The Church can sometimes be AWOL when it comes to feeding the poor, doing good to the oppressed, and lifting up the downcast. While we don’t want to be mistaken for “Social Justice Warriors,” the church must be willing to get its hands dirty in ministering mercy to those outside its four walls, seizing the opportunity to show and tell the love of Christ to those in need. In this session, Brian Borgman will show that serving the least of these is not only a biblical mandate, but also a beautiful way to make disciples. 

Wasn't Alexander Strzok just wonderful? The only thing I have to say about that is I wish I would have gone first. Well, if you'll take your Bibles, please, and turn to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10.

Scott gave me an assignment for this conference as we talked about themes. And brother, I want to say that as I wrestled through how to preach this, it was good for my soul, reminded me of a number of things that have been important in the life of our church. And as a result, there's a sense of a burden. This is not a light message. We're gonna talk about discipleship through reaching out to our community.

And as we do, I'd like for us to read a passage that's very familiar. In Luke, chapter 10, starting at verse 30, this is the word of the Lord, Jesus replied and said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, And they stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. And by chance, a priest was going down the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him pass by on the other side. But a Samaritan Who was on a journey came upon him and when he saw him he felt compassion and he came to him and bandaged up his wounds pouring oil and wine on them and Put him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

On the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, take care of him and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers hands?" And he said, the one who showed mercy toward him. Then Jesus said to him, go and do the same. Let's pray and ask for God's help. Father, we just sang about the worthiness of your Son.

Is He worthy? He is. And we ask now that the ascended, exalted Christ would use the preaching of His Word to sanctify us as individual disciples, as families, and as churches. We pray for your help. Apart from you, we can do nothing.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the giver of life. And so we pray for the help of the Spirit now in Jesus' name. Amen. So Julian the Apostate became emperor in 361 AD. Now you know if you get the nickname apostate, you're probably not a great guy.

And what Julian did is Julian tried to reshape the empire back into its once famous pagan image. But as he tried, what he found is that Christianity had been too deeply rooted throughout the empire in order for him to do a pagan makeover. And so he actually writes to a pagan priest and he says this, quote, it is disgraceful that while the impious Galileans, that's the Christians, while they support both their own poor and ours as well all men will see that our people lack aid from us in other words as Julian is writing to this priest, he's complaining about the fact that the Christians not only take care of their own, but they also take care of those that are not their own, and they put us to shame. They take better care of our own than we do. What we're gonna do in our time together is we're gonna talk about discipleship through outreach, But we're gonna talk about it in a way that goes beyond just going door to door, leaving tracks or talking to people about the gospel, as wonderful as that is, we're gonna talk about community outreach in a way that maybe Julian the Apostate would complain about.

We're going to talk about the kind of outreach that men of the past like Thomas Chalmers and his moral machinery reached out to the poor in Glasgow ministering to them not just the gospel but taking care of them in their need. We're going to talk about the kind of community outreach, as it were, of a George Mueller who established orphanages to take care of orphans and to provide orphan care. We're going to talk about the kind of community outreach for which Charles Spurgeon was famous. I am thankful, very thankful, for Alex DiPrima's new book, Spurgeon and the Poor. I should have let Luke know that I'd be referring to this book because RHB didn't bring any, but you can order them, right?

And so, and by the way, if book selling was a spiritual gift, Dr. Beeke would be the chief among us. But the subtitle is how the gospel compels Christian social concern. Spurgeon had alms houses, he had orphanages, he had all kinds of programs that actually grew out of the metropolitan tabernacle. Spurgeon at one point said, the God who answers by orphanages, let him be God.

We're going to talk about the fact that taking care of the poor and widows and the oppressed is actually native to the church's call. It's actually part of our Christian responsibility and provides us then with wonderful rich opportunities to disciple others. Now I was going to skip my introduction but I'm going to go back and give you my introduction because now I see where it fits better. So sometimes, sometimes what happens is that the liberal church, which is not the church at all, robs the true church of what properly belongs to her. So, so-called progressive Christianity So, so-called progressive Christianity hijacks areas of the church's domain, and then what they hijack becomes vandalized and perverted.

