2, May 2004
Dakota Community Church
Love in the Family of God
Part Two: Loving the Brethren – A.
Opening Illustration:
What is the church?
Russ Blowers is a minister who is active in his local Indianapolis Rotary club. At club meetings each week a member gives a brief statement about his job. When it was his turn, Russ said: "I’m with a global enterprise. We have branches in every country in the world. We have our representatives in nearly every parliament and boardroom on earth. We’re into motivation and behavior alteration.
We run hospitals, feeding stations, crisis pregnancy centers, universities, publishing houses, and nursing homes. We care for our clients from birth to death.
We are into life insurance and fire insurance. We perform spiritual heart transplants. Our original Organizer owns all the real estate on earth plus an assortment of galaxies and constellations. He knows everything and lives everywhere. Our product is free for the asking. (There’s not enough money to buy it.)
Our CEO was born in a hick town, worked as a carpenter, didn’t own a home, was misunderstood by his family, hated by enemies, walked on water, was condemned to death without a trial, and arose from the dead--I talk with him everyday."
1Peter 2: 1-12
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
2Corinthians 6: 16-18
For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
"I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people."
17Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you."
18"I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters,
Says the LORD Almighty."
Luke 10: 25-28
25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
27He answered: " ’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’ "
28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
A. Why love the church? (This week)
B. What does Real Christian love involve? (After mother’s day)
1. Love for the church marks you as a true believer.
John 13: 34-35
34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
- We car not the Body of Christ on our own.
- It is a powerful witness when we genuinely love.
- Can you claim to be a disciple without a commitment to the Body?
- Are you going to stand before Jesus and tell him you love Him but not His wife
- Not the ones he gave his life for
- Not the ones who were to hold you accountable?
Ephesians 5: 25-27
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
1Peter 2: 16-17
16Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. 17Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.
Ephesians 2: 17-22
17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
2. Love for the church prevents selfish isolation.
1Corinthians 12: 24-26
God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
1John 3: 16-18
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
- The church is our classroom.
- It is where we practice unselfish, sympathetic love.
- This take regular, committed involvement in close contact.
- How do you lay down your life without commitment?
- We learn to practice sacrificial love the Jesus loves us.
Why love the church?
- Love for the church marks you as a true believer.
- Love for the church prevents selfish isolation. And:
3. Love for the church promotes spiritual growth.
You will never grow to maturity if you only casually attend services or drift from group to group without commitment.
It takes full participation in Body life to grow up.
Ephesians 4: 11-16
11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Illustration:
In July of 1984 Charles Colson was speaking at a Baptist gathering.
He told of his change from being an Episcopalian to becoming a Baptist.
He had considered a change dictated by his study of Scripture and his developing personal convictions.
But he did not want his change to be offensive to his dear friends who remained Episcopalian.
Not knowing how to approach the issue, he found himself avoiding his friends.
Then one day his fears were put to rest.
He encountered one of his Episcopalian cronies who assured him there was no problem with his change, but only benefit.
His encouragement to Colson was, “When you left the Episcopalian Church and joined the Baptist Church, you raised the intellectual level of both groups.”
Over 50 times the New Testament uses the phrase “one another” or “each other”.
- Love each other.
- Pray for each other.
- Encourage each other.
- Admonish each other.
- Greet each other.
- Serve each other.
- Teach each other.
- Accept each other.
- Honor each other.
- Bear each other’s burdens.
- Forgive each other.
- Submit to each other.
- Be devoted to each other.
- And many more.
You cannot do these things without committed involvement to a local fellowship.
Christianity is not just between you and God. Christianity is between you and God and Each of us.
If you are not part of a local church with whom do you do these things with?
But I don’t want to forgive,
I don’t want to submit,
I don’t want to serve. – You are in rebellion and your growth has ceased.
It may be easier to feel holy when you go solo but it is an illusion.
POEM:
To live above with the saints in love
Will be eternal glory,
To live below with the saints I know.
Well that’s a different story.
- Unknown
Why love the church?
- Love for the church marks you as a true believer.
- Love for the church prevents selfish isolation.
- Love for the church promotes spiritual growth. And:
4. Love for the church keeps us accountable.
None of us are immune to temptation.
- We are all capable of falling into sin.
- We are capable of becoming discouraged or lukewarm.
- We need each other to keep on track.
Mind your own business is not a Christian phrase.
Hebrews 3: 12-13
12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
James 5: 19-20 (Message Bible)
19My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back 20and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.
Hebrews 13: 17
17Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Illustration:
One older pastor gave some great advice to younger ministers, He said, “Trust the people in your pew’s. They are smarter than you are…that is why you’re the pastor!”
This is not about conformity; we are not supposed to be carbon copies. I am not in any advocating spiritual abuse.
C.S. Lewis on membership:
The very word membership is of Christian origin, but it has been taken over by the world and emptied of all meaning. In any book on logic you may see the expression “members of a class”. It must be most emphatically stated that the items or particulars included in a homogeneous class are almost the reverse of what St. Paul meant by members. By members … he meant what we should call organs, things essentially different from, and complimentary to, one another, things differing not only in structure and function but also in dignity.
How true membership in a body differs from inclusion in a collective may be seen in the structure of a family. The grandfather, the parents, the grown-up son, the child, the dog, and the cat are true members (in the organic sense), precisely because they are not members or units of a homogenous class. They are not interchangeable. Each person is almost a species in himself. The mother is not simply a different person from the daughter; she is a different kind of person. The grown-up brother is not simply one unit in the class of children; he is a separate estate of the realm. The father and grandfather are almost as different as the cat and the dog. If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure. Its unity is a unity of unlikes, almost incommensurables.
Bono of U2 in “One”:
Have you come here for forgiveness - Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus - To the lepers in your head?
Did I ask too much - More than a lot?
You gave me nothing - Now it’s all I got
We’re one - But we’re not the same
Well we - Hurt each other - Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple - Love a higher law - Love is a temple - Love the higher law
You ask me to enter - But then you make me crawl
And I can’t be holding on - To what you got - When all you got is hurt
One love - One blood - One life
You got to do what you should
One life - With each other - Sisters - Brothers
One life - But we’re not the same
We get to - Carry each other - Carry each other
One...life
Why love the church?
- Love for the church marks you as a true believer.
- Love for the church prevents selfish isolation.
- Love for the church promotes spiritual growth.
- Love for the church keeps us accountable. And finally:
5. Love for the church provides purpose and mission.
The church is the place where you discover your spiritual gifts and learn to use them.
- You have a ministry and therefore someone needs what you have.
- Life has meaning and purpose beyond self.
- Jesus has not promised to build individual ministries, he has promised to build his church.
1Corinthians 12: 4-7
4There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
Ephesians 2: 10
10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
The church is the one place where all your deepest needs can find fulfillment:
- A purpose to live for
- People to live with
- Principles to live by
- A profession to live out
- Power to live on
Next Week:
- Mother’s Day Message – “A Mother’s Love”
Following Week:
– What does Real Christian love in the church involve?
