Committment To The Work

Introduction

It’s good to see all of you this morning. And I’m particularly happy to see that we have a lot of visitors with us this morning. We’re always glad to have visitors here. And we encourage you to stay after the services are over so that we’ll all have the opportunity to meet you and get to know you a little better. We want you to feel like that we are a friendly congregation. Of course, we have a duty to perform there, and you also have to give us that opportunity. To set the tone for our study together this morning, I’d like to read you the following. Each day I’ll do a golden deed by helping those who are in need. My life on earth is but a span, and so I’ll do the best I can.

To be a child of God each day, my light must shine along the way. I’ll sing his praise while ages roll and strive to help some troubled soul. The only life that will endure is one that’s kind and good and pure. And so for God, I’ll take my stand. Each day I’ll lend a helping hand. I’ll help someone in time of need and journey on with rapid speed. I’ll help the sick and poor and weak, and words of kindness to them speak. While going down life’s weary road, I’ll try to lift some travelers’ load. I’ll try to turn the night today. Make flowers bloom along the way. Life’s evening sun is sinking low. A few more days, and I must go. To meet the deeds that I have done where there will be no setting sun.

1. The Good Shepherd and Paul’s Example

I’m sure that some of you already recognize this as a song that we sing quite often here. It’s a beautiful life. And certainly if we follow that, it would be a beautiful life. If you will now, if you’ll turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 10. Verse 11 through 15. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But he who is a hireling and is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

And I know my sheep.

As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. Now, if you will, if you’ve turned to the Philippian letter, chapter 1. Beginning in verse 12. But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. So that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ. And most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from a good will. The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains.

But the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and in this I rejoice. Yes, and will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed. But that with all boldness, as always, so now also by life or death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Beginning in verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men, the Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. The things which you learn and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

See how that all ties together. Christ the Good Shepherd laid his life down for us. And Paul comes along and continues the example by living his life for Christ, realizing that if he lives his life for Christ, to die is gained. And if we live the beautiful life, if we live our life for Christ, then our life would be well spent, and to die is gained. And the God of peace will be with us. And that is basically the story of Christianity. God, Christ, the apostles, the word they gave us, the commands that are laid down for us, the examples that are have been set before us. And that is the way that we’re to conduct our lives and live. Not too long ago, there was people, foundations and so forth that was concerned about the number of suicides that was happening to the people in this country.

2. A Lot of Frustration in the World Today

And they determined to do something about it. And they found that doctors had one of the highest incidents of suicide rate in the nation. And they sent out surveys to a large group of doctors all over the country. And when the survey came back, they found that the reason that the doctors gave there was so many suicides in their profession was frustration. And we can easily understand why that frustration would be prevalent in the medical profession. These people spend long years, a lot of money learning their profession. And then once they start their practice, they get involved with patients. A lot of sickness is involved, and they try their best to heal people and to cure people. Sometimes they’re successful and sometimes they’re not. Also, because of the demand that’s made on their time, a lot of them lose their families.

And certainly this can all add to frustration. But there’s a lot of frustration in the world today. It isn’t just confined to doctors. You take the truck driver that’s maybe working on a schedule and he’s paid by the mile and he’s trying to rev up his large rig going down a hill so that he can get over the next hill a little faster. And when he gets to the bottom, someone pulls out in front of him and he has to break to a stop and then creep over the next hill. And we see a lot of this in a driving around Orlando. If you say drive at a safe distance from the car in front of you, someone will either pass you or pull out in front of you.

And when you’re lined up with a red light, waiting for the light to change, sometimes people in the hit car will sit there and look at the green light after it changes.

1931, President Roosevelt was in Miami, and an assassin tried to take his life there by shooting him, but he missed the president and hit someone else, and I believe it was the mayor of Miami at the time. But in 30 days, that criminal had been apprehended, tried, and convicted, and the sentence carried out. And today we have people sitting on death row seven, eight, ten years. And every time they sign a death warrant for him, it goes to another appeal process. All these add to our frustration.

Heard of a young politician that was trying to get elected in Texas. And he listened to him and he liked him. And he asked one of his henchmen, he said, what it would cost to get him elected. And he says, Oh, about $50,000. He said, Well, you tell him he has it, but from now on, I own him. And we see this happening so much in uh everyday life. So this all adds to frustration. A couple of years ago, Edith Terry and I was traveling in northern Minnesota, and we stopped at Hibbing, Minnesota, because we wanted to see the famous Hull Rust mine there, one of the largest open pit mines in the world. And I had remembered reading about the great Misabi Iron Ore Range while I was in school and was very impressed with it.

And at the time there was telling about the city of Duluth, Minnesota had been established as a seaport, primarily to handle the oar boats that hauled the ore across the lakes to Cleveland, Chicago, and places like that. And it was vast riches there. They built a high school right in the heart of the depression for well over a million dollars, and that was unheard of at that time. And when you walked up to this Hall Rust mine and looked out, it was just awesome. It was like the Grand Canyon. And there was a sign up there that said there had been enough ore and dirt and so forth taken out of that pit to build a two-way tunnel through the heart of the earth, through the center of the earth, and come out in China.

