Doing what we love
January 15, 2012
Intro:
Last Sunday I began by asking us to create a list of some fictional characters that are well known and generally admired by our culture (show list). Then I asked for some adjectives that we might use to describe these characters, and we brainstormed a great list (show).
Then I made a simple observation: as I had thought might be the case, the adjective (loving) was nowhere on our list. It simply was not one of the words that came up when we started to think about the characteristics of these widely-admired fictional characters. And I used that as a bridge into a conversation about how we understand love from both the perspective of Scripture and from the perspective of our culture, and the thrust of it was that our culture tends to understand and speak about love as an emotional state, whereas Scripture tends to speak about love as a certain way of acting and being which has an emotional component, yes, but which is not actually that emotion.
So there, if you weren’t here last week you are now caught up and if you were here you are now refreshed.
Contrasting Cultures:
It was not my intent last week to be a culture-basher. I worry a little bit that it sometimes comes across that way, when really it is not my intent. Rather, my intent is to contrast, illuminate, and invite us to actually step back a bit from our culture and actually carefully consider what messages it is saying, what places it might be squeezing us into its mold, and what areas our culture and the Kingdom of God differ. The question that very naturally follows from that is obviously: does our way of living more demonstrate the values of our culture or the Kingdom of God? Who is shaping us – God or our world?
It is a significantly different question from what do you believe. It is relatively easy to believe in Jesus nowadays, assuming by believe we mean intellectually agree with a group of propositional truths. Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Sure. Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross? Yes, I think that is historical fact. Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead? This one is a little more of a stretch for a lot of people, but we can still say okay.
But. Intellectually agreeing with a particular set of propositional truths is not really what matters. Now don’t string me up by my toes just yet - it does matter, just not as much as we think it does. See, there is something that matters more, and that is that we live by the values of the Kingdom of God. How we live matters more than intellectual agreement with a set of truths.
I’m going to come back to that in a moment, but I’m in danger of losing some of you as you assume you know what I’m saying. Some of you might assume I’m saying it doesn’t matter what you believe – I am not saying that. Some of you might assume I’m saying you can believe anything as long as you act the right way – I am not saying that either. And some of you might assume I’m saying that believing the right things isn’t really that important – I am not saying that. I spent a total of 7 years of full time study learning and diving deep into the things that we believe, of course I value that and believe it is important.
What I am saying is this: we’ve got the order wrong. We decided/been taught/assumed that believing the right things is the most important, and the rest (ie: living according to the values of the Kingdom of God) is something we’ll always struggle to do, and we expect to fail, and it is ok if we aren’t really making that much progress because well I still believe in Jesus, and besides there is lots of forgiveness available if I just ask. Hopefully I’ll change, but even if I don’t it is ok because God will just smile and forgive me again.
It is a product of the Enlightenment, Descartes’ I think, therefore I am, and of our educational system that almost exclusively focuses on cognitive development. There are unfortunate roots in our misunderstanding of the Protestant Reformation’s rallying cry of by faith alone. And it is only getting worse, the new economy is the knowledge economy; where what you can do or produce is not nearly as valuable and lucrative as what you know.
And yet, it is not new. It was a problem 2000 years ago – in fact, one of the great problems the early church faced was from a group of people who believed that the right head knowledge was all that mattered – they even went so far as to say that what you did in your actual physical body didn’t matter at all, because only the truth and the beliefs in the mind mattered. So they went so far as to indulge their physical bodies in every sort of perverse and sinful pleasure, on the basis that they had the right knowledge and that was all that mattered. I sometimes wonder if the North American church is not smack in the middle of a similar heresy today and hardly noticing.
Scripture has a lot to say on this issue. And in rather blunt speech.
James
One of the most clear places in Scripture is the book of James. Let me give you a whirlwind tour:
Chapter 1:
22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says.
27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
Chapter 2:
14 What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well, but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?
17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
18 Now someone may argue, Some people have faith; others have good deeds. But I say, How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.
19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?
Chapter 3:
13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.
Chapter 4:
17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
Now, there is always a risk and you should always be wary whenever someone plucks verses out of the Bible as I have just done. We must read them in context if we are to understand the message, so I challenge you to do exactly that. Go read the entire book of James (don’t worry, it is short) and see if I have plucked verses out of context to make my point, or see if (instead) the entire book of James is about the greater importance of right actions.
