Global Hope
Real Christianity: The Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted
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When Stacey and I first got married back in 1999, we weren’t exactly rolling in the dough if you know what I mean.
We were married in Abilene, TX, and after our honeymoon, we moved to Wilmore, KY for me to attend seminary. To get there, we couldn’t even afford to rent a U-Haul truck! that was for the rich and famous. All we could afford was a 4x6 trailer that my little Jeep truck could tow. If it wouldn’t fit, it didn’t come with us.
When we arrived in Wilmore, Stacey got a minimum wage job at the seminary, and I got a part-time job. We made a grand total of somewhere around $14,000 that year!
Not long after we moved there, we made some friends and invited them over for lunch after church one Sunday. There was no way we could afford to go out to eat! However, we ran into another problem. That’s when we learned that chicken was expensive, and we had to figure out how to afford two additional chicken breasts in that week’s grocery trip.
One summer evening, we decided to get some ice cream and forego a load of laundry that week. On the way home, I was savoring the rare treat, when I took a lick of my ice cream, and it fell right off the cone and onto the ground! I may have been twenty-two, but as I stood there staring at the scoop of ice cream on the ground, I wanted to cry like a little boy. For a moment, I considered eating it straight off the ground, but we were brand new to the seminary, and I figured that wouldn’t make a very good first impression should any professors or fellow students happen to pass by.
I know a number of you have similar stories. You can think back and remember a time when you really had to stretch to make ends meet. When Stacey and I look back on those times, we recognize them as difficult, but we also realize that we look upon them with fondness for the important lessons they taught us and the special memories they provided.
However, that was long time ago for most of us, and it’s been a while since we’ve had to make so little go so far. As a result, it can be difficult for us to relate to text like today’s passage where Jesus urges us not to worry about what we’ll eat, or drink, or wear simply because we’re not worried about those things at all because we have enough resources to ensure those needs are met.
As I reflected on this text, there was one word, though, that kept coming to mind for me: concern. Concern can be a synonym for worry, but it can also have the meaning of describing what we’re interested in, what we occupy ourselves with. For many of us, it may be more helpful to read this passage with that meaning of concern in mind as though Jesus were saying to us, do not be occupied with what you will eat, or drink, or wear.
I learned this past week that the average internet user spends more than a quarter of his or her life on the world wide web (https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/02/internet-users-spend-more-than-a-quarter-of-their-lives-online.html) doing all sorts of things from streaming movies and TV to browsing social media, to shopping. Get this, a 2017 poll showed that workers spend 1.7 hours a day browsing the web and shopping online while at work (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/11/americans-spend-nearly-two-hours-a-day-shopping-online-at-work.html). If you do the math, that’s more than 50 workdays out of the year!
The bottom line is that while we may not be concerned in the sense of being worried about having sufficient clothes to wear or wondering where our next meal will come from, we are often concerned with these things in the sense of being occupied with them. We see our focus on such things revealed in all our social media posts with pictures of delicious meals and special drinks. We see it in the amount of time we spend online shopping and researching for the next thing we want to buy. We see it in the number of hours we squander away in the wasteland of social media immersing ourselves in the drama of whatever controversy has captured our attention. We used to say that a person’s checkbook register revealed his or her priorities, but I’m beginning to think that our time spent online might be a better indicator of what our concerns are, of what occupies our interests.
Given our text for today which includes Jesus’ exhortation to us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, we are confronted with this question: What is it that we are seeking first? For many of us the answer may well be revealed by our web searches.
Hopefully, the Greek word used here that is normally translated as righteousness will be familiar at this point. It’s the word δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē). To seek δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) is not only to pursue personal moral uprightness (that is righteousness) but also to pursue justice, the well-being of others. To seek δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) is to seek our own personal moral well-being AND the well-being of others. To pursue δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) is not to pursue righteousness at the expense of justice nor to pursue justice at the expense of righteousness. To seek δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) is to seek both.
Instead of searching for things on the web, we have an opportunity today for us to seek δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē), to set aside our occupation with our own comfort and participate in something that demonstrates personal virtue and seeks the well-being of others.
This morning I’m excited to announce a new partnership that Tri-Lakes UMC has established with the House of Joy, a ministry to orphans in Romania which is still considered a developing country. The House of Joy is part of a ministry named Global Hope based right here in Colorado.
Some of you may remember that we began a partnership with Global Hope back in 2017. Unfortunately, that partnership did not materialize at the time as we had hoped it would. As a result, our missions team began looking for another international mission organization with whom we could partner. We connected with an organization named Children’s HopeChest, and we were all set to Guatemala last year to begin this partnership when Guatemala closed its borders the day before we were set to leave due to the pandemic. The pandemic presented a number of additional obstacles and work with Children’s HopeChest fell through. To be honest, I think it’s fair to say that those of us on the missions we were quite discouraged at another failed opportunity. However, God was at work!
Last fall, we received a phone call from Pastor Randy Jessen, who is the executive director of Global Hope, telling us about an opportunity to partner with Global Hope by supporting an orphanage in Cornatel, Romania, a small town in the center of the country.
Our support of Global Hope will involve two main facets: financial support and service. A key form of our financial support will come in the form of child sponsorships which is our focus for this morning. Unfortunately, Randy couldn’t be with us this morning, but he did send a special video message I’d like to share with you to tell you a bit more about this opportunity.
[Play Video]
After the service today, our missions team is ready and waiting for you in the great room. If you are interested in becoming a godparent, you can fill out a form that provides some information about you and your family, and someone will take your photo. Your profile will then be sent to the children at the House of Joy in Romania. The House of Joy will hold a special event where children like Luminate, Florine, and David will be able to select their godparents. This is a powerful model that puts the power of choice back in the hands of children who have had so many choices taken from them. You should expect to learn the name of the child who chose you by the end of August.
This type of sponsorship is slightly different from what organizations like Compassion International or World Vision do. With those organizations, sponsorship is between one child and one person or family. However, child sponsorship at Global Hope is significantly more expensive for each child. Full sponsorship requires $180 per month per child. To make sponsorship more manageable each child normally has four sponsors who each pay$40/month. If you’re anything like me, you’re asking yourself the question, why does it cost so much more to sponsor a child at Global Hope than it does at Compassion or World Vision?
That’s a great question, and the answer is that Global Hope is an orphanage that provides the children with all of their food and housing as well as access to education and medical care. Compassion and World Vision offer sites that the children can visit regularly, but these sites don’t provide housing or every meal for each child. Global Hope does provide all these things, so godparenting with Global Hope has a higher cost than other sponsorship models you are likely familiar with. It’s the difference between being a foster parent and offering an after school program. Both have their places, but Global Hope provides more comprehensive care to the orphans it serves.
The other part of our partnership with Global Hope will involve traveling to Romania. These trips will involve work projects at the property and providing something similar to a Vacation Bible School. One of the fantastic aspects of this partnership is that if you choose to become a godparent and travel with us to Romania, you will actually get the opportunity to meet the child you sponsor in person.
There are 14 children at the House of Joy who need godparents. Since each child requires four sponsorships at $39/month, that means the missions team and I are asking for TLUMC to provide approximately 56 sponsorships. That’s a tall order, but I think we can do it. If anyone is feeling particularly generous and passionate about this opportunity, you can provide a full sponsorship for a child at $180 month. I’d like to invite you to consider becoming a godparent to one of the children at the House of Joy in Romania. Godparenting might be a way that God is calling you to pursue his Kingdom and his righteousness/justice first.
What does the time you spend on the internet say about your priorities?
Is God calling you to consider becoming a godparent to a child at the House of Joy in Cornatel Romania?