-Transcript-
00:37 Amen. Glory to God. Thank you for joining me.
00:43 Great to be here today. I’m so thankful. I’ve come alongside here to join me at the cafe.
00:48 Today I am going to ask you a question. I’m just gonna start with this question. Why are you here? Why are we here? You know the other morning I was traveling.
01:01 I had my youngest with me CJ Clark Jr. Amen. Five years old. He’s a sweet kid and you know he’s a sweet kid and he’s definitely peculiar too but I’m not gonna get into too much other than to say I was traveling.
01:16 I was with CJ. We’ve been going about an hour. We were in Salisbury, North Carolina.
01:21 Stopped at a restaurant. Pick up some breakfast. Park the car.
01:26 Get out. CJ hops out. The young man is right there.
01:31 I could tell just by looking at him that he was struggling with something. He kind of met me really even before I got out of the car. He said can I have some change? And I had some change in my little side pocket of the car.
01:48 I gave it to him and he looked at me. I said yeah I’m gonna need more and this time now CJ’s standing at my leg and I asked him his name. He said my name is Jeremiah.
02:02 I said that’s a good it’s a Bible name. He said yeah. I said do you have a church around here you go to? He said no.
02:10 He said there’s not a rescue mission. He said no. Salisbury is a pretty big area.
02:16 I believe something there. So I said well you need to get over into one of those places and I was trying to advise him and I was just trying to number one make sure he was okay somehow and that he could get some help but I really didn’t know what to do. I went inside the restaurant.
02:34 I asked one of the cooks. I said what’s you know this man out here? They said no. I said where can he get some help? Is there not a place? Because where we are there is you know this area here Charlotte around Charlotte, Kings Mountain, Shelby.
02:49 There’s a lot of great ministries and I didn’t realize how blessed we are to have the ministries we have in this area. How God’s hand has been upon this area and the people of this area and I’ve been other places thinking well they must have what we have amen because we’re our ministries involved in some of these rescue missions and organizations so they must have what we have but a lot of places don’t. Salisbury does.
03:11 The cook told me hey two blocks up I think it was helping hands ministry on the right. So we got some food. I had some bread.
03:20 Went out there to find Jeremiah. I couldn’t find him. He was gone and we went on our travels handling some ministry business amen and try to talk to CJ about a little bit about it the next day.
03:34 He remembered what had happened. He remembered his name you know and I asked the question. I posed this to my congregation, our small little congregation.
03:44 I said you know who is this man to the world and you know he has no status. He probably doesn’t have any social media accounts. It doesn’t look like he had a job.
03:57 What does he do the world you know? He’s not lifted up by the world. Who is he to God? Genesis 1:27. So God created man in his own image.
04:09 In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. So Genesis 1:27 tells me that Jeremiah is created in the image of God and this individual is God’s creation and it begs the question why is he there and why are we here? So I want to quote a text verse from the book of Jeremiah appropriately.
04:31 Jeremiah 2:14. Is Israel a servant? Is he a homeborn slave? Why is he spoiled? Now Jeremiah 2:14 needs a little bit of explaining. Servant is in the best sense of the word here.
04:44 It was an honor to be a servant, to be born in the master’s house like Eliezer, Abram’s servant. Genesis 14:14mentions when Abram was going to go rescue Lot and when Abram heard that his brother, which would actually be Lot his brother’s son, was taken captive he armed his trained servants born in his own house 318 and pursued them unto Dan.
05:10 And as I read this they’re pursuing them pursuing these people that had robbed Lot and and Sodom unto Dan.
05:21 Dan is an area. 318 of his own trained servants born in his own house. That’s a compliment.
05:25 These are his people amen. So is Israel a servant? Are they a servant of God? Are they not born of God in God’s land of his people? A homeborn slave. Should they not be free? Should they not be free? Spoiled.
05:38 Not like spoiled as in you spoil a child but spoiled like invaded, taken, removed from power. Why was Jeremiah asking this? What was going on with Israel at this time?
05:49 The Benson commentary, Benson commentary says as if he had said is not Israel the son the chosen and peculiar people of God? Why then hath the Lord treated him as a common slave and given him up to the power of tyrannical lords and masters?
06:06 The sense is God redeemed Israel from the bondage of Egypt and adopted him to be his son, Exodus 4:22, so that the servitude he now undergoes and his being made a prey to so many foreign enemies cannot be owing to his birth or primitive condition but must be imputed to his sins of which his slavery is the consequence. And that was the Benson commentary and that sums it up.
06:31 Why is there someone suffering in this world? Why is there people here that aren’t suffering as much? Amen. You know one with resources one without. Amen.
06:42 I’m pulling up in my SUV going to buy food not too worried about it. Here’s someone that needs some change and he’s a young person. You know why is it this way? Sin.
06:53 The world is sin sick. The world is broken and sin is entered in the picture and ever since Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden sin has wreaked havoc on this world. And this world is unfortunately fallen.
07:08 Amen. It has fallen as a fallen world. And in this world God made us to do what? Did he not make us to serve him? I mean think about this.
07:20 The Creator made us for a reason and the reason I would believe is to bring glory to the Creator to serve him.
07:31 And so if we aren’t taking care of the least of these which would be as Christ tells us which would be like Christ. Amen.
