Pastor Cal Lord's Recent Sermons
"The Bestest Way To Say Thank You"
Matthew 25:31-46 November 23, 2008
Maybe you never thought of yourself as pilgrims. After all, they lived almost four hundred years
ago. Yet they left everything behind so they could live and worship God in everything they did.
They put into practice Paul’s injunction to present their bodies as living sacrifices. They offered
themselves to God in everything they did. The Government centered around their faith. How they
treated each other and how they cared for each other was based on their reading of scripture.
And after surviving a horrible New England winter, they started fresh in a new year. At the end of
the growing season, they got together and said thank you Lord.
A lot has changed in four hundred years. For many people Thanksgiving has become a holiday
where we sit around with friends, have a glass of wine, eat turkey or ham until we are about ready
to explode and then watch parades and football on TV. If nobody objects, we may just stick in a
prayer somewhere.
Now I’m sorry if this doesn’t describe your holiday, but for a supposed Christian nation, this is the
norm. We barely give God a thought. We thank ourselves, our companies, our friends and families
and our good fortunes. God is an afterthought or more likely something akin to one of the many
sponsors we roll out like they do at the Academy Awards show.
So I want to ask some serious question today. How do you say thank you to God in a meaningful
way? Are words enough? Is it ok to have one big thank you and then lots of little ones along the
way? What does God expect from us?
I think the answer can be found in our scripture today. Before I began I want to put our text in its
context. In Matthew 24 Jesus talks about the end of time. He has already told his disciples he is
going away. Now in chapter 25 he tells them that God is going to come. He is going to size them
up and determine who will be going the next step of the journey with them.
There are two parables here: The parable of the foolish virgins and the parable of the talents. The
gist of these parables is that we need to be ready. We need to be prepared. In essence we need to
be faithful. In our passage we read another parable which actually gives us direction in what it
means to be faithful.
Now you don’t have to be a biblical scholar to get the idea. It has already been revealed several
times in scripture. The broadest picture was given in the great commandment which says, “Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and all your might and all your strength… and love your
neighbor as yourself. “ We have the parable of the good Samaritan, which really opens up our
understanding of who our neighbor is. Our neighbor is not just our best friend. It is anyone who is
in need. You see God doesn’t pick favorites. He loves us all.
Going back to something Rick Warren said in his book – “Strangers are just members of God’s
family we haven’t met yet.” The truth is that many of us look at the world as us and them. It is the
church verses the unchurched. But God sees things very differently.
When I was about 8 years old I went to a family reunion with a side of the family I didn’t know
very well. My natural mothers real father lived in Windsor Locks. I’ll never forget going up there
and meeting all kinds of cousins, aunts and uncles and assorted relatives. One of the ladies saw me
and immediately says, doesn’t Cal look like cousin Gary. All day long they kept saying that but
Gary wasn’t at the party.
A few years later I went back to another reunion and the same mantra began. Gary and I were the
spitting image of one another. Of course he was a few years older but we could have been twins.
Oh how they loved Gary. When I got around to asking where Gary was, I found out he was in
prison for armed robbery. But that didn’t matter, they loved Gary. He was family no matter what
he had done.
God has a big heart, a forgiving heart and he loves us all. I think that is why he calls us to love our
neighbors and to reach out to them.
Sometimes I think we get it wrong. We have this idea that God sends us out to be the judge. We
think it is our job to tell people how bad they are. We think it is our job to exclude, separate and
condemn. I think that is why this little story of the sheep and goats strikes such a deep chord.
Jesus has just told the disciples two stories that involve faithfulness. They both talk about using
our time productively while waiting for him. Then he contrasts it with the judgment scene where
many who thought they were in, were out. The reason is simply that they hadn’t redeemed their
time. They had been unproductive. They hadn’t been reaching out and loving the world as he had
instructed them.
I think when we get to heaven there are going to be an awful lot of people who knew their Bible
backwards and forward who might be left outside the gate. Why? Because they didn’t live it.
One day while walking with some children, Queen Elizabeth was caught in a sudden shower.