It’s just hard to imagine a hole that was that that’s so large. But yet when you looked around, it was idleness. There wasn’t anything going on. Over in the corner, all of the equipment was piled up. Large conveyors and trucks and equipment of that type, just sitting there rusting away. And I made the remark there’s everything in this world is constantly changing. Isn’t there any stability in anything? And my daughter Terry says, no, not really. That’s why they refer to my generation as the now generation. She said, you can go to school for 25, 26 years learning. A trade, a profession, getting a master’s degree or a doctor’s degree, and when you get out of school, you find that there’s no longer any need or any desire for that profession.

3. The Word of God Does Not Change

Engineers getting out of school, go to work for a company, and they have to automatically start going to school again and retraining because there’s been so much change, so much technology is moving things so fast for us. And that certainly can add to frustration. But while I was thinking about the comment that she made, the comment that I had made, I said, yes, there is one thing that does have stability that doesn’t change. It’s the same now as it was in the very beginning, and that is the word of God. And that’s where we get our stability, and that’s where we can get our peace.

4. Are We an Everyday Christian or a Sunday Christian?

We have the word that has been handed to us all these years, that has withstood the test of time, that has never changed, and it never will change. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. I laid down my life for my sheep. And if we stay in the love of God, and if we perform our duties by working for Christ, then we certainly will never have to feel frustrated. But then how do we how do we become a Christian? How do we stay a Christian? And how do we ward this frustration out of our life? Those are the questions. We stay in Christ by working for Christ constantly. And that brings up the point. Are we an everyday Christian or are we a Sunday Christian? And Brother Hartwriter touched on this Friday night.

He described it in a little different way. He says there is members and then there’s converts. Of course, the Sunday Christian comes to church on Sunday, maybe Sunday night, Wednesday night. Very often they’re there every time the doors open. But when they leave, they leave everything with them. They don’t continue outside the building of carrying forth the commands of Christ. While the convert or the everyday Christian, he is working for Christ every day.

5. How Do We Work for Christ?

Now how do we how do we work for Christ? That sounds like that would be a very simple thing to do, but you know, really some people don’t know how you actually go about working for Christ, particularly on a daily basis. And sometimes self analysis is one of the hardest things in the world for us to do. We can analyze everyone else, but when it comes to analyzing ourselves, sometimes we think a little more highly of ourselves than we ought to. And Paul warns us about that. But if we really sit down and and and give honest effort and diligence to analyzing ourselves, listening in our minds of those things that we do that correlates with what the Bible commands, and also listing those things that we don’t do.

Most of us would find that we come up a little short. Let me give you some examples that you might use to go by. When have you visited Sister May? Sister Jackson, Sister Conway, Brother Wilson, and oh yes, Sister Ethel Smith in the nursing home in Santa’s been there for several years. And her life there is bound to be very lonely with all the sick people that are there.

This month, last month, this year, last year. How about teaching a class?

And uh adequately teach the class. Oh yes, I’d love to, but I don’t have time. How about finding others outside the congregation to teach? Have you asked the elders recently if there’s anything that you can do? These are all things that we can do, and do on a daily basis. And you might say, well, how often am I supposed to do this? The Lord would say, all you can. How long am I supposed to do this? The Lord would say, as long as you can. How about our consistency? Are we consistent and consistent in what we do? Let me give you a little illustration about what I mean by consistency. A couple of years ago we spent just about an entire year working on this building, planning it and so forth.

And I know that I was involved with it almost on a daily basis. And that was good. And when it was all over and finished, and when we started holding our services in here, I was happy that I had.

Well, like just a few dollars, twelve hundred dollars was raised and given to them, and that was good. And I tell you this to show you that we do do some things, and also to show you what we can do when we do it as a unit. It’s a whole lot better than just everybody running off in different directions on and doing their own thing. If a work program is planned, if any type of program is planned, it usually will be more successful than just doing it on our own. Brother and Sister Garrett headed up a visitation committee, did an excellent job on it. Each month they gave us a list of everyone that was sick, everyone that needed visiting, those people that needed food, needed help of any type.

And they prepared this list monthly for us. Some others used it, some didn’t. And it finally became to the point where they wasn’t getting the help that they needed, and that program fell by the wayside. But I know that those people spent a lot of time and a lot of effort doing that type of work. I know this congregation has sent money many times to people that needed it. And I’ve seen individual members open up their purse for people that needed it. The congregation has sent uh preachers, evangelists in other areas of the world money to support them and the effort there. So, yes, the congregation has done a lot. But of course, we have to determine whether we have done all that we can do, and whether we have done enough that Christ would be pleased with our efforts.

Suppose that we had to face Christ right now. There’s no opportunity to go out this week and do some more work or get things in order, get our lives straightened out. Suppose we had to had to face him right now. Are we prepared to do it? I think most of us would fall short. I know that I would. But these are some things that we better think seriously about because it can happen to us.

