<font color='black' size='4' face='Times New Roman, Times, serif'><span>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The Job Christ Wants Done</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Writing about
another time and place, Leo Tolstoy said, "I beheld the misery, cold,
hunger, humiliation of thousands of my fellow human beings ... I feel,
and can never cease to feel, myself a partaker in a crime which is
constantly being committed, so long as I have extra food while others
have none, so long as I have two coats while there exists one person
without any ... I must seek in my heart at every moment, with meekness
and humility, some opportunity for doing the job Christ wants done." The
job Christ wants done. He set the course; we are to do the rowing. <br>
<br>
David G. Rogne, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span><br>
___________________________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Compassion and Motive</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Jesus renewed
people with the power of his compassion. I like the ancient legend about
the monk who found a precious stone, a precious jewel. A short time
later, the monk met a traveler, who said he was hungry and asked the
monk if he would share some of his provisions. When the monk opened his
bag, the traveler saw the precious stone and, on an impulse, asked the
monk if he could have it. Amazingly, the monk gave the traveler the
stone.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The traveler
departed quickly, overjoyed with his new possession. However, a few days
later, he came back, searching for the monk. He returned the stone to
the monk and made a request: "Please give me something more valuable,
more precious than this stone. Please give me that which enabled you to
give me this precious stone!"</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not To Be True, Dimensions, p. 101</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Restlessness</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>In this day when we
are suppose to have so many devices to save time, I've never seen so
many hurried and restless people! If the computer, the laptop, the
cellular phone, and all of these other technological wonders are suppose
to save us time, why do we have so little time for the things that
matter?</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>It seems that with
all we've accomplished, about all we have really added is speed and
noise. We get there faster, but we don't know where we are going. And
when we get there, we're out of breath.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>I read one time
about a man who swallowed an egg whole. He was afraid to move because he
was afraid it would break. But he was afraid to sit still because he
was afraid it would hatch. There are a lot of people like that today--so
frenetic, so pressured they don't know which way to go. And the place
where the pressure and restless often hit home is in the home.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Adrian Rogers, Ten Secrets for a Successful Family, Crossway Books, p. 71.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Feeling the Suffering of Others</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Flannery O'Connor,
the insightful Roman Catholic writer, lifted up the Christian dimension
when she wrote: "You will have found Christ when you are concerned with
other people's sufferings and not your own." The beginning of compassion
involves becoming aware of the suffering of others. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>But it is not
enough simply to see the suffering of others, we need to feel it. It is
possible to see suffering, but not to feel it. Dewitt Jones tells about a
photographer who walked down the street one day and came upon a man who
was choking. "What a picture," he thought. "This says it all: A man,
alone, in need. What a message!" He fumbled for his camera and light
meter until the poor fellow who was choking realized that help was not
forthcoming. He grabbed the photographer's arm and gasped, "I'm turning
blue!" "That's all right," said the photographer, patting the fellow's
hand, "I'm shooting color film." Just noticing suffering isn't enough. <br>
<br>
David G. Rogne, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing Company<br>
___________________________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Unless a Man Has Pity</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>In his book The
Human Comedy, William Saroyan noted: "Unless a man has pity, he is
inhuman and not yet truly a man, for out of pity comes the balm which
heals. Only good men weep. If a man has not yet wept at the world's
pain, he is less than the dirt he walks upon, because dirt will nourish
seed, root, stalk, leaf, and flower, but the spirit of a man without
pity is barren and will bring forth nothing...." Good people feel the
pain of others, and they weep. <br>
<br>
David G. Rogne, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing Company <br>
___________________________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Avoiding Our Pain</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Henri Nouwen wrote
that "our culture has become most sophisticated in the avoidance of
pain, not only our physical pain but our emotional and mental pain as
well. We not only bury our dead as if they were still alive, but we also
bury our pains as if they were not really there. We have become so used
to this state of anesthesia, that we panic when there is nothing or
nobody left to distract us...</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span>The rest of this illustration, as well as many additional illustrations and sermons for the whole year, can be accessed at <a __removedlink__1863863720__href="http://www.Sermons.com" target="_blank">www.Sermons.com</a>.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span><br>
</span></div>
</span></font>