Streaming Service

Hi there.

Before I begin, I just want to tell you. Thank you, your congregation supports the organization that I work for. And I'm not only financially, but with encouragement and interactions with your pastoral staff. So, I just want to say, thanks before I get started,

Next thing like to share is my credentials, what is it? That gives me the right to stand here before you or what is my status or what is my background? Is there any reason at all? You should listen to me. And the answer is that. I belong to Jesus.

That's all I've got.

And to make sure we stick with him and not some other dumb things. I might talk about it like to pray before I say anymore. Father, I want to. Focus on you right now.

And thank you. Where are these? Good hearts. And this congregation.

I want to thank you, not only for being a God who offers incredible promises to us but that you're a God who keeps his promises.

And I'd like to ask your spirit to come. Please banished Satan from this. This meeting here. Lord, I'd ask your spirit to unite us. These people don't know me, but we're brothers and sisters of your son. And I'd ask you to create Harmony and to speak what you want to speak, please - my plans and and do your work. Hope our hearts in our, in our thinking, and our feelings to glorify you as we go forward. Amen.

I'm going to start with three stories, most of what I'll share with you today scripture. But It'll be for the scripturally focused around something I learned because you might be worried right now since I'm with a non-profit charity organization that I'm going to ask you for something. And I'm not here to ask you for anything, and you also might be worried that I think I can teach you something and it in Converse and pretty sure you have stuff to teach me. So instead wanting to do what I hope to do today is to encourage you, not teach you not ask from you and I hope to encourage you by sharing something. I learned that brings me closer to God. And the thing that I'm going to focus on is how did Jesus handle Those who came and needed stuff from him. Because I had a problem with this. I didn't know what to do when I was faced with need. What do I do with the guy on the street corner with a sign? What do I do? When my friend tells me that I need to help sewing? So what do I do when somebody says I should be volunteering. And so I learned God, taught me. What I should do. I don't know what you should do, but I'm going to share some encouragement of what I learned from me. I'm going to start it with three quick stories. The first one is that I was a lifetime addict. And after I got clean after 30 years of that, I wanted to know what God wanted me to do, and I thought, you know, the sensible thing. I thought, well, maybe I'll start a sober house, right? Maybe I'll work with addicts. Maybe I'll help them because I've been through it and I'll pause that story right there and let you do your own math and figure out if that happened or not. Another story that I'll start with here. Is that I I started at Love INC, by the way, love Inc is a Jesus focused organization where Jesus first, Jesus, last Jesus, all the time. It stands for Love In The Name of Christ. And when I started, they're my very first day. We had a, a neighbor in need who was in the office and

He needed gas money to get to Vancouver. Have you heard that story like I'm broken down? I just need a little gas money to get to the next off. You know, I get this all the time. I'm down in, Bellingham pretty often and you get this at the gas station sometimes, but in this case are call centers sorted out that this was a true story. This guy is on his way to Vancouver with his family and he was broken down and we found a congregation to help with his gas money. He also had a little car repair that he needed, so he was going to be in town a couple days and the church sent us the money for his gas and my director asked me to go to the gas station with this guy. And we followed each other to the gas pumps. I put the Love Ink credit card into the pump. And then after we got gas in his car, he turned at me and he said Oscar, he said, look at that. Look at those beautiful girls. Look at my kids in the car. He said, can you help me out with like 35, 40 bucks so we can get some food. And I'm going to leave you hanging right there with that story, you can guess what I did with it, will come back to it later. Because my third story is a friend who came up to me. He's a dear dear friend who loves Jesus, he helped me. I was in a crisis and I moved to a new apartment and so this friend new cuz he helped me move. He knew that I moved into a place with an extra bedroom and he had a friend. He had been working on this guy as his friend fell into worse, Social Circles and more drugs. My friend, my friend's name is Bobby. Bobby Bobby was hoping he would find Jesus. And then what actually happened is he went to jail. And body came up to me and he said, Oscar my friends, getting out of jail.

