What is Our Identifying Mark??

A gentleman by the name of Tony Campbell in Portland, Oregon - a couple of years ago - he’s an older gentleman, I believe he was around 70 at the time, played the same lottery numbers everyday. One day, now his eyesight was a little bad, and he had never won the lottery. So he had the paper in the park one day, quickly looked at the paper, not expecting to see his number. But the number was his number.. all 7 digits were his numbers. Unfortunately, since his eyesight was a little bad, he read three of the numbers wrong. -And he really didn’t take the time to stop and look, because he had never really won before -he really didn’t get close enough to read it, he just thought it was wrong - flipped through the paper, ripped up his ticket and threw it away. Only to come home later and have his daughter call him and say "DAD!! Did you play your numbers??!!!" to which he says, "well, yes of course I did." and she says "WE’RE RICH! You’ve Won!!!" and he says, "what are you talking about?".. ..and then the unfortunate story got told.

His inability at that time, due to circumstances, his eyesight or whatnot, to discern what it was in front of him, affected pretty much the rest of his life. I don’t know if any of you have seen the movie "Titanic" yet..... but apparently, the night the Titanic hit the iceberg, the waters were very calm and it was dark. That did two things to the people on the crow’s nest, or lookout, on the Titanic: Number one, because it was dark, you couldn’t see very far.. But normally, that’s not a problem, because if there is icebergs, you’ll see water breaking against them.. But because the water was so calm, there was no water breaking. The Titanic was moving so fast, the lookouts couldn’t determine when or where there was going to be an iceberg and by the time they did notice it was too late.

Again, their inability to DISCERN, to IDENTIFY, their inability to find some kind of identifying mark, that there was an iceberg right in front of them, affected the rest of their futures. [Ed Note: or lack thereof, as the case may be]

Now, as I was contemplating these stories, I thought, "Lord, what is, my identifying mark??? What identifies me?.. What sets me apart? What’s the insignia?? the tattoo?? the brand?? what is on me that people can identify me?; that I can identify myself as someone who is a follower of Jesus -not a member of the "Christian religion", not a member of the "organized church"- but what is it about ME, what is there SUPPOSED to be about me, that identifies me, that marks and brands me so that people can look at me and clearly identify who I am and what I am.

The external things are the first things that comes to my mind, but I started to realize that no, a Renegade Radio bumper sticker on my car does not identify me as a follower of Jesus. It may identify me as a listener of poor music, whoa! An Acquire The Fire T-shirt --does not identify me as a follower of Jesus, but instead it identifies me as someone who attended an Acquire the Fire event. That’s not to say that Renegade Radio bumper stickers or ATF T-shirts can’t be TOOLS to help you communicate who you are, but it’s not the identifying mark.

Coming to church even, does not identify me as someone who is a follower of Jesus--It identifies me as someone who’s willing to get up early on a Sunday morning and come here. An old pastor of mine used to say: "Y’know, standing in a garage doesn’t make you a car any more than standing in a church makes you a follower of Christ." And that’s very true...

So what’s supposed to be the identifying mark?? Because if we look at other organizations, and this is not a put-down at all: It is actually a bit of admiration. When we look at other organizations and other religions, they have some things that really make them stand out, and you can usually identify them at 20 paces who they are and what they represent.

An old friend of mine who’s a Jehovah’s Witness, you can easily tell who he is, and this is what they intentionally try and do, - the fact that they all wear suits and mostly carry briefcases, some of the time, when he was telling me a little secret, he says some of the time, they don’t even HAVE anything in their briefcase. But it is important to them that people are going to be able to recognize who they are and what they represent. That’s important to them.

And so when we see that, we can identify, right away, who that person is and probably what they believe in and what they stand for. And that’s their identifying mark. I’m not saying that we need to tattoo "FACC Youth Aflame" on us, for a type of visible mark, but that some type of identifying mark is needed to be in our lives.

As I started looking through all these things, I came across this passage: If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to John chapter 13 to verse 35.

John 13:35 "By this, will all people know that you are my followers...

...I kind of grabbed both sides of my bible when I read this a few years ago and I looked up from it for a second and I thought "Okay, now I’m going to read the identifying mark - is it going to be from poverty - is it going to be from a vow of chastity?? a vow of this or that -- what is it?? My eyes went back to the page and...

