Sunday, October 23, 2011
• People outside of the Church are watching us
• They’re watching to see if we take the words of Jesus seriously
• They’re watching to see if we really love our neighbors as ourselves—words from the Old Testament book of Leviticus but words that Jesus repeated as He summarized the Law
• The people outside of the Church realize that those are radical words—love your neighbor as yourself
• They’re radical words because it’s a whole different way to live.
• It’s a call to live without revenge, without payback
• It’s living without retaliating, hitting back
• And they’re radical words, because they call on us to love people, all people, not just people in our tribe, they call on us to love people outside of our friends, outside of our family, outside of our community.
• As Leviticus later says in chapter 19, God’s calling on us to love the alien, the stranger, the person completely different than us
• That’s radical, that’s not how most of the world operates
• The people outside of the Church are watching to see if we’re going to be that radical
• The people outside of the Church resonate with these words, resonate, respond to this beautiful, radical love
• But they haven’t always seen this in the Church
• They haven’t always seen Christians as loving neighbors as themselves
• They’ve seen the Church standing off to the side, taking care of their own, judging those outside of the Church
• That’s the perception that many people have—we’re judgmental, we condemn others, we don’t show love
• That’s how we’re seen
• And frankly, we stand accused
• We’re caught in the act of being unloving
• We’re caught not following the radical love of Jesus
• I mean, aren’t they right?
• We don’t always love our neighbors as ourselves
• Here’s how it works:• I’m traveling along in life and come to a moment when I am called to show love to a neighbor (cone)
• Instead, I step aside and take care of myself (bypass cone away from people)
• But here’s what those outside the Church might not realize:
God comes to me, convicts me of my sin (points back to my action), and forgives me in Jesus Christ
• Then He sets me up another moment to love a neighbor (cone)
• Again, I step aside and take care of myself (bypass cone away from people)
• God comes to me, convicts me of my sin, and forgives me in Jesus Christ
• Then He sets me up another moment to love a neighbor (cone)
• This time I follow the Holy Spirit’s leading, I am moved by the love of God to love my neighbor (turn towards congregation)
• Life is a series of cones, a series of moments where sometimes I follow His leading and sometimes I turn my own way
• But at every step of the way, God loves and forgives me
• God is committed to me and to my neighbors
• When I turn to love my neighbor, I’m not trying to earn my salvation—my salvation is secure in Jesus
• Yet, even though my salvation is secure, God is constantly prompting me to live out my faith
• That’s what it means to love my neighbor—I live out my faith, I respond to salvation
• I let God’s love for me flow through me
• So people outside of the Church will be watching us
• Watching us as we get to know our neighborhoods
• Watching to see if we love our neighbors as ourselves
• They’ll be watching to see if we’re as radical as Jesus
• And what will they see?
• They’ll see a series of cones
• They’ll see us take some correct turns and love radically
• They’ll see us take some wrong turns
• They’ll see us be convicted and admit our sins
• They’ll see us rejoice in God’s love and forgiveness
• They’ll see us return to the cones, move forward to try again by God’s power to love our neighbors
• But above all of this, what we pray they see is the love of God
• After all, it’s not really about our love
• It’s about the love of God
• The love of flowing through us to them
• We want them to see Jesus
• We want them to see the beautiful, radical love of Jesus
• The Go! Project is one of these cones
• Find a way to love our neighbors as ourselves
• Find a way to love our neighbors by sharing the Gospel with them
• Describe the Go! Project (thegoproject.org)
• The reason we need the Go! Project is because we don’t naturally love our neighbors as ourselves
• Our sinful instinct is to love ourselves and ignore the needs of others
• Despite the fact that we know the Gospel, still our sinful nature gets the best of us and we keep this Good News to ourselves
• We don’t love our neighbors as ourselves
• We don’t tell our neighbors about Jesus
• We need the Go! Project to jump start us on loving our neighbors
• It’s training us, forming us, giving form to our actions, calling us to live out the Gospel, calling us to live for God
• Of course, it’s not really the Go! Project that jump starts us on loving our neighbors
• I mean, it’s a tool used by God to help us love our neighbors
• What really jump starts us is the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts
• God comes to us, convicts us of our sin, tells us that we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves
• But then God comes to us with a grand word of forgiveness, a grand word of removing that sin from us
• In Jesus, we are forgiven for not loving our neighbors
• In Jesus, we have the promise of eternal life despite our sin
• In Jesus, we are healed from our sinful ways
• In Jesus, we are transformed
• In Jesus, sent back out to love our neighbors, jump started, energized by the love of God
• In other words, when we turn away from loving our neighbors (bypass the cone),
• We find ourselves in front of Jesus
• And He confronts our sin, calls us to repent, and offers us forgiveness—then sends us back to our neighbors
• So either way—on either side of the cone, there’s Jesus
• If I turn away from loving my neighbor, there’s Jesus to confront me and forgive me and send me back
• If I love my neighbor, there’s Jesus, His love flowing right through me
• Either side of the cone, there’s Jesus