176 Sermon Illustrations on Compassion

When those gloating chief priests and scribes thus jeered, they were unwittingly uttering a profound truth. I wonder if we ourselves have grasped it.

Here is the master-principle of redemption: “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” In the very nature of things, if He would save others, He dare not save Himself. If He had saved Himself (as He easily could have done) He could not have saved others. The self-blinded priests and scribes mistakenly supposed that His apparent inability to save Himself proved that He could not be a Saviour of others, whereas the very opposite was the case: His becoming the Saviour of others depended on His not saving Himself.

That, indeed, is the binding law of all true service. As our Lord Jesus says elsewhere: “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it” (Matt. 1 6:25).That which counts is always that which costs. We must bleed if we would bless. We must lose ourselves if we would save others. Jesus did; and so must we, in our lesser way. What we selfishly retain we lose. What we sacrificially give up we gain. We conquer by yielding. We get by giving. We win by losing. We live by dying. We save others only when self-absorption gives place to compassionate otherism. See our Lord, again, on that Cross; then recall His words, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” If our Lord had saved Himself, He could not have saved us. To save us, Himself He could not save. How like or unlike Him are you and I, who call ourselves His followers? All around us are Christless souls. What are we doing to win them? Is it inconvenient? Does it bring rebuff? Does it hurt? Does it cost? Is it tiring? Well, listen again to those priests and scribes: “He saved others; Himself He cannot save”!

And now, finally, in that spiteful sneer — so strangely wicked yet so strangely true — see the supreme meaning of our Lord’s life and death. It was His crucifiers themselves who confessed it “He saved others; or, to translate it more exactly, “He has saved others”. Yes, He has, in their millions. It was in order to save that He lived and died and rose again. Had Israel’s priests and scribes only realized it, even as they were sarcastically admitting that He had saved others, His very dying was to save them! But, alas, those hard-hearted leaders, by their own use of that word, “others”, placed themselves outside His saving reach. What they were really saying was, “He saved others, but He has not saved us”. By that word,”others”, they excluded themselves. And it is still true that the only ones excluded are, the self-excluded. “He saved others.” He still saves others. If He has saved you and me, let us be out to tell them!

Is it costly? Is it hurtful?

Easier far be dumb than brave?

Then remember, “He saved others,

But Himself He would. not save.”

Christian compassion is drawing new interest about the faith along the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, according to relief workers. Some people are converting to Christianity. Others are asking questions about Jesus.

Christians are showing residents of eastern Sri Lanka kindness “they never expected,” according to David Beckett, director of Sri Lanka relief work of Children's Emergency Relief International, the overseas arm of Baptist Child and Family Services, based in San Antonio, Texas.

The majority of relief workers from around the globe are Christians, Beckett noted. Workers from non-governmental relief groups such as Texas Baptist Men and CERI are caring for people in eastern Sri Lanka regardless of faith background.

That attitude differs with the one Sri Lankans have seen in the past, when European tourists spent money and left. By presenting living examples of a Christian faith, the volunteers provide a contrast to other religions in the region.

As a result, there is a surge of new believers, despite the continuous threat of persecution, especially in smaller villages, Beckett noted. Individuals in some communities are shunned for converting to Christianity. Churches have been burned. Leaders have been attacked. But Sri Lankans continue to be interested in Jesus.

Sri Lankans “see a light in a dark place,” Beckett said. “People are drawn to the light when they see something so different like that. I've heard so many times over the past months: ‘You people are not like we expected. You treat us differently than the way other people have treated us.'“

Followers of other faiths are trying to explain the outpouring of Christian compassion in a number of ways. One common notion is the United States dropped a bomb near Indonesia that created the tsunamis, and Christian Americans came to help because they felt bad about what they did.

The idea is unfounded but significant, Beckett said. “What it shows is Christian Americans have had a huge impact on this island. “So big in fact, that people are trying to find ways to explain it.”

Sujatha Rajadurai, a Sri Lankan working with CERI, reinforced Beckett's words. Believers around the world are inspiring Sri Lankan Christians to be faithful, Rajadurai said. Locals are working together to improve living conditions even as political leaders continue fighting.

