As I Have: John 13:34-35.
Well over the last wee while we have been looking at a sermon series that I have called ‘from here to there’. It’s been about mentoring. This is the part of a sermon when an officer hopes that some of the congregation have reasonable recall otherwise he may just have to preach the whole series again. Now I’m interested what are some of the things that I have spoken about?
Today I’m going to take a slight diversion, while I’m going to talk about mentoring and what it is again, I’m going to tackle one of Jesus teachings that gets a bit of airplay, but often is lost somewhere in the accounts of the lead up to Easter and does not get heard as much as it should. It should because these words of Jesus which I’ve used before are of importance to an individual’s journey and they are of extreme importance for a person’s relationships with other believers and God.
If you could open your bibles to John 13, you will find a passage entitled if you’ve got an NIV Bible, Jesus predicts Peter’s denial. Now right among this passage is a couple of verses that point to Jesus divinity and also a way in which Christians are meant to live. Let’s have a look at them in verses 34 and 35. “A new command I give you: Love one another” [That’s the command]. the question is how do we love; read on Jesus qualifies it, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” [ So we have to love one another thoughtfully and sacrificially, giving all we are and prayerfully considering one another, to say just a little of what Jesus did for us]. Why do all this? “By this men will know you are my disciples if you love one another.”
Now that is a good thing!
Now this is about mentoring because this is what the sermon series is about. Let me ask you what is love? Andy Gibb brother of the Bee Gee’s told us that, “Love is, higher than a mountain, Love is, thicker than water” So love is very tall and has a consistency like hand cleaner. Amy Winehouse told us, “Love is a losing game”, so love has something to do with playing against the Crusader’s Rugby team? Alicia Keys tells us “Love is her disease.” Sheryl Crow, “Love is free”, Whitney Houston, “that my love is your love”, Pat Benatar, “Love is a battlefield”, Wet Wet Wet, that “Love is all around” and Ziggy Marley that “Love is his religion.” So now that we have cleared up what love is let’s move on.
Is there anyone here who is a little confused about what love is, and how we are meant to love one another as Jesus loved us? Well let’s have a look at what the bible tells us, let’s have a little look at 1st Corinthians 13: 4-8 (1st sentence).
This is real love, is not the push till you get what you want…, “love, love me do, you know I love you”, I know what feels good, so give it to me substitute for love.
Patient, kind, not rude, always protecting, trusting, hoping. This is the love that Jesus lived, this is the love his disciples were commanded to live, the love those of us who call ourselves by His Name are commanded to live.
Paul tells us to “Follow the way of love and to eagerly desire spiritual gifts etc.” (1 Corinthians 14:1)
1) Back to LOVE, what is the command of Jesus? “Love one another as I have loved you!”
For Christians this is not a stick it in the corner and think about it kind of a comment. This is a get on with it command (repeat). When it comes to mentoring this love is seen in the willingness to engage in mentoring and the willingness to be mentored, not just for your own personal good but for the good of the body of Christ ’the church’ and for the kingdom of God here on earth.
2) We are to follow the example of Jesus in this love… as this is part of a series on mentoring this is about engaging in mutual love for one another, respect for and engagement in the lives of one another.
Now I know that all this talk about love can be a bit much for some. Particularly some blokes. This love bizzo can all sound a bit mushy I think Rochelle referred to it last week and said some see it as being a bit pink and flowery.
I firmly believe Jesus is a true bloke in the human sense of the word as well as being God in the divine sense. The Lord’s earthly Dad was a carpenter, Jesus went fishing, walked a lot, yip he liked tramping, washed his disciples poo laden feet, knew a lot about gardening and farming, was well read, had a fair kind of a grasp of finances and spoke up for what he believed in. Jesus was a real bloke! A real bloke indeed and with that he also showed compassion, he healed people; he mixed with the kind of people who were untouchable and to most unlovable.