...if you love one another."

"If you love one another" is supposed to be the unique thing about us that makes us stand apart, not better than other people, not more important, not more smug and not more self-righteous than other people; but just something that is a part of us that when people look at you, when they look at me, hopefully, they can say "Hey, I can identify what it is that person stands for, what it is that person believes and who that person is because he has this identifying insignia built into his life by loving people, by serving people. And these people, when I come into this church and when I visit this church, just seem concerned - the love and the friendship and the warmth between these people, the love they have one for another, I know that these people are followers of Jesus. I know. Nothing external. Nothing about how you wear your hair whether it’s long or short, nothing about how you dress - whether you wear a suit and tie or if you don’t. Nothing about the people you associate with... Jesus himself associated with "~Sinners~". Nothing about how old you are, how young you are, your church affiliation or lack thereof, NONE of that! Jesus said directly: the MAIN thing is when people look at you, do they see you loving each other?????? Do they see you loving other people?? That’s what is going to identify you and set you apart.

Jesus gives an example of this, you don’t need to turn there, I’ll read it, in Luke chapter 10, this is the parable of the Good Samaritan. It goes something like this: (LUKE 10:25-37)

A man was going down the road to from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of bandits. They beat him, stripped him down and ran away these bandits did... leaving him there half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So to a Levite, he came by, saw the man, and he too passed by on the other side of the street. But as Samaritan, as he traveled came to where the man was and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring oil on them and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out 2 silver coins, gave them to the inn keeper; "Look after him." he said, and when I return, I will re-imburse you for any extra expenses you may have.

Which one of these three would you consider the neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the 3 bandits??

In that story, I find 3 classes of people: There are:

-Villains

-Victim

and a

-Victor

Quite often, people will instinctively say: "The Bandits, Robbers, the people who beat the guy up."

And although it’s a subjective question, I disagree. Personally, I feel that the villains in this story that Jesus tells are the priest and the Levite--the religious people; who came walking along, SAW A NEED, saw somebody who needed love to the nth degree, and yet, just passed by on the other side of the road casually looking over their shoulder to make sure that the person doesn’t come crawling after them looking for help. Those are the villains.

The victim is obvious, the person who is beaten. And the Victor in the story is the person, the Samaritan who came, saw and met that persons needs.

There are three characteristics I think of this person that we like to call a "Victor", the Samaritan. Three characteristics -A victor, or somebody who loves, is:

--CALLED,

--They are COURAGEOUS

-- And they are COMPASSIONATE

Now, what do you mean by called? "Called" can sound like a religious term: "I have been called by God to the mission field." or "I have been called to be a pastor."

or "I have been called by God to do this or to do that."

So when I say ‘called’ I really do mean that there’s, as a person loves, there is a call. There is a God-sent message to you to be involved in something. The difference between my definition of called, and other’s definition of "called" that I know is this:

I don’t believe that being called for the most part, I do believe that there are specific circumstances, but I don’t believe that being called is God coming to you saying: "Joey, I want you to be involved in youth ministry--that is MY call on your life." I do believe that that happens from time to time, but unfortunately I think a lot of people hide behind that to not do something else, because they say "they don’t feel called" to meet somebody’s needs.

Listen to this: In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus is talking about the parable between the sheep and the goats, and he says to the sheep: "Y’know, when I was hungry, you fed me, when I was naked, you clothed me, come into my Kingdom, Thank you so much." But then he turns to another group of people and he says this: Then he will say to those on His left, the goats: "Depart from me, you who are cursed in eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you didn’t invite me in. I needed clothes, but you did not cloth me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."

They also will answer: "Lord when did we see you hungry and thirsty?-or a stranger?-or needing clothes or sick?-or in prison? and did not help you?" I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me. "Lord, when did we not feed you." "But Lord, I wasn’t called to be involved in that. I realize Bob has lost his job, he’s at home feeling really down, he’s depressed, he’s not taking care of himself, but Lord, I didn’t feel led, I didn’t feel called to go over there for a couple of days and to be with him and encourage him. I didn’t feel called."

