“Outed”
Confusing Words
Pt. 2
Introduction:
Last week I challenged you that God does indeed want to make us uncomfortable. He desires for us to have a nest to which we can retreat every so often for comfort and revitalization. However, He absolutely refuses to leave us here or allow us to become satisfied with a spiritual experience that is “nested”. He “outs” us and requires us to go to the lost! We are too comfortable here! There are too many empty seats and no urgency to do anything about it. I challenged you to think about who isn’t here and what are you going to do about it? I have been praying that you would be very uncomfortable this week.
I want to continue “outing” us this week. If you missed I remind you that “outed” is the idea of exposing you for who you really are. It is basically tattling or jerking your chain. Pulling back the covers and letting others get a glimpse of the real you.
This morning I want to talk about confusing words. Many folks say that English is the hardest language in the world to learn because words can have multiple meanings and because so many words are so similar. For instance the very title of today’s message exemplifies this truth. When I say confusing words you think about words that you don’t understand. They confuse you. However, what I mean by the statement confusing words is when we use one word mistakenly thinking we are using a different word. We confuse their meanings. Like the words: reigns/rains; pail/pale; tail/tale; fairy/ferry. Homonyms. These words are confused because they sound the same.
However, there are words that are confused because we believe they mean the same thing.
I am convinced that there are two words that we have certainly confused. The first word that we rely on is the word love. We throw it about glibly and without much thought. We love our house. We love our car. We love our spouse. We love Jesus. May I suggest to you this morning that we have castrated the word by overuse. We can say it and it means absolutely nothing. You can tell me you love me and then your manifestations tell me the truth. “I love you”, but I talk bad about you, I mistreat you, I avoid you, I won’t touch you. Then the truth is you don’t really love me. Think back to dating days for just a moment. How many people told you they loved you, but their actions told you something else? Remember the one who won your hand in marriage – did you say yes because they told you they loved you (if that was the standard you would have said yes to everyone you dated) or because they showed you they loved you? I know we need to hear it – spouses tell each other right now – mom and dad tell child right now. I love to hear those 3 words. Julie and I have a pact that we won’t go to sleep without telling each other that. So I want and need to hear it, but the truth be told I would rather see it. Isn’t that true with our children? Tell me you love me but clean your room. Tell me you love me, but take out the trash. It takes both. Our actions either validate or invalidate our words. Emerson “outs” us when he said, “What you do thunders so loudly in your ears that I can’t hear what you say!”
I want to “out” you this morning and suggest that the word we should be using because it has more meaning, is more revealing, and more accurate is the word serve.
I want to “out” us this morning and our misuse of these words!
TEXT: John 1:1-2, 13:1-5, 21:15-17
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
1It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. 2The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
15When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."
16Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"
He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."
17 The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my sheep.
These passages out us. Let me explain.
We are taught in Bible College that the writers of the Gospels all had different agendas. Matthew and Mark both write their books from a Jewish point of view in order to point to Jesus as the King and as the Messiah. Luke writes as a historian and points to Jesus as the savior of the entire world, not just the Jews. In each of these books the writes point strongly to the manness of Jesus. He was one of us. However, John seems preoccupied with convincing us of Jesus’ deity. He doesn’t give us the genealogy of his natural mother and adoptive parents as the starting point of his narrative. Rather, he immediately begins pointing to and declaring Jesus’ deity – In the beginning was the word and the word was with God. And yet, this author with all of his efforts to convince us that Jesus was God and with all the effort to expose Jesus’ Godness, he exclusively, tells us that Jesus served in his final moments on earth – after taking 12 chapters to convince us that Jesus was in fact God in the flesh, he now shows us that Jesus steps down from the pinnacle of deity throne and takes a towel. He passes over all the other human moments and focuses in on this one as the one glaring example of his humanness. He gives us a glimpse into Jesus’ life and ministry by showing us that true leaders come down and serve. Notice the phrase – now shows them the full extent of his love – shouldn’t that phrase have been reserved for the cross? His willingness to dethrone himself and wash their feet reveals a servant heart!
Then the writer takes us into this account of Peter’s interaction with Jesus after Jesus’ resurrection. The passage in John 21 has been preached to death. Jesus asks Peter if he loves him 3 times and 3 times Peter answers. Sermons have been preached on how significant the 3 times are because Peter denied Christ 3 times. Preachers have looked at the terminology for love that Jesus used compared to the terminology Peter used and said that Jesus is using one word for love and Peter until the end isn’t using the same word and therefore not matching Jesus’ level of love. All well in good. But I think we have missed the important lesson. It was a lesson Peter, the one who tried to stop Jesus from washing his feet in the earlier narrative, should have already grasped, but apparently still has not laid hold to.
According to the dialogue that Peter is having with Jesus, Jesus is trying to drive home the truth that love demands and requires action. Do you love me? Peter responds, “Yes I love you.” Jesus 3 times comes back with action. Then do something about it – feed my sheep.