Jesus gave a perfect example of what it is to love as he mentored his disciples. Interestingly he also spent time aside with His Heavenly Father being mentored to as he prayed.
As believers we often look to others examples over the example of Jesus. Think about this from William Booth “What a curse comes on the Church and the world through Christians copying the miserable examples, and being satisfied with the narrow, lean attainments of each other! The vain custom of measuring ourselves amongst ourselves is not wise. Practice it not. Have a holy ambition to do the will, the whole will, and nothing but the will of God.” – From ‘What Are You Doing?’ 1869.
The thing is, Jesus is the perfect example of how we are to treat one another. Another great Salvation Army leader Commissioner Samuel Logan Brengle, said this, “We are to live in Christ. Daily, hourly, momently we are to choose Him as our Master, walk with Him, look unto Him, trust Him, obey Him, draw from Him our strength, wisdom, courage, purity, every gift of grace needed for our soul’s life. The supply of all our need is in Him. Our sap, our life, our leaf and our fruit are from Him.” From ‘Love Slaves ‘, 1923.
What these men had discovered was that they could not be mentored just by other men and women alone. Though they were very reliant and in community with their fellow believers, they had to look to Jesus as their example. They had to draw from Jesus from His sustaining power, they lived in relationship with Him via the Person of The Holy Spirit.
Are you looking to Jesus as your example? Are you drawing on His Spirit’s sustaining power?
Do you love your brother or sister here as Jesus loved his disciples and loves you? Mentoring one another? Are you looking to Jesus example? Are you an example for those new to the faith?
Setting an example…(Repeat)I can’t set an example, that’s for the Godly people the people like the Saints, for people like Pastors, and Community Ministry managers, for Ministers and missionary’s, Nuns and Grandmothers, for the Divisional Commander now they’re the people who set an example.”
In every life there is a danger; there is a place in life where we can get stuck if we are not careful a kind if blah existence ensues where we can’t because we decide we can’t. It can be a comfortable place, a place where we go to day, where we are living habitually, routinely, by our own set of rules. While I said it can be a comfortable place it can also be a place of containment, containing the pain, the hurt, a place where we are able to be remote. Simon and Garfunkel wrote about it when they penned the song I am a rock. “For a rock feels no pain and an island never cries.”
Do you know this place?
In this place we can’t because we have decided we can’t but also because we haven’t opened ourselves up to God, who can! As Brengle said we are to draw this [strength] to move from can’t to can in Jesus. Have you ever thought that if we make the t in the word can’t and take it to the cross and leave it there, we can!
As people freed by the sacrifice of Jesus by what he did, that gift on the cross by his gift of abundant life, this can’t is not a place we are to be living in, we are called to live in community, loving one another, supporting the brother or sister who is struggling, mentoring one another, sharing the painful experiences so that they don’t linger, sharing scriptures, praying together, crying together so that healing comes quickly and positively. Giving to one another sacrificially, not lording it over one another but walking along side in love. Sometimes following Jesus example just leaving one set of foot prints where we are carrying someone for a while.
Some more words from Commissioner Brengle “The common, every day, abiding experience is a lowly, patient, loving life in Christ – this may be ours unbroken and it should be.” Ibid.
In living this way, we live in freedom and we live in community that supports and builds up.
3) John in his first letter to the early church said it this way “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.” (1 John 3:14) Let’s have a look at the words again just the first part of the sentence,
this time from the New American Standard Bible. “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren.” That’s all of us.
So we know we have passed from death to life when we love one another…when we are committed to one another as Christ is committed to us. Now I wanted to find an example of true commitment, because some contribute and believe that that is commitment. But true commitment is more than just a contribution.
