who want to talk. For them, working at the fellowship dinner is a time to find out just whatever happened to those grandchildren, to talk about Sally’s mother’s cancer treatments, to hear the stories about the dog that ran away. It drives the task-oriented people crazy!
Or we have a clothing closet and there is a particular, best way to find used clothing, a particular process we must follow to be efficient, a time-tested method that works and works and we only give 2 suits and 3 pairs of pants to a person every 2 months and that’s the rules, the rules were made to be efficient and not waste time or resources.
And then there is the people-oriented person who knows that this man needs 5 pairs of pants because he’s working five days a week and he’ll need matching pants in his job and so they give away two extra pair of pants and the paperwork never is right when that person works the clothing closet.
Perhaps we have a music ministry, and the musicians know that the key to a great performance is practice, practice, practice. And it kills some musicians to listen to our music, because it isn’t as good as the Gaither Family, our vocals aren’t as strong as Taylor Swift, our instruments aren’t as good as the New York Philharmonic. And we talk a lot during choir practice and could probably practice our pieces twice as much if we didn’t gab so much.
But as the church, as members of the Body of Christ, we should recognize what the task of the church is. Unlike Wendy’s or McDonald’s or Oliverios, our job is not to be a restaurant. Unlike JC Penney’s, or Sears, or Old Navy, our job is not to sell clothing. Unlike Kroger’s or Walmart or Aldi’s, our job is not to sell groceries. And unlike the Social Security Administration or DHHR or WIC, our job is not to be an efficient government agency, dispensing aid in a crisp, efficient manner. Unlike the American Music Theatre or Taylor Swift, our job is not to offer wonderful musical performance each week.
Our task as the church is to help people connect with God through Jesus Christ, to help people understand God’s will by teaching them to read the Word of God and to listen to the Holy Spirit, to help people accept God’s grace and live an eternal, abundant life!
We will never be as efficient at feeding people as Ryan’s and McDonald’s are. We will never offer a clothing selection as broad as JC Penney or even Gabriel Brothers. We will never move as much food to people as Kroger, Walmart or Food Lion can, nor anywhere as efficiently.
But we can pray with people. We can stop and listen to their hurts and fears and stories, and we can tell them what God has done for us. We can reach out to people and boost them to the point where they can soar past us in their relationship with God. We can change the world for the better because we have access to the mighty power of God whenever we stop for a moment to pray our hearts out for some hurting soul!
You see, the church often doesn’t operate very efficiently because, when it comes right down to it, our task IS the people. Everything we do in the church is for the purpose of developing the people in the church and the people we run into outside the church. The task IS the people!
And so, that extra talk during choir is what helps people understand God a little bit better. The time spent during the fellowship meal preparation talking about each other’s relatives is how we lift each other over the fears and obstacles of life. The times the slide is just a bit late to flip on the overhead, the time the microphone squeals or is too quiet – those times are the times when some teenagers learn responsibility and focus and other skills which will help them in college and on the job and in their families one day.
For the purpose of the church of Jesus Christ is:
In modern leadership training, the subject always rolls around to types of people. Everybody works differently. And the human resources types, the personnel and staffing managers always tell us that there are people who are focused upon tasks – getting the job done – and there are people who are focused upon people – having good relationships with the people around them. And so the human resources types and the staffing managers tell us that we have to hire the right people for the job, with enough task-oriented people that the jobs will get done and enough people-oriented people that there won’t always be fights.
And we sometimes see that in the church. The church wants to have a fellowship dinner and there are some people who are very focused upon the most efficient way to serve a fellowship dinner, they’ve done this for 30 years, they have the process down to a science, they know what is efficient and works and gets the job done! Get ‘er done!
And then there are people who want to talk. For them, working at the fellowship dinner is a time to find out just whatever happened to those grandchildren, to talk about Sally’s mother’s cancer treatments, to hear the stories about the dog that ran away. It drives the task-oriented people crazy!
Or we have a clothing closet and there is a particular, best way to find used clothing, a particular process we must follow to be efficient, a time-tested method that works and works and we only give 2 suits and 3 pairs of pants to a person every 2 months and that’s the rules, the rules were made to be efficient and not waste time or resources.
And then there is the people-oriented person who knows that this man needs 5 pairs of pants because he’s working five days a week and he’ll need matching pants in his job and so they give away two extra pair of pants and the paperwork never is right when that person works the clothing closet.