There have been more times in my life than I feel comfortable with that I have hidden behind that excuse of not feeling called, of not feeling led, of not feeling specifically directed by God to get involved in something, and thus, hid behind that excuse to do nothing. I used that excuse so many times in my life so I could walk by on the other side of the road and not help the bleeding man. I believe, and yet I stand here and I say: I believe somebody who is loving is somebody who is "called".

My idea of what called means radically changed in 1994 when I heard a children’s pastor from New York City, he ministers to over 8,000 children a week. Started out in his car, he’d pick up 5 or 6 kids, eventually they needed a bus and started picking up more kids, eventually he had like, 100 buses so they could bring in all of these kids, give them clothes and food and he said this:

In an interview, the reporter was questioning him, and he said "Ask me how much..." he says... "Ask me how much I like Children’s Ministry.."

The reporter said ‘How much?’

He said "I Hate It!! -- I’m terrible with kids! They get on my nerves, they get under my skin and I can’t take kids!!"

Wow.... that’s amazing that God would call you into that type of ministry... He said "God didn’t call me into this type of ministry.."

The reporter said, ‘What do you mean?’

He said: "He didn’t come down and say ‘Bill, I want you to get involved in Children’s ministry.’"

The reporter said, ‘So why do you do it??’.

He said: "Because it’s high-time that Christians learn that the NEED is the CALL.

"When God has you in a place," this is what he said to me and the staff I was with at the time: "When God has you in a place where a need is visible to you, that is God’s voice saying to you: you are called. Get involved, help out." It doesn’t mean, I mean, there are millions and millions of calls and God doesn’t say: "Completely exhaust yourself to where you have nothing left to offer your spouse, your family, your friends or your own health; but so many of us stay so far away from that at all. We need to realize that the need is the call

A person who loves is somebody who realizes that when God brings needs across their table, that’s Him calling them into service and in to action. I also said that somebody who loves is courageous. When I say courageous, I mean somebody who is willing to take a risk.

Picture this, the Samaritan sees the man beaten on the road, on roads like that it wasn’t uncommon for bandits to be hiding in the cliffs, or behind rocks and boulders, just ready to jump out and pounce some people. And that’s probably part of the reason for the Levite and the priest, that when they saw the beaten man, they probably looked a little bit over their shoulders and decided to quicken their pace a bit. For this Samaritan to stop, get down on his knees, and not look around, but rather, tear his own sleeve to bandage the man. Take out oil so he can pour it on his wounds. HE was putting himself in a situation of jeopardy. He was putting himself in a situation of risk. In order to help this person, in order to love this person, meant that he would have to risk.

I think the same thing is involved with us today. I think, in this identifying mark of love, the second characteristic of being courageous, is when somebody needs love, when somebody needs your service, I think God realizes and he acknowledges that you would be putting yourself in a position of risk. Maybe it’s not always the type of risk where somebody would be hiding behind a curtain and start beating you up. But what if it is somebody that you invest some time in and they wind up hurting you? Your putting yourself at risk of maybe being taken advantage of. If I meet this person’s needs, they might just start taking advantage of me. It’s true... but God calls people, to be courageous, to take risk, to put themselves in that type of situation.

Lastly, the third thing about somebody who loves, who has this identifying mark of love in their life, is that a person is COMPASSIONATE.

Compassion is summed up as this:

If somebody who will love another person, with no strings attached. What I mean by "no strings attached" is this: The good Samaritan did not help this person, thinking to himself: "Hey, this guy is probably rich!- He’ll probably give me a great reward later" or "This person is someone ho is very affluent in our community, and probably by helping him, it will increase my standing with people or increase my popularity." "Hey, That’s the guy who helped ‘So-and-So’."

He didn’t know him; he didn’t ask for anything in return, he wasn’t expecting anything. He loved the gentleman who was bleeding on the ground, with no strings attached--he didn’t even know who he was! He was Compassionate. The Samaritan was called and he saw the need and he responded to it, he was courageous in that he was willing to take a risk, and he was compassionate.

Here’s a good quote…

"Love is not doing what feels good, love is doing what IS good, despite how it feels."

For the Samaritan to stop, it probably wasn’t an opportunity for him to say: "Hey this is great, I really need to take a break and take a load off, and I can help this out at the same time." He wasn’t thinking: "Y’know, I didn’t make him physically feel good." He put the man on his own donkey and that meant for the rest of the trip, he had to walk, himself.--Probably didn’t feel very good. Loving a person meant not doing what, to him, what felt good, but doing what was good for that person, despite how it felt."

