A careful driver was being tailgated by a stressed-out driver behind him while driving along a busy boulevard. As he approached an intersection, the traffic light just in front of him suddenly turned yellow.
The man did the right thing, and stopped at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating driver’s temper flared! She banged on her dash board--and the horn--screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake, ma’am. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing up a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'cross and flame' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car!"
What are the marks of a Christian? Are they the bumper stickers we put on our cars? The cross necklaces we wear? The magnets on our refrigerator?
During this short 2 week sermon series that began last Sunday, we’re looking at five different marks of a Christian that are part of the vows we make when we join the church.
These five marks of a Christian are prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Today, we are going to look at how giving, serving, and witness are marks of a Christian.
Let’s begin with the Christian mark of service.
SERVICE
Today, we can see many, many examples of people who are using their talents to serve God. From volunteers who prepare and serve our morning refreshments. To those who teach Sunday School. To the greeters who welcome us. To the choir and musicians who have spent the past several weeks preparing music for this Sunday.
And we can go on and on with the audio/visual volunteers, the worship readers, the people sharing a testimony, my make-up artist. It’s just unbelievable how many people do all of these things just to help with our Sunday morning activities.
Throughout the week, many, many more servants use their talents to serve God through our church. Here at Athens First Church, we have well over 80 ministries in which servants of the church sacrifice their time to help us in our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of our community and world.
Serving is an important way for us to live out our faith.
Jesus spent three years with the disciples trying to help them see that serving is at the heart of what it means to be one of his disciples.
When Jesus began talking about the Kingdom of God, James and John thought that this kingdom would give them power and recognition. But Jesus had to continually tell them that his kingdom was very different from the ways of the world.
He told them, The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Using our spiritual gifts, talents, skills, and passions to serve God and God’s people is one of the marks of a Christian.
Giving financially is another one of the marks of a Christian.
GIFTS
Looking at the passage from Deuteronomy that we heard this morning, we can see that giving has been an important part of what it means to live out our faith.
While reading and studying this passage, I noticed five things that it can teach us about giving.
The first thing I noticed is First Fruits.
God instructs the people to take some of the first fruits of their harvest, take it to the Temple, and give it to the priest as an offering to the Lord.
Why first fruits?
I was thinking about the different ways that I feel when I give gifts to people.
A friend of mine was telling me about a Christmas gift he had given to his wife a couple of Christmases ago. For their first anniversary, they had given each other rings. Hers was a ruby ring, but over the years she had gotten it caught on different things, and the band was bent out of shape to the point she could no longer wear it.
My friend told me that he got the idea to buy a replacement ruby ring for her, and he told me that this idea just came to him one day.
He didn’t get a hint from his wife to do this; not even their three daughters were in on this one! So he found a ring he really thought she’d like, and he bought it for her. He could hardly wait until Christmas Day to give it to her! His best present that year was the smile on his wife’s face when she opened that ring!!!
Giving first fruits to God is like giving a gift to someone you love that you know they are going to appreciate. You give it your best.
The second thing I noticed in the bible passage is: Remember Why.
God commands the people to give their first fruits, and after they give their gift to the priest, they are to remember why they are giving the gift.
In the passage, the giver recites the history of the people of Israel, and how God has intervened for them in history, especially recalling their release from slavery in Egypt, and deliverance into the promised land.
For a Christian, we might remember how God has delivered us from our sin and brokenness through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Or on any given Sunday morning, we might remember how God has blessed us and guided us that past week.
The third thing I noticed in this passage is that giving our offerings to God is a cause to celebrate!
Eugene Peterson puts it this way in The Message translation of our Old Testament reading, “Rejoice! Celebrate all the good things that God, your God, has given you and your family; you and the Levite and the foreigner who lives with you.”
The Apostle Paul says practically the same thing in II Corinthians 9:7. “God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.”
And doesn’t that make the giving even better? Having a party and a celebration along with it?
Giving a birthday present is fun, but giving a birthday present at a birthday party is even more fun!
Worship is meant to be a celebration! Giving is a part of that celebration. The attitude in which a gift is given makes a huge difference; not only to the one who receives, but also to the one who gives.
The fourth thing I noticed in the passage from Deuteronomy is: Serve the Needy.
Usually when we talk about giving in church, we talk about the financial gifts that are given to the church either on Sunday morning or throughout the week. But this passage says some specific things about giving to the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, and those who have nothing of their own.
Serving those in need is an important part of our giving to Christ and the church.
The last thing that stood out to me as I read this passage is the phrase Set Apart.
At the very end, God tells the people that he has given them these laws to follow about giving because these laws will set them apart to help them to be a beacon of hope in our world. God’s people will be a people who are set apart, or holy, in part because of their giving.
Former West Ohio Conference Treasurer, Rev. Stan Sutton shared with me how some folks in his family who aren’t tithers to the church just can’t understand why he and his wife would even think about giving 10% of their income to their local church each year.
To them, that money could have been invested in other ways to make even more money. And I love the way Stan shared how he responded to them. He says, that by being generous givers to the church, he and his wife are rich in a different way. A way that is distinctive and set apart from the rest of the world.
Gifts and service are important marks of a Christian. Witness is the 5th mark in being a Christian. Being a witness simply means that we share our faith with others. We are witnesses of God’s saving and redeeming love for the world.
WITNESS
Witnessing is simply where we share with others how God has been present in our lives. That’s it! Sharing with others how God has been present in our lives.
Our church refers to these moments where God has been present in our lives as “Thin Place Moments.” Another name for it is “God Moments.”
I love it when I hear people sharing there “Thin Place Moments” with others. Our Leadership Board meetings begin with the sharing of “Thin Place Moments.”
These moments don’t have to be dramatic stories like the parting of the Red Sea or a miraculous healing. They can also include more subtle experiences that remind us that God is with us in any given moment.
Sometimes, we don’t even know that we experienced a “Thin Place Moment” until weeks after it happened. It might take some time for us to process these holy moments in our lives and then share them with others.
I have discovered that when we share our Thin Place Moments with others, it often leads to someone else sharing a Thin Place Moment that they had. There’s a domino effect when we witness to how God has been made present in our lives.
The marks of a Christian are prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness.
These are the marks of a Christian in the ways that we live out our faith through the life of the church.
Marks of a Christian: Gifts, Service, & Witness
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