Once upon a time, not too long ago, in a place not too far away, there was a lighthouse keeper. This lighthouse keeper was a very kind man, liked by all the people. In his lighthouse he kept large reserves of fuel to keep the light shining, warning ships of impeding danger, and directing them to safety. The lighthouse was located next to a road that connected several cities, but some distance away from where most of the people lived.

One year, there was something exciting go on in one of these cities that attracted people from all around. The event was in all the newspapers and everyone wanted to get involved. You couldn’t hardly talk to a person without it coming up in the conversation. Even the lighthouse keeper wanted to get involved so he sat up a small gas station with his fuel reserves to accommodate the people involved in the events.

Many times he donated his fuel to such a worthy and exciting cause. He was able to help dozens of people. Eventually however, he ran out of fuel and it would be several days before his delivery truck would arrive. During this time a violent storm came upon the shores in which he had to burn the lights in the lighthouse not only during the night, but also during the day. The lighthouse ran out of fuel and the keeper had no reserves to fall back upon. As a result, the light went out and a ship with hundreds of people ran upon the rocks, killing almost all aboard. The keeper failed his primary task of saving lives of those aboard the ship because he used his resources to help those in non-life threatening situations.

As you can probably guess, the lighthouse represents the church and the event represents a social or moral issue. Our goal as a church does not exclude these, but we must never take away from our primary purpose of making disciples of all the nations! Often these issues are just symptoms of the real problem–lack of a relationship with Jesus Christ. Let’s make sure we treat the problem!

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