Balancing Prosperity and Service: A Western Dilemma

SPEAKER 02 : 0:05

So I’ve described these chapters that Paul writes, Romans chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15, as the love chapters. They are the way Christians respond to the mercy of God. God has told us to present ourselves to him. out of his sheer mercy and not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed and present ourselves before, say, the church or God or a human family or a community with our gifts and offering ourselves. Sometimes people, churches or communities will accept our gifts, other times they won’t, so we just have to go and do what we are convicted to do. And so then Paul describes, as I say, this love life of the Christian. And there are two things to say about it. But first of all, let me read the passage that I’m thinking of, the first passage that Paul describes, in which Paul describes this love. That’s Romans chapter 12, verses 9 to 21. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. cling to what is good, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality, Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:01

Well, what a list. What a life. What a vision. What a goal.

SPEAKER 02 : 3:08

As I said several days ago, this list of requirements or calls is not… accomplishable by human nature. In fact, this list is completely contrary to human nature. And we have to bow humbly before God with a sense of innocent fear and say, Lord, I can’t do this. Lord, please, let your Holy Spirit do it through me. Let Jesus do this loving through me. When it says love without hypocrisy, I have to admit, dear Lord, that I’m a hypocrite, that I’m not true, that I’m a fake. And Lord, I give the best side. of my humanity to the world. I show the best. But it’s not really the true me inside of me. The true me is corrupt and selfish and mean and self-absorbed. And so, Lord, I do this by faith in you. I go forward in the faith of Jesus. I live my imperfection courageously because I’m counted as if I were perfect. I’m counted as if I were righteous. Therefore, I live my unrighteousness bravely, courageously. That is to say, when I do something good, I know it’s not perfect. It’s in this broken human nature. Isaiah said, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. What a statement is that? All human good works are as filthy rags. I remember Dr. Hans Larendel, a professor at the university, said, when you know the gospel, you repent even of your good works. Yes, because our good works, you see, are tainted with evil. That’s why we do good to the world by faith in the righteousness of Christ, because it is not our goodness that’s doing it, or can and is even capable of doing it, but Christ’s that must do it through us. So accept the contrariness of these passages, accept that they don’t fit your human nature, accept that they are contrary to your human nature, and live by faith, and let Christ do the work in you, and go forward with your imperfection, knowing that you’re counted as perfect and righteous in Christ, and so we do our work, and God receives it. Now, there’s another thing to be said about this, and that is that it’s very difficult to… What shall I say? Teach or preach what these verses are saying, because there could be a sermon preached for half an hour on each bit of counsel. Let love be without hypocrisy. I mean, one could preach on that for half an hour. And, of course, with the limited time limits of this broadcast, that’s not possible. So in summary, what can we say about this? And I’ll dip into various verses as we go on. In summary, I think this is saying that love is putting other people before ourselves, and love is serving them. Now this creates another astonishing problem, especially in the Western world, because the Western world is a capitalist world, and we have to work hard to make a profit in order to be able to live. And what we find so very often is that we’re spending most of our time simply trying to live. Some of you know that this ministry over the years has supported a number of families overseas in poorer countries to enable them to get into a better life situation. And one of those people, Gan, G-A-N, if you’ve listened to this program long enough, you’ll remember Gan. He was a Filipino. and still is, of course, in one manner of speaking, naturally. But by this ministry’s help, we were able to get him to Australia. We tried to get him to America, but we just couldn’t get through the tremendous demands of immigration. And so he finally ended up in Australia with a legal immigration process and is a nurse in Australia today. But Gantz said something very interesting to me one time. He said, you know, Dad, he said, I’m glad I’m here and I’m thankful for all the ministry has done for me. But he said, I’m amazed that it takes all the time in Australia just to survive. to earn enough money to pay all the bills, and he’s not a spendthrift, and to live, to pay the rent, to buy the food and the electricity and all the rest of it. You see, in the Philippines, though people were poor… and are poor, they have more time on their hands by that poverty, and thus they are more able to spend time either serving themselves selfishly or helping others. And there’s a lot of lovely kindness in the Philippines. I’ve been there myself years and years ago. So you see what the problem is, that the West is a prosperous place, a prosperous area of the world, but in that prosperity we spend so much time being prosperous that we haven’t got much time for other people. And so this creates a challenge for us. You may be one of those. You get up, you go to work, you come back, you have your meal, you visit with the family, you watch a bit of TV, and you’re ready for bed, and then time to get up and go to work again. And so the challenge that many Christians feel, and you, as I say, may be one of them, is that, my goodness, I only have time to subsist, to survive. I don’t seem to have time, spare time, for other people. and I’m not sure what to say to you about that except to pray about it and to say, Lord, I’d like to be of service to you. I would like to express my Christian faith in care and love for the community, but I seem to have no time, and the time that I do have, I’m so exhausted that I need to rest and relax. And I found that, even though I’ve been in ministry for years, there have been times when I just could not seem to do the voluntary caring that I would like to have done. So I think you should pray about it. And you should ask the Lord, you know, Lord, how do I serve you? How do I find a little time? And of course, don’t be perfectionistic about it. Some people think that if they’re going to serve the Lord, they have to serve him, you know, 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week or whatever. Well, listen, if you can just find an hour, maybe that would be a blessing to others, plus it might energize you, in which case you might discover that you have a little more energy to find another hour. Who knows? So I can’t give specific advice on this, but I can urge you to pray and let the Lord open doors for you. You know, I remember Martin Luther. Well, I don’t remember him. I read. I remember reading this because, of course, as you know, Martin Luther was in the 15th century, 1400s. I remember him saying that when God tells us to love our neighbor, he is telling us to have great pleasure and love for our neighbor. In other words, it’s not a hardship when you really start loving someone. There’s something very rewarding in it, very satisfying. You lay your head on your pillow at night, so thankful that you’ve been able to help your neighbor or whoever it is. So there is pleasure in this that gives us a revitalization. Well, let’s just look at some of these verses. You know, when it says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, Think of that for a moment in regard to listening to others. You know, sometimes Christians, there are certain Christians, you may have a few friends like this, who do all the talking. They are the energy in the room. They take all the energy out of the room, in another sense, and they just gabber on. Well, these wonderful Christians who think they are blessing others with their talking may miss what is really needed because they’re not listening. And so they do not hear the aching heart of some of those they’re talking to. And when you do listen, you do hear aching hearts. And then you weep with those who weep. Thank you so much for listening today. Colin Cook here, and How It Happens, that’s the name of this broadcast. You can hear it any time of the day or night on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or pudbean.com, and key in How It Happens with Colin Cook when you get there. Now, I haven’t been to the mail yet. I will go tomorrow to my PO box. And it may be that you have become one of the five new partners I’m looking for who might donate $50 a month for a year. If you would be willing to do that, would you mark your donation? as a partner. Thank you so very much for that. Or you can make your donation online at faithquestradio.com or send it to P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160. Thanks. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.