A case in point, the modernist fundamentalist controversy of the early 20th century. As modernist churches preached and practiced a so called social gospel, they stole something that belonged to the true church and that was social concern, outreach, and mercy ministries. Fundamentalist churches, in order to isolate themselves from the social gospel of the liberals abdicated much of their social responsibility while emphasizing almost strictly evangelism to simply save souls. If you want to know the history of this, George Marsden has written on it extensively. And then in 1947, Carl F.

H. Henry writes a little tiny book called The uneasy conscience of modern fundamentalism, and he says this, fundamentalism is the modern priest and levite passing by suffering humanity. He says a little later, the sin against which fundamentalism has invaded almost exclusively was individual sin rather than social evil and then he says fundamentalism in reacting against the social gospel seemed also to revolt against the social Christian social imperative. Now I want to say that we are in danger of parallel type errors. Somebody gets up and starts talking about the poor, Somebody gets up and starts talking about the poor.

Somebody gets up and starts talking about the oppressed, and they go, oh, that guy's woke. And what I want to say is that taking care of the poor and the oppressed and widows and orphans is the domain of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now my prayer in the 29 minutes and 14 seconds that I have left, That is the worst preaching clock ever. It's so daunting. Don't look at it, amen.

My prayer is that we would see outreach. By outreach, I'm talking about ministering to people in need, both physically and spiritually, that that is part of our own discipleship. And then, two, it provides wonderful opportunities to disciple others whom we serve. So I've got to move through this quickly. If you need more references, come up to me.

Can I get one of those waters, please? Thank you. So the first point is simply this. Outreach is part of our own discipleship as we follow Jesus. So, as disciples, we're of course called to follow Jesus as our example, right?

Now, to be sure, Jesus must be redeemer and savior before he can ever be example. Right? You cannot follow Jesus as a moral example unless you know him savingly as your Redeemer. But to be sure, once you know Him as your Redeemer, He is now your example to follow. And again, the whole idea, I remember when we first started the church in the early 1990s, everybody was wearing these little bracelets, What would Jesus do?

And in a sense, we kind of rightly mocked some of that because it could be reduced to a moralism. But I wanna say also that the Bible's absolutely full of us following Jesus' example. We are actually to love one another. These are the very words of our Lord Jesus. Love one another even as I have just loved you.

The Apostle, be imitators of me as I imitate Christ. Have this mind in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in his steps. And the one who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same manner as this one walked. And so as we consider the ministry of Jesus, what Jesus does is he provides us with a pattern for us to follow.

We are being, First of all, the work of the Spirit is He's conforming us into the image of Christ, right? Colossians chapter 3 verse 10, this Holy Spirit is doing what? He's doing in a sense sort of an urban renewal project in these darkened fallen hearts. And then what's the ultimate goal of your salvation? To be conformed to the image of the firstborn.

And so conformity to Christ, following Christ's example, is part of what it means to be a disciple and as we look at the ministry of Jesus what does Jesus do Jesus of course comes into this world to seek and to save that which was lost but he also came into this world. He was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, to loose the bonds of the afflicted, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. You could say this, our Lord Jesus' earthly ministry was enveloped with a compassion to those who were in need. I hope that when you read the Gospels you read with some sanctified imagination and think about the fact that these were things that really happened. I think of Mark chapter one and Jesus goes into the synagogue and there's this man with a with leprosy and stop and consider the the really sort of the bold step that he took to actually go and to be among people because he was an outcast.

Anytime he was around people he'd have to put his hand over his mouth and say unclean and Jesus looks at the leper and he says what do you want me to do for you? He says, Lord, if you're willing, make me clean. And then the text says, and Jesus filled with compassion. What does he do? He turns around and he touches him.

