Sermons in Brief - Mini Messages from Pastor Harmon

"Living, Giving and Forgiving - Tough Job but Somebody's Got to Do It" - Luke 6:37-42

Discovery Channel has a new TV series that is utterly fascinating. It's called "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe." The series profiles the unsung American laborers who make their living in the most unthinkable - yet vital - ways. Mike Rowe, the brave host and apprentice, introduces you to a hardworking people who overcome fear, danger, sometimes stench and overall ickiness to accomplish their daily tasks. Each week Rowe assumes the duties of the dirty jobs he's profiling, and works alongside rattlesnake catchers, fish processors, bee removers, septic-tank technicians, roadkill collectors and owl vomitolgists. Dirty jobs but somebody's got to do them.

If you've got a dirty job, Discover Channel wants to hear about it! Perhaps we need to contact Mike Rowe and Discovery Channel about the dirty job of being a child of God, a Christian, "sons of the Most High" Jesus called us (vs 35). Here's the job description: 37"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Let's look at our dirty job for a moment:

1. Live Genuinely (37)

37"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned." Interestingly a few sentences later Jesus says "a tree is recognized by its own fruit." We make judgments all the time You can't live without making judgments. We are fruit inspectors! I know people who can sum up another just by looking at them and are usually right! They are good judges of character. They have a gift of discernment. I like having those people around me--they keep me from being taken advantage of. I envy people with the gift of discernment.

We are fruit inspectors. We size others up. So what is Jesus saying? Jesus defines his own expectation of "do not judge" with the next parallel statement: "do not condemn." We cannot avoid judging or "testing all things - holding on to what is good" as Paul says. But we can avoid judging with condemning spirits. We must not condemn. It is a dangerous thing to make pronouncements about others.

The worst thing we can do is to make a judgement of character and condemn a person as worthless, hopeless, or futureless. We must beware of rejecting another before we have mercy on them. I met a lady last week that I could tell had lived pretty hard life. It didn't take much discernment to see she had graduated from school of hard knocks. As a Christian I had the choice to judge her with compassion or condemnation. "Here is someone I will shun or someone I will love. Here is someone who has no future or hope - or here is someone who by the grace of God has only a great future and a certain hope."

Hundreds of years ago a wandering scholar named Muretus lived. He was very educated but also very poor. He became very sick, and he was taken to the place where the destitute were kept. The people who cared for him did not know that he was a scholar and that he understood the scholar's Latin. One day the doctors were discussing his case in Latin and they were saying that he was a poor creature of value to no one and that it was hopeless and unnecessary to expend care and money or attention on such a worthless human. Muretus looked up and answered in their own Latin, "Call no man worthless for whom Christ died." Because of God's grace like Muretus said, none of us are worthless. In fact, in God's eyes we each have infinite value. "Do not condemn."

2. Forgive Graciously (37)

Another dirty job Christians must do is found in verse 37: "Forgive, and you will be forgiven." It is really the opposite of condemning, pronouncing someone worthless. Interestingly the word used here is not the usual or normal word for "forgive" used in the Greek. The normal word means "to send away." The word used here is a word meaning "set free, release, pardon." It is a word having the intention of removing handcuffs, opening prison doors and setting someone free. We might read this "release others and you will be released."

What do we do when we judge or condemn someone? Don't we put them in a box? A prison of our own making? We say, "This is you. You are your sin. I condemn you." "In my opinion you are worthless, hopeless futureless. But to release is to say to a person, "You are in a box, and I want to help you to be free of that box. I want you to be freed from your prison. And so out of love, I want to do whatever I can to help you be free" Our attitude, lifestyle, mehod of operation and job description is to look at a person and say "in spite of the baggage I see you that you carry I want help you. . .release you to be all that God desires you to be!"

Isn't that exactly how our Lord views us? Didn't he look beyond our faults and see our needs? "Amazing Grace," shall always be my song of praise For it was grace that brought me liberty I do not know just why He came to love me so He looked beyond my fault and saw my need" (Dottie Rambo)

In 1970, Dottie Rambo began writing a song about the grace of God, but was unable to finish it. When her older brother was hospitalized with cancer and told that he had only weeks to live, Dottie sat by his bedside and ministered to him. Within a few days, she persuaded him to marry the woman who had borne him five children. Dottie read the Bible to him and prayed with him. One day, after singing at a concert, she returned to ask: "Have you given your life to Jesus since I've been gone?" Eddie, 37, stared at her with sad eyes. "After the wicked life I've lived, the Lord won't raise a person like me," he muttered. He reminded her of his time in jail and his addiction to drugs and alcohol. "The Lord left the 99 to bring a lost sheep like you back to the fold," Dottie told him. She continued to pray for his salvation. Then she went home and finished "He Looked Beyond My Fault." For years Jimmie Davis, the southern gospel singer and former Louisiana governor, had asked her to write a song to the tune of "Danny Boy." With this song, she finally discovered the inspiration. Later that day, she returned to the hospital to sing the song to Eddie. On Sunday, after she finished singing in an Ohio church, Dottie felt the Holy Spirit's assurance that Eddie had been converted. Hurriedly returning to Tennessee, she found her brother so weak that he could barely talk. "Yesterday I gave my heart to the Lord and he forgave me," he whispered in Dottie's ear. "When I get to heaven, I'll wait for you at the Pearly Gates so we can enjoy heaven together." Before he died, Eddie asked his sister to sing "He Looked Beyond My Fault" at his funeral. Release!

3. Give Generously (38-39)

"38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." These verses make an excellent tithing sermon! What a stewardship sermon I could preach! A preacher can really preach "You can't out give God" from this passage. But isn't it amazing that "Give and it will be given to you" is in the same context as "judge not, condemn not" and "forgive?" Could it be that the generosity Jesus requires is not just a generosity of pocketbook, or checkbook, but a generosity of attitude and spirit? Could it be that the generosity Jesus requires is not just a generosity of pocketbook, or checkbook, but a generosity of compassion, mercy, kndness and understanding?

"38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." This is a picture of the marketplace. A seller placed grain in a container, then he shook the container. Grain would level out and settle then he would put more grain in the container until the container spilled over into the extra fold in one's robe (a pocket to hold things.) Each one of us must have a generous spirit towards others. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said "Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go."

Rattlesnake catchers, fish processors, bee removers, septic-tank technicians, Christian living, forgiving, and giving--Dirty jobs--but somebody's got to do them. I heard a great term this week: seismographic heart." R. Earl Allen says Jesus has a "seismographic heart." He says this because like the instrument that measures the movements and rumblings of the earth, Jesus' heart measured the rumblings of every human soul-the disasters, the catastrophes, the turmoil. He is that sensitive to all of us-acutely attuned to our problems so that He feels all the pain of all the people in the world. We, too. need a "seismographic heart." We need to feel the pain and rumblings of those about us. We need to respond living --forgiving --giving.