“It's really exciting,” Rajadurai said. “They're coming here. They're sharing their love. It's a different kind of love. I'm thinking if they're coming again and again to share, everything would be nice for us to build up our life.”

*

While politicians in Louisiana and the nation’s capital continue their nauseating blame-game over Hurricane Katrina, Christians around the country are in the nitty-gritty details of compassionate action. Pastor Mo Leverett of New Orleans is among them. He and his family made it out with just the clothes on their backs, but immediately turned their attention to helping others get basic supplies and shelter.

Mo’s selflessness is not surprising given that fifteen years ago he and his wife moved to the neighborhood of the Desire Street housing projects, one of the toughest and poorest parts of New Orleans. Some called the move foolishness, but then that’s often the response to incarnational ministry.

Mo began his outreach by volunteering as a football coach at a local high school. From the start, he had a vision for seeing Desire Street transformed by the Gospel into a renewed and desirable place to live. By August 2005, Desire Street Ministries included a church, a school for 190 kids, after-school programs, and the beginnings of an urban institute for training new leaders. Then Katrina hit.

Before the waters rose to the ministry’s roofline, Myron Celestine, the Desire Street Academy’s basketball coach, loaded eleven of his players into a van and drove them to Atlanta. A local Christian family is housing them along with eleven more. About one hundred staff members, their families, and Desire Street families evacuated to a Christian camp in Mississippi, and one hundred more went to a Christian ranch in Dallas. “Our army of incarnational staff is totally woven into the fabric of the neighborhood like surrogate parents; everybody grabbed kids and families that needed to get out,” explains Mo.

Hundreds of churches are now helping meet their basic needs. Meanwhile in Destin, Florida, the ministry’s Director of Development and former Heismann-trophy winner, Danny Wuerffel, is trying to secure a campus for Desire Street Academy to resume classes as a boarding school. And Mo and others are partnering with relief agencies for long-term rebuilding. Mo knows that God was there in the storm and will be there in the recovery work.

Hurricane Katrina has pulled back the curtain and shone a spotlight on the ugly drama of poverty, race, and class issues in the United States. Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) spoke out on the floor of the Senate after the disaster and said, “I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren’t just abandoned during the hurricane, they were abandoned long ago — to murder and mayhem in the streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness.”

While his statement may apply to much of New Orleans, the people touched by Desire Street Ministries know that they were not abandoned. The love of Christ came to them in the flesh of Mo, his family, and his staff, and after the storm in churches across this country. So while that spotlight shines on the problems, it should also illuminate the solution.

________

Copyright (c) 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

If I were to ask you to imagine what a typical U.S. marshal looks like, you might think of John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in TRUE GRIT. Or maybe Tommy Lee Jones in THE FUGITIVE. Tough guys, gun in hand, pursuing justice with steely-eyed coolness.

This March, the U.S. Marshals Service appointed a new director — John Clark, a twenty-three-year veteran of the department. Like the other men and women of U.S. Marshals Service, Clark is an expert at protecting the public and chasing down the “bad guys.” But a recent CHICAGO TRIBUNE article reveals that there's something different about Clark — something you won't see in the movies.

You see, even though Clark spends most of his time bringing criminals to justice, he spends his Christmas holidays delivering presents to the children of these same “bad guys” through Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree® program.

Clark told the CHICAGO TRIBUNE: “We see the individual going to jail and some heinous crime has been committed and we think that guy or gal deserves it. What we forget is at home there is a mom or son or daughter or youngsters that are the innocent victims of this person's criminal mindset.”

So what could motivate a man like Clark — or anyone — to bring offenders to justice but, at the same time, to reach out in mercy? It's a biblical worldview: a worldview that takes seriously God's command through the prophet Micah to do justice and to love mercy — at the same time! And a worldview that sees each human being — criminals, their families, victims of crime — as created in the image of God.

Sadly, the American criminal justice system and our society as a whole see offenders solely as criminals who should be locked up and forgotten.

Don't get me wrong. As the former attorney general of Virginia, I know there are plenty of violent criminals whom we must incarcerate to protect the public. But I shake my head in sad wonder today that of our two million souls in prisons in America, nearly half are there for nonviolent offenses. Even more sobering is the fact that each year, some 600,000 men and women leave prison ill prepared to reenter society as productive citizens. In fact, nearly two-thirds of them will be re-arrested within three years. That's not promoting public safety.

