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WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN FOR?
THE CHRISTIAN'S MINISTRY TO
THE UNGRATEFUL
I'm going to begin this section by making a confession to you. I
want to confess an attitude which is definitely not right and of
which I am ashamed. It's an attitude of annoyance and impatience
with people who never show up around my church except when they
want something.... people who use the church and what it offers
but never even take the trouble to come and worship the God who
made these blessings available to them.
I'll be quite frank with you ... I get annoyed by parents who send
their children to Sunday School but never show their face themselves...
or by couples who come to get married and that's the last we see
of them ... or by folks who ask for counsel when they're in trouble,
but when the trouble is past they don't even offer a prayer of thanksgiving.
What's the matter with these people? Don't they have any gratitude
in their hearts? Don't they have the decency to show a little apprecia-tion?
Gradually as you get older and smarter, you become like the shrewd
clerk in a furniture store. You gain the ability to spot the customer
who is going to buy and the fellow who's just there to waste your
time... and you gauge yourself accordingly.
You say to yourself, "I have only so much time ... why should
I waste it on people who are never going to come to church anyway?"
You start aiming at people who appear to be likely prospects and
avoiding those who are only after the free samples.
Now you may say to me, "What's wrong with that? It's just common
sense to cultivate those who are going to amount to something and
to forget the rest."
And indeed it would make sense if our object were to build up a
large, wealthy organization… if all we cared about were more
numbers and a bigger budget. But God forbid that this should ever
be our aim.
Now, indeed, if our churches continue to grow, may God be praised
... if our congregations should outgrow their buildings, may God
be praised ... if multitudes should come from the east and west
to sit down and partake of the blessings of God in our midst ...
God be praised! BUT... our congre-gations are not here just to feed
themselves and extend themselves and enlarge themselves and exalt
themselves. Congregations are here to minister the healing grace
of Jesus Christ to all men, whether they say "thank you"
or not.
Yes, Jesus was disappointed with the response he got..."Were
not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Are there not found any to
return and give glory to God except this stranger?"
But suppose the next day our Lord meets ten more lepers who cry,
"Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Do you think that now
he's going to be more cautious? Do you think he'll say, "Listen
you lepers... I had a bad experience yesterday. Before I heal you
I want to know how many of you will promise to return and give thanks.
If I heal you, will you be Christians and go to church?"
You know very well that Jesus never put strings on his healings
or his feedings or his sermons...these blessings were free to everybody
whether they turned around and gave thanks or not.
And Jesus went on through his ministry giving healing and grace
to anybody who asked, knowing full well that nine out of ten in
the end would turn around and crucify him ... yet he loved them...he
blessed them... he poured out his life for them. "I came not
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He didn't
come to give his blessings to a few good people, but to all.
What you and I have been trying to do all too often is to find that
one grateful chap of the ten before we do anything. We say to ourselves,
"Why waste time trying to bless all ten lepers when we know
very well that only one of them will ever amount to anything? Let's
narrow it down ... let's save our blessings for the people who look
like they're going to come through."
But in the healing of the ten lepers Jesus shows us that if we are
going to follow in his steps and do his will, we're going to have
to get used to one thing ... we're going to have to get used to
the idea that WE HAVE A MINISTRY TO THE UNGRATEFUL. Nine out of
ten people to whom we minister the grace of God won't even so much
as tip their hat. But we minister to them anyway ... and we go on
ministering all our lives, spending ourselves, pouring out our very
best, even if nobody falls down and gives God glory.
How many so-called "Christian workers" become hard and
cynical, whining and feeling sorry for themselves because nobody
was grateful. "I gave those people the best years of my life
and they never appre-ciated it!" Why the surprise? Didn't you
learn years ago in your Bible that the bulk of our ministry is to
the ungrateful?
If we serve as Christians merely to have people appreciate us we
won't be Christians very long because everything God does in this
uni-verse is done on the principle of scattering the seed. Thousands
of acorns hit the ground before one oak tree takes root and grows.
Thousands of eggs are produced before one ever completes the cycle
and becomes a butterfly. Look at the vast multitudes to whom Jesus
preached the gospel of the kingdom...yet when he was finished he
had only a handful with him.
