p>1 John 4:7-12:
7 – Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 – Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 – This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.
10 – This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 – Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 – No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.
This is the Word of the Lord; Thanks be to God.
I turned 51 this year, and as I did it hit me that I’m beginning to age. I say this because not only have I lost my hair, like many of you, at times I’ve also had trouble retaining my memory. I’ve started experiencing more and more of what we refer to as “senior moments. ” In fact it feels like they’ve become a part of my every day existence.
You know what I’m talking about-
- You go downstairs to get something and when you get there you can’t remember what it was you went down to get. No matter how much you wrinkle your brow-even if yours is a brow that has expanded to the size of mine-you still can’t remember why you came downstairs, that is until you get back UPstairs!
- Or, you’re involved in a group discussion with some friends about some hot topic and as people banter back and forth you get this great insight, but when you get your chance to share it, you suddenly forget what it was you were going to say.
- Or, you start telling a great joke to a co-worker or neighbor, but when the time comes to deliver the punch line you can’t recall what it was. How many of you can relate?
Well, as I said I’ve had more and more of these forgetful “senior” moments as of late. The older I get, the worse it gets. In fact the other day I realized there are three things I ALWAYS have trouble remembering. Let’s see, first there’s …
Well, the fact is, churches can have senior moments as well. Local bodies of believers can forget things-important things-things they really need to remember. As a church ages many times its congregation begins to forget what they are called to do and be and why. If they’re not careful they loose their sense of identity, they forget who they are. So from time to time it is prudent for wise pastors-especially aging ones-to remind their congregations of these important things. And, for the next four weeks that’s what I’m going to do here at Redland. I’m going to use my sermon time to refresh our memory when it comes to four of the essential beliefs that we hold.
One reason I want to do this is because these foundational truths are the source of the wonderful unity we enjoy here at Redland. Do you remember Philip Melanchthon’s famous saying that I have quoted so often in past years? Melanchthon-Martin Luther’s companion-said that in a healthy church there is, “…freedom in the non-essentials, UNITY in the essentials, and love in all things. ”
And the truth is, these essentials not only give us our precious unity, they are also part of our unique identity as a local body of believers. The fact that we all embrace these same essential beliefs is part of what makes Redland the precious church that it is. These beliefs help make Redland, Redland. For that reason I’ve decided to call this series, “Who Are We?” and my goal is to refresh our corporate memory by answering that question in four ways. Next Sunday the thrust of my message will be to remind us all that Redland is a church that believes in the authority of Scripture. Then on October 9 the sermon’s purpose will be to jog our memories, helping us to never forget that we are a church that believes Jesus Christ is God’s Only Son. On October 16th I want us to use our time together to look back and remember that God has called us to be, a church that is driven by grace. And this morning I want to get things started by looking at our essential belief about the nature of the church itself. I want us to both remember and renew our commitment to always be a church that believes in one-anothering.
Now, it is important that we get our “one-anothering” right. It is important that our church foster and cherish healthy relationships among our members because the Bible teaches that genuine Christian community is one of the richest experiences you and I can have in this life. Bill Hybels writes that healthy Christian community, “…makes your heart bigger. It helps keep you steady in a storm. It ends your aloneness. ” And, as we are learning in our Wednesday night study of Chip Ingram’s book, “Christian community is the key to personal transformation. ” Well both these guys are right; being a part of a one-anothering church is a truly wonderful thing. Godly Christian relationships do indeed bless us because God designed us to function best in community. “God wired us up to know and be known, to love and be loved, to serve and be served, to celebrate and be celebrated. ”
Unfortunately our society seems to disagree with this principle because these days it is becoming more and more anti-community. Robert Putnam is a professor at Harvard and he’s written a book entitled, Bowling Alone in which he talks about the decline in community life in America over the last four decades. The title of his book comes from a trivial but telling example: the percentage of adults who belong to a bowling league today is only about one fourth of what it was in the 1960s. But here are some other examples he cites.
- The percentage of people who volunteer in a political campaign-stuffing envelopes, making phone calls, going door-to-door-is about half what it was in the 1960’s.
- Active membership in local clubs and organizations like the PTA has dropped by about half what it was in the 1970’s.
- People are visiting one another less frequently, having friends over for dinner less frequently, getting together to play cards less frequently.
