“Few things say as much about a church as it’s toilet facilities”, said an old friend of mine. Ever since he told me that I have paid closer attention to toilet provision and noticed what I think is a correlation between the release of vision in the local church and the effort it puts into providing good facilities. Yes, I am saying that churches that are focussed on reaching out to people often have better loos!
I have just been to a church where I experienced the coldest toilet moment of my life. That liquid didn’t freeze on the way out came as an absolute shock to me, that was only tempered by the pity I had for females next door who would have to sit down in sub-zero temperatures!
Either I am getting soft or it really was cold today. I sat in the prayer meeting with my jumper, jacket and scarf, wishing desperately that I hadn’t left my gloves in the car. However the cold in the church hall did not prepare me for what I experienced in the ‘rest-room’.
I had a vision of two men with thermometers from the Guinness book of world records standing there shaking their heads and saying that a colder temperature had been recorded once in Siberia in 1907. It didn’t comfort me at all – I was way out of my comfort zone.
What a soft lot we have become! Half of the world doesn’t know what reliable sanitation is, and wouldn’t even flinch at the minimal extremes of weather that we experience. Yet we need an ambient temperature to do anything!This whole ‘comfort zone’ thing is a real issue in churches – in fact in life!
“I’m praying about it”
“I am not sure if it feels right”
“I am not sure that it is my calling”
- are all phrases we use when we are being asked to move out of our comfort zone.
I had to go to the toilet, so I put up with the inconvenience of a cold convenience. So often when God calls us we take it as an invitation that we can refuse. In a sense we are right, because God is looking for those who willingly will sacrifice their comfort for his kingdom.
However there is something more powerful and more releasing than sacrifice – it is called obedience! You remember it don’t you? You spent all your childhood learning how to disobey and then when you became a teenager you thought you didn’t have to anyway. When you left home you said you would never have to do as you were told again. Except when the bank told you, the doctor told you or the police told you...
The Bible says:
to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams. 1 Sam 15:22 HCSB
Keith Green sang it this way:
To obey is better than sacrifice
I want more than Sunday and Wednesday nights
Cause if you can't come to Me every day
Then don't bother coming at all
To obey is better than sacrifice
I want hearts of fire
Not your prayers of ice
And I'm coming quickly
To give back to you
According to what you have done
According to what you have done
According to what you have done
I want hearts of fire
Not your prayers of ice
And I'm coming quickly
To give back to you
According to what you have done
According to what you have done
According to what you have done
As usual Keith was hard hitting with his message, but there has to be a real truth here – will we ‘go’ when Jesus says so? Especially as ‘go’ might mean crossing an ocean to help someone or even worse it might mean crossing the street to talk to someone!
Obedience is a choice – but really we have no option – not if we want to experience the fullness of God’s blessing. If you feel restricted, have a sick feeling inside and can smell fish you may be disobedient – running away from God’s will (cf. Jonah).
Andrae Crouch sang it this way:
Tell them
even if they don't believe you
Just tell them
even if they don't receive you
Oh, tell them for me
tell them for me please
please, tell them for me
tell them that i love them
And i came to let them know.
Tell that lonely man who walks
the colds streets all alone
Tell that crying child
who doesn't have a home
Tell those hungry people dying
and lost in the desert
They don't even know that i care.
the colds streets all alone
Tell that crying child
who doesn't have a home
Tell those hungry people dying
and lost in the desert
They don't even know that i care.
Tell them for me please
Tell them that i love them
Tell them that i love them
Many people cry “but I am not called”, to which I wonder what they mean. It seems to me that every son that God has he sends to work in the vineyard. The final call of Jesus must surely apply to all of us in one way or another?
Then Jesus came near and said to them, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matt 28:18-20 HCSB
God requires no work for our forgiveness or salvation, but now we are in the body of Christ he has work for us:
For we are His creation—created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. Eph 2:10 HCSB
Before I spoil your evening in front of the TV or possibly out at house group, just bear in mind that God is calling you now, and if for some reason he isn’t is it because you never answer? Are you ready to ‘go’ now – or is your commitment not that strong?It is time to ask ourselves some hard questions – what are we doing with the call of the gospel on our lives?
If we can’t face a cold Anglican toilet block, how will we react if God calls us to work in Siberia, the Sahara, or some sanitation-less shanty town?
There is still time to go and work in the vineyard. To complete this message with a third song, this is what the Winans sang:
If I labour, God is gonna give me a crown, a crown
I believe I'll work in the vineyard
Sun is going down
Sun is going down
Did the Lord not say, whatever's right I'll pay
Did the Lord not say, work while it is day
Did the Lord not say, He would take us away
Did the Lord not say, work while it is day
Did the Lord not say, He would take us away
If I labour, God is gonna give me a crown, crown
It’s funny what a cold toilet makes you think isn’t it? Best to think some more and turn it into action too – in the vineyard!
Be blessed O called one!