Let’s Work Together For The Cause Of Christ

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”’ (Genesis 11:6)

One of the pet peeves I have of any church is often the people comprising the congregation do not always work together for the common goal of promoting Jesus to those outside of the church.  This does not mean the people don’t get along; there are always friendly smiles, handshakes, and hugs and I pray that continues.  We need to love one another, pray for one another, and show support for one another.

The pet peeve of mine is it is also true that we as a church could do so much more if we all – everyone – applied ourselves to the tasks at hand, based on our abilities and gifts.  With rare exception, the adage of 80% of the tasks within a given church are accomplished by 20% of the people is true, and I would argue it may be more like 90%/10% in more cases. 

Obviously, part of it is those who are of working age have their time is taken up by their occupation.  Others may be of an age where they can no longer do things of a physical nature or need the help of others in order to just come to church.  However, it is the mindset that there is ‘someone else who will take care of it’, making an able person unwilling to accomplish a task.

Instead of that mindset, we should look at our church activities as ‘what can I do?’, or ‘what if no one takes care of that?’  Some accomplishments can be small if we take on the responsibility; a piece of trash in the church’s parking lot can be picked up and thrown in the garbage bin when coming into church, or the excess of water around the sink in the bathroom can be wiped up with the paper towel we use to dry our hands before tossing it in the bin. 

These and other actions are things everyone can do.  We should be of the same mindset, or be ‘speaking the same language’. We all can (and should) share the Gospel message to those outside the church, and show the love of Christ to all we interact with.  To repeat a paraphrase I made before from one of President John F. Kennedy’s speeches, ‘Ask not what can your church do for you, but what can you do for your church’.

If we all came together, not necessarily to do the same task but to each take a particular task and run with it according to our abilities and become willing to accomplish those tasks, we would be more in line in ‘speaking the same language’ with what God says in Genesis 11:6, though in a positive, Godly fashion and not in a negative way. 

The burden of many things the church requires would be greatly reduced if 100% of the tasks were tackled with 100% of the people working together, each according to their Spiritual and physical gifts as given by God.  We must always remember that in order to accomplish anything, God must be involved and His glory needs to be on display, or else it is not worth doing.

The context of today’s Scripture is actually a negative one; one where the people came together in an attempt to spite God.  The people were united in their sinful goal to ‘one-up’ God and show that their unity, in essence a ‘global-one-world-order’ would do more to glorify man than God could ever do, that together man could accomplish more than working with and for God could ever do. 

This folly of man and this thinking often leads to total failure.  I often think of the White Star Line company, who made and operated the infamous ship Titanic, whose workers stated ‘even God couldn’t sink this ship’, and unfortunately ending with the Titanic sinking with 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers killed.  When God is out of the equation, either purposefully or out of disregard, disaster usually follows.

In Genesis 11:1-9, the people of Babel (led by Nimrod the Warrior) had a common language and a common goal, to build the Tower of Babel.  The Tower was to reach way up ‘into the heavens to make a name for themselves’.  Although the Bible doesn’t say too much about Nimrod, both the Jewish Talmud (the verbal history of the Jews now written down) and the Roman historian Josephus both speak of Nimrod as a powerful ruler who was opposed to God and thus may have wanted to build the Tower to either ‘fight’ God (a preposterous idea), or prove that he could lead his people to do something spectacular without God being involved. 

God put an end to Nimrod’s nonsense by having their language mixed so they as a group could not communicate effectively, which ended the Tower project for good and scattered the people (ending the 1^st ‘globalist’ movement, too).   This is why in the 3 Stooges/Looney Tunes skits, when Bugs Bunny or Moe called someone a ‘nimrod’, it is meant as an insult meaning someone really stupid; stupid enough to challenge God. 

But as with many negative-oriented Scriptures, we can find a positive message.  If we as Christians can come together, speak the ‘same language’, working together for a Godly, positive cause – the cause for Christ and His Gospel – and ensuring Jesus is in the equation, then what we can do is unstoppable.  There are many churches today that fail because the people cannot come together for a common cause, even though they come together every Sunday they are just individuals sitting together. 

But a church that not only comes together on Sundays but comes together for a God-driven purpose is a Church that will produce what God wants them to excel in.  Like the roofers with different tasks in chorographical movement to achieve the same goal, not all the people in our Church have the same tasks except for the primary one of the Great Commission – spreading the Word to those who do not know Christ!