In short, every objective measure of participation in civic life is declining, and there are several causes: TV, suburban sprawl replacing neighborhoods, dual-career families, long commutes, etc. But for whatever reason, there are forces in our society that are pulling people apart-isolating them-making it more difficult for them to come together in community. And as a church in this culture, we are subject to the same forces so we have to be intentional about building and maintaining healthy community-healthy “one-anothering”-or these same forces will separate us and isolate us from each other as well. Let me put it this way: we are rowing against the current of our culture and if we do nothing we’ll be swept downstream so we must each strive to never forget this first foundational truth. I mean, this belief is indeed an essential one if Redland is to fulfill its unique purpose. But, I also want to remind you that this cultural decline in connectedness is not all bad news because it presents us with an evangelistic opportunity. You see, even though the level ofneedNEED for connectedness has not.
Remember, as I said a moment ago this is how we are “built. ” God designed us to function as social beings so all people are still hungry for fellowship, hungry for healthy one-anothering. And if they see that we enjoy healthy relationships in our church family, if they see that we get our one-anothering right, they will naturally want to be a part of us. Our healthy church fellowship will give us an opportunity to introduce lost people to Jesus, as we tell them that the source of our community is our common union with Him. Let’s put it this way, the better we are at truly loving one another-the closer we are as a church family-the more power we will have as a church when it comes to leading lost people to Jesus. This reminds me of an old Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy demands that Linus change the channel on the TV and threatens him with her fist if he won’t do it. At first, Linus isn’t too frightened by this threat and says, “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” With a scowl on her face, Lucy replies, “These five fingers. Individually they are nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold!” Immediately Linus responds, “Which channel do you want?” As he’s walking toward the TV he looks at his fingers and says, “Why can’t you guys get organized like that?”
Now I’m certainly not condoning Lucy’s methods but I do think this particular Peanuts episode serves as a great reminder of the power of togetherness-connectedness. When a church enjoys close-knit relationships, when its members genuinely love one another, that church will enjoy incredible evangelistic power. Do you remember the words of verse 12 of our text? John writes, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. ” This reminds me of John 12:32 where Jesus said, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself. . . ” because, one way we “lift Jesus up” is when we love as only He can love. When does live in us and then they are drawn to Him. This is why healthy, growing churches always remember to pattern themselves after the church in Jerusalem in that they, “… devote themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to fellowship. ”
As I said, this is something that we believe in here at Redland, we believe in getting our one-anothering right. We’re not perfect-we have to work at it at times-but we believe in close relationships, genuine relationships. We believe in sharing our lives together here because not only do we benefit, the lost world around us does as well. I came across a “word picture” this week that illustrates this for me. There was once a very poor family that couldn’t afford a Christmas tree. They waited until Christmas Eve and found a tree that was OK on one side, but pretty bare on the other. Then they picked out another one that was full in the front and scraggly in the back. They nervously offered $3 to the salesman, hoping he would take the money, and he accepted because no one else wanted the two “half-trees.” Later that night, the salesman was walking down the street and saw a beautiful tree in the couple’s apartment. It was thick and well-rounded. He knocked on the door and asked them how they got such a beautiful tree. The husband showed him how they had worked the trees close together where the branches were thin and tied their trunks together. The branches overlapped and formed a tree so thick you could no longer see that there were two. Well, this is a picture of our desire for Redland. We know that when we get our one-anothering right an amazing thing happens. God takes our individual weaknesses and ties all us scraggly people together and when He does the result is beautiful to behold, a complete, attractive body of Christ, one that draws people, like that tree drew the salesman. We’re not perfect-no church is-but we’re committed to doing all we can to get this right. We’re committed to obeying God’s command in Colossians where it says that we are to, “let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts-since as members of one body, we are called to peace. ”
And as I have said, this morning I want us to remind ourselves of this. In fact, I’d like to take the rest of my time to point out practical ways to do this, behaviors that combine to help us love one another in a Godly way. I want us to do this by looking at four of the many examples in which a verb of command is combined with the words “one another” in Scripture. Think of them as behaviors that describe the way members of a church should interact.
(1) The first is found in Romans 12:10 where it says that we are to, “HONOR one another. “
Listen to the entire verse, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. ” And I love the way J. B. Phillips phrases it. J. B. says,
“Let’s have no IMITATION Christian love. . . let’s have real warm affection for one another as between brothers and a willingness to let the other man have the credit. ”
This verse teaches that in order to experience healthy community, Christians who make up local churches must have a love that is characterized by a cooperative spirit. There should be no competition, no trying to outdo one another. We should always come together eager to listen to one another and respect each other’s views as important. After all, we are each working toward the same goals-we have the same great commission-given to us by the same Lord. And, as the Bible teaches, we are all uniquely gifted by God to fulfill some aspect of this great commission so we are all equally important.
Think of the engine in your car: if it’s parts don’t exhibit a cooperative spirit you have a problem because each part from the smallest to the largest is vital to it’s operation. I guess you could say that its parts are designed to respect each other. Well, the same is true of the local church. We are all gifted and talented by God and so we work together out of this love that is characterized by a mutual respect.