From my reading of James I suggest again that intellectually agreeing with a particular set of propositional truths is not really what matters. It matters more that we live by the values of the Kingdom of God. How we live matters more than intellectual agreement with a set of truths.
Now, some of you might be thinking that I am making a big deal out of something that isn’t really a big deal, because maybe you are thinking that what we believe in fact guides our way of living. Are you with me? If how we live is determined by and guided by what we believe, than maybe I’m a little bit off base here in suggesting that how we live matters more than what we believe.
But I’m not so sure that what we believe does, in fact, always determine how we live. Of course it is an important factor, but I’m not so sure it is as important as we think it is. Do you and I always do what we believe is the right thing? What about the following:
- the existence and persistence of hypocrisy.
- our regular experience of doing or saying things that are not in line with what we believe, leaving us wondering and questioning and regretting what we did or said.
- the impotence of our will, as evidenced by the number of New Year’s Resolutions already abandoned
- Paul’s declaration in Romans 7:14-15 The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
And as final evidence, let me suggest an alternative. Maybe what we believe is not the major determining factor of how we live, maybe it is what we love. And again, I define love as more than the emotional state but rather as a certain way of acting and being which has an emotional component, yes, but which is not actually that emotion. What if how we live is actually an outflow of what we love.
Let me try to make this a little more concrete, with both some negative examples and some positive examples:
- why do we sit on a couch and eat snacks and watch TV instead of the things we know are better for us? Maybe because we love life to be easy.
- why do we do the same things every day according to the same routines? Maybe because we love to feel in control and we love life to be familiar and comfortable.
- why do we tell a small lie, or tailor a story to make us look better, or exaggerate a little bit? Maybe because we love to imagine ourselves thought well of by others.
- why do we choose a spouse, and have children, and choose to spend time together, choose to forgive, do things that are sometimes difficult, and put their needs ahead of our own. Maybe because we love our families. And when we don’t, maybe it is because we are selfish and love ourselves more than others.
- why do we come together to worship God and serve one another every week? Why do we give money? Why do we spend our time using our spiritual gifts? Maybe it is because we love God.
Sure there is belief behind each of those things, but belief itself does not determine our action. Love does. I’m convinced that behind all of our actions, if we dig just a little bit, we will see something we love driving those choices. It is a powerful force, even if sometimes it is twisted and perverted and thus leads to actions that are not best.
So maybe we should work on growing our capacity for real love, and allow that to heal and redeem the places where our love has been twisted and perverted. And maybe, just maybe, the key to that is to let ourselves be more deeply aware of, and consumed by, the love of God for us. And again, I am not referring to God’s great wealth of emotion towards us but rather by the overwhelming evidence of His actions toward us, full of grace and forgiveness and rescue and generosity and abundance and mercy. Maybe we should take all the things we know, all the things we believe, and pull them out at the beginning of each and every day and ask and challenge ourselves with this critical question: so what? So what am I going to do today as a result? So I know that God loves me, I believe I am His adopted, forgiven, Holy Spirit filled child, and I know He has sent me into my world as a light. So what does that mean for how I live today? And then maybe we should sit down at the end of the day, and with the gentle presence of the Living Holy Spirit within us ask so, what did my actions today say about which kingdom I am living in? What does how I spent my time tell me about where my love really lies?
This, I think, is what it means to be a follower of Jesus. He said it, in His own words, in John 14: If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. (Jn 14:15). He said it again to Peter on the beach after the resurrection, Do you love me, Peter? Do you love me, Peter?? Do you love me, Peter??? Each time, when Peter said yes, Jesus responded with a command to be obeyed: then feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, feed my lambs.
It is right there in our language – being a follower of Jesus has embedded in it the idea of action, of following, of living, of moving along. Not of just sitting and thinking, though of course there is a need for and a time for those things. But of following Jesus, as He leads and walks with us through every moment of every day.
this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. (2 Jn 1:6, NASB).
Conclusion:
So I guess this is where it comes down to: are you a follower of Jesus? Day by day, moment by moment, choice by choice, is it your love for Jesus that produces your actions? this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. Are you walking according to His commandments? Or does something need to change?
See, it isn’t enough to say we believe. It isn’t even enough to believe, if by that we mean nothing more than intellectual assent to a variety of statements. Jesus calls us to love. To a way of living and being and acting out of a foundation of the revealed, enacted love of God for us, which we then strive to delight in and live out of.
That is what it means to follow. That is what it means to love.
So let’s go live it.