Quickly taking shelter on the porch of a home, she knocked at the door and asked to borrow an
umbrella. “I’ll send it back tomorrow,” she said. The queen had deliberately disguised her
appearance by putting on a hat that partly covered her face and by wearing some very plain
clothes. The homeowner, reluctant to give a stranger her best umbrella, offered her a castoff she
found in the attic. One rib was broken and there were several holes in it. Apologizing, she turned it
over to the woman, whom she did not recognize.
The next day she had another visitor—a man with gold braid on his uniform and an envelope in his
hand. “The queen sent me with this letter,” he said, “and also asked me to thank you personally for
the loan of your umbrella.” Stunned, the woman burst into tears. “Oh, what an opportunity I
missed that did not give my very best,” she cried.
You never know who is going to show up on your doorstep and that was exactly Jesus’ point.
You see God is a loving God. One of the most familiar verses in the Bible—one that many of us
have committed to memory—begins, For God so loved the world… (John 3:16).
But the word love, as it is used to describe God, is not merely feelings of sentiment or warm
streams of emotion. When the word love is used in terms of God, there is always an
accompanying action. Look at John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and
only Son.”
God’s love is a demonstrative love. He doesn’t simply say, “I love you.” He also does something to
prove it. And God expects the same of us. He wants more than words. As one commentator
pointed out, “the real evidence of our belief is the way we act.”
It is not enough for us to meet together once a week to confess that we are children of God. We
are expected to live as His children and act out our faith in Him.
It begins with a thankful heart. We see what God has done and then say thank you. But the truth is
that it is not enough to sit around a table and say thanks. The bestest way to say thanks – Is that a
word? Bestest? The best way to say thank you God is to reach out in love.
Several years ago Bob Booth was involved with Prison ministry. He invited me along to lead a Bible
study. It was kind of scary for me but I went with Bob. He filled me in on what to expect and but
when I got there I wasn’t prepared for what I found. The guys in prison were hungry for God’s
word. They sang with excitement and joy in their voices and they listen to every word I said. I
saw more faith that day in prison then I saw in years working in the churches. I actually said to
Bob, “Maybe we ought to tell people they can’t come to church in order to develop their faith.”
I was changed by that encounter. I saw Jesus in some of their faces. I think that is why God calls
us to reach out. When we reach out to the least of these, we have to get out of our comfort zones.
We have to truly think about our own blessings. We have to reflect upon the goodness of God. We
no longer take it for granted. We begin to see what we have and even who we are as a gift from
God to be used, to be passed on as a gift of love.
There is a nineteenth century painting which shows a long row of beggars waiting in a soup line.
They are all ragged and sleazy looking. But around the head of one, barely perceptible, is a halo.
One of them is Christ!
You know since we have been cooking and serving at the Interfaith Luncheon, I have been blessed
in more ways that I can tell. You may not be able to see halos around the heads of those who
come, but you can see something that is undescribable. The last two months we have offered a
prayer of thanks before the meal and so many of the guests have come up to me, Amanda and
others and shared their stories, shared their appreciation, shared themselves. I can tell you that I
have been changed by being with the least of these.
You heard Mark’s testimony a little earlier. Why do so many of those who went on one of the
mission trips want to go back. It’s surely not because it is a great vacation spot. It is because you
can feel the presence of God there.
When Jesus tells us to do it to the least of these, he was actually giving us a blessing. He wanted
us to see the world the way he sees it. When you do that, you can’t help but come away with a
greater sense of just how much he love you and me.
Serving God is the best way to say thank you. It is also the one gift you can give him, which keeps
on giving.
About 25 years ago, Cruz and Debbe Santiago met at Coney Island beach in New York City. They
were homeless. They were addicted to drugs. They were experimenting with witchcraft. They
were involved in gangs. They lived in the meager shelter underneath the Coney Island boardwalk.
That was their home, except when they were in jail. Jail was their second home—their home away
from home.
Then, one evening when Debbe was in jail, something happened. It was a little thing—such a little
thing that you wouldn’t think it would make a big difference—but it did. The little thing that made
a big difference was a Bible. A jail matron handed Debbe a Bible.
What about that matron? Did she expect her two-dollar Bible to make a difference? She had given
Bibles to prisoners before. She had seen them leave without changing. She probably felt like you
and I feel sometimes—that we do our best, but nothing happens. Perhaps she still feels that way,
because Debbe didn’t change either—not right away.