That quote reminds me of Jesus Christ. When he hung on the cross for our sins, he probably didn’t feel very good - but he was just doing what was good despite how it felt.

In the bible, the word "love" is not an emotion, it’s not a feeling, and it’s not a sensation. Love is, to quote DC Talk, a verb - it’s an action, it’s something that you do. And when Jesus says to us: "This is how all people will know that you are followers of me: if you LOVE one another." "If you will actively be courageous, feel called and be compassionate to each other, meeting each others needs; people are going to know that you follow me. - People will know who you are and that you follow me."

There’s a story I read [from the New York Children’s Pastor], a story of a woman by the name of Lisa Talbot.

Lisa Talbot was 17 years old, and she got pregnant. Knowing that she came from a very strict Roman Catholic family, she knew that if her parents found out, that she would be in a lot of trouble. She did what many young women do in situations like hers, feeling trapped, feeling scared, she went to an abortion clinic. Now at this time, you couldn’t just get an abortion on your first visit. You had to make a mandatory first visit and you were made to wait at least 2 days later before you could go back. Upon this first visit, a local church had organized a protest, a demonstration out front of this abortion clinic. And there were about 20 or 30 people outside of the abortion clinic marching with signs, one woman named [Wilma], standing behind the police line, as Lisa came walking down, her head kind of ducked in shame with all these people yelling at her, screaming at her. And with her head kind of ducked down, she suddenly had a picket sign put right in front of her face, and she had to stop and look up. The sign said: "Jesus loves that baby you’re carrying." and she slowly turned to look at this person who rudely shoved this sign in front of her face, she saw an angry woman. This Wilma woman - irate, screaming, yelling MURDERER!, MURDERER! -yelling, yelling and yelling.. Yelling at this young girl.. Murderer! Murderer.. and then repeating what’s on her sign: "Jesus loves that baby you’re carrying!!, Jesus loves that baby!" The police pushed the sign away, the young woman went on to proceed thinking: "I guess Jesus doesn’t care much about me though." She went away from that experience never really having an opinion about Christians until that day. She hated their guts. Absolutely hated their guts. Oh, she knew what they stood for now, she knew that Christians believe that abortion is wrong. She knew that plain and simple. But that truth did not make her go back to her room and say: "Gosh, I should know this Jesus." She walked away with an INCREDIBLY negative impression about what and who Christians are.. and the REALLY unfortunate thing is, she had every right to. She had every right to feel that way.

So, Lisa went home, scheduled on Monday to come back, for the abortion. Wilma went home, went to church that Sunday, feeling really good, that God has used her to proclaim His truth, and all these wonderful things. When a visiting speaker came to their church that Sunday and said "Hey, I hear you folks had a protest at the local abortion place." And people almost cheered they didn’t verbally cheer, but you could hear the excitement in the air, like "Yeah! That’s what we did." He said, how many of you went down there with pamphlets or maps to your homes for the young ladies that are going to get kicked out of their homes when their parents find out they’re pregnant?? How many of you have gone to those women those young ladies and said "hey, if you’re in trouble, you can come stay with me, we will fix a room for you, we will feed you, we will look after your needs for 6, 7, 8 months, whatever, we will help you through this struggle, just in case if you’re going to have problems with your family. Nobody raised a hand. And this visiting preacher, and only visiting preachers can say stuff like this, he said "You have NO RIGHT, NO RIGHT, to enforce your beliefs, however true they are and condemn other people unless you are willing to back those up with love. If you’re not willing to do it, then you have no right to march in that line. No right at all."

Wilma felt terrible. She felt horrible.

Monday came around, and Wilma went back to that line and sure enough, Lisa showed up, walking down. AS she did, head ducked again, but this time, fuming with a lot of bitterness towards these people that she just saw outside of her car. This time, instead of a sign being thrust in front of her face, she felt an arm reach out and grab her. It was Wilma. Her first reaction was to tug away, she knows who this woman is and what she did to her before. And Wilma almost pleaded, "No, wait, I just wanted to say ‘I’m sorry’. MY name is Wilma and if you have any needs, if you need a place to stay," all this time, the security is trying to pull her hand off of her, "if you need clothes, if you need food, if you need anything, PLEASE, here’s my card, PLEASE call me." With tears in her eyes, Lisa went into the abortion clinic. She sat in the waiting room, the doctor was late. He was playing golf--true story... Golf saved a baby’s life. ... All the golfer’s said Amen... no..

