I am very pleased to report that we had a great family vacation, and I hope you will be pleased to hear that I am back at work ready to tackle a new season of ministry together. In many ways it does feel like a new season, and I want to talk about that a little more in a few moments. But first I want to thank Colleen and Gail who preached for us these past two Sundays, I’ve had A LOT of people tell me what fantastic messages they both were and am so appreciative for the depth and willingness we have here. I got a semi-panicked email from a pastoral colleague in the city while I was away, who was needing to find someone to preach for him and was wondering if we might spare Pastor Garret or Pastor Sue for a Sunday morning coming up quickly, and it just reminded me how incredibly blessed we are to have so many people who are capable and willing and who can stand up here and share from God’s word and encourage us and point us to Jesus.
A second thanks I want to share is to all of us. Another email I got while on vacation was from our church treasurer, Joyel, and I only chose to read it because it was titled, “We’re in the black”. Yes, together we ended 2012 with a small surplus financially, and I want to just specifically thank all of us for giving to our little corner of the Kingdom of God here at Laurier, and I know you join me in praying that God will be pleased with our stewardship personally and also corporately. Giving is not just about paying our church bills, it is an act of worship to God, and expression of our recognition that God is the only true “owner” and we all have the privilege of being stewards of the resources God entrusts to us, and it is a radically counter-cultural action – in a world that screams about accumulating wealth and stuff we joyfully give money away, and so break that hold of greed and insecurity that can trap our spirits in an ugly box of selfishness and “more more more”.
New Beginnings:
I said a moment ago that it does feel like the start of a new season, and there are a bunch of reasons for that. Obviously, it is the start of a new year. Also obviously, we have just come through the season of Christmas, so we are beginning the next season. Significantly, we once again have a whole facility available to use and so the season of facility crisis and priority is over (though there is still a lot of work to do to finish up, the season has changed from that being a major focus to it being a much smaller focus). But there are some more subtle indicators as well: I am watching the re-awakening of some ministry gifts that have lied dormant among us for a season. I am rejoicing in hearing a bunch of different places where God has called people to pray about a certain thing at a certain time, and those people have obeyed and prayed and even relayed that later on to the people for whom they were praying in a deeply, deeply encouraging way. I am participating in conversations again about ways to lead us as a community to be more and more the Church that God has placed in the middle of the world like a city on a hill or a light on a lamp stand. I am watching strong, powerful expressions of love not in sappy feel-good ways but sometimes in incredibly hard self-sacrificing ways, and it just reminds me of Jesus and His love for us. I am seeing people powerfully impacted by the peace of God amid the reality of death. I know of people making tough choices to deal with issues that in many ways have held them back from the fullness of life in Christ for much of their lives, and seeking God for change in those hard places. I am seeing younger people growing solid in their faith, and maturing in their relationships with peers, and stepping out of a self-consumed focus and starting to look at others around them with a heart to serve. Already this morning I have watched people genuinely enter the presence of the God of the Universe and give God a gift of passionate worship. I see people who have been tired and feeling beaten up by life saying “I refuse to give up or quit, because my Lord Jesus is with me.” I hear people in seasons of grief or struggling with illness saying “Lord, Your will be done.” And I see everyday a community of people who get up and walk through the day following Jesus as Lord.
And you know what, my friends? Those are evidences of the Kingdom of God, here, now. Oh, of course not in its fullness. There is much, much more both in this life and in our life to come in eternity. But it is here, now. Life is here, God is here, the Spirit of God is among us and in us and through us. One of the prayers I continually find myself praying is a line from the Lord’s prayer, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And it is, with even more to come. And for that, I praise God, and I say, “it is good to be here.”
Now that would be a great lead in to an introduction to a new sermon series, a great time for me to segue into an outline of where I plan to head in the next little while, but I confess I don’t yet know what that is yet! I have work to do there, and having just arrived back at work on Wednesday and prioritized caring for people over mapping out a new sermon series, instead this morning I want to return to an old theme, which perhaps speaks also to these new beginnings.
Old Themes:
When I’m looking for a place to start, I often return to those places that seem really foundational, really solid, unquestionable; and for me one of those bedrock kinds of places is Jesus’ response to a question designed to trap him.
Matt 22: “34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
It is a story we are well familiar with, with a point that I think we know well. Love is the most important. Love is what everything else is based on. Love is the foundation, the bedrock, that which is the essence and the core of who God is. Love wins, love triumphs, love rules. We have chosen to say that the two words which define us as a community of God’s people here at Laurier are “Love First”, meaning both that we believe love comes first in the order of priority AND that we choose to Love first.
It is an old theme, to which I find myself continually returning because while it starts out seeming fairly simple to understand, it takes a lifetime to figure out how to actually do. It takes constant vigilance to make sure that our understanding of “love first” is defined by a Biblical definition of love rather than a cultural definition of love. And what is actually a loving action in one time and place may be the opposite in another time and place, so it is a shifting and changing target. And that makes it worth revisiting regularly, reflecting on deeply, examining ourselves under its light continually, and challenging each other to follow completely.