And I know I’m biased but I must say, this is not difficult to do here at Redland because there is so much unique giftedness to respect and honor. To cite only a few examples, there’s Bill Wehunt’s vision, Gladys McClain’s wisdom, and Charlie Brinkman’s passion for evangelism. There’s Buddy Young’s carpentry skills, C. C. Day’s teaching skills, Paul Jordan’s solo voice. There’s Kathy Sternfeld’s servanthood attitude, Mike Bliss’ talent when it comes to sports, Melissa Boyum’s talents in the kitchen, Brian Lagas’ heart for the poor. In fact, if you don’t mind sitting still a couple hours or so beyond the normal length of this service I’ll go get the directory and we’ll go down the list name by name because it is so easy to see God’s gift-giving work in the wonderful people of this church. There’s so much to honor and respect! We are truly blessed here at Redland! In fact one visitor recently commented that they were amazed to see so many members in our church personally involved in ministry. Understand, not only is that a great compliment, it is also an indication of the fact that we do honor one another around here. We respect and make use of our God given talents and abilities. Let’s never forget this because when we nurture this mutual respect such that people feel comfortable pooling their unique talents, well, things get done!
So many churches don’t get anything done for the Lord-their members never grow spiritually, the church as a whole never grows numerically-because they lack this one basic, foundational quality of one-anothering. They constantly waste their time and energy fighting and squabbling over non-essential things because they don’t respect one another. In my study this week I came across the description of something that happened back in the 1750’s when the British and French were fighting in Canada. Admiral Phipps, commander of the British fleet, was told to anchor outside Quebec and wait for the British land forces to arrive so he could support them when they attacked the city. But as the admiral waited, he became annoyed by the statues of some saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral, so he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ship’s cannons. Well, hours later when the signal was finally given to attack, the admiral was of no help because he had used up all his ammunition shooting at the “saints. “And, unfortunately, the same could be said about some churches today. When God calls on them to do something great for Him they have nothing left to give because they’ve used up their “ammo” shelling the saints. They make themselves incapable of fighting the true enemy because they fight each other.
(2)The second trait of a one-anothering church is the ability to admonish one another.
In Romans 15:14 Paul says,
“I myself feel certain that you, my brothers, have real Christian character and experience and that you are capable of admonishing one another. “
Again I like the Philips phrase that says, “I’m sure you are capable of keeping one another on the right road. ”
One of the best ways my parents showed the depth of their love for me and my siblings was the simple act of punishing us when we did wrong. They warned all four of us if we were about to do something stupid and when we ignored their guidance they punished us so that we would be less likely to repeat our mistakes. And over the years my brothers and sister have continued to correct me and I them. We have helped each other to avoid many painful experiences with all this loving admonishing. In short, my biological family has loved me enough to take the time and effort to keep me on the right road when I started to veer off of it and I’m so glad they did. Well, this text is teaching us that a healthy church family is made up of members who love one another in the same way. They follow the example of their Heavenly Father, Who, “. . . disciplines and reproves those He loves. ” (Revelation 3:19)
And you know the truth is we need a community that loves like this because we need the perspective of others in life. You see, the truth is other people can see things about us, things that we just can’t see from our perspective. You know, I did not realize how bald I was until I looked in one of those sets of six mirrors at clothing stores and was finally able to see part of my head I had never seen before. It’s kind of like the dark side of the moon back there! But, think about it for a moment-the way our eyes are positioned, we can only see about 70% of our physical bodies. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news but some of you are probably balder than you think! I mean, if it were not for some outside reflector, such as a mirror we would never know what our faces or the back of our heads or the back of our shoulders look like. It takes something other than ourselves to be able to see all of ourselves, and what is true in terms of our physical bodies is true about other aspects of our personhood as well. We need each other to help us become all that we can be for Jesus. We need the perspective that other members of this church give, a perspective that sees things we can’t see.
One of the best examples of this is when we start slipping into sin-sin blinds us-it deludes us and this is where a fellow believer comes in handy as they see this and try to steer us clear. Now I’m not saying that we should take it on ourselves to tell everyone here what their faults are. I’m simply saying that when we see a fellow Christian heading down the wrong road, we should, in love-and this is the key-motivated by love we should tell him or her and help him or her to get back on the right road. And it works both ways, when we are “admonished” by a fellow Christian, we should not get angry and go run to the pastor or someone else and gossip and complain. No, we should accept that admonition in love. In fact, we should thank the person for caring about us enough to tell us.
