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Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

The Savior and the Second Mile

Father, we're here before you, and we are asking for your presence to continue to be with us.

Thank you for the special music, for the opportunity to give our offerings.

Thank you, Lord, for the songs of praise we could sing and a reason to sing them.

And now I pray, Lord, bless us as we open the word in Jesus' name, amen.

This morning, I am still in the series on the healing presence of Jesus.

I've entitled my message, The Savior and the second mile.

I want to tell you a principle that's very important.

My job to tell you many new things, but to remind you of things you already know.

When my boys were small, I understood how important was that they learn to work.

Working is a practical expression of love to a spouse, to children, to friends, to parents.

Be kind about it and persistent, but make sure they understand that work is a kind of loving service.

When I was traveling up and down Route 31, I had stopped and went into Lowe's, and there was a lawnmower that someone had brought back and it was marked down to half price, which was my kind of buying moment, and I bought it.

And for about the next 8 or 10 years on every Sunday from April to October, my boys, along with my wife at times, praise the Lord for a very down-to-earth wife, we had a family lawn mowing experience.

And of course, mom and dad are what really made it go in the beginning, eventually it became theirs.

And along the way, I tried to teach them to do a better job than they were being paid to do.

I tried to teach them that when you serve out of love and it's a ministry, it's different than when you simply work for pay.

Working for love has an internal or an intrinsic reward.

And those intrinsic rewards are what motivate the Christian.

They're what take us to a higher level of excellence.

There are many years, just for you parents that are actively parenting right now, when I thought I was an abject failure, okay?

But over time, things kicked in, and with a lot of inspection and encouragement and accountability.

This morning, I want to build on these principles about ministering instead of the drudgery of simply working.

There is an element in the Christian experience which raises service to an offering as opposed to simply a transaction, a transaction for money.

And especially inside our families, our church families, in the places where we work, but indeed everywhere, we are to take into that something that's unique, that's otherworldly.

So this morning I want to point you in the way of heaven and the way to heaven is the second mile.

Take your Bibles and open up to Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew chapter 5 is the first of 3 chapters which we call the Sermon on the Mount.

When we come up to our small groups towards the end of this month, which I hope each 1 will join, be a part of a small group, we're going to be studying this Sermon on the Mount from the book called The Mount of Blessing.

Jesus really doesn't have a sermon recorded in total anywhere else in the Bible.

And as we come to the end of chapter 5, Jesus is going to bring to our mind a principle.

It is a principle that will open the doors to a different kind of readiness to receive the healing touch of Jesus.

Now I know at the beginning of this message that I'm talking to a wide spectrum of people.

There are some here today because their friends came to church here today.

There are some here today because this is what they've done for many years.

There are some here today who really do want to do good, but they're kind of busy and God's an add-on to their life.

There's some here today for whom God is everything and they won't miss this appointment or other appointments to be with Him and His people.

Wherever that spectrum is for you today, it's my hope that the Holy Spirit shows you and touches you so that you desire to be a follower, a servant of the Savior of the second mile.

When Jesus comes down to this part of his sermon, he begins talking about things that will get the attention of the world, because the world doesn't act like this.

Matthew chapter 5, beginning with verse 39, But I say unto you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also.

If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.

Whoever forces you to go 1 mile, go with him too.

Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven.

For he causes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good.

He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?

And then this verse that has troubled Christians, therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Now, I don't want to lower the standard of Christian perfection, it's not mine to do.

The good news here, Christ shows the way.

And before we're all done today, I hope you understand how this final verse in the chapter can come to fulfillment in your life without the kind of intentionality that you might think.

When we think about the love of God, we have to realize that there are some communions that have no profession of God that love better than some churches.

This is not a pleasant thing for me to say as a pastor, but it's true.

And since I have to deal in what's true, I'm going to deal in the fact that there are communions of people that don't really love each other.

We've even come to the place in time where we realize that some religious communions are actually toxic.

Now you might find yourself in 1 of those, I don't believe that's the experience of this church I'm in right now, but you might be listening online.

God has not given you permission necessarily to abandon the journey of those people, but I think what we talk about here today could help change it.

It's important for us to understand that Jesus always practiced what he preached.

And I want to focus in on 1 verse, but it's in the context of love.

These last 9 verses of this chapter are about a unique way of living.

They are not an admonition to let evil people run roughshod over you.

They are not an admonition to stand by while evil people are violent and despicable.

We don't have time, I'm not gonna try to cover all of the things that they're not.

I want to focus on 1 verse in particularly, which is verse 41.

It says, whoever, or if someone forces you to go 1 mile, go with him too.

This is an admonition that certainly was understood by those who were listening.

So I was struck by the fact that it says whoever.

There weren't too many whoever's in that society that could do this.

The Greek word here reveals that there's a holdover from several empires before.

You see the Persians had determined that in the days of their kings, any kingly command or any postal message that needed to be sent would be sent with intentionality from the king.

But should there be a break in the network of getting the message out, anyone could be conscripted to carry the message for the Persians.

When our good allies from Great Britain were not our allies in the same way some 200 years ago, their troops were quartered in our homes, their horses were stored in our stables, our food was their food.

This quartering of men in times of military dominance is not particularly unusual, but the Romans did not release this type or this mentality of operating when they took over the world scene.

And the Romans developed the best road systems in the world, and they were marked out with mile markers.

And as you were traversing down 1 of these Roman roads you might see a little brigade or troop of Romans coming towards you.

It could be terribly bad news because as they came up close to you depending on how long it had been since they had shouldered their packs, they could say, hey you, come here.

And then you'd lay your shoulder underneath the leather straps that carried the Roman burden and you'd walk a mile.

Now the whoever that says to you, take my burden 1 mile, every person listening to them knew that was a dreaded Roman, that was a hated Roman.

Which sets up this sermon in a little different way because all of us have somebody in our life that perhaps really doesn't care about us, which makes it hard for us to care about them.

Everybody has somebody in their life that rubs them the wrong way.

And Jesus doesn't say, that's fine, just go around them.

Jesus doesn't say, abandon them, don't care.

Jesus says, no, listen, the most hated person in your life and the person that intersects in your daily activity is not there by accident.

This is an architected, engineered experience.

And can you imagine what it would be like if 1 of these Roman soldiers met Jesus and his disciples on the road?

Now you have to remember 1 of Jesus' disciples was a zealot.

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The Savior and the Second Mile

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