Sunday Message: what after all is enough?

I wanted to share with you a devotional sent out the other day by Chuck Swindoll.  I believe it makes a graphic point... I know it did to me.

For a moment, let's pretend you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in a company that is growing rapidly. I'm the owner and I'm interested in expanding overseas. To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad and stay there until the new branch office gets established. I make all the arrangements to take my family in the move to Europe for six to eight months, and I leave you in charge of the busy stateside organization. I tell you that I will write you regularly and give you direction and instructions. I leave and you stay.

Months pass. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe and received by you at the national headquarters. I spell out all my expectations. Finally, I return. Soon after my arrival I drive down to the office. I am stunned! Grass and weeds have grown up high. A few windows along the street are broken. I walk into the receptionist's room and she is doing her nails, chewing gum, and listening to her favorite rock station. I look around and notice the wastebaskets are overflowing, the carpet hasn't been vacuumed for weeks, and nobody seems concerned that the owner has returned. I ask about your whereabouts and someone in the crowded lounge area points down the hall and yells, "I think he's down there." Disturbed, I move in that direction and bump into you as you are finishing a chess game with our sales manager. I ask you to step into my office (which has been temporarily turned into a television room for watching afternoon soap operas).

"What in the world is going on, man?"

"What do you mean, Chuck?"

"Well, look at this place! Didn't you get any of my letters?"

"Letters? Oh, yeah—sure, got every one of them. As a matter of fact, Chuck, we have had letter study every Friday night since you left. We have even divided all the personnel into small groups and discussed many of the things you wrote. Some of those things were really interesting. You'll be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memory some of your sentences and paragraphs. One or two memorized an entire letter or two! Great stuff in those letters!"

Sound a little familiar?

Jesus, the Lord, goes to the bottom line when He said, in effect, "I left you an example of what you should do—carry out my directions, fulfill my commands, follow my instructions." That's obedience. That's doing what we are told to do.


And it is still easy, even from here, to miss the point.  For example, I was getting ready to do next week's Bible Study, and I stopped.  I thought about a debate inside me that started last week, when a certain corner here became the latest place where the allegedly homeless and "looking for work" gather to take handouts.  My initial reaction was as you see above.  In Ft Wayne, it is well known that these people "appear" at certain well picked and rotating intersections, as if working shifts.  But does Christ call me to differentiate?  I gained no great epiphany on the matter, so I decided the course of wisdom was to make this week's contribution go to the Rescue Mission.  That way, it goes to a need, rather than a bottle or a dishonest gain.  But was THAT enough?  Should I have spent some time this vacation week volunteering instead?  What, after all, is enough?

Then I remembered two things.  One was a maxim I have used here before- that God leads in gentleness, and Satan accuses in derision.  If it was something that was going to accuse me every way I turned, it wasn't likely from God.  The gentle leading about MY attitude, though, was.

The other is an old sermon of Dennis Miller's that Laurie hooked me up to this week.  It involved Micah 6, and God reading out charges to the people, and the people responding with that same question- What, after all, is enough?

Mic 6:6  "With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 
Mic 6:7  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 
Mic 6:8  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? 


The particular sermon had to do with the middle of the three, and the meaning behind the word translated "kindness".  This is the Hebrew word Che'sed (with an apostrophe, Miller noted, to keep congregants from asking what "cheesed" meant), and it means much more than kindness.  In fact, not only does it not have a good match in English, but the Hebrew dictionary gives a definition about ten times the length of a normal definition.  On my e-sword compare function, various translations include mercy (mostly), loyalty, constant love (or steadfast love, which Miller preferred), the Lord's gracious love.   And the note isn't to SHOW that mercy/kindness/love, it is to LOVE it.  In other words, where showing is an outward sign, loving is an INWARD CHANGE.

Miller used an amusing example of a lady going 8 miles an hour on the road in front of you.  Say she slides off the road ("Which I don't know how she could possibly do that at THAT speed", he quipped), and you get out and help her, that's SHOWING mercy.  But before she did, did you wonder what circumstance in her life was causing her slow speed- or did you just grumble, "C'mon, lady, what's wrong with you?"  LOVING mercy asks the question in love first.


The other items aren't as simple as they look either.  I like Wesley's explanation on doing justly:

To do justly - To render to every one their due, superiors, equals, inferiors, to be equal to all, and oppress none, in body, goods or name; in all your dealings with men carry a chancery in your own beasts, and do according to equity.


Miller explained the third in terms of a dog show, in which the doggie is marked off for walking with his head anywhere but RIGHT BESIDE the leg of their Master.

So the sum is that the answer to the question, "What, after all, is enough?", isn't DOING, per se- but it is attitude, love, and obedience.  So, say I apply this to my "homeless donation" example.  I first must ask, am I being fair to those who are doing the asking?  By writing them off right off the top, am I oppressing them in my judgment?  Then, I must remember that I DON'T KNOW the answer to the first one.  But love tells me I should do something.  What that is depends not on what the Devil eggs me to do just to make me waste my opportunities, but on what God asks of me.


When I do that in obedience, I am doing more than "reading the boss's letters".