So, what's the Church to do? Simply this: Live out God's command to do justice and love mercy. How? Work to reform the criminal justice system in a way that holds offenders accountable by forcing them to pay restitution to their victims and by performing needed community service. We need to work to end the “one-size-fits-all” sentencing practices. We need to work to give crime victims a voice in the process.

At the same time, we need to bring the transforming power of the Gospel to prisoners. We need to meet prisoners at the gate when they leave prison, ready to draw them into our churches, to mentor them as they make the transition from confinement to freedom. And, like the head of the U.S. Marshal Service, we need to minister to the families of prisoners to ensure that they remain intact and that their children are not swept up into the generational cycle of crime.

________

Copyright (c) 2006 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

A lost person once met a Christian, and said, "I know you do not believe your religion." "Why?" asked the Christian. "Because," said the other, "for years you have passed me on my way to my house of business. You believe, do you not, there is a hell, into which men's spirits are cast?" "Yes, I do," said the Christian. "And you believe that unless I believe in Christ I must be sent there?" "Yes." "You do not, I am sure, because if you did, you must be a most inhuman wretch to pass me, day by day, and never tell me about it or warn me of it."

-C. H. Spurgeon

The Alpine strawberry is no larger than a pea, and yet is the sweetest of all the fruits of the field. And many of the most precious deeds of a true Christian are the small acts of his life, as the giving of a cup of cold water to a weary disciple, or the speaking of a word in due season.

There is an old adage that says "the smaller the gift or the service, in certain circumstances, the greater the evidence of love." To fetch the donkey for Jesus was a truer test of love than to drive furiously like Jehu (see 2 Kings 9). To wash the feet of Jesus, like Mary, is an evidence of greater love than to spread a feast for Him like Simon the Pharisee. Mary with her alabaster box of ointment, the widow with her two mites, Peter forsaking his fishing tackle-these are truer acts of benevolence than the gifts of a Vanderbilt, DuPont, Getty, Hearst, Ted Turner, or Bill Gates. A little boy gave six cents for charity and wrote on the envelope: "Fasted a meal to give a meal."

A large steamer was voyaging homeward. In wild weather and growing darkness a black man fell overboard. Instantly the vessel was stopped, the engines reversed, the boats lowered, and the energy of every officer and man of the crew devoted to the man's rescue. A native Indian prince was on board, and, seeing all this, broke out in surprise to the captain: "What! You delay the passage of His Majesty's mails, lose hours of your run, and your boats and men, for that Negro fireman?" "Certainly," replied the captain, "and I would risk the loss of my propeller and smokestack to pick up the poorest laborer in my company. But Jesus laid down His own life to save you and me."

At Schults Lewis Children's Home in northern Indiana, where the corn is so tall and plentiful, we always had a devotional before school began. We adults had many friends in our mission fields, and always included them in our prayers by asking, "Lord, please bless all the workers we know, especially those in the foreign fields."

Eight-year-old Robert kept asking us to let him say the prayer one morning. The time came and Robert did a masterful job until he came to that part, and he said, "Lord, please bless all our brothers and sisters that are working so hard out in all those corn fields."

-Lester Allen Bulletin Digest

”What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not … go after that which is lost, until he find it?” Luke 15:4.

By this illustration of shepherd and sheep Jesus answered the Pharisees who criticised Him for ministering among people of ill-repute. It was an appeal to the human instinct of pity. If a man will feel pity for a sheep, and be at pains to save it, how much more toward those human sheep who are astray from God, and lost in sin? The difference of attitude between those Pharisees and our Lord Jesus was that they stood for a form of religion, whereas Jesus had come to show the way of salvation. Religion of itself never yet saved any man’s soul. Not even Christianity, considered as a system, can save a single soul. What men need is not religion merely, but redemption; not some new ideology merely, but regeneration; not a new ethic only, but a new life; not just some new system, but a Saviour.

