Article written for the Nation Association of Christian Ministers February News letter.

What are our actions saying to others that our words are not?
I was visiting a homeless outreach center in downtown Minneapolis last month and became engaged in a conversation with a man who had lost his job due to the recent recession. This center offers free medical care, a clothing room, three meals a day, and a place to shower, and a food pantry. They also have a window that opens from 2-4pm everyday where a person can go for help with rent, utilities, bus tokens, shoes, school supplies for children, and any number of specific needs. This particular man was looking for some financial assistance with his rent.
Before each meal about 150 homeless and impoverished folks gather to pray for God’s blessing. The founder of this ministry then proceeds to say, “God loves you and we love you and we will help you through this difficult time in your lives.” Then the children are served first as they sit at a table after which everyone else is allowed to get into line and gather their food.
To get specific individual help from the window a person is allowed to get into line at 1:30pm. Thirty full minutes before the window opens. Now, this kind lady just finished telling these folks that God loves them and that they are here to help them. But if a person gets in line for the window at 1:29pm or before one of two huge security guards, both about 6’ 7” and weighing about 300-350 lbs., escort them to the door and they are no longer allowed to return for the day.
I stood in line with my new found friend and his three children (8, 6, and 3 years old). His wife was still employed but didn’t make near enough to support a family of five and daycare was out of the question. “This in my first time here to get help,” he explained to me as if he were ashamed of his position in life. He stared at the ground as he explained to me how his church had offered to help them but he was too embarrassed to take their charity. A majority of Americans will not attend the church where they receive charity. My new friend explained that he had returned to school because the industry in which he had worked before was in terrible financial strain but the financial aid that was left over after paying tuition wasn’t enough to pay for all the medical bills, rent, car payment, insurance, groceries, books and school supplies that were needed each month.
If this man had any amount of pride and dignity left he lost it all as we watched the people standing next to us get thrown out by a female employee of this ministry because her kids were restless. We had been in line for two hours! How in the world can you expect young kids to stand in line, be quite, and not pick on each other for two hours?
Thrown out? What happened to God loves you, we love you, and we will help you through this difficult time? Not to mention the employee took it upon herself to scream at these children and tell them that they were rude undisciplined children. Undisciplined? They were all under the age of 6 I would guess; what does one expect? The actions of this ministry were in complete contrary to their words!
Please don’t misunderstand me; this ministry does a ton to help out people in need in Minneapolis. They offer more services and assistance in more areas than any other ministry or social service that I have ever seen; but at what cost? Must the people who are already stressed to the limit (studies show that those in poverty carry a stress load up to 75% greater than the those in middle and upper class families) sacrifice the remaining shreds of dignity and pride to get the help that they so desperately need? And in the name of Jesus no less! What are these people seeing from the followers of Jesus?
God’s law exists to make sinners aware that they are sinners and are in need of a Savior. (Roman 3:20 ESV “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”)
I understand “the law” to be any standard that God or the world puts on our lives. People in poverty are already at the point of being crushed by the law. They know that they do not live up to the standards of God or the world. So what should a disciple of Jesus do with a person whom they encounter that is being crushed by the law? Continue to apply the law? Continue to kick and beat an already crushed sinner? NO! A true disciple of Jesus Christ would know that they are the preacher sent to this person to deliver the gospel! (Romans 10:14-17 ESV “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”) And what is the gospel? Why Romans 3:20-22 ESV sums it up quite well “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”
You can’t live up to the law under your own power! You are in need of a Savior! But that Savior has already arrived and His death on the cross for your sins and His resurrection so that you may have new life and be counted righteous in the eyes of God is already complete! He is Jesus Christ! Repent and believe the good news! It is not my intention to be Moses (the law giver) to this ministry. I am sure that they would not hear my teaching even if I offered it. I am called though to be a disciple of Christ and continue to look for where the law is crushing a sinner and deliver the gospel.
Look around you. Are there folks suffering in silence? Are they in need of the ultimate promise from our Lord? Do they need to hear this promise proclaimed in the midst of their despair? God gave us the law and it is just. But no one lives up to the law. (Romans 3:22b-23 ESV “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”) And through the law can only sin and death can result. Because under the law we are found guilty and through the disobedience to the law sin came into existence. But the law was not God’s last word to his chose people. There is another word; a word of promise. The gospel is God’s final Word to his beloved!
So beloved, go now into the world and proclaim the good news to the suffering and hurting. Be disciples of Jesus (delivers of the gospel) and not bringers of the law (disciples of Moses).