How long had that man been without human touch? And Jesus reaches out and he touches in me and he says, I'm willing, be clean. And so here is our Lord Jesus and he is a man filled with compassion, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering flax he will not extinguish. Peter when he was talking about our Lord's ministry at Cornelius's house said that Jesus was a man who was filled with the Holy Spirit and he went about doing good. B.B.

Warfield in a wonderful article, by the way, reprinted B.B. Warfield, these are at the RHB table, B.B. Warfield, the emotional life of our Lord. Warfield makes this comment, this wonderful, wonderful essay. He says, the emotion which we should most naturally expect to find most frequently attributed to that Jesus whose life was a mission of mercy and whose ministry was so marked by deeds of beneficence that it was summed up in the memory of his followers as one going throughout the land doing good, the emotion most naturally and prevalently attributed to him is no doubt compassion.

In point of fact, this is the emotion which is indeed most frequently attributed to him, this emotional involvement was aroused in our Lord as well by the sight of individual distress, as well as the spectacle of man's universal misery. And so, the connection's pretty clear. As Christians, we're supposed to follow Jesus. Jesus actually went about doing good and was filled with compassion to those who were in need. And in fact, Jesus causes people to do that.

As that lawyer comes to Jesus at the first part of the parable of the good Samaritan, he wants to know, well, who is my neighbor? And then Jesus turns around, lays out a parable, which by the way would have been striking to a Jewish lawyer who was, who would have had a very low view of a Samaritan, and Jesus actually gives this powerful parable, And then this is what he says to the lawyer. He says, go and do the same. Is it not, is it not faithfully reading our New Testaments to understand that as Jesus actually went about doing good, exercising compassion, that He turns around and He calls us to go and to do the same. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

And so part of our own discipleship as we follow the Lord Jesus is to minister to people's needs. Alex De Prima in the book that I mentioned said Spurgeon strongly believed that the experience of divine grace in the heart should lead to the to the expression of Christian grace towards others especially those in need and then he quotes Spurgeon and saying quote but if ye profess to be followers of the man of Nazareth be ye full of compassion. He feeds the hungry lest they faint by the way. He bindeth up the broken in heart, healeth their wounds, he heareth the cry of the needy and precious shall be their blood in his sight therefore be ye also tender-hearted and also very affectionate toward one another Part of our discipleship in following Jesus is to minister to those who are in need. It's not just modeled by our Lord Jesus, though.

It's actually both an Old Testament and New Testament mandate. We don't have time to look at all of the texts that are in the Proverbs about taking care of the poor. We don't have time to look at and consider Micah 6.8, He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Do justice and love mercy." You then turn to the book of James and you find out that this is true and undefiled religion. To take care of widows and orphans in their need, that's true and undefiled religion.

And then James turns around and talks about the wickedness of giving preference to the rich, and then talks about the importance of our deeds. The apostle Paul goes up and is as it were examined by the pillar apostles, he says, as they're so called, and once they'd heard they gave their approval and they told us this is Paul Galatians 2 10 they told Barnabas and me only do this remember the poor and Paul says and we were already eager to do that brothers and sisters you cannot read through the New Testament and fail to see that our faith in following the Lord Jesus is to be an active faith that is sensitive to the needs of those around us. Yes, yes, the gospel is preeminent, the gospel is central, we look for opportunities for the gospel, but we also look to do good to those who are in need. And in a sense, how can we but follow the Lord Jesus in that way if we are indwelt by His Spirit? And so Practical care and concern for the needy is part of our Christian ethic and what it means, at least in part, to follow the Lord Jesus.

Now, the second part is this. Outreach gives us marvelous opportunities to make disciples. Outreach gives us marvelous opportunities to make disciples. Outreach gives us marvelous opportunities to make disciples. And so oftentimes we see in the miracles of Jesus when he does good to someone, heals them of leprosy, for instance, or delivers them from demons.