And I know that you have an extra bedroom and he needs to get away from those bad friends who used to have he needs to stay away from drugs, can he stay in your bedroom? And this story also I'm going to leave hanging right there because in each case, I had a decision to make, right? How am I going to help the poor or how do I respond to need? And what I'm going to do now is talk about how Jesus modeled this when he walked on the Earth?

Didn't sell in order to know how God wants me to handle people in need, I first need to know who God is and so I'm going to finally at last get into some scripture here. I'm headed to Matthew 25 verse 31, And it says, when the son of man comes in his glory, all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Did any of you know where this verse goes? This is the verse about the glass of water and if you if you give one to the least of these right and you're probably thinking how I knew you were going to share that verse cuz you're with a charity, right? But actually, the reason I'm bringing up this versus who I'm the question is, who is God? Who am I going to please? When I'm pleasing the needy. And the focus on this verse Matthew 25:31, it's 31 through all the following verses, Is that he called both the son of man and the king of glory? So this wonderful Jesus who is going to come back. He's right now sitting at the right hand of the father, he's been given all power, he's lord of the cosmos, he's going to come back and with one word he's going to blame everything. The Earth is reserved for fire. Our hope is the glory. We're going to receive on the day he returns but we also know he's coming to the next time with retribution and justice. This same. God is also the son of man who walked on the earth. He was born of a person. And so this story about him, separating the sheets and the sheep and the goats starts with him, being the son of man. So this points pointed me back when I was wondering what to do with these stories have pointed me to the fact that he modeled how to act when he was faced with the poor.

In my work with loving Chi-Chi, man is volunteers. I consider them our most important love. We disciple them, we respond to them, we care for them. We make sure they're doing well. We train them and that's my job. That's one of my jobs. And when we have a team of volunteers, say they go into a person's house and then they come back out to the car together. a lot of these volunteers, Have more maturity and better discipleship capacities than I do. And lots of times. It goes really well. But other times volunteers struggle and they usually struggle in one of two ways. One of the things that happens. Is boundary problems. And what I mean is that they go into the they go to the home of a battered woman, would take her a mattress. She and her daughter than sleeping on the floor for 5 weeks. She fled abuse. Now she's she's got no forks and spoons, that would at least she's safe. We go deliver a mattress. We get back in the car and one of the volunteers says, I'm coming back tomorrow and I'm going to help her fix her screen door and then I'm going to take her shopping to buy clothes for her daughter, right? And that volunteer suddenly has decided that every problem in that woman's life is something the volunteer needs to fix. This is a boundary problem. This is a person who forgot that God made that woman, that God cares about her that he's going to take care of her, right? We're not there to fix every problem and Jesus showed this, but you can just think offhand. When Christ came up to the crippled guy or the blind guy. He didn't pay their rent fix their relationship with their mom. Get them new clothes for a job interview, right? He he just did the healing and we'll talk about something else. He did here in a second. Those are the verses I really want to get to, but the other kind of volunteer I have is the kind of volunteer that I am which is the person who goes into the house and then they come out into the car and they say, well, that purse is making some bad decisions, right? That's what that's what I do when I see the poor. It's like, well there it like out there for a reason, you know, But there's an answer in the Bible for that attitude and that's, that's attitude, I often have. And here it is in the word. It's Romans 3, 23 and 24. And it says, for all, have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

so, when we're volunteering together, we can share these verses and support each other. The person who wants to come back tomorrow we can say, no, you're not the person who says they were making bad decisions says we can say. So am I right? We all need Jesus. He loves all of us. The person were visiting is not less important that were less anything when the people who are volunteering to help.

So I put the Jesus model when he faced the poor and I first talked about this boundary issue and how he handled that do you ever feel overwhelmed like where do I start? There's so many people. I can't like whose job is this and you feel like you're going to jump into an ocean, right? I got in Mark 645 here. It says, immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side.

