Diann and I have two grown children. Our son Dan and his wife Teri live in Fishers, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. Our daughter Julie and her family live on Refuge Ranch, which is located on a hillside in Mexico. Visiting our two children is an experience of extreme contrasts. Across from Dan and Teri’s home there was a field just two years ago; now that former field is filled with hundreds of new houses, and it’s a perfect picture of growing suburbia. Julie and Victor’s neighbors live in small adobe homes. Dan helped clear his new neighbor’s driveway of snow because the neighbor doesn’t own a snow blower yet. Julie gives a gallon of fresh milk to the neighbor each morning because the neighbor doesn’t have a refrigerator.

Dan’s neighbors have four-by-four trucks, though they really have no need for all-terrain vehicles. Julie’s neighbors don’t own any vehicles; they travel on foot or on horseback.

It’s hard for me to describe how different the two worlds of our children are. Several times a year Diann and I jump into and out of each of these very different worlds, and we have to deal with the culture shock. It continually reminds us that there are great differences in the conditions in which people live around the world.

WORLDS APART
Here are some interesting facts about wealth:
More than half of the world’s wealth belongs to 2% of the world’s population.
North America has 5% of all adults in the world, but it has 34% of all household wealth.
If there were only 10 people in the world and only $100, one person would have $99 and the other 9 people would share the remaining $1.

Here are some interesting facts about faith:
Approximately 10% of the people in the world have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The number of people who go to church and call themselves Christians makes up another 25%.
That means that 65% of the people in the world don’t know who Jesus really is.
Approximately 40% of them could find out about Jesus if they really wanted to.
The remaining 25% of the world’s population doesn’t have any chance to find out about Jesus.
The bottom line is that we who live in the United States have a high percentage of the world’s wealth, and a very high percentage of us at least know about Jesus Christ. Things are significantly balanced in our favor.

You and I have to live in one place at a time. We’re limited this way, but God isn’t. He’s present in all places at the same time. It doesn’t take too much thinking to realize that God’s perspective is very different from ours. We live in our own little worlds, but God is highly involved in the whole world. Could it possibly be that God wants us to see things more from His perspective, and that He wants us to be willing to have the larger concerns that He has?

Billy Graham said that the smallest package is a person all wrapped up in himself. In this series of ten messages we’re looking at ten core values that can make life — for us as individuals and for us as a church — more of what God wants it to be. One of those core values is reaching beyond our own little world. People who seek to live beyond their own little worlds live life more fully. Let’s look at an example of some people who did that.

IMITATING THE MACEDONIANS
In the second letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians, he bragged about the Christians who lived in Macedonia, a region along the Mediterranean Sea. This included the Christians in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. Paul wrote, “And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.” (2 Corinthians 8:1-4)

Paul was referring to an ongoing collection that he was organizing to help out the Christians in Jerusalem. Scholars refer to it as the Jerusalem collection. It’s ironic that the Jerusalem Christians were some of the most needy Christians at that time: after all, Christianity really started in Jerusalem. Apparently because of persecution and a prolonged drought, the Christians at Jerusalem were in serious need. Paul was encouraging the Corinthian Christians to help out some fellow Christians who lived a long way away and whom they would probably never meet in person. “But just as you excel in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us — see that you also excel in this grace of giving.” (2 Corinthians 8:7) Paul wanted the Corinthians to imitate the Macedonians. He said that the Corinthians were excelling in some of the areas of their personal walk with Christ, but he challenged them to move beyond their own little world and do something for some fellow Christians who lived far away.

BEYOND OUR LITTLE WORLDS
We all have our little worlds in which we live and operate. We go here, there, and back again with people to see, things to do, and places to go. However, there’s much more beyond our little worlds! Just before Jesus left this world to ascend to heaven, He told His gathered followers, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Jesus was reminding them that their horizons of influence would be expanded — and then expanded some more, until eventually their influence was worldwide.

Each of us could diagram our little worlds of influence: the people we relate to on a regular basis and the places we frequent. However, we follow a Lord who’s concerned about the whole world. We should ask ourselves how we can reach beyond our own little worlds and become involved in other places. That may mean having regular correspondence with someone incarcerated, working on a Habitat for Humanity project, going on a mission trip, sending a donation to a needy situation on the other side of the world, or helping out the friend of a friend of a friend.

Someone has said that it’s a wonderful thing to plant a tree when you know that you’ll never sit under its shade. I think it was great when a senior citizen in our church explained that she’s excited about the new facility we want to build even though she probably won’t get to enjoy it for very long.

Essentially, reaching beyond our own little worlds means seeking to have some positive influence that we won’t personally benefit from, having truly unselfish motives. We also need to emphasize this core value as a church.

OUR CHURCH — AND BEYOND!
Much of what we do as a church is about our own ministry, which stands to reason. However, just as God (through Paul) asked the Corinthian church to be concerned about more than their own ministry — which the Macedonian churches were doing — God wants us to be concerned about and involved in ministries beyond our own.

When we support our own ministry we get to see the results and enjoy the benefits — and that’s fine, to a point. It’s clear in God’s Word, however, that we’re also supposed to be investing in God’s work in places and ways where we don’t get to see or enjoy the benefits directly.

We could make a diagram of our church’s local sphere of influence, much of it taking place within these walls or within the homes where Friendship Groups meet. However, we seek to reach beyond our own world by having a big emphasis on missions and benevolence.

Currently we support 25 missions; they range from local missions, such as the Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission, to missions on the other side of the globe, such as the one that Jeff and Rose Shaffer serve. Our benevolence fund has helped people with specific emergency needs. This past year, 14% of our total income for the church was given to missions and to help people (benevolence).

God wants us to be concerned about His work beyond His own work for us! That’s why we’re so committed to missions. Some people wonder whether we should be thinking more about our own needs, especially when we’re facing a major building project. I encourage anyone to read through the book of Acts in the Bible; it deals with the early church. You’ll see a constant emphasis on taking the influence of Christ into ever-widening circles.

I have always firmly believed — and it has been confirmed time and time again — that when we take on the larger picture of what God wants done, He’ll help us do what He wants us to do! A mission-minded church is a healthy church!

I grew up on an Iowa farm. We milked the cows twice a day, so we never took a trip over a few hours in length — because we always had to be home in time to milk the cows. It wasn’t until my senior high school trip that I left the state of Iowa for the first time! Since then I’ve visited a lot of places. I love Iowa, but I’ve discovered that there’s a lot more to the world than Iowa! Every time I visit our daughter and her family in Mexico, for instance, I’m amazed: who would ever have guessed that I’d be spending so much time on a hillside in Mexico?

There’s a great big world out there! You and I can only live in a small piece of that world, but we still have opportunities — and a call from God — to reach beyond our little world. It’s what we’re supposed to do, and it will help us live life to the fullest!