So yesterday I went across the road to Jumbos Takeaways. Just as an aside have you ever noticed that just about every town in New Zealand has a ‘Jumbo’s Takeaway’s’ it’s like the franchise that you have when you’re not having a franchise, there was one in Stoke where I grew up, , it wasn’t painted pink though and incidentally there’s even one in Winton. You will also know that the ultimate meal at any Jumbo’s Takeaway is the Jumbo Burger. Within the Jumbo Burger are two great examples of commitment, let’s have a look, the buns, no they’re a contribution, they cost very little, flour, water, butter, the pineapple ring no that’s a tropical contribution, no a contribution from the garden, the lettuce, well that’s just really a healthy guilt alleviating space filler, one of the five plus a day, the same with the tomato another contribution, the sauce hardly worth thinking about, the egg nope that’s just a contribution chooks lay them almost every day. Found them the commitment is the meat paddy and the bacon! This is commitment! This cost the pig and the cattle beast dearly.
The truth is that if we are to be committed to one another to mentor one another doing that walking along side, perhaps carrying someone, nurturing, listening to, advising and sometimes pointing out the error of someone’s ways or being willing to have them pointed out to us and the way back to God always with grace, always with grace, it’s going to cost us something, time, effort, money, sleep, weekends, petrol, an ear bashing, and on and on I could go. We have to be willing to engage in buy in to one another’s lives, mentoring being mentored more importantly…we all have so much to learn. But guess what, this is how Christ Jesus mentored and loved his disciples and this is what he wants us to do also. Jesus gave his life as a gift to his disciples so that they could truly live in community so that they could truly love.
If we look at the lives of the disciples after Jesus had returned to heaven we see accountability, accountability from the point of view as we read in Acts that the early believers shared everything they had, that they were of one heart and mind. Deacons were appointed to ensure that widows were being looked after. The church gathered and prayed for the persecuted, for those in prison for their faith. Jesus gave his life as a gift to his disciples so that they could truly live in community so that they could truly love. They spent their lives in worshipping God and building up his body here on earth, mentoring one another and those new to the faith, The Church./
You may be thinking here that this is not about accountability, but if we look at accountability as the same or very similar to responsibility we see that the people of the early church took responsibility for one another very seriously, they loved one another as Jesus had loved them.
So where to? I know that at times people within the church within this church people are struggling, struggling with life, someone else’s comment to them, their past, their present…this is the place where they should be able to find support and find love. There are some who are spiritually bound, looking to luck, horoscopes, and fortune and other gods, rather than engaging in the love of Christ, being the in freedom he gives, helped by His Holy Spirit. There are some who will leave today feeling judged when the scriptures tell us to “judge not”.
Are you looking to Jesus as your example? Are you drawing on His Spirit’s sustaining power?
There are possibilities we have to come along side one another when we are in times of aloneness, brokenness and in the good times, sharing the joys of our lives, giving testimony to what God has done for us are as many as every possible relationship there is in this building. Did you know that on average we have around one hundred and twenty people here on a Sunday and at a guess a couple of thousand people through the building and community ministries during a week. Did you know that on a Sunday there is the possibility for if we all relate to one another 14400 friendships among those 120 people seated here. That’s a lot of loving support a lot of mentoring and if we were each of us able to reach a fraction of those who we meet as they pass through this place during the week, in our work and school at that place we are in during the week and show them love, answer their questions with love and respect. If we could be the example that Jesus commands us to be what difference will there be in this community of Christchurch, in the world.
Are living in the will of God?
Are you looking to Jesus as your example? Are you drawing on His Spirit’s sustaining power?
Today I’m going to invite people to think about, the kingdom difference you can make as you love one another as Christ loved you. I’m going to ask you to think about who in the Corps here you’ve had over for dinner lately, who’s kids you’ve baby sat for no reward, who you’ve formed a relationship with lately with no expectations, what you’ve volunteered for, who you have visited. Then to look at what other opportunities there are to come along side others, be it at the Community Ministries, In the new Senior Services Ministry, Musical Babies, Home League, or in youth or one of the other ministries here at the Corps.
Are you loving as Jesus loved you?/
Are you looking to Jesus as your example? Are you drawing on His Spirit’s sustaining power?