And I don't know. If you're like me, I noticed this happened a lot in the gospel of Christ, left the scene, he healed somebody and got out of Dodge. There was a reason he was walking across the water it was introvert time. He had just spent time with thousands of people and he had had enough. He's like let's get out of here. He had a core group. That he mostly fellows for, you know, as lord of the cosmos, he fixes everything that the Earth as a man, he was kind of a slacker do when it came to like the social services, right? He and his he and his crew had dinner a lot basically and he's he's been a lot of time with him. He didn't go into a town and he'll everybody and we can see that he got overwhelmed because the Bible repeatedly tells us that he withdrew to the mountain to pray, he withdrew to the Wilderness to pray, he went across the lake to be alone. He had to have his alone time. He modeled this time and again,

We also have a good example of what to do when the need is overwhelming. In the story of Moses in the the the Tribes. And the Israelites were not happy cuz they wanted to meet they wanted. In fact to be slaves again. They didn't care about God's plan because they did not like the dietary situation and I don't know if it was high forget. It was hundreds of thousands or millions of these Israelites that it says that they were all all of them weeping. Here it isn't numbers 11. Moses heard the people weeping throughout their Clans. Everyone at the door of his tent, in the anger of the Lord lays hotly, and Moses was not happy. He said to the Lord, why have you dealt ill with your servant? Why have I not? Why have I not found favor in your sight?

And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to read more of this, but what he did when he had too much need facing him as he told guy, he's a God, I would rather die. He said kill me now, if you don't believe me, I'm going to read that. Here it goes. This is why have I not found favor in your sight? And you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive them that I give them birth that you should say, to me, carry them in my, in your busam. And as a nurse, carry a child. Where am I to get me to give all these people for? They weep before me and they say, give us meat that we may eat because I'm not able to carry these people alone the burdens too heavy. If you're going to treat me like this kill me at once.

Moses response to Too Much need is to talk to God if they kill me, he's not happy, right? This is an excellent model for who I was as I was facing what to do when I got clean and sober. How am I supposed to help? Am I supposed to get into situations? Where I'm over where I'm overwhelmed? And if I do, what is the response? And we see here that Moses response is similar to Jesus, he prayed

but the thing that was interesting for me, when I started looking at this, especially with the stories of Jesus, getting alone to pray, is it didn't just say he prayed it kept saying, He would withdraw to desolate places to pray. So, Can't he pray anywhere? Can't he be standing there in the crowd and pray can see prey. When he's hanging out with the 12, can't I pray in the city of course again. So why does it keep saying that he would withdraw to desolate places and pray? And I took this as my personal cue, a refreshing queue that I didn't have to overwhelm myself taking care of people that I could, in fact have my core group like he had, I could have my alone time with God and that I could also do some service. Similar to what he did. And I'm going to look at some of these verses and now I'm getting into the meat of what I'm telling you, I'm not teaching you. I telling you what really excited me and here is what God did. When he meant the poor. Are you ready? I'm going to give you some verses real quick. They're really short. I got Genesis 3:9. Right after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, that's a PTSD moment because they have just incurred, all of the pain. You and I have ever felt On He-Man. The reason we have to work for our food, the reason we have anxiety. The reason we send it cuz they ate that Apple. They are carrying a heavy load and they're hiding and what did he do when he meets that need? He says, where are you?

In the New Testament in Luke. There's a story about the woman who was bleeding for a long, long time, and

She had faith that all she had to do was touch his robe and she be healed and it turned out to be true. She went and she touched the robe of Jesus this needy woman. Very leading for, I forget how many years and in Luke 8,

it says, she came up behind him and touched The Fringe of His Garment and immediately her discharge of blood ceased, and Jesus, Asked. Who was it? That touched me.

I'm working on a pattern here, but I got to turn the page just a sec.

Sorry about the feedback. The next verse is in. John 5. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there, knew he had already been there a long time. He said to him, Do you want to be healed? Are you tracking the pattern of what's happening with these healing moment here, come some more.

Luke 18. As he drew near to Jericho. A blind man was sitting and hearing the crowd. Go by the blind, man asked what it meant. And they, they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Nazareth is passing by, and he cried out, Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me and those around him said, And he cried out all the more set of son of David have mercy on me and Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when they brought him near, what did Jesus do? He asked, what do you want me to do for you? so, the thing I'm noticing is that Jesus in each case, he keeps meeting people in need and yes, he healed them and yes, he healed them cuz he wanted to show people, the glory of God, we know this but in the pattern of how he dealt with the needy themselves invariably, he asks them a question that he already knows the answer to He knows who touched him, he knows where Adam and Eve were. He knows whether or not the guy wanted to be healed and in what way and he knows what the other guy wants him to do for him, right? So why is Jesus asking these questions? What's the point of all that? Why was he healing them?