"And as he entered into a certain village there met him ten
men who were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voices
and said, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"'
Nine of those men he's never going to see again ... nine of those
ten won't even look back to say, "Thanks." ... nine may
never enter the kingdom of heaven. But this made no difference to
Jesus. He healed all ten. "Go show yourselves to the priests."
And as they went they were cleansed.
This is how it must be done to this very hour. The congregation
that gathers in your church building week-by-week has a ministry
... not just to people with warm and tender hearts, not just to
people who look like they might join, not just to the leper who
is going to say, "Thanks," BUT TO ALL TEN LEPERS who are
standing afar off crying for the grace of God, even though nine
of them will soon forget.
Those ten lepers ... those people at a distance ... those people
who have drifted away from Christ, or have never known him, or wouldn't
be caught dead inside a church ARE YOUR MINISTRY. As you get to
know them where you work or live or go to school, you find that
their hearts are just crying for some kind of healing. And they're
crying out to you.
They may not come up to you and cry, "Show me the way of salvation!"
More often than not their cry is quite the opposite: "What
do you go to church for? ... there is no God!" Or they may
point to the Bible on your table and comment, "Do you really
believe that stuff?" But what they're really trying to say
is, "Where is God?...Does he care about me?...How can I find
him?"
Once these people come to you and cry for help in whatever peculiar
way they express it, you have no choice. Even if you know that they'll
drop you like a hot potato when they're out of the mood or out of
trouble... THIS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE...go to the ungrateful and minister
to them with your best.
Go to the ungrateful, believing three things:
1. Go to the ungrateful believing, that you have been sent by Jesus
Christ.
As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
I don't know why God sent his Son to bow his sacred head and give
his precious blood for unworthy, ungrateful creatures like you and
me. I don't know why, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when everyone
forsook him and fled, God didn't just take his Son back to heaven
right then and leave us to suffer the consequences of our sin. I
don't know why God drove his Son right on to the cross to suffer
and die for a world that doesn't even know what the word gratitude
means.
But I know this ... that the same Jesus who did these things now
breathes on you as you read these words and says to you, "As
the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. Freely ye have received,
freely give. Never mind how they respond! Minister to them the grace
which I have given you."
I'm not preaching because I hope that people will remember me in
their wills. I'm preaching because I believe that Jesus Christ sent
me. And when you go out and minister to others, you're not expecting
bouquets and rewards from men ... you're going because Jesus Christ
sent you!
2. Go to the ungrateful believing that you
have the power to heal their sin.
The awful disease of leprosy, where the skin turns white and rots
and falls off until the victim dies, is a picture of the sin which
be-sets us all. The leper had to stand at a distance and say, "Unclean!
'Unclean!" so no one would come near.
So the sinner stands at a distance from God and from all men. The
uncleanness in his heart walls him off in a world of his own no
matter how extroverted he may appear. But if you are a disciple
of Jesus Christ you've been cured. And you have the power that will
cure them. The Christ in you can forgive that sin and remove that
guilt and make that leper clean.... believe it!
There are people who believe they've been sent by Jesus Christ but
they don't believe that they have any power. Friend, Jesus doesn't
send you out without giving you power.
Then Jesus said to them again, "Peace be unto you. As the Father
hath sent me, even so send I you." And when he had said this,
he breathed on them and said unto them, "Receive ye the Holy
Spirit. Who-soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and
whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”
To whom did Jesus speak these blessed words? To preachers alone?
Heaven forbid! .... to every disciple. If you are a disciple, you
carry in you the power to forgive sin in the name of the Master.
Jesus expects you to exercise this healing power. Why do you think
he gave it to you? Don't be afraid to proclaim the fact of forgiveness
to every tormented leper whose heart cries out for mercy to the
Christ who lives in you.
3. Go to the ungrateful believing that there
will always be that one-out-of-ten (or one out of a hundred) who
will turn and throw his life down at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.
Somewhere among those ten lepers who will stand at a distance and
cry to you tomorrow there is one ... which one only God knows...
who will surprise you. As you serve all ten this one person will
begin to re-spond in a different way ... his life will change...
he will step out from the group and begin to give God glory. But
that one person will never be found until, like our Lord, we minister
to all, whoever they are, whether they say "Thank you"
or not.
God, help us to do this ... God give us eyes to discern those ten
lepers who are already waiting ... God give us the compassion of
his Son to minister to them his healing and his forgiveness, no
matter how un-grateful they may be.
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