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Sunday of Easter April 28, 2002
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I only listened to her talk for about ten minutes, but I was deeply moved.
More accurately, I was humbled. She’s just about 25 years old or so.
Her name is Irena. She’s Russian. I met her with three other students
of Nazarene Theological Seminary as they came before a group of about ten
of us pastors to share their stories with us.
Irena came to the Lord in Russia at age 16. Soon after she sensed God calling
her a ministry of evangelism and she knew that preparation was necessary.
Somehow she got acquainted with some folks from Korean Nazarene University
and ended up in South Korea studying theology and Bible in the Korean language
which she learned just so she could study there. She spoke to us in impeccable
English. I mentioned to someone how impressed I was that she had such command
of three languages. They said, “Oh no, she has seven languages at her
disposal.”
Irena has come now to Kansas City to study at NTS with the purpose of entering
into North Korea to spread the gospel there. As I sat there and listened to
her, I said to myself, “You haven’t done anything!” She was
so humble and unassuming. And the amazing thing is she will go about her work
and most of the world won’t know about it. She’ll just be there
quietly serving the Lord, faithfully doing what God has called her to do and
the kingdom of God will come to North Korea because of her.
That’s a little different, isn’t it, than the motivation for service
that seems so prevalent in our world? We seem pre-programmed to ask of any
opportunity, “What’s in it for me? Will this advance my career?
What recognition will I receive? Will it open up further opportunities for
me? How much will I get paid?”
If there is not some direct personal benefit in the thing, we really aren’t
too interested. Now I suppose there are some pursuits where that kind of concern
is warranted. I mean if we are talking about your livelihood, it seems only
right that the question of “What’s in it for me?” Be asked.
After all, that’s a major purpose in doing the job. The danger is that
we can so easily carry that mindset into all of life to the point that we
no longer do things for the sake of their rightness or for the sake of blessing
another person. I’m convinced that’s why so many marriages are failing
and why so many of those that don’t end up in legal divorce end up emotionally
divorced. It’s because our egocentric culture has taught us that our
primary concern is to watch out for our welfare and protect our interest.
“What’s in it for me?” And the assumption is that if there
indeed is not a significant return on my investment, I really don’t want
any part of it. That return on investment is either direct material benefit
that increases my comfort, recognition that raises my public stature, or personal
satisfaction that helps me ease the guilt of my selfish lifestyle.
I was in a management conference for pastors some time ago and the leader,
who comes from the world of business, was talking about the challenge of motivating
people in a volunteer organization like the church. He talked about looking
for ways to tie specific, tangible rewards to service done in order to encourage
more people to give their precious time and resource to service. He told us
that we could no longer expect people in the church to be involved in ministry
without making specific what it was they stood to get out of it.
Well, like a real dummy I raised my hand. And you know what my question was:
“What about motivating people to serve because it’s right and it’s
what God calls us to do?” The people in that room looked at me like I
was from another planet. And do you know what the leader’s response was?
“Good luck.” Maybe he was right. Do you realize that sometimes people
actually leave one church and go to another church because they weren’t
getting enough appreciation and recognition for their service?
Well, as we listen to Jesus teach us about what it really means to live as
fully devoted disciples of his, we hear a different way. This “Sermon
on the Mount” as we have come to call it, is the core teaching of Jesus
on what it means to be Christian. This is Christianity 101 and yet there is
a lifetime of maturity represented by these ideas. He’s already talked
to us about the locus of true religion. That is, true holiness before God
is not a matter of getting the outward behaviors right, but it’s first
a matter of the heart.
Well, we come to chapter six and the focus changes just a bit to what Jesus
calls “acts of righteousness” or acts of piety. These are the basic
things that Christians are expected to do. They follow the Jewish pattern
of religious expectation: giving, prayer, and fasting.
Jesus does not intend to say that these are the only three disciplines of
a Christian, but these are summary, they are representative of the kinds of
things a religious person does. Now the problem here is that righteous acts
can be done in the right way or they can be done in the wrong way. Clearly
from Jesus’ words, we see that there is one group of folks who do the
right things outwardly and yet they are condemned – and there’s
another group who also do the right things with the right heart, and they
are rewarded.
The whole thing centers on motive. Why do you do what you do? By the way,
Jesus does not exhort us here to be involved in acts of righteousness –
he already assumes that we are. To the Christian that’s just as natural
as breathing. It’s who we are and thus it’s what we do. Christians
serve, Christians give, Christians are engaged in ministry. But the critical
factor here is the phrase, “before men, to be seen by them.” Be
careful that your service is not for the purpose of gaining some perceived
reward from those who happen to see it or become aware of it. If that is your
motive in your service, then whenever someone notices and pats you on the
back – you just got all the reward you’re ever going to get.
So Jesus says that the way we go about our service is to do it secretly. “Don’t
even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” he says.
Of course he’s talking in hyperbole to make the point, but I think what
Jesus wants us to get is that one of the marks of a true Christian is quiet
service. It’s a kind of service where I just go about my ministry, being
obedient to what God has called me to do and using the gifts he has given
me with no regard for who notices or who doesn’t notice.
Now that sounds a lot easier than it is. We are wired to need affirmation,
most of us enjoy recognition and praise. That’s not what Jesus warns
against here. The issue is, has that need for affirmation and praise taken
over and become the motivating factor in my service?
By the way, you may wonder how this teaching squares with what Jesus said
in chapter five. Here he says, “Do your service in secret.” In 5:16
he said, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good
deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” The conflict is resolved when
one realizes that the language of chapter 5 is plural, meaning the whole community
of faith, while the language of our passage this morning is singular, meaning
the individual. You see my motive in serving should be for the praise of God
and to the credit of the community of faith, not for my personal esteem.
When Virgil passed away on Monday evening, I was in a meeting downtown and
out of touch for a couple of hours. By the time I was on my way home and got
the message, I discovered with just a couple of phone calls that the church
was already mobilized. People went the hospital, others prayed, others stayed
the night with Bev, others brought food, and on and on it goes. At the funeral
Friday, some members of the extended family couldn’t say enough about
the ministry of this church to Bev. And the great thing is that no one did
it for personal recognition or public esteem. Most of you will never know
who I am talking about. But God is praised as the church becomes the church
in those small, everyday opportunities that God gives us.
And it really is the small stuff that matters. One man said it this way: “We
think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1,000 bill and laying it
on the table—‘here's my life, Lord. I'm giving it all.’ But
the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash
in the $1,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and
50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid's troubles instead of saying, 'Get
lost.' Go to a committee meeting. Give up a cup of water to a shaky old man
in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn't glorious. It's
done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy
to go out in a flash of glory; it's harder to live the Christian life little
by little over the long haul.”
Jesus sets one of the critical marks of a true Christian as quiet service.
They are acts of self-giving love that no one but God may ever know about.
The challenge is to take a look at your own discipleship, your acts of service,
and ask the hard question: “If the truth really be known, why do I do
what I do? Does it matter to me whether or not people notice? Do I get upset
when I don’t get the recognition I think I deserve? If I give my life
away and nobody ever knows about it, am I okay with that?”
Jesus said, “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so
that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater,
but the God who made you won’t be applauding.”