Getting back to Moses, you know, he he, he looked at God and he prayed and eat any prayed angrily, you said kill me. Now, I mean, is that, I don't know if that's any way to talk to God, but we learned quickly thereafter whether or not God, thought that was cool. Because not only, when we serve, not only do we attack our cells within about, whether we're doing too much, they're doing too little but other people attack us. And in this case, it was family.

And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses. This is number 12. They spoke against Moses because of the cushite woman. He had married for, he had married a cushite woman and they said as a lord indeed spoken only through Moses, has he not spoken through us also

And God called them into the tent Moses. And those two, he said, get them to the tent of meeting cuz we're going to meet and I'm glad I wasn't having to be there, right? And here's what he said, when they came to the tent of meeting he said Hear my words if there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him. In division, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with Moses. He's faithful and all my house. With him, I speak mouth-to-mouth clearly. Not in riddles and he behold the form of the Lord. Why, then were you not afraid to speak against him? This is the response to Moses praying, angrily, kill me now. God reports that he likes this. He wants to hear from us. He wants us to turn to him when there's too many things to do whether we're happy or not, he likes the attention that's what he made us for.

That same passage says that Moses was Meek more than all the people who are on the face of the Earth. So humility looks like praying angrily to God. That taught me. Something it's show me a little bit about how to handle need. 2nd Corinthians says each one must give, as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God, loves a cheerful Giver. By the way, I'm not sharing that because I want you to put more dollars in the basket when it goes around. I'm not here to ask of you. You guys already support us. I'm here to try to encourage you that I found this encouraging. He loves a cheerful Giver. He doesn't want us worrying, He commands us over and over to be anxious and nothing he commands me over and over to be happy. So, if I'm faced with need, and it makes me unhappy, something's wrong. And I go back to the example of Moses that was kill me now, right? We don't got to work through the plan in the strategy of how we're going to do everything perfectly all the time. Not only that but we don't do the work. God does 1st Corinthians 3 verses 6 through 9? Say neither, he who plants? Nor he who Waters is anything? But only God gives the growth

For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field. Got the building, it's the spirit taking care of that battered woman. It's not me and the volunteers that I'm working with, she's not our job. We don't have to take the responsibility. We just submit and do what we can when we're feeling tearful about it.

Another thing of comforting about how to handle Neighbors in, need one of the problems I had was people told me to do different things and different people told me to do different things. So what do I do? And for this, I found Proverbs 14, 10. The heart knows, its own bitterness and no stranger shares. Its joy and also 1st Corinthians 12:20. As it is, there are many parts in one body. So, if your sister-in-law is volunteering at the mission, that doesn't mean you need to volunteer at the mission. If your grandma is cooking soup for the Food Lion, doesn't mean you need to cook Soup for the Food Lion, right? We all have our own roles to play God. You know, who the accuser is. It's not God. God is not the one pointing the finger at me. Telling me that I'm not doing the right thing cuz I'm not doing the same thing. My brother's doing It says right here. There are many parts yet. One body. So you get to you get to be you as you figure out how to handle these situations.

I mean it, I'm sorry I'm going a little long can

I'm going to, I'm going to get closer to wrapping up by getting back to those little stories. I started and didn't finish. So, I thought I should start a sober house and that didn't happen.

Instead I ice skate every morning. For 2 hours and I roller skate every week about 12 to 15 hours a week. That doesn't sound very righteous says it.

But for me, that is the Wilderness and the Mountaintop, and the guy did not want me working harder. He wanted me, knowing him more.

He wants me to see Kim. I can't do anything smart without spending more time with him. So for me, that's how I turn off the brain and I do a little worship and thankful time for you, it's likely different, right? But I found my place, that was learning more about the character of God and joyfully celebrating what? He's giving me, that's what he wanted me to do. All the other stuff comes after with the guy at the gas pump. He said, Oscar can I get like 35 bucks or something for I don't remember numbers. I don't really remember how many numbers, how many dollars he has, but

here's what I did. The director at loving had trained me pretty well. And so when I responded to this guy at the gas pumps, I did one thing really good. And I did the one thing, not so good, and here's what I said to him. I said, why don't we meet for coffee or lunch tomorrow? And we'll talk about it some more.