Perhaps we have a music ministry, and the musicians know that the key to a great performance is practice, practice, practice. And it kills some musicians to listen to our music, because it isn’t as good as the Gaither Family, our vocals aren’t as strong as Taylor Swift, our instruments aren’t as good as the New York Philharmonic. And we talk a lot during choir practice and could probably practice our pieces twice as much if we didn’t gab so much.
But as the church, as members of the Body of Christ, we should recognize what the task of the church is. Unlike Wendy’s or McDonald’s or Oliverios, our job is not to be a restaurant. Unlike JC Penney’s, or Sears, or Old Navy, our job is not to sell clothing. Unlike Kroger’s or Walmart or Aldi’s, our job is not to sell groceries. And unlike the Social Security Administration or DHHR or WIC, our job is not to be an efficient government agency, dispensing aid in a crisp, efficient manner. Unlike the American Music Theatre or Taylor Swift, our job is not to offer wonderful musical performance each week.
Our task as the church is to help people connect with God through Jesus Christ, to help people understand God’s will by teaching them to read the Word of God and to listen to the Holy Spirit, to help people accept God’s grace and live an eternal, abundant life!
We will never be as efficient at feeding people as Ryan’s and McDonald’s are. We will never offer a clothing selection as broad as JC Penney or even Gabriel Brothers. We will never move as much food to people as Kroger, Walmart or Food Lion can, nor anywhere as efficiently.
But we can pray with people. We can stop and listen to their hurts and fears and stories, and we can tell them what God has done for us. We can reach out to people and boost them to the point where they can soar past us in their relationship with God. We can change the world for the better because we have access to the mighty power of God whenever we stop for a moment to pray our hearts out for some hurting soul!
You see, the church often doesn’t operate very efficiently because, when it comes right down to it, our task IS the people. Everything we do in the church is for the purpose of developing the people in the church and the people we run into outside the church. The task IS the people!
And so, that extra talk during choir is what helps people understand God a little bit better. The time spent during the fellowship meal preparation talking about each other’s relatives is how we lift each other over the fears and obstacles of life. The times the slide is just a bit late to flip on the overhead, the time the microphone squeals or is too quiet – those times are the times when some teenagers learn responsibility and focus and other skills which will help them in college and on the job and in their families one day.
For the purpose of the church of Jesus Christ is:
- to connect people to God through Jesus Christ,
- to help people learn God’s will through the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit, and
- to help people achieve an eternal, abundant life with God.
And so our leadership is to be different from the world.
Most of us learned our leadership from elementary teachers, from sergeants in the Army, or from supervisors at work. But there is a key difference between leading in the church and leading in school, in the Army, or at work. In school – you can’t leave. At work, if you leave you lose your salary. In the Army, if you leave you end up in jail. But anyone can leave the church anytime and drive down the road to the next church – or even stay home.
And so Jesus told us that we would need a different form of leadership. A humble leadership. A leadership which is the servant of everyone else. A leadership which understand that their purpose is to lift up and develop the other people in the church and outside the church, to show them God’s love, to help them, to love them, to serve them, and to even love them to the point of cutting them off when they become too dependent.
In ancient times, the children watched the little children. The teens watched the children, and the women watched the teens. In a social gathering, the men were too busy talking with other important people – the other men – to worry about the women or the teens or the children – and they definitely stayed away from the little children and infants. So Mark reports that:
36 [Jesus] took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”
Do you welcome the little children? Perhaps you do, for our society is far more open to this action by adults than the society of first century Palestine was. And so I’ll phrase it a different way for our culture:
Do you welcome the foreign visitor? Do you welcome the dirty, the smelly, the heavily tattooed? Do you stand at the door and greet everyone who walks into this building, guiding them to where they need to go, sitting beside them because you know they are new visitors, eating supper with them on Wednesday evenings even though your friends are here? Do you help the woman with her three little children, the man with his wheelchair, the woman with the headscarf at Walmart or the man with the turban? Have you struck up a conversation at the Chinese restaurant with the young man who is waiting on your table, did you greet the woman at Hardees by name, have you asked the teenager sitting alone “what’s wrong” and listened to them?
This is what it means to be a leader in the church.
“But I don’t want to lead in the church,” you say.