I mean confronting someone with their sin is never a pleasant experience-trust me! But if you love someone-truly love them-then you are willing to do this uncomfortable thing. You’re willing to risk saying painful things if pain is the only way to bring about growth. Here at Redland if someone is involved in unrepentant sin, and refuses to turn from it, we love them so much that if necessary we remove them from leadership until they do repent and get back on the right road. Over the years as a minister I’ve had to do that several times-and it was always hard for me-always difficult-always something I have absolutely dreaded doing. But I did it-after a great deal of prayer of course-and I did it because I knew it was the loving thing to do.
You know, so often we confuse love with softness. When we speak of doing the “loving thing” we usually mean doing what the person would want us to do. But this is not love, in fact it’s not even sane. Try loving a three-year old in this way and odds are she will never make it to four. No, genuine love, pure love, agape love, is a love that is willing to offend, disturb, or even hurt those who are being loved if it is for their good. True love is a willingness to warn, reprove, or confront when necessary. And isn’t it great to have someone in your life who loves you enough to be honest with you when you are doing something that will hurt you, or will hurt others? I don’t know about you but I am so very thankful for people like that in my own life, people who loved me enough to put themselves in the uncomfortable position of telling me I was wrong in some behavior. I wish I’d listened to them more often than I did!
(3) The third quality of one-anothering that a healthy church needs is the regular practice of encouraging one another.
As Hebrews 10:24 says, we should, “… think of one another and how we can encourage one another to love and do good deeds. ”
Charles Swindoll has re-written the old campfire song “Home On the Range. ” Listen as I sing you his version:
“O give me a church
where folks in the lurch
are encouraged, then healed from above;
where seldom is heard
a discouraging word,
and the truth is there modeled in love.”
I like that, because this is what the church should be like! We all need a place where we can go to be EN-couraged because the world is such a DIS-couraging place!
By the way, do you remember my telling you years ago that the Greek word for encouragement is from the same root of the word Holy Spirit? In case you’ve forgotten I’ll tell you again! The Greek for Holy Spirit is para kaleo and it means “one who is called alongside to help” and this is the same meaning of the Greek word for encouragement. So, this little Greek study helps us to see that when we encourage others in the local church we come as close to the work of the Holy Spirit as anything we can do in God’s family. I would go so far as to say that an individual is never more Christ-like than when full of compassion they come alongside of those who are down, needy, discouraged, forgotten, or fearful, and simply encourage them.
I don’t want to embarrass our chairman of deacons but Fred Corley is such an encouragement to me. We meet every Wednesday at 5pm to pray for our church and it’s ministries and he never fails to encourage me with his words. He’s so complimentary! Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Well, I don’t have to wait that long because Fred gives me several compliments every week! I thank God for his skill at this vital form of one-anothering. Well, we all need encouragers like Fred. Like the spectators at the Boston Marathon, cheering on the runners, we all need encouragers as we “run” the “race of life. ” We need people to stand and cheer for us when our legs feel like rubber and our chest is on fire, when we would give almost anything just to be able to stop running the race and quit.
(4) And then the fourth quality of one anothering that should be found in a healthy church appears in Galatians 6:2 where it says, “bear one another’s burdens.”
The first church, the believers in Jerusalem were known for this behavior. As Acts 2:44-5 says,
“All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.“
Did you catch that? They had everything in common. Not only did they share joys, they shared sorrows, they shared needs, they bore each other’s burdens.
I like what Charles Swindoll says about this in his book, The Bride-Renewing Our Passion for the Church. He writes,
“The church was never meant to be merely a set of buildings where you come, sit, worship, learn, and leave. The church is a community of believers who demonstrate genuine concern for each other.”
And he is right. In fact, true koinonia-genuine concern-is expressed in a church family in two ways. First, we share somehting with someone, something tangible. We help someone with a physical need. They need food, we share our food with them. They need shelter, we share our shelter with them. Second, we share something with someone. When something wonderful happens to someone, we all rejoice. And when there is weeping, we all weep.
We’ve been praying for a family in my mom’s church in Dover for over a year now. This family’s 19-year-old daughter-the only child, only grand-child in that Godly family-has been fighting lung-cancer. She died this past Sunday night and the funeral was yesterday. I know that the members of First Southern are weeping with that family, because that family is a part of that local BODY of Christ,so when one part hurts, they all hurt. They share burdens!
And we do that here as well. When our deacons share the life of the church by telling us of a birth (as they did a moment ago) we all smile. In fact I can “hear” you smiling. And when we share a sorrow, like Bessie falling, or news of one of us who has had a family member pass away, we all sigh with sorrow. We believe in sharing life here, it’