So, then, this illustration of the seeking shepherd is an appeal to the instinct of pity, and a defence against self-righteous critics; but it is much more; it is a parable. Under this figure of the seeking shepherd we are shown the Son of God Himself, seeking the lost souls of men. We are the perishing sheep; and Jesus is the Shepherd who comes to seek and to save us. It isthis which gives the little parable-cameo its mighty meaning and abiding appeal. There are various viewpoints from which it may be considered; but here we limit ourselves to noticing again certain things which it teaches about the Shepherd, bearing in mind that the Shepherd is none other than the very Son of God Himself. The Shepherd is here pictured in three activities: (1) seeking, (2) finding, (3) rejoicing.

Reflect on the first of these, ie., the Shepherd seeking. Mark well again that fourth verse: “What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” In the way that it is worded, who can miss seeing the divine compassion here betokened? The very numbers “ninety-nine” versus “one” make it plain that the motive of the Shepherd’s seeking is compassion. If the sheep had been one out of twenty or fifty, the loss would have been such as to cause the sheepowner to seek the lost sheep on account of the material loss to himself, without overmuch concern for the suffering of the sheep. But here is a man with ninety-nine left, and maybe the strayed one is now too broken to be of value much longer. The loss of merely that one from a hundred would be no serious matter. Yet away this Shepherd goes, amid the gathering night and the hazards of the hills, to rescue the one stray sheep because it is dear to Him, and He is moved by compassion. Oh, the compassion of this heavenly Shepherd who comes seeking us! Can we ever respond too gratefully to Him? Oh, the love that sought us! Oh, the blood that bought us!

First sermon in series: The Church You've Longed For 1 John 4:7-12

BECOMING A CARING FAMILY

========================

I. Love is what it's all about.

A. Last week was a general sermon on love by our Area Minister.

B. Get love right.

II. Churches can be lousy at love.

A. Too busy to notice others.

B. Too self-centered to care about others.

C. Think someone else will help.

D. Think problems will solve themselves.

E. Are often judgmental.

III. How Jesus loved people.

A. He noticed people's pain.

B. He accepted people everyone else rejected.

C. He accepted good people who failed him.

D. He was cared even when it was socially uncomfortable.

IV. How our church should be like Jesus.

A. Notice when others are hurting.

B. Take the initiative to do something about their problems.

C. Take time to be compassionate.

D. Broaden our idea of who is "acceptable" in our church.

Scripture provides guidance for Christians in deciding which candidate to support on Election Day, Texas pastor Ed Young Jr. told his congregation. It was the second part in a sermon series Young has dubbed “Politicked.” The pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine gave five categories believers should examine about each political candidate.

“Once we ask ourselves these five questions and once we answer them, then we’ll be ready to vote for the right person,” he said.

The five categories are:

• Character.

“Everything begins with character,” said Young, pointing to Proverbs 29:2: “ ... If we elect righteous leaders, our government will be righteous, and if our government is righteous then the laws will be righteous.”

Christians should take a political candidate’s private conduct seriously, Young said.

“Character can be defined as who you are when no one’s looking,” he said. “ ... For a long, long time, people have said, ‘Who you are in private does not really affect who you area in public office.’ ... That’s absolutely, friends, nuts, because who you are in private is who you are. Who you are in private is who you are in public.”

• Conviction.

Reading from Proverbs 28:1 -- which says the “righteous are bold as a lion” -- Young said, “We need to elect lionesses and lions in this day -- people who are not politicians, but people who are statesmen, people who are leaders.” That conviction, he said, must be based on God’s Word.

He mentioned the “gay agenda” as one area where society is moving away from scriptural teachings.

“God has told us from cover to cover that there is only one context where sex should be enjoyed and practiced and celebrated -- marriage.... The Bible tells me and it tells you that during the end of time ... what is right [will be viewed as] wrong and [what is] wrong [will be viewed as] right.”

Referencing those who compare the homosexual movement to the civil rights movement, Young said, “I’ve known a lot of former homosexuals but I’ve never met a former African American.”

• Courage.

“Does this candidate display courage?” Young asked. “Can you look at this candidate’s life -- the history of him or her -- and say, ‘You know what? He stood up for courage there. She stood up for courage.’ ... Courage is the God-given ability to stand.... Conviction is belief. Courage is behavior.”