While she was in jail, Debbe read the Bible. She read it every day. It fascinated her—and what else
did she have to do? But then she fell into using drugs again. She ended up in the hospital in a coma.
She woke up to the hissing rhythm of the respirator at death’s door. She woke up to the path of
death on which she was walking. She had been there before. But this time it was different, because
she had been reading the Bible. This time she knew what to do. This time, she asked God to
release her from the drugs—and He did. This time, she dedicated her life to Christ—and Christ
made the difference. When she was released from the hospital, Debbe went to the jail to visit Cruz.
Cruz noticed the difference. He said, “She was clean. She talked about the Lord. She left me a
Bible.” Cruz became a Christian. In 1988, Cruz and Debbe were married.
But there’s more! (If Paul Harvey were telling this story, he would say, “And now the rest of the
story!”) The rest of the story is that Cruz and Debbe started the “Salt and the Sea Mission” near
Coney Island. They’re helping people just like the people they used to be—homeless, addicted,
headed for jail. They preach the gospel. They feed anyone in need—60 on an ordinary day—
hundreds at Thanksgiving. They operate a latchkey program. They help 350 children in a nearby
welfare hotel. Every Sunday after church, they walked down to the beach—and poke into the
secluded places—and give people a piece of bread—and give them the Bread of Life.
All because a jail matron gave a Bible to a junkie. All because a woman kept on handing out Bibles!
You just never know what God will do when you reach out to someone in need. But that is the
best way to say thank you.
Now here comes the stewardship message – When you give yourself, your talents and your tithes,
you not only say thank you to God in the best way… You enable him to bless you and your family.
Not simply in monetary gain, but in joy and happiness.
You see the secret to happiness in life is not in gaining all you can get. It is loving and sharing what
you have with others.
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, wrote a challenging poem that I would like to
share with you as I close.
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
God’s greatest joy was found in a manger in Bethlehem. And he chose to share it with us, so we
could share it with others. So this week say thank you to God at your tables, but then find a way
to say thank you with your lives. Share it with someone in need as your way to say thank you
God, and your reward will be found in seeing the face of God in that person. Amen
Matthew 25:31-46 November 23, 2008
Maybe you never thought of yourself as pilgrims. After all, they lived almost four hundred years
ago. Yet they left everything behind so they could live and worship God in everything they did.
They put into practice Paul’s injunction to present their bodies as living sacrifices. They offered
themselves to God in everything they did. The Government centered around their faith. How they
treated each other and how they cared for each other was based on their reading of scripture.
And after surviving a horrible New England winter, they started fresh in a new year. At the end of
the growing season, they got together and said thank you Lord.
A lot has changed in four hundred years. For many people Thanksgiving has become a holiday
where we sit around with friends, have a glass of wine, eat turkey or ham until we are about ready
to explode and then watch parades and football on TV. If nobody objects, we may just stick in a
prayer somewhere.
Now I’m sorry if this doesn’t describe your holiday, but for a supposed Christian nation, this is the
norm. We barely give God a thought. We thank ourselves, our companies, our friends and families
and our good fortunes. God is an afterthought or more likely something akin to one of the many
sponsors we roll out like they do at the Academy Awards show.
So I want to ask some serious question today. How do you say thank you to God in a meaningful
way? Are words enough? Is it ok to have one big thank you and then lots of little ones along the
way? What does God expect from us?
I think the answer can be found in our scripture today. Before I began I want to put our text in its
context. In Matthew 24 Jesus talks about the end of time. He has already told his disciples he is
going away. Now in chapter 25 he tells them that God is going to come. He is going to size them
up and determine who will be going the next step of the journey with them.
There are two parables here: The parable of the foolish virgins and the parable of the talents. The
gist of these parables is that we need to be ready. We need to be prepared. In essence we need to
be faithful. In our passage we read another parable which actually gives us direction in what it
means to be faithful.
Now you don’t have to be a biblical scholar to get the idea. It has already been revealed several
times in scripture. The broadest picture was given in the great commandment which says, “Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and all your might and all your strength… and love your
neighbor as yourself. “ We have the parable of the good Samaritan, which really opens up our
understanding of who our neighbor is. Our neighbor is not just our best friend. It is anyone who is
in need. You see God doesn’t pick favorites. He loves us all.