The doctor is running late so this young woman is left to sit there, no magazines on the table today. Just looking at this card. She went back outside, talked to her and said are you serious?? Wilma says, "Yeah, I’m serious"

This woman, Wilma, on that Sunday felt her call. She felt courageous, she was filled with courage, as the story later goes, as I found out later that was not a popular thing she did in her church. A lot of people didn’t feel very positive about what Wilma did. So she took a risk and she was compassionate. She took that young woman Lisa in, and as a result, a baby’s life was saved, a young woman’s relationship with her family was ultimately restored, and Lisa became a Christian. All because someone was willing to feel called, to feel courageous and feel compassionate.

I want to invite you to do something right now.

Discussion in small groups of 5 or 6 and share personal experiences of other Christians making an impact on you by seeing a need you had and responding, or not responding, and the impact it made on you. (3-4 minutes)

 I want to share a verse with you: This is one of the most important and relevant bible verses in the world to me, and it’s unfortunate that it is, but it’s true...

When we fail to have love as our identifying mark in our lives, when we fail to be courageous, called and compassionate to each other, and towards other people, and yet, remain "professing Christians" here’s what the bible says about us:

Romans Chapter 2 verse 24:

"As it is written," this is Paul writing to people who say they follow God, "God’s name is mocked because of you." "God’s name is Mocked because of you."

Boy that’s a sobering verse! When we fail to be compassionate, called and courageous, that’s what happens.

On the other hand, when we share the gospel, when I want to tell people about Jesus and who he is, and that He is Love and HE is Compassionate and that He is Joy, He is Peace, HE is Fulfillment, that’s good, for them to HEAR. However, I’m just a door-to-door salesman, until they see me love. Until they see me be Called, Compassionate and Courageous, I’m just a door-to-door salesman; I’m just a 2-minute commercial on the TV

Good works, although it never saves you -you can’t earn your way into heaven, you can’t earn your way into God’s love, but our actions, our love, our compassion, our courage legitimizes the gospel that we preach. It makes it legitimate. They don’t use the terminology much in my generation, however, they do say a child is legitimate, if the parents are married. How is it a child’s fault, that his parents aren’t married?. How is it his fault and somehow tags him as being illegitimate? I have no idea. However, that’s just to give you an idea of the example. When we will back up, when we will do these things [i.e.: the 3 "C"’s I’ve already written a million times], loving, putting ourselves at risk, not seeking anything in return, no strings attached, when we do that and then present the gospel, the gospel to them, is legitimate and has some power behind it.

A guy can get on those 2am infomercials, and we’ve all seen them, we’ll all deny it, and have the new miraculous car wax. It’ll do anything, it’ll do this, it’ll do that, it will do all these wonderful things. Hey, that’s nice, but when I can actually see somebody do it to their car, light the thing on fire, have a blow-torch and a chainsaw and let their kids go over it with Crayolas or whatever, and then see it come off, okay, your claims are now legitimate to me, now I’ll listen.

There’s an unbelieving world who have every right to be unbelieving because believers haven’t been living as believers. But when we do, what we say carries a lot more weight and it carries a legitimate message, not an illegitimate one.

Jesus said: "By this shall all people know you are my disciples, if you love one another."

I want to end by saying, we need to be focused, on how we show the love of Jesus in us to other people around us. We do. But Jesus also took the time to say that we need to take the time to show that love to each other -- to those who are in the body, who are here. If you’re one of our visitors here today, I hope some congregation member hasn’t picked your wallet or something. I hope you came in here and saw people shaking hands and embracing, I hope you had the chance in your small groups to see people concerned about each other, wanting to hear about each other’s needs. And maybe even saying, "Wow, well I can help you with something like that..." It’s my hope that when you come in here, you see a group of people who are committed to each other. Weaknesses, faults, mistakes and all. That’s what Jesus calls us to be as a church.