A. Let me begin with a story from the Peanut’s cartoons - you know how much I enjoy the Peanuts!
1. It’s Christmas time and Lucy comes to Charlie Brown and says, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! At this time of year I think we should put aside all our differences and try to be kind.”
2. Charlie Brown counters with some questions: “Why does it have to be for just this time of year? Why can’t it be all year ‘round?”
3. Lucy retorts with her negative, disparaging tone: “What are you, some kind of fanatic or something?”
B. Today, I want to declare that when it comes to love, disciples of Jesus are supposed to be some kind of fanatics or something.
1. We are not just supposed to put our differences aside and be kind during the Christmas season, we are supposed to do it all year ‘round.
2. Disciples of Jesus are called to live lives that are characterized by love.
3. Jesus said it clearly and concisely: “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
4. Our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, our love for God, and our love for everyone in the world, even our enemies will be the biggest sign that we are people of God.
C. Today, as we continue our series on discipleship called “I Am A Disciple of Jesus,” we want to begin a new section in our series.
1. So far in this series, we have been focusing on some of the basics of discipleship; like: the call of discipleship, the cost of discipleship, and the command of discipleship.
2. In the last two sermons, we have tried to gain an understanding of the stages of discipleship and the spheres of discipleship, so that we understand how to grow to completeness as a disciple.
3. During the next section in our series, I want us to explore seven elements of a discipleship lifestyle.
4. The first element of a discipleship lifestyle is a commitment to developing loving relationships.
D. It is not a stretch to say that the whole Bible is really about relationships.
1. If you boil the message of the Bible down to its basic elements, it is about our relationship with God and our relationships with others.
2. For instance, think about the 10 Commandments – what are they all about? Relationships!
3. The first four of the 10 Commandments have to do with a person’s relationship with God – no other gods before, don’t misuse the name of God, no graven images, and keep the Sabbath.
4. The last six of the 10 Commandments have to do with a person’s relationships with others – honor your father and mother, don’t lie, steal, kill or covet.
E. You also might recall that when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment in the Bible, He didn’t answer with just one commandment, but gave two.
1. He answered, 37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands” (Matthew 22:37-40).
2. So, according to Jesus, you can surmise that the thing that God thinks is most important is for us to have healthy, loving relationships with Him and with others.
F. This is why for the past four years or so, we have been using the “Loving” graphic as a way to visually express what we intend to be all about.
1. As a congregation of God’s people, we want to be all about “Loving”…loving God, loving people, and loving truth.
G. One of the things that comes through loud and clear from the Bible is that God has hard-wired us for a relationship with Him and for relationships with others.
1. When God created Adam, God had a relationship with Adam there in the garden of Eden.
2. But God knew, even before He created Adam, that He would need to create other human beings for Adam to live with and relate to.
a. In Genesis 2:18, God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper corresponding to him.”
b. And as you know, God created Eve to be that “helper corresponding to him.”
3. This means that our need, desire, and capacity for relationships are part of our hard wiring.
4. It also follows that God has created us to be able to grow and flourish best in a community of faith characterized by loving relationships.
H. When we examine the life and ministry of Jesus, we notice that Jesus employed a relational process to develop His disciples and to train them how to make disciples.
1. Jesus’ method for disciple making involved entering into the world of others and building relationships with them.
2. Jesus didn’t just come to be a human being and die on the cross for our sins, rather He also came to be in relationship with people and to show us what it means to live a godly life, and to be fully alive in our relationship with God and with others.
I. If we want to be disciples of Jesus who are disciple makers like Jesus was, then we have to start where He started and we have to do what He did.
1. We must start by entering into the lives of others.
2. We must form relationships with others having the very heart of Jesus.
3. Jesus formed relationships with others to show them how much God the Father loved them.
4. Robert Coleman writes: “Nothing disarms a person like love. Everyone likes to be loved and for someone to express love to them in tangible ways. When you know you’re loved, you’ll listen and open up. It was Christ loving people, His service to them, His ministry to them – healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, delivering those possessed by demons, teaching them about the Kingdom of God – that drew people to Him, and the same is true with our ministries. You have an audience with everybody who knows they’re loved and knows you care about them.” (Disciple Maker’s Handbook, pg. 65)
J. When I say that Jesus put a priority on relationships, I don’t just mean that Jesus was always hanging out with people.
1. Jesus invested time with people – He ate with them, He talked with and listened to them.
2. Jesus entered into their world and invited them to enter into His world.
3. When we notice the tenderness in Jesus’ interactions with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, we understand that having that level of depth and intimacy with people requires time and effort.