07:40 If we are not taking care of those imagine replacing the word homeless for Christ and saying have you taken care of Christ today instead of the homeless it would change I think a lot of perceptions to go from what is the least in society to our Savior and Lord.
07:57 But we are created for such a time as this and in America we have been so abundantly blessed. Did you know I read this statistic somewhere there are more storage units in America than McDonald’s.
08:11 I mean here at least where we are there’s a McDonald’s everywhere. I told my wife I said uh yeah I took the kids I got a Happy Meal at McDonald’s and we’re in a little town she goes which one?
08:21 And we’re in a little town you know that you have to delineate there’s multiples here amen. There’s more storage units in America.
08:28 What does that mean? That means we have so much stuff that we cannot hold it and that there’s so many that even as many McDonald’s as we see there’s more storage units out there.
08:37 What does that say? What does that mean? That means that we have been given such an abundance and that when there is somebody with need it must really grieve the Father when we can’t find time to help or we can’t find resources to help. And it doesn’t matter what it is we have going on amen.
08:55 Even if we’re in the ministry we are called to help. Not to say well I hope it is well with you and I’ll be praying and I’m gonna walk away right because when we do that we’re no better than that example in the Bible you know of not showing mercy and love.
09:14 And the example I’m thinking of I believe it’s from the book of James that faith without works is dead.
09:23 That we can say we have faith that we don’t do anything we don’t really have faith. We can say we believe that man is created in the image of God as Genesis teaches us but if we aren’t actually doing something for man that has created an image of God
09:39 and we are treating man as less than ourselves or someone else then we are not living our faith out. And so we should be challenged by running into individuals like Jeremiah to the point where we should do something about it amen.
09:49 And we’ve talked as a church about what we can do to reach the homeless more and more amen in our community and to be more of a blessing rather than just turning away.
09:58 Because I don’t know about you but I am seeing a greater amount of individuals begging on the streets and living on the streets than I’ve ever seen here in the south. Growing up outside of New York City I saw a lot of homelessness and poverty.
10:14 I saw it there and in the south yes you’ll see poverty you’ll see broken down mobile homes and you’ll see people living in squalor and so forth. But people begging on the streets with cardboard signs people living in the woods I was thinking in going to church in Lincolnton when we had a building over in Lincolnton for a season
10:35 and we would drive over there we go over this bridge and there was a woods there and there was a bunch of tents in the woods and people were just boldly just living in these tents in the woods right off a main road.
10:48 And then the irony of this is they built an alcohol one of the ABC stores across the street and they put up a bunch of signs at that time saying don’t live in your tents over here.
11:00 It’s unbelievable. So that’s the world’s logic is let’s build something to make these individuals more enslaved into alcohol and drugs and so forth and let’s also tell them not to live where they were living.
11:12 That is absolute nonsense and yet that’s the world we live in and I’m not picking on Lincolnton that’s any town or area I believe in the country amen that we are preying upon the least of these.
11:27 We spend time in the Proverbs as our family discussing what the Proverbs say what thus sayeth the Word of God especially as we’ve got two younger ones five and six and they’re digesting all of these things trying to understand these principles and we try to teach them in the Proverbs I believe it’s Proverbs 14
11:43 the latter part ofProverbs 14 teaching about how it grieves the Lord when the poor are mistreated and taken advantage of and how the wicked will be repaid for their wickedness.
11:56 God has a heart for the poor and the downtrodden. Pure religion undefiled is to go to the fatherless and the widows amen.
12:06 God cares about those that don’t have a lot amen and by the way those that don’t have a lot certainly they go to God probably a lot more than those with a bunch of resources.
12:16 I had a friend some time ago that encountered a fair bit of success and I asked him what was the most difficult part because he was looking like he was living pretty fat and happy
12:29 he said the hardest part was that now he found himself using money to solve all his problems instead of turning to the Lord and isn’t that the truth for those that are well-to-do that instead of turning to the Lord they’re turning to their finances
12:40 and I’ve heard a preacher say this before that money promises all the same things God does but see God delivers all of what he promises and his deliverance is true
12:50 and just and right and he is a living God and money if we’re not careful become a dumb idol in our life that cannot fix anything amen we get out you know I proposed this a congregation the other day you could have a you could be a billionaire let’s say you could yeah you’d be a billionaire
13:07 and if you die what good is your money I mean think about it what what now you’re dead so now did you take it with you we have absolutely no evidence that you do you don’t take it with you
13:17 so now you go answer to the eternal living God for what you did for him amen now we’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone so our salvation is not dependent upon our wealth
13:28 but our happiness shouldn’t be either and how about this our service shouldn’t be either we shouldn’t say well if we had a little bit we give a little bit how about we give a little bit and figure the rest out later amen how about we give to it hurts a little bit that sacrificial giving
13:44 that Christ showed us as in his perfect loving example and help the Jeremiah’s of this world more than just giving change or food but really loving them and helping them as one created in God’s image
13:58 and when we do that we are then serving God in a way that that brings joy to him that his creation is doing what he would have them to do instead of being fallen away in backslid
14:12 I thank you so much for listening tune in next time as we dive deeper in this subject take care God bless and amen