Pointing to Proverbs 11:3, Young said, “The other day I heard a candidate being interviewed, and here’s the response the candidate made to a question on morality, ... ‘Well, for me as a Christian.’ ... That was a relativistic answer. ... The relativist says, ‘What’s right for you is true for you and what’s true for you is true for you.’”

Giving an example of the absurdity of relativism, Young said someone could say, as part of the relativistic worldview, “What’s true for me is to fly airliners into the sides of skyscrapers and kill hundreds and hundreds of people.”

• Compassion.

Giving the biblical definition of compassion, Young read from Proverbs 31:8-9, which says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” He also read from Proverbs 24:11, “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.”

Abortion, Young said, is an issue where a political candidate must show compassion.

“We’re taking the lives, of ... 3,200 babies a day -- taking the lives of developing babies -- when you’ll get thrown in prison and pay an astronomical fine if you disturb the eggs of developing sea turtles,” he said. “What’s right is wrong and [what’s] wrong is right.”

• Constituency.

Young said examining who supports and opposes the candidate can help determine who to support.

“I can meet your friends, without even meeting you, and tell you what kind of a person you are,” Young said. “Who applauds this potential candidate and who opposes them? We better wake up and smell the coffee, here, friends. If the mainstream secular media supports a candidate or an issue, there is a great chance that something is sideways, [and] you better look at that one very, very closely. Who opposes them? Who is for them?”

In January 2023 cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to fraud after the shocking collapse of his multibillion-dollar crypto exchange company FTX. It’s a complicated case, but the central allegation is that Bankman-Fried used money from one of his businesses to pay the debts of a different one, defrauding investors and customers. The fallout has been incredible. Some estimates place what he owes investors at up to 8 billion dollars.

As he tells the story, 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried never set out to be a billionaire business tycoon. While in college at MIT, he was approached by William MacAskill, a well-known philosopher, professor, and author, who encouraged Bankman-Fried to join a movement of philosophers and philanthropists called Effective Altruism.

Most effective altruists deny both the existence of a Creator and that the universe has any ultimate purpose, although there are some who claim to be Christians. Most believe that human beings are here by chance, but as long as we are here, we have a moral duty to alleviate the suffering of the most people possible. Mostly, this is meant in a mathematical sense.

Allegedly, MacAskill convinced the promising young techie that he had a responsibility to make as much money as possible and give a lot of it away. After all, not everyone can become a billionaire investor, and even fewer would become charitable billionaire investors. Sam Bankman-Fried believed he could and decided he would, often talking about causes as diverse as supplying mosquito nets for malaria-vulnerable areas to protecting the world from killer robots.

This focus on consequences, rooted in an ethical theory known as utilitarianism, is a first concern with Effective Altruism. In this view, a good end justifies any means. Effective Altruism tends to measure “good ends” in terms of the number of deaths prevented. Of course, protecting vulnerable life is also a biblical value, rooted in a belief that every human being has inherent dignity and eternal value. However, in a biblical view, a life is not only measured by its length. How we live matters as well.

Ethical utilitarian Peter Singer, also a self-described “Effective Altruist,” has a favorite thought experiment. If you see a small child drowning in a pond, should you always jump in to help? What if you were wearing a new pair of expensive shoes that might be ruined in the mud? The correct response, of course, is that a child should always be prioritized over shoes. Based on this hypothetical, Singer preaches that it’s therefore wrong to ever buy nice shoes because that money could be used to prolong life somewhere.

This kind of moral reasoning often leads to prioritizing human life en masse over human lives in particular. Certainly, we ought to work to prevent as many deaths as we can. Preventing and treating malaria, for example, is to address the No. 1 killer of human beings in the history of the world. However, it’s essential to remember that human life has infinite value because every human life has infinite value. Thus, the effectiveness of our compassion cannot be adequately measured only in totals.

Measuring the effectiveness of Effective Altruism requires an omniscience that human beings simply do not have. In Singer’s thought experiment, we are able to see the boy in the pond. However, we’re not able to see whether or not employment, economic mobility, and community development would have led to a fence around the pond, better schooling opportunities, or some other positive developments that could prevent future drownings or perhaps even this one. In this view, anything less than knowing everything makes living a moral life impossible. The result is kind of like a parent telling a stubborn child to eat his or her dinner because a different child is starving on the other side of the world, as if the two scenarios are related.

