Matthew 20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many.”
Driving home
today from Good News at Noon I considered the vast array of people a person
meets in a short time. I have served as the pastor of this ministry going on
four years. While working at this ministry you meet
volunteers from all the downtown churches, street people, great citizens of our
community that are of all ages, wealthy, poor, Christian, non-Christians, homeless
people and the working poor. Good News at Noon is an almost thirty year old
ministry that serves as a gospel centered homeless shelter, food kitchen,
children’s ministry and a gospel preaching and teaching ministry.
Make no
mistake this is a place where many people and myself love to serve. People who visit almost always come back. But
there is a problem there like all places – People! People like me can be frustrating to work
with. I have to remind myself not to look with reactionary eyes. I need to look through the lens of grace and
look to Jesus. Many times I have been
wrong in life by wanting a quick read and decision on people. This made me reflect on a football game from almost twenty years ago.
For the 1987
Fiesta Bowl Football game for the national college football championship, the
nation saw the Penn State Nittany Lions as good guys versus the Miami Hurricanes the bad guys . The good citizens at Penn State with their legendary republican head
coach wore plain uniforms with no flashy decals on their helmets, stripes on their
pants or names on the back of their jerseys. Penn State did it the “old school”
right way. They were understated and respectfully polite. The Miami Hurricanes
came to town wearing military camouflage outfits, walked out on a bowl game
dinner for the teams, talked smack and brought WWE type flavor to the game. If
the Hurricanes were not hoods they wanted to be seen as such. The “new school”
did it wrong in the nation’s media view.
Penn State
upset the very talented Miami team 14-10 in a nail biter. The “good guys” won and the “bad guys” lost –
so it seemed. But as Paul Harvey used to
say, now we know “the rest of the story”.
Penn State
has great people but a respected defensive coach was committing crimes of
sexual abuse on young boys while leading a charity for youth. This was going on
for years and has scared this great university’s history. Miami is known for great and eye popping
football. Now we know many of the camo wearing players have done great things
for individuals and charities.
So who are
the bad people here? EVERYBODY. That is
why we need Jesus Christ.
Christ Jesus
will not grade on your average of good deeds or on the curve. He came to help the helpless which is
us. He grades on his blood which is pure
and spotless and was shed to cover your sins. Are your sins covered?
Christ the
King is coming back in judgment someday. This is overlooked too much by the
church. We will talk about Christmas(Advent),
His death and Resurrection (Easter), and his Ascension. His return will happen one day. Then their is a Judgement. We worship the LORD Jesus Christ because of GRACE we instead of our deserved judgement when we believe! Thank you Jesus.
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.