Do you ever stop to think why one congregation grows and another one doesn’t? Sometimes in the same general locality. Is it because location? Or is it because one is working and the other one isn’t? You know, people have a tendency to want to assemble and associate with a group of people that has basically the same view that they have. For instance, if a person enjoys going to church and he doesn’t maybe not want to go all the time the doors are open, but on a fairly regular basis. But other than that, he doesn’t want to be hassled. He doesn’t want to be pushed. He doesn’t want to have things given to him to do. He wants to operate on his own. Now he’ll find a group of people who basically feel that same way.

6. Why Don’t Some People Become Baptized?

Whereas a person that is vigorous and wants to work for the Lord, they’ll search out that congregation that is also out there working for the Lord because he feels like that’s what they should do. So what usually happens in a case like that is one congregation will continue to grow and the other one will just kind of mosey along. And by the way, I’m not saying that as that that is our situation at all. I’m just pointing out some things that can happen. You take baptism. Why don’t some people become baptized? So they can actually start living for Christ. It seems like if a person is young and has a desire to be baptized, and maybe a well-meaning older person or parent talks them out of it, they feel like they’re not quite ready or not quite old enough.

They then go on into the teenage area, and they get to the point where they start thinking about a little bit more about how they might look. How about my hair? How would I look coming out of the baptistry? Friends, let me tell you, this don’t mean anything to Christians. The only thing that a Christian thinks of is that it’s a joyous occasion and they’re happy and they’re so happy for you. So if you have passed that naive time of your life where those things are not important to you, and now you’re just getting to the point where you give considerations of that, don’t let that sort of thing bother you. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to us, it doesn’t matter to Christ. And then we get the group that’s playing the odds.

They feel like the lifespan was an average of 72 to 74 years. So I’m 20, 30, 40, 50. I’ve got plenty of time. Have you really? When are you going to die? We think of these lifespans, but what really do they mean? You look in the paper and you see people that are 92, 94, close to 100 years old that died. So then why is it 72? Because if you keep looking, you’ll see that some are 15 and 20 and 25 and 30. So when is your time going to come? No one knows. And if you’re playing those kind of averages, you’re playing Russian roulette. You know what a Russian roulette is? That’s where you take a six-shooter and you take all the cartridges out of it.

And then you plug one back in. And you close your eyes and you spin the chamber, and you don’t know where it stops. And you put it to your head and pull the trigger. That sounds gruesome, doesn’t it? You know that some people blow their heads off like that. But that is that any worse than a person that has had opportunity after opportunity to be baptized, and then isn’t baptized and dies in that state? I don’t think it’s as bad as that.

And we wonder what happened.

Now I’m older and I run a plant. I was a baby. Now I’m married and I have children of my own.

And now I’m old. Spiritually, my life has been wasted. What happened? I didn’t intend to. It just happened. You know, as a nation, and we our history shows that we are always unprepared. World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, unprepared. And we’re still unprepared today to the extent that we probably should be. We’ve got a national debt that staggers the imagination, it’s stifling the economy. It would probably take four to five thousand dollars from every individual, man, woman, and child in the entire United States just to pay the interest on that one debt. But we’re not prepared to handle it. And since the nation is made up of people and it isn’t prepared, then the people are not prepared either. We have to have social security forced on us.

So many people go into retirement unprepared. And you know what? For the most part, we’re unprepared spiritually. And that’s the most important of all. Let retirement and those things have some priority in your life. But the number one priority needs to be saving our souls and joining Christ in heaven after a while. Responsibility is described as man’s response to God’s ability. And basically that means something of this type. God had the ability to set forth commands. And we have the responsibility of responding to that. So our response becomes our responsibility to God’s ability.

We have a responsibility to be baptized into Christ and to follow Christ and live the Christian life. And thinking of why people are not baptized, I read this song, and I couldn’t help but think of how well it fit. I’d like to read it to you. Almost persuaded now to believe. Almost persuaded, Christ to receive. Seems now some soul to say, Go, Spirit, go thy way. Some more convenient day, on thee I’ll call. Almost persuaded, come, come today. Almost persuaded, turn not away. Jesus invites you here. Angels are lingering near. Prayers rise from hearts so dear. Oh wanderer come. Almost persuaded, harvest is past. Almost persuaded, doom comes at last. Almost cannot avail. Almost is but to fail. Sad, sad, that bitter wail. Almost but lost.

Conclusion

That’s another song we sing quite often, but so often we sing songs and we don’t really get the true meaning of the words contained in them. My dear friends, if you’re with us this morning and you haven’t been baptized, we urge you, we beg you to come forth this morning and be baptized. All things are ready for you. The God of heaven will love you. Then you can live the beautiful life of Christ. And you can go to heaven after this life is over here. It is so much better for you than lingering along and whether whether you’re going to make it through the life or not to the point where you can get all the things in order that you want to get in order.

And that is not quite as important as doing it right now. There may be some here this morning that have not lived the way that they should. And does that be the case? We invite all that may be in that situation to come forward while we stand and sing the song that has been chosen. Thank you. Come to be will send me you to the Lord.

Jesus.

Come come today. Come to Jesus. Come, come today. Come to Jesus.

Come today. Come come today. Come come today. Come to Jesus. Come come today. Come. Come, come today. Come, come, come today. Come, come today.