Those who received that act of mercy and compassion by our Lord Jesus were turned to him and then followed him and then turned around and announced the good news for him. And so here's what I'm saying is that part of our discipleship is actually ministering to the needs of people, and as we do that, God oftentimes will open up wonderful doors of opportunity for us to in turn make disciples. You know, Christians are funny people. We argue about strange things. So something like this, well, should we dig wells for people in Africa or preach the gospel?

Why do we have to put or in there? Right? We're actually called, Galatians 6, 10, to do good to all men whenever we have opportunity, especially those of the household of faith. And here's what we need to say is that I should want to be looking for gospel opportunities all the time to share the gospel with people, to tell people about the Lord Jesus, but there's also a sense in which as I'm trying to do good, trying to reach out, trying to help those who are in need, there's going to be opportunities, but sometimes there won't be. Sometimes there won't be.

And so what are you going to do? Withhold good from those to whom you can do good simply because you don't have an opportunity? And so I want to say we should be ready to do good to those around us and most opportunities will in fact include gospel opportunities, but not necessarily all. And so sometimes, sometimes ministries of mercy, just doing good to people, will not bear immediate fruit. Sometimes it will take sometimes years for that to actually then bear fruit.

And so for instance, we have a, I'll talk about it a little more in a minute. We have a home for unwed pregnant moms called the City of Refuge. We don't take any state or federal funding whatsoever. We don't have the girls pay anything. They do have rent and it consists of doing chores, going to daily devotions, and coming to church.

That's their rent. Years ago we had a 16 year old girl that came in. She was loved, she was cared for, she had she professed faith, and then she walked away. God involved in a terrible lifestyle for years, we ended up having to put under church discipline and then ultimately excommunicate her. And then one day, when she was at the bottom, she said, there is a God who loves me, and there is a church that loves me.

And she repented, and she came back and not only worked in that ministry for a few years, but is now a wonderful wife, a wonderful mother, and an outstanding church member. Now if we would have just gauged the fruit on what happened within those first couple of years, we would have been sorely disappointed. But understand this, acts of kindness, taking care of those in need, those actually plant seeds that can be watered, and you never know when God's going to bring about the fruit of those. But then there are other times where you are actually doing something and fruit gets born in another area that you're not even thinking about. So we have a doctor in our community and he's a cancer specialist and he lives in a really nice house, as you might imagine, lives in Genoa, which is where all the rich people live.

He lives back in the woods and he's got a spare house. And so this family from Wisconsin actually comes out because the mom has cancer and they come to church one Sunday and it's the wife who has cancer, her husband and their six kids. And we ask them what's going on and so what ends up happening absolutely wonderful she says well you know the doctor actually is letting us live in his pool house because we obviously can't afford to stay in a hotel for the time of the treatments and so what ends up happening our church our church gets together for people we don't even know and we provide meals every single night for six months to this family now here's here's the funny part is that you got to drive down this lonely road and then you go down this lonely road and cross this lonely bridge and people are walking in with trays of food every single day and the doctor's looking out his window and he's thinking to himself who in the world are all these people these people don't know anybody and so he went over he said every single day there's a different car and they're bringing you food who are these people oh these are people from Grace Community Church oh do you know that church no we went one time and now all of a sudden we have more food than we can eat and that doctor was an atheist And he was absolutely blown away that strangers would take care of a stranger and her family.

We of course know we're not strangers, right? I baptized Dr. Frank. And he is a member of Grace Community Church Why because of the because of the indirect witness of doing good to this woman and her family? Here's this unbeliever who sees this and he can't believe he can't believe that people would love each other like that.

And so sometimes fruit springs up in the strangest ways and in the strangest places. Now, we're going to get down to the nitty-gritty. Application. First community outreach can be both risky and messy. We're often dealing with people in need who don't fit into our social box.

In other words, they're not like us. They're different. Sometimes a lot different. We are dealing with people who are in need, who have engaged in lifestyles that are unbelievably rebellious against God and sinful. And let me just give you an example.