A Christian moral vision does not reduce humanity or humans to a math equation. As ethicist and theologian Oliver O’Donovan has put it, “to love everybody in the world equally is to love nobody very much.” Rather, as Paul instructed the church at Corinth, real good is brought to the world when we each “lead the life that the Lord has assigned. ...” In this view, an expensive alabaster jar of perfume poured on the head of Jesus, rather than being sold to help the poor, is not wasted. A widow’s mite can have infinite value, while a multimillion-dollar collaboration of government charities that prop up dictators, corruption, and horrific evils could bring more harm than good.

This call, to steward the gifts God gives us for His ends and in His way, motivates the “Hope Awards,” given each year by our friends at WORLD News Group to nonprofit organizations that not only have worthy goals but also successfully employ moral methods. WORLD calls this “effective compassion.” The kind of wisdom we need to help without hurting God gives generously and does not require omniscience, at least not from us.

________

Copyright (c) 2023 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Three days after receiving the news of his appointment as Sango Methodist Church’s pastor, Willie Lyle was awakened by a dream at 2 a.m. This dream was different from any in the past. In this dream, God told Willie to do something very specific, and God promised Willie if he would do this, then He would provide for Willie and protect him. What God asked Willie to do was not something Willie wanted to do, and he had no interest in doing it. It was clearly out of his comfort zone.

In that dream, God told Willie that he needed to live on the streets of Clarksville, Tennessee, as a homeless and hungry person. He challenged Willie to experience firsthand just what it was like to have nothing - no home, no money, no friends, no food on even a semi-regular basis, no nothing. Willie wasn’t eager to do this, but he said, “You know, life isn’t always comfortable. Jesus wasn’t comfortable on the cross.”

His wife, Suzette, dropped him off in downtown Clarksville early Monday morning, June 17, and he lived on the street through the next four days. He learned from firsthand experience just how many people who are fortunate in life look down upon and ignore the homeless, the hungry and the poor without ever taking the time to learn their story. “Generally speaking, people are not kind to the homeless,” he observed.

Remarking on what he now understands so much better, “Homeless people walk slowly, and now I know why. They physically hurt all over from sleeping on concrete, the ground or on wooden floors. They don’t own Air Jordans and thick socks. People should try sleeping on a wooden floor sometime. It’s painful.”

Throughout the week, Willie kept a small journal of what he was experiencing. These notes become the foundation for the sermon he delivered at Sango Methodist on June 23, a sermon that caught the congregation off-guard. Only four people at the church knew what Willie was doing.

Early morning on June 23, Willie lay under a tree on the church lawn covered up by a big overcoat. He still had not shaved or combed his hair. He wondered how many people would approach him and offer him food, or a place to sit inside an air conditioned room, or just see how they could help. Twenty people spoke to him and offered some type of assistance.

The sermon title was “The Least Used Parts of the Body” and based on 1 Corinthians 12:12-15. According to Pastor Lyle, “Often the least used parts of the body are the ones that mean the most, like our heart and mind. We need to understand that there are no small or least used parts in the body of Christ.

“Too many of us only want to serve God one hour each week. That doesn’t cut it. That is not God’s plan.”

While he preached, his daughter-in-law cut his hair and his daughter helped shave off his scruffy beard. He changed shoes, and beneath the overcoat, he was wearing his Sunday clothes. He put on a tie and his suit coat, all the while continuing to preach his message. Before the 200 people gathered that morning, he went from looking like a homeless person to the new pastor of the congregation.

Willie got the attention of those present, and some were uncomfortable. “If I made someone squirm, then so be it. Sango UMC is not going to be a congregation that talks about issues and solutions. We are going to be part of the solutions to the problems we face in our community. We are going to get our hands dirty as we live like Jesus and help others. Talking is easy. Doing is harder, and sometimes it is really uncomfortable.”

At the end of the sermon, Lyle issued his challenge. Part of that challenge called for the congregation to “do our mission,” and service to others is going to be a major part of that.

Pastor Willie Lyle said, “Our goal should be to improve and change the lives of people as we live like Jesus. You see, we look at the outside of others and make judgments. God looks inside at our heart and sees the truth.”