I praise God my girls don’t deal with the problems that come from such brokenness, but I think my daughters may, in a sense, be representative of what many Christians experience—they don’t know what it’s like.
Many Christians have grown up in a Christian home. That is their reality and they forget there’s a hurting world out there. We drive through it on the way to school, work and church, but we don’t come to terms with the vast brokenness surrounding us.
Hurting people sometimes make their way into our pews and, by grace and through faith, respond to the good news of salvation. But too often, the only connections Christians have with broken people are made outside of church.
The true test of our maturity is not measured in how much we leave behind, but how much we love.
That’s why I love to hear a pastor say, “We’re going to be a church that cares about the hurting and serves those in need, showing the love of Christ to the lost.”
To Serve and to Save
I’m struck by the fact that Jesus talks about his ministry in two ways. In Luke 4:18, he says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me.” He goes on to talk about preaching the good news to the poor and the captive.
In fact, this type of ministry was a sign that he was the Messiah. Prophecy was being fulfilled as he showed kindness to those who were hurting. Throughout Scripture we see the work of Christ among the widows, the blind, the broken—whoever had a need.
Jesus came to save.
In Luke 19:10 he says he came to seek and save the lost. And the same Jesus who came to serve and to save then says to us in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I also send you.”
We have been sent by Jesus to join him in his mission. We are to serve others in his name, and we are to share the good news of salvation so that people might trust in Jesus’ work on the cross—his death in our place, for our sin.
Serving and saving were marks of Christ’s life on earth. They should be marks of his people as well. But to do that, we must engage the broken and hurting people around us.
That’s hard. But a church without the broken is a broken church.
How does your church engage the hurting? What have you done in your own life to avoid insulating yourself from brokenness around you?