And by doing this, I'm not saying that our church has arrived because we have not, but I want to say that there has been an impulse at Grace Community Church to get your hands out into the community to do stuff. And so we've had for over 20 years extensive prison ministries. We've been at Nevada State Prison up until it closed in 2015. We've been at NNCC, we've been at Warm Springs, we've been at the juvenile detention centers, we've been at the county jail. And so what ends up happening, what ends up happening is that guys that are in prison come and they start hearing the gospel.

I was in prison and you visited me and they hear the gospel And then some of them get out. And what do they do? They come to the church that they were a part of in prison. So they look at themselves as, hey, we may be incarcerated, but we're members of Grace Community Church. In fact, praise God, we start going in, start preaching the word, start singing, and all of a sudden all the other little weird groups, right, start to dry up down to one or two or three, and we've got 60, 70, 80 guys coming in, and so they get released.

And over the years, we've had at least one dozen released inmates who have become members of Grace Community Church, with at least a couple dozen more attending regularly. Now I want to just tell you something. The fact is is that these guys were in fact criminals. Did things, seen things, engaged in things that very few of us have ever even entertained. And so all of the sudden you now have people that are, that are, yes they're repentant, yes they're bearing the fruits of faith, but these guys, two of our best stories, they're both in heaven now.

Both of them served 26 years at Nevada State Prison. Both of them were in there for murder. They were repentant murderers. God saves and forgives repentant murderers. And they actually came and they were a bright spot at Grace Community Church.

We loved Ricardo and Bob, and so, but guess what? There's baggage that comes. So you want to be careful in outreach you want to be prudent but you want to make sure that you're ministering you're why you want to make sure that you're ministering to the first Corinthians one the nothings and the nobodies in a way that Jesus would. Sometimes community outreach will not be popular among the Christians in the congregation. So I mentioned city of refuge.

No state funding, no money from the girls. You gotta come to church. So the house parents bring them on Wednesday night, the house parents bring them for Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, they have to be there. And I just wanna say that at first, most of them hate it. Okay, it's not like they're so, well I'm so glad I'm in the house of God.

That's not the attitude. Most of them are resistant. Most of them, if looks could kill, you'd keel over. But here's the thing is when we started to say, look, they need to be at church, we had people in our congregation, thankfully not many, but some, who said, well, I don't know that it's really a good idea to have those kinds of girls around our kids. What if they implant bad ideas?

We hate abortion. We want to see it end. But what about those unwed pregnant moms that keep their babies? Do we just pat them on the head, say, be warm, be filled? Or do we try to take care of them too?

Precious souls who are carrying precious souls. And the reality is that over the years many of those girls have come to Christ and to my knowledge there's never been an effort to proselytize to actually get pregnant out of wedlock. In our efforts to build Christian families, build Christian churches, Sometimes we can end up like the early fundamentalists, sometimes we can we can begin to develop sort of a cocoon mentality to get insulated and safe, a bunker mentality, build our fortresses and no one gets in, no one gets out. And what I want to say is that if we're actually going to engage in mercy ministries and demonstrate compassion to those who are in need, it's going to be messy, it's going to be risky. And the fact is, is if we try to insulate ourselves from all of that, not only will we destroy any positive influence that the gospel will have in our communities, but we're actually teaching our kids something.

And that is that we're demonstrating to our kids that the gospel is only good for people like us. And that the gospel at the end of the day is somewhat powerless unless you're people like us. And it will actually lead to our own safe little cloisters where everybody around us is just like us. You should be able to walk into a church and you should be able to see a whole spectrum of humanity because that's who Jesus is in the business of saving. We sang it.

People from every nation, tribe, and tongue, people that don't look like us, people that don't act like us, and the kingdom of God is full of them and our churches should be welcoming them. And so as we follow Jesus, we have a holy obligation to love our neighbor, to be Samaritans in that sense. And as we that sense. And as we open up those opportunities, God opens wonderful doors of grace. Now I only have two minutes, but here's just some ideas.