Love For God:
Let’s talk about love for God, illustrated through a story (Job 1).
1 There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters. 3 He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area.
4 Job’s sons would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and they would also invite their three sisters to celebrate with them. 5 When these celebrations ended—sometimes after several days—Job would purify his children. He would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, “Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.
6 One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them. 7 “Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan.
Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
8 Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”
9 Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. 10 You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! 11 But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
12 “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.
13 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting at the oldest brother’s house, 14 a messenger arrived at Job’s home with this news: “Your oxen were plowing, with the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 when the Sabeans raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farmhands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
16 While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “The fire of God has fallen from heaven and burned up your sheep and all the shepherds. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
17 While he was still speaking, a third messenger arrived with this news: “Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
18 While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. 19 Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
20 Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. 21 He said,
“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!”
22 In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.
The story gets worse in the second chapter – Job’s physical health is stripped from him in a further test, and then his wife out of her own deep grief urges him to reject God: “9 His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.”
10 But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.”
How is that a story about love for God? Thoughts from any of you?? Why would I chose that story as something to illustrate Jesus’ “first and greatest commandment”???
• Love God for who He is, not what He gives us
• Obedience is the highest expression of love for God
• Loving God is not always about feeling really great or “rejoicing in the blessings”
• Love for God supercedes the circumstances of our lives
Love for Others:
Let’s talk about love for others. This one is tougher. It is tougher, I think, for a whole bunch of reasons:
• there is so much of “me” in the “loving others” – I get really messed up by my own needs and desires and wants in my relationships that loving others gets really clouded by “me”.
• we equate “loving others” with “being nice”. I hear snippets regularly along this line: “so and so did such and such (negative…), but I didn’t say anything because, you know, love first…”. We equate “loving others” with warm fuzzies – cozy blankets and hot chocolate and saying nice things. And sure, that is part of it, but then I read Jesus and don’t get a lot of warm fuzzies. There are a few, but there are far more harsh realities than warm fuzzies. There is far more of a complete revolutionary in Jesus than a gentle grandpa. So “loving others” does not mean “being nice”.
• What it means to live a life of loving others changes from time to time and season to season. As a toddler, my son thought he should run everywhere and when he was just learning to walk that meant he was likely to run down a flight of stairs or splat his face on the sidewalk, so the loving thing was to run with him and grab him before he fell. But now he is 12, if I ran beside him now with a hand in front and behind, or made him wear overalls so I could grab the straps and keep him from running into something, that would be an act of crazy control rather than an act of love. Perhaps a humorous example, but the principle is really hard. Loving others changes from protecting them from any and all harm, to setting them free and watching them make harmful mistakes which rips us up inside, but the alternative (not allowing them to make decisions and experience the consequences of those decisions) becomes ugly control and futility and destroys relationship.
I’ve chosen another story to illustrate this point about loving others. It’s another familiar story, the prodigal son story, and many of us have related to the story and identified with the story in our lives. Some of us from the perspective of the prodigal – a period of rebellion and disobedience followed by forgiveness. Some of us actually more closely resemble the older brother who follows all the rules and has a deep resentment of the extravagent forgiveness offered by the father to the horrible little brother. But as I read it again now, I want you to see it from the perspective of what it means to love others as God does – imagine yourself as the father in the story. I know some of you don’t need to imagine it, it is all too real. Think of it this way – if the father represents God, which we believe He does, and if we agree with the premise that God is love and all His actions are love, then what does the Father in the story teach us about Jesus’ second greatest commandment to love others? Here’s the story from Luke 15:
“A man had two sons. 12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’
22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’
31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”
So what do you think? What does the Father in the story teach us about Jesus’ second greatest commandment, to love one another?
Conclusion:
Old themes for new beginnings. “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
“Love First” is hard. Job hard. Letting the prodigal walk away with half your money hard, and then being rejected by the older brother who won’t celebrate when the younger brother returns hard. It is not all warm and fuzzy. But it is the best. It is worth it. It is what it means to be like God.
Here is the challenge I leave us with today: love like Jesus loved. He loved God the Father enough to volunteer to come to earth. And He loved us enough to go to the cross and die in our place, even though He knew that we would one day fall at the cross and weep with gratitude, and another day go out and blatantly sin. Love like Jesus loved, because it is worth it. It is the only way to live authentically and with joy even in adversity. It is the only way to live with a perspective that reminds us of eternity. It is the only way to live where we won’t get mired down in the quicksand of our culture, which traps us and sucks us in and manipulates our desires until we almost can’t breathe. It is the only way to live which leads to the life Jesus promised – not of luxury and ease, but of abudant joy, of consuming purpose, and of immeasurable worth. As we do, can you imagine what new things God will do in, among, and through us? That thought excites me. We will see the “Job” stories restored, even greater than before. We will see the “prodigals” come home. And we will join in those parties as well. It might be hard today, but keep Job 42 in mind. And keep the celebration feast in mind.
‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