The cool thing about that response was I was trying to work on some relationship here and I did the ask a question thing Like Jesus Does, that was cool. Like I was setting up another chance to rub shoulders with him. That the thing I didn't do very good was I, I did it as a lone wolf. Right? When Christ was out there, healing people, he had he had his James and John with him. I mean, don't you think the sons of thunder name that he gave them was like a fist facetious joke, right? They aren't they were the ones. He was always getting his quiet time with, right? They weren't Peter. It was like, oh, let's do this crazy thing James and John, I think we're his like people. He could hang out most peacefully with probably I'm just guessing but we all need that and what I should have done is invited this guy to do that with me and somebody else do it, what it could have said was hey why don't you come back to the Love Ink office tomorrow in the three of us can figure out if we can get you, some 30 bucks for your kids.

With my brother in Christ, who had a friend getting out of jail. I told him, I said Bobby, why don't you tell your friend that I'd like to have lunch or coffee with him so we can talk about whether or not that would work. Both the gas station guy and Bobby's friend deferred neither, one of them wanted to meet with me. Doesn't that tell you something? It tells me that God didn't need me doing that right there. It doesn't mean they're bad. They're bad people. It was just me asking the question, is there any kind of relationship to develop here and then saying no, right. Jesus was asking those questions that he already knew the answer to because he wanted relationship with his people? He wanted further engagement. He loved them.

Last versus not won a couple.

Galatians 6, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So when I've got these, people asking me for stuff and I'm not sure if I should do it. That's a burden. The thing I learned is to share that with some other people so I don't have to hang with those decisions by myself.

He says, what in that same passages has let us not grow, weary of doing good for, in due season, we will reap. If we do not give up will you know who's going to give up? It's the person with no boundaries and the person who thinks everybody else is making bad decisions, right? That's when you give up. The only way I can stop thinking that look, I think everybody. I think you guys are making bad decisions. I am a sinner to the core I need God to fix me. And the only way to not give up his to be like Moses when things are bad.

Kill me. Now Lord, what am I going to do this? James 5:16, therefore confess your sins to one another pray for one another that you might be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power isn't working.

Colossians 3, 14 to 16. I'm really wanted to down here. Don't worry. You don't have to sit in the sun with me much longer.

Colossians 3:14. And above all these put on love which binds everything together. In Perfect Harmony and Let the Peace of Christ rule in your hearts to attend and you were called in one body be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching, and managing one. Another in all wisdom, singing, Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts. To God. What I'm getting from this aside, to loss of the prayer is the thankfulness thing. Like that's how I serve. Right, I'm not thankful. My service is going to be a negative impact. Probably, God wants me to thankful

In the last encouragement, I want to offer. We often don't see the fruit of what we're doing. And when it rains it, pours it's like that's from God. He wants to sign Ernie is right? Something is this is just It's really tough. And so, here's the encouragement. I offered my last verse James 5 verse 7. Be patient.

Brothers and sisters. Until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the Earth being patient about it until it receives the early in the late rains. Dad's bringing in the Harvest. He's, he's promised to complete. The work is behind us. So, don't be worried about if you're doing too much or too little just be thankful and turn to God, he loves you. and the last thing I want to say is, if you don't have People to serve with or if you feel like you I'm not making an Ask here loving cuz doing fine you guys support us but I just want to share if you feel like you want to get out there with the neighbors in need and you don't know where to start, you should talk to me after the service cuz we have teams of the go together. It's like a rolling Bible, study prayer, meeting as fun, and laughter, and prayer, and bye. And then, we also stopped at the homes of neighborhood. Need neighbors in need and help them out. So if you would like something like I just talked to me cuz it were set up to help you find that. Set your hope fully on the grace, that will be brought to you at the Redemption of Jesus Christ. Thanks again for having me.