These are just simply suggestive. These are things that our church does or has done, and I just throw these out because we should all have a heightened awareness of trying to reach our community with the love and the gospel of Jesus Christ. So evangelistic strategies are excellent, all right? But at times what we need to do is we need to be asking ourselves what are we doing to relieve the misery and the suffering of people in this fallen world and what I want you to do is I want you to start thinking about that praying Lord what could we do what can I do as an individual what could we do as families Getting your kids engaged actually in reaching out and helping people? And then what can we do as churches?

And so just a number of some of you are already doing these things and may your tribe increase. Ministry to the elderly, really a forgotten segment of our society, right? And so kids, listen, you know, there are a lot of people that are really, really old, okay? Like some of the speakers, okay? And they get put in homes to be taken care of.

And you know what would brighten their day more than anything else? Is if mommy and daddy and you and your brothers and sisters went and just sat and talked with them and read the Bible to them and prayed with them. You would actually make somebody's day. Ministry to the elderly. Ministry to unwed pregnant moms.

So in our church we have a team of amazing guys that go out every week, by the way. They are out of a job because they went and they were actually outside the abortion clinic. That abortion clinic closed down. Okay, all right. And so praise God, but they were out there and they were they were pleading with women don't kill your baby we will help you and they had gospel opportunities right but what about those that keep their babies being ready willing and able to actually not just protect life, but actually to help that mom as she preserves and keeps that life.

Next, outreach to jail or juvenile detention centers or prisons. I will tell you that there are men and sometimes women who are in prison who are starving to death because it's oftentimes only the wacko groups that go in. Okay? The prosperity people, the Christian science, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and it's like where are those who actually have really, really good theology and they're willing to go in and to preach the Bible to those who are in prison? A great family opportunity, maybe you've heard of this, angel tree.

Sometimes one of the most forgotten segments of our society are the wives and the children of those who are incarcerated. Angel Tree just simply is a time at Christmas where you gather gifts and you're given a family and you go and you visit that family, give them their gifts, and oftentimes opportunities are opened up. Obviously, getting engaged in foster care. Since I'm almost out of time here, well I am out of time, let me tell you one other thing real quick. So we all know we're against government schools.

All right? But I wanted to remind you that the students that are in those government schools are image bearers. They are little people made in the image and likeness of God who have never dying souls. So one of the things that our church does is every year we do a snow boot and snow coat drive. Why?

Because our local school is a Title I school, which means it's a poorer school, and so a lot of those kids don't have snow boots. Well, guess what? I live in a place where it snows a lot. Ministry of Mercy, just providing to those who are in need. And then at the end of every year my wife puts in an invitation to our Vacation Bible School in every single peachy that goes home with those kids at the end of the year.

And every year, we end up with 50, 60 kids from the public school to come to Vacation Bible School for a week where they hear the gospel, their parents are invited on the last day, and we have gospel opportunities. So choose a project, see it as a part of your discipleship, as an individual, family, church. Pray for wisdom, pray for opportunity, and make sure that at the end of the day, in all of our love for family and the church, that we're actually not like the modern priest or the modern Levite that just passes by a suffering humanity. Robert Murray McShane who was actually mentored by Thomas Chalmers has a very moving section where he talks about going out to a visit on visitation with Andrew Bonar and he goes to the slums And he says his heart was just breaking over the dreadful conditions that these people were living in. And he says no one to visit them, no Christian workers, no ministers.

And he says as I walked among the poor of Glasgow, it was as if all of them had on, written above their forehead, is there not anyone who careth for my soul? Brothers and sisters, part of our discipleship is to demonstrate compassion to those who are in need just like our Lord Jesus did and in turn look for those golden opportunities to make disciples for him. May God help us in this in Christ's name. Let's pray. Father thank you for your word.

Thank you for the clarity here of what our responsibility is. We pray that you'd help us, help us to be creative and reach out to those who are in need, Lord. And Father, we pray that on that last great day, there would be a multitude that no one could number who were shown the love of Christ and given the gospel because of outreach. In Jesus' name, amen.