Tough. You are part of the church, a disciple of Jesus. And Jesus expected His disciples to lead in the world. The church is just where we happen to meet a couple of times a week. Our ministry – your ministry is in the world.
Everyone here has the opportunity – and the command – to bring people far enough along in their knowledge and understanding of God and Christ that those people are ready to be baptized. And after they are baptized, we have the responsibility and opportunity to teach each other every command that Jesus taught the original Twelve disciples. Read the very end of Matthew’s Gospel if you need proof. (See Matthew 28:16-20).
It has been my practice to ask you to each attempt to lead one person a year to Christ. Each of us should attempt to lead at least one person a year to the point where they desire baptism. In this charge this year, we have seen 10 people come into full membership in the church, either through baptism or confirmation. Of course, what is sobering is that two of those people who were baptized this year have already gone to be with the LORD. What we do here is important, absolutely critical for people’s eternal souls.
Many years ago, a man in Palestine assembled and taught a small group of twelve men about God. Those men each taught others about God, and over the centuries, that one man and his followers have grown to be over a billion people strong. Of course, I speak of Jesus and the original twelve disciples, the first small group.
And so, if you are willing, consider that you are today appointed the leader of a small group of a dozen people. Write down twelve names. These names are the people in your small group. Some are in your family. Some are in the church. Others work with you, others are your neighbors, and still others are the people you see every week or so in the community – Sharon at the bank, Tim at Walmart, Sara the teacher, Gene the Little League dad. Harry, who works at Home Depot. Put their names on a list and treat them as you would treat the people in a small group you led and taught inside the walls of this church.
Every week or two, check on them. Praise God to them. Tell them what you’ve learned about God this week. Pray for each of them. Lead them to Christ or help them listen more to the Holy Spirit if they are already Christians. Take on the responsibility and be their servant leader. Act just like the older woman does in the movie "War Room." Pray for God to help you and give you the words to say each time you talk with your group. And God will grant that prayer, for it is a prayer of humbleness and, as James wrote:
“But I don’t want to lead in the church,” you say.
Tough. You are part of the church, a disciple of Jesus. And Jesus expected His disciples to lead in the world. The church is just where we happen to meet a couple of times a week. Our ministry – your ministry is in the world.
Everyone here has the opportunity – and the command – to bring people far enough along in their knowledge and understanding of God and Christ that those people are ready to be baptized. And after they are baptized, we have the responsibility and opportunity to teach each other every command that Jesus taught the original Twelve disciples. Read the very end of Matthew’s Gospel if you need proof. (See Matthew 28:16-20).
It has been my practice to ask you to each attempt to lead one person a year to Christ. Each of us should attempt to lead at least one person a year to the point where they desire baptism. In this charge this year, we have seen 10 people come into full membership in the church, either through baptism or confirmation. Of course, what is sobering is that two of those people who were baptized this year have already gone to be with the LORD. What we do here is important, absolutely critical for people’s eternal souls.
Many years ago, a man in Palestine assembled and taught a small group of twelve men about God. Those men each taught others about God, and over the centuries, that one man and his followers have grown to be over a billion people strong. Of course, I speak of Jesus and the original twelve disciples, the first small group.
And so, if you are willing, consider that you are today appointed the leader of a small group of a dozen people. Write down twelve names. These names are the people in your small group. Some are in your family. Some are in the church. Others work with you, others are your neighbors, and still others are the people you see every week or so in the community – Sharon at the bank, Tim at Walmart, Sara the teacher, Gene the Little League dad. Harry, who works at Home Depot. Put their names on a list and treat them as you would treat the people in a small group you led and taught inside the walls of this church.
Every week or two, check on them. Praise God to them. Tell them what you’ve learned about God this week. Pray for each of them. Lead them to Christ or help them listen more to the Holy Spirit if they are already Christians. Take on the responsibility and be their servant leader. Act just like the older woman does in the movie "War Room." Pray for God to help you and give you the words to say each time you talk with your group. And God will grant that prayer, for it is a prayer of humbleness and, as James wrote:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.8 Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Our James reading this week ended with a call to action, a call to physical action.
“Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
We all are sinners. We all are of two minds toward God – both loving Him and loving the things of the world. Let us all wash our hands, and say a prayer asking God to purify our hearts today. Wash your hands so you can go to work for the Kingdom. Let us wash our hands lest our sins harm others.
“Come near to God, and He will come near to you.”
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