Going back to something Rick Warren said in his book – “Strangers are just members of God’s
family we haven’t met yet.” The truth is that many of us look at the world as us and them. It is the
church verses the unchurched. But God sees things very differently.
When I was about 8 years old I went to a family reunion with a side of the family I didn’t know
very well. My natural mothers real father lived in Windsor Locks. I’ll never forget going up there
and meeting all kinds of cousins, aunts and uncles and assorted relatives. One of the ladies saw me
and immediately says, doesn’t Cal look like cousin Gary. All day long they kept saying that but
Gary wasn’t at the party.
A few years later I went back to another reunion and the same mantra began. Gary and I were the
spitting image of one another. Of course he was a few years older but we could have been twins.
Oh how they loved Gary. When I got around to asking where Gary was, I found out he was in
prison for armed robbery. But that didn’t matter, they loved Gary. He was family no matter what
he had done.
God has a big heart, a forgiving heart and he loves us all. I think that is why he calls us to love our
neighbors and to reach out to them.
Sometimes I think we get it wrong. We have this idea that God sends us out to be the judge. We
think it is our job to tell people how bad they are. We think it is our job to exclude, separate and
condemn. I think that is why this little story of the sheep and goats strikes such a deep chord.
Jesus has just told the disciples two stories that involve faithfulness. They both talk about using
our time productively while waiting for him. Then he contrasts it with the judgment scene where
many who thought they were in, were out. The reason is simply that they hadn’t redeemed their
time. They had been unproductive. They hadn’t been reaching out and loving the world as he had
instructed them.
I think when we get to heaven there are going to be an awful lot of people who knew their Bible
backwards and forward who might be left outside the gate. Why? Because they didn’t live it.
One day while walking with some children, Queen Elizabeth was caught in a sudden shower.
Quickly taking shelter on the porch of a home, she knocked at the door and asked to borrow an
umbrella. “I’ll send it back tomorrow,” she said. The queen had deliberately disguised her
appearance by putting on a hat that partly covered her face and by wearing some very plain
clothes. The homeowner, reluctant to give a stranger her best umbrella, offered her a castoff she
found in the attic. One rib was broken and there were several holes in it. Apologizing, she turned it
over to the woman, whom she did not recognize.
The next day she had another visitor—a man with gold braid on his uniform and an envelope in his
hand. “The queen sent me with this letter,” he said, “and also asked me to thank you personally for
the loan of your umbrella.” Stunned, the woman burst into tears. “Oh, what an opportunity I
missed that did not give my very best,” she cried.
You never know who is going to show up on your doorstep and that was exactly Jesus’ point.
You see God is a loving God. One of the most familiar verses in the Bible—one that many of us
have committed to memory—begins, For God so loved the world… (John 3:16).
But the word love, as it is used to describe God, is not merely feelings of sentiment or warm
streams of emotion. When the word love is used in terms of God, there is always an
accompanying action. Look at John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and
only Son.”
God’s love is a demonstrative love. He doesn’t simply say, “I love you.” He also does something to
prove it. And God expects the same of us. He wants more than words. As one commentator
pointed out, “the real evidence of our belief is the way we act.”
It is not enough for us to meet together once a week to confess that we are children of God. We
are expected to live as His children and act out our faith in Him.
It begins with a thankful heart. We see what God has done and then say thank you. But the truth is
that it is not enough to sit around a table and say thanks. The bestest way to say thanks – Is that a
word? Bestest? The best way to say thank you God is to reach out in love.
Several years ago Bob Booth was involved with Prison ministry. He invited me along to lead a Bible
study. It was kind of scary for me but I went with Bob. He filled me in on what to expect and but
when I got there I wasn’t prepared for what I found. The guys in prison were hungry for God’s
word. They sang with excitement and joy in their voices and they listen to every word I said. I
saw more faith that day in prison then I saw in years working in the churches. I actually said to
Bob, “Maybe we ought to tell people they can’t come to church in order to develop their faith.”
I was changed by that encounter. I saw Jesus in some of their faces. I think that is why God calls
us to reach out. When we reach out to the least of these, we have to get out of our comfort zones.
