Christ the King Sunday!
Intro.
A. Today is Christ the King Sunday.
B. It is the last Sunday in the Christian
year. Next Sunday, is the 1st
Sunday of Advent which begins the new Christian year.
C. The Christian year makes a cycle through the
life of Christ, beginning with the Advent or coming of Christ into the world
and ending with Christ reigning now and forever.
D. In our scripture for today, Christ the King
sets up the perimeters by which we will be judged to enter His Kingdom.
Trans: Today, I want to talk to you about "People
Care:" my term for a plan that Christ the King instituted, whereby we will
be judged and thereby we should live.
Prayer
Matt. 25:31-46
I. Definition of "People Care."
A. It is a plan of ministry in which the needs
of people are the main objective.
B. It is very evident in this scripture how
important the needs of people are to Christ!
II. Why do we need to talk about "People Care?"
A. So we won't get our priorities mixed up and
forget people! An example of this would
be the story of the good Samaritan!(Luke 10:30-36) Don't Read!
1. The priest and Levite got caught up in
whatever they were doing and failed to meet a need!
2. People have different needs:
a. Spiritual - Christian or not!
I Peter 3:15
"Always be ready to give an
answer."
b. Emotional – family problems!
c. physical -
death or sickness!
d. financial - And there are other ways to help
other than giving them money! Sometimes,
these ways are more needed!
AIt
has been said, if you give someone a fish, you feed them for a day. If you teach them to fish, you feed them for
a lifetime.@
B. It is so easy today to get to looking at
statistics and figures and forget the people that those figures represent!
1. Our attendance figures many times do us an
injustice or give us a false security whichever the case may be. We look at the attendance figures to see how
our church did this week!
2. Christ would judge by how many people we've
cared for and helped this week!
III. We talk about APeople
Care@ because it is directly related to the
mission of our church: making disciples for Jesus Christ! We make disciples because we care for people,
not because we want to increase our numbers and not so the
A. Outreach Campaigns, like our BBQ chicken
dinner.
B. Teaching & small groups: Methodist 101,
Crafters ...
C. Children’s Ministries, like the Children’s
moment.
D. Adult ministries
E. Nursing Home ministry, visiting and taking
communion.
F. Mission & Thrift Store: Free food shelf,
free clothes to those in need and cheap clothes for all, Mozambique, Options,
Heifer, etc.
G. Letting our church be used for Community
events and ministries!
IV. Each one of us should adopt the "People Care" plan for
our lives!
A. Some of us are excluded from helping or doing
some things because of money or talents!
B. People are a resource that all of us have!
1. We all touch people every day with our lives.
2. God has seen to it that we all have a supply.
3. Do we meet needs or help them as we touch
their lives? Not only on Sunday but
every day of the week!
V. If we all will adopt this plan of ministry
where the needs of people are the main objective, we will begin to see some
things happen.
A. We will see more visitors in our church
because some of us have reached out to them!
B. We will see some of them making commitments
to Jesus Christ!
C. We as Christians will see our needs being met
because someone else cared enough to notice we too had a need and ministered to
that need!
D. The end result? Our Church will grow! The Kingdom of God will grow!
VI. This was the basis of Christ's ministry, caring for people
and meeting their needs.
A. He came to a world in need of salvation to
meet that
need!
B. In doing that, His was a life of meeting many
needs: physical, emotional, and
spiritual.
C. If we as Christians aren't duplicating that
life with
our
lives, it's time for a change!
D. Christianity is a continual change! Continually
being
changed
through God’s Sanctifying Grace to become more
and
more what God would have us be! Being
perfected
in
love!
E. People Care is very much in keeping with the
Methodist
way!
1. Wesley formed small groups to get people to
do
something
with their faith!
2. Meeting the needs of people is doing
something
with
our faith!
3. How about you?
Conclusion:
A. Christ the King sets the perimeters in this
scripture by which we will be judged: our care for people.
B. That should be our motivation. Are we motivated by our care for people? We can be if we will tap into the
source! Christ can care through us!
C. We just need to yield to Christ the King and
let Christ reign in our lives today!
D. We can be saved from a purposeless life! We can be saved from a useless
existence! In Christ, we can find a
purpose for living; the Bible calls it the abundant life!
E. Christ says here it includes caring for
people. As we encounter Christ at the
table this morning, let's yield to Christ and let Christ bring this kind of
life to light in us! Amen!
Prayer of Confession
Service of Communion
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