4. And we also learn from looking at Jesus and His relationships with others, that His relationships were characterized by self-giving love – agape love.
5. Jesus lived in a way that sought to meet the needs of others around Him in a selfless way.
6. This was not just seen in His death on the cross, but was seen in His every day life of obedience to His Father’s will as He loved lost sinners and put aside His own needs to serve others.
K. One of Jesus’ most powerful teaching moments when He tried to teach His disciples the primacy of serving people through loving relationships, was in the upper room when He washed their feet.
1. You know how the story goes – the time of His crucifixion was near and Jesus wanted to give His disciples an example of love to follow.
2. So Jesus took the position and task of a servant and washed His disciples dirty feet.
3. The Bible says: 12 When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you.” (Jn. 13:12-15)
4. Jesus then brought this teaching section to a close with this conclusion: 34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (Jn. 13:34-35)
5. Jesus makes clear to them that loving service is the example they should follow.
6. Jesus clarifies that the command to love is made new by His demonstration of love – “Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.”
7. And Jesus concludes that being characterized by love is the evidence of our true discipleship – people will recognize that we know Jesus and are followers of Jesus because of our love.
L. The apostle John picked up on these concepts and expressed them with these words in his first letter: This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).
1. As disciples of Jesus it is critically important that we know how much Jesus has loved us and how Jesus demonstrated His love.
2. Once we grasp the love Jesus showed to us, we must turn around and practice that kind of love with others.
3. Jesus’ love transforms us into people who willingly serve others with love.
4. Learning to love isn’t just one thing among many important things, rather it is the main thing, both in our relationship with God and our relationships with other people.
5. Love is the right answer to so many of the questions we face in our lives and ministries.
6. I like a meme that I saw on Facebook: “Confused about the “Christian response” to social issues? Here’s a handy reference list. (the Meme then listed these people and our need to love)
a. Male, Female, Unsure – love them. Gay, Straight, Unsure – love them. Addict, Sober, Unsure – love them. Believer, Unbeliever, Unsure – love them.
b. Let me add a few others: Legal immigrant, Illegal immigrant, Unsure – love them. Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Unsure – love them. Light skinned, Brown skinned, Black skinned, or any other skinned – love them.
c. Can you think of any person, in any category, where love shouldn’t be the way God wants us to treat them? I can’t!
M. Most of us are familiar with Paul’s wonderful chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul describes what love really is – patient, kind, humble, forgiving, and selfless.
1. Before Paul gets to the qualities of love, he introduces the subject by emphasizing that love must be the motive and reason for the right things that we do.
2. Paul wrote: 1 If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
3. The list of religious activities that Paul gave here are quite impressive and are things we might be tempted to place as a high priority.
a. He lists speaking in tongues, understanding all mysteries and knowledge, faith that moves mountains, and sacrificing our possessions and body.
b. But notice that without love none of these things have much value or reward.
N. So, over and over again, we notice that the message of the Bible is that love is most important.
1. Paul said it this way in Ephesians 5:1-2: 1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.
2. I like Paul’s conclusion in Galatians 5:6: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faith working through love.
3. It is indeed a high calling to imitate God and to walk in love as Christ loved us, and how good it is to know that what really matters is faith expressing itself through love!
O. As we move today’s sermon toward a conclusion, I want to help us know how to put this into practice.
1. Christianity and discipleship are to be lived out in a community characterized by loving relationships.
2. We need to recover a New Testament understanding of discipleship and Christianity.
3. In the New Testament, the early church was all about relational connectedness and didn’t equate the church with a building or an institution.
4. The word “church” is a translation of the Greek word ekklesia, which literally means “those called out.”
5. It describes those who are “called out” from the world into an “assembly” or “gathering” or “congregation” of God’s people.
6. In the New Testament the word “church” is never used to refer to a building, because church buildings didn’t become common place for hundreds of years after Christianity began.
7. The best way to think of the church is to think of it as a large, spiritual, support community, or as an extended spiritual family.
P. I know you are familiar with the beautiful snapshot of early church from Acts 2: 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. 45 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2:42-47).
1. When it says that devoted themselves to “teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer,” that’s a perfect description of the kind of loving, discipling relationships we need in the church.
2. This wasn’t your typical go to worship once a week and then have no contact or connection with Christians the rest of the week.
3. Rather, we see that the early church was gathering regularly, beyond worship, in order to help each other grow spiritually, putting their faith in action, and taking care of each other’s needs.
Q. The point that I want to drive home today is that the only way for disciples of Jesus to be effective in helping other disciples grow or in helping non-Christians become disciples of Jesus is through loving relationships.