We have to truly think about our own blessings. We have to reflect upon the goodness of God. We
no longer take it for granted. We begin to see what we have and even who we are as a gift from
God to be used, to be passed on as a gift of love.
There is a nineteenth century painting which shows a long row of beggars waiting in a soup line.
They are all ragged and sleazy looking. But around the head of one, barely perceptible, is a halo.
One of them is Christ!
You know since we have been cooking and serving at the Interfaith Luncheon, I have been blessed
in more ways that I can tell. You may not be able to see halos around the heads of those who
come, but you can see something that is undescribable. The last two months we have offered a
prayer of thanks before the meal and so many of the guests have come up to me, Amanda and
others and shared their stories, shared their appreciation, shared themselves. I can tell you that I
have been changed by being with the least of these.
You heard Mark’s testimony a little earlier. Why do so many of those who went on one of the
mission trips want to go back. It’s surely not because it is a great vacation spot. It is because you
can feel the presence of God there.
When Jesus tells us to do it to the least of these, he was actually giving us a blessing. He wanted
us to see the world the way he sees it. When you do that, you can’t help but come away with a
greater sense of just how much he love you and me.
Serving God is the best way to say thank you. It is also the one gift you can give him, which keeps
on giving.
About 25 years ago, Cruz and Debbe Santiago met at Coney Island beach in New York City. They
were homeless. They were addicted to drugs. They were experimenting with witchcraft. They
were involved in gangs. They lived in the meager shelter underneath the Coney Island boardwalk.
That was their home, except when they were in jail. Jail was their second home—their home away
from home.
Then, one evening when Debbe was in jail, something happened. It was a little thing—such a little
thing that you wouldn’t think it would make a big difference—but it did. The little thing that made
a big difference was a Bible. A jail matron handed Debbe a Bible.
What about that matron? Did she expect her two-dollar Bible to make a difference? She had given
Bibles to prisoners before. She had seen them leave without changing. She probably felt like you
and I feel sometimes—that we do our best, but nothing happens. Perhaps she still feels that way,
because Debbe didn’t change either—not right away.
While she was in jail, Debbe read the Bible. She read it every day. It fascinated her—and what else
did she have to do? But then she fell into using drugs again. She ended up in the hospital in a coma.
She woke up to the hissing rhythm of the respirator at death’s door. She woke up to the path of
death on which she was walking. She had been there before. But this time it was different, because
she had been reading the Bible. This time she knew what to do. This time, she asked God to
release her from the drugs—and He did. This time, she dedicated her life to Christ—and Christ
made the difference. When she was released from the hospital, Debbe went to the jail to visit Cruz.
Cruz noticed the difference. He said, “She was clean. She talked about the Lord. She left me a
Bible.” Cruz became a Christian. In 1988, Cruz and Debbe were married.
But there’s more! (If Paul Harvey were telling this story, he would say, “And now the rest of the
story!”) The rest of the story is that Cruz and Debbe started the “Salt and the Sea Mission” near
Coney Island. They’re helping people just like the people they used to be—homeless, addicted,
headed for jail. They preach the gospel. They feed anyone in need—60 on an ordinary day—
hundreds at Thanksgiving. They operate a latchkey program. They help 350 children in a nearby
welfare hotel. Every Sunday after church, they walked down to the beach—and poke into the
secluded places—and give people a piece of bread—and give them the Bread of Life.
All because a jail matron gave a Bible to a junkie. All because a woman kept on handing out Bibles!
You just never know what God will do when you reach out to someone in need. But that is the
best way to say thank you.
Now here comes the stewardship message – When you give yourself, your talents and your tithes,
you not only say thank you to God in the best way… You enable him to bless you and your family.
Not simply in monetary gain, but in joy and happiness.
You see the secret to happiness in life is not in gaining all you can get. It is loving and sharing what
you have with others.
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, wrote a challenging poem that I would like to
share with you as I close.
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
God’s greatest joy was found in a manger in Bethlehem. And he chose to share it with us, so we
could share it with others. So this week say thank you to God at your tables, but then find a way
to say thank you with your lives. Share it with someone in need as your way to say thank you
God, and your reward will be found in seeing the face of God in that person. Amen
| Welcome to the First Baptist Church of Norwich 239 West Main Street Norwich, Connecticut Phone: 860-889-0369 |
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