Listen to me this morning, the lesson that Jesus taught by washing feet and that he drives home to Peter is that, love repeated verbally, even repeated repeatedly, is never an adequate substitute of service! In fact it is service that substantiates and validates the love.
We are lying to ourselves and to our world if we say that we love Jesus, but we either refuse or fail to serve. If our songs of love don’t transform into acts of service we are wasting our breath!
Most of us hide behind love as an excuse not to serve or as a substitute for service. We have deceived ourselves into thinking that if we say the word love that translates into and is credited as service. You never see that more clearly than in church. You ask people what they think about Jesus and they will say the love Him. Oh, I love Him. I am so in love with Him. And yet, you can’t get them to serve!
The truth is this morning that most of us are more than willing to love we are just unwilling to serve! Loving is easy. Serving requires that we leave the comfortable and secure confines of our nest and expose ourselves to dirt and hurt!
We want to love Jesus. We want to worship Jesus, but we refuse to do what Jesus did!
We use the word too much! The difference between us and Jesus is that he actually acted out love. We just talk about it. He served – healing, touching, feeding, reaching, talking, doing.
We love . . . how? What solid, tangible, real way do we love? Love is measurable by service. Our community should be better because we are here, right? Are we here to serve them or are they here to serve us?
"Most people use the City to build a great church; rather use your church to build a great City."
I have a few questions for you this morning!
Is there much joy in the city because of us? In Acts 8, Philip goes into the city of Samaria and declares the word of the Lord and the writer says there was much joy in that city! Who is happy this morning because we are here? Would anyone weep if we close? Or would people say just another startup that couldn’t make it?
The truth is this morning the only way we can bring joy to a city is by serving that city!
The truth is you can’t be around Jesus for very long and not wash something. We avoid the stinky areas of people’s lives and Jesus grabs a towel and a basin of water and not only gets close to the stinky areas He handles the stinky areas. He touches them. Love isn’t real unless it is manifested in tangible ways. It is one thing to love the people that walk in here that all cleaned up and smell real good, but what about those we think stink?
Jesus is calling us to the level of service He operated at in Philippians 2:5-8, 15
5-8Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God.
We are being challenged to become servants who will lead – not leaders who will serve – humility isn’t thinking less of yourself – it is not thinking of yourself at all.
This morning I “out” you.
1. We must begin speaking with our actions!
Words aren’t enough!
2. Our “greatness” scale must change.
We cannot judge each other’s greatness by our gifting or by your worship. We want to pedestal folks based on those things. What reveals greatness and should garner our respect and esteem is our service. You aren’t great because you can preach, sing, dance, hoop, shout, but if you can serve. What did Jesus say, “If any among you want to be great – love?” No serve! The Son of Man (our example) came with love – God so loved the world – but that love turned to service – He so love the world that he gave! Jesus did love, moved to tears, moved by compassion, but he also tells us whey came, He came to serve not to be served!
3. We must develop a culture of service in the nest that then moves out of the nest.
Scripture teaches us to prefer our brothers over ourselves. Serve one another. You know how I can tell who gets it? Just watch and see those that serve without being asked to do so. Esther gets it. I see her doing things that aren’t even on her job description. Woody gets it. He sees a need and does it. Many of you do that. Others don’t. If the thought when you see trash on the floor in here is – that isn’t my job. Then the when you see “trash” out there you will pass by without touching!
4. Service is what must distinguish us!
I am not talking about what sets us apart from other churches. Our worship does that. I think our Pentecostal side does that. Hopefully the preaching does that too. No our service should set us apart to the world!
Martin Luther King said it best, "Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s "Theory of Relativity" to serve. You don’t have to know the Second Theory of Thermal Dynamics in Physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love, and you can be that servant." “Life’s persistent and most urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
He went on to say this, “If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning.”
I am afraid that the Mormons are out loving us. I am afraid the Muslims are out loving us.
What is it that is supposed to be our distinguishing mark?
They will know us by our “?”. Our love. Just because we say we love? If that was the case they would know us well. They will know us when love becomes a verb and we act it out? It is our service that stands in stark contrast to our culture’s self-centeredness, apathy, and lack of care. Our service opens their eyes, if only for a moment, to catch a small glimpse of a savior on a cross dying out (not living out) ultimate love!
I out you this morning. If you hands aren’t marked by service then you don’t love Christ at the level He requires His disciples to love. Say I love you all you want, but until it shows up on your hands it is meaningless!
Bill Hybels said "I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncalloused hand -- a hand never dirtied by serving -- and shake the nail pierced hand of Jesus."
Look at your hand. Is there any dirt on it? Is there any residue of service on it? Is there any mark of love on it?
III. Close
We are being outed this morning. Last week I asked you I want you to think about who is not here? I want you to think about what you are going to do about that! Has this church invaded your entire life or is it just something you do on Sunday? This morning I ask you another question. Do you love Him? If so, how does your level of service answer that question? Does He need to repeat the question again and again until our life answers correctly?
God give us a church full of people who have water wrinkled hands. Who although have been given all power will take up a towel and wash feet.
