What comes to your mind when you think about "God's Big Backyard"? What is God's big backyard? Where might God's big backyard be located? Is your backyard included? Does it include your neighbor's yard? What about our city parks, our church yard and our work place? I had some of these questions in my mind when I discovered this was the theme for our ADM Vacation Bible School.

What I have come to realize in using this theme is that "God's Big Backyard" is inclusive of any place that we might serve God and others. While we may think of various ways in which we can serve through a broad understanding of our yard. We had a great time in VBS last week helping kids learn to share God's love as they serve others. This morning I want to briefly review Bible stories we studied this past week to illustrate various opportunities to serve. I assume some of these stories may be familiar to some of you.

I. Family

In the book of Exodus we read the story of the family of Moses as God used some unique circumstance to care for this man whom God would later use to deliver God's people from slavery. In this story we see how young Miriam served her family in a very significant way.

As Miriam served her family by serving her infant brother and mother, she was also serving God's people, since her little brother would grow up to be a leader. We may not think of the huge impact we may have indirectly as we serve in small ways behind the scenes. Miriam could have thought that she was merely watching over her baby brother floating down the river in a little basket, but she was really doing much more.

II. Friends

All of us need friends and what tremendous friends the paralyzed man in this story had. Are your friends like this? They were something else. Wow? Who you remember what they did?

Four friends of this crippled man loaded him on a stretcher to take him to Jesus. However, when they got to the house where Jesus was speaking they realized that the house was too crowded for them to get through with their friend. So what did they do? Yes, they climbed up on the roof. Dug a hole in the roof, and lowered their friend down in front of Jesus. Jesus, noticing the faith of these friends healed their paralyzed friend.

What kind of friend are you and I? Do we serve our friends or just expect them to serve us? Are we intentional about seeking to really be friends that meet the needs of those we care about?

III. Neighbors

This story of the "Good" Samaritan is probably familiar to most of you. Let's review the story. A Jewish man is beaten, robbed and left for dead along the road. A couple of religious leaders saw the man in need of help, but ignored him and refused to come to his aid. However, a man of Samaria served this Jewish man. He rescued him and took care of his immediate needs and took him to a place where he could continue to be restored to health.

When it comes to serving, we might ask, "Who is my neighbor?" This neighbor was not a man across the street, over even from the other side of town. He was an ethnic, a guy the Jews did not normally have good relationships with. But this Samaritan served his Jewish neighbor. From this story Jesus told we might be shown that we need to expand our understanding of neighbor and consider how we serve our neighbors.

IV. Community

Consider various ways we might serve our community. In recent days many in Adel and across Iowa have served their communities filling sandbags and meeting needs of persons affected by the flooding and storms. Our Bible story is a familiar story of a man that was into serving himself, a greedy fellow that collected more taxes than he should have and kept much for himself. You may recall that Jesus invited Himself to the home of Zachaeus, Perhaps the people of the community did not think it was appropriate for Jesus to associate with such a despised swindler.

The good news is that after spending time with Jesus the life of Zachaeus was transformed. He became a real follower of Jesus and put his money where his mouth was. He promised to give some of his possessions to the poor and pay back any persons that he had cheated. As he came to love and follow Jesus, Zachaeus began to serve the community that he had previously used for his own advantage.

V. Jesus

I believe that the Scriptures make it very clear that those who choose to follow the Lord are to serve. We are to serve our families, our Friends, our neighbors, and our community. In doing so with the right attitude we may also be serving Jesus. I am also aware of the fact that there may be some good people that serve other people and they do so for humanitarian reasons and would admit it is not for God.

The wonderful story we shared with the children on Friday was the story of the lame man that sat outside the gate of the temple called beautiful everyday, begging for a living. One day Peter and John passed by and he asked them for money. They did not have much money, but they gave him something much better. They allowed God to use them to heal the man. He jumped up and began to praise God. Then he could work for a living instead of begging. I believe he became a server and giver.

God wants all of us to serve: family, friends, neighbors, community, and Jesus, too. That is the message we tried to impress upon our VBS children this week. We adults may need a reminder that God wants all of us to serve in His big backyard. That can be whenever we are and wherever there is a need to be served. Of course, as we serve family, friends, neighbors, and community in Jesus name, we are really serving Jesus, too.

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