1. It is impossible to have a positive effect in the lives of people if we don’t have a relationship with them.
2. Relationships take time and effort, they usually don’t just happen accidentally.
3. We must be intentional in the cultivating of our relationships with others, both inside and outside the church.
R. I realize that this is a challenging message to put into practice right now because of the social distancing that we are experiencing during this COVID-19 pandemic.
1. But I also want us to realize that even before the pandemic hit, there have been societal shifts occurring that are leading people away from community and relationships.
2. Despite having a thousand friends on Facebook or Instagram and being “connected” 24/7, the truth of the matter is that we live in a culture of shallow relationships.
3. We’d rather watch actors pretend to engage in real relationships on TV than forge safe, vulnerable connections of our own.
4. Ten years ago, Neal Gabler wrote these words in a piece in the Los Angeles Times: “The fact is that we miss the friendships we no longer have, and we know that Facebook or emails cannot possibly compensate for the loss. So we sit in front of our television sets and enjoy the dream of friendship instead: a dream where we need never be alone, where there are a group of people who would do anything for us, and where everyone seems to understand us to our very core, just like Jerry and George, Chandler and Joey, Carrie and her girls, or the members of the McKinley High glee club. It is a powerful dream, and it is one that may now be the primary pleasure of television.”
5. Today, Americans have on average fewer friends than they had a decade ago.
6. In the place of actual friends and confidants, we have faux friendships on social media, or we live vicariously through television and the internet.
7. But God wants so much more for us than this, and we need to be intentional about this.
8. We need to break through our culture of isolation and create the relationships that Jesus demonstrated and for which people are made and for which they longing.
9. As I said, it is going to be even harder for us to break through this isolation during COVID, but we need to be figure out a way to do so safely and creatively.
10. Phone calls, Facetime, Google and Zoom meetings may be our best tools for being in touch with each other right now, but more is needed later on.
S. Let’s ask ourselves a few questions to help us think about our discipleship relationships:
1. How isolated are you right now from others?
2. Who in your life knows how you are doing right now - what you are celebrating and what you are struggling with? Who are you trying to minister to right now (Christian and non-Christian)?
3. When was the last time you had a private time of Bible study and prayer with someone?
4. When was the last time did something to build a new friendship with someone, either a Christian or a non-Christian?
5. Because we all have different personalities, how might introverts and extroverts attempt to build and benefit from loving relationships in different ways?
T. Your elders and ministers spend time planning and implementing ways to develop and maintain a loving relational environment that will lead to spiritual and numerical growth.
1. Through our worship gatherings, Bible classes, and small groups, we have sought to create the kind of fellowship we see in the New Testament experience of the early church.
2. I know we have not done that perfectly and that with God’s help we will be able to improve our effectiveness, both during and after the pandemic.
3. We want to facilitate and encourage more discipleship mentoring in small groups and one on one and provide Bible study material that is accessible and easy to use.
4. And the reason for it all is love – God’s love for us and our love for God and for each other.
U. I want to close with a quote from Dale Galloway’s 1986 book, 20/20 Vision: How to Create a Successful Church with Lay Pastors and Cell Groups: “The best ministry is one that is based on love relationships. Love God first. Build strong, loving relationships within your family. Build loving relationships with your staff members…Build loving relationships with your people. Love the prospects and visitors to your church whether they ever do what you wish. The greatest evangelism in this world is just loving people. A successful pastor is one who learns to love people anyway, no matter what they do.”
1. Two of the most effective evangelizers I have known are Glenn Olbricht and Bill Perkins, and do you know what made them most effective? They loved and served people.
2. We would do well to follow their example.
3. And so, the first element of a discipleship lifestyle is a commitment to developing loving relationships.
4. Disciples of Jesus must be characterized by love. Period!
5. All people will know we are disciples of Jesus because of our love.
V. And it all starts with God’s love for us.
1. John 3:16 says that because God so loved the world He gave His Son so that we could be saved.
2. God doesn’t want anyone to be lost, but wants everyone to have a saving relationship with the Lord.
3. Jesus sent out the apostles with the marching orders to make disciples of all nations baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything He commanded (Mt. 28:19).
4. Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mk. 16:16).
5. We would love to help anyone begin a saving relationship with God by helping them profess their faith and be baptized into Christ.
6. We would also love to help anyone who is already in a saved relationship with God to grow in their walk with God.
Resources:
The Disciple Maker’s Handbook, Bobby Harrington and Josh Patrick, Zondervan, 2017.
Neal Gabler, “Commentary: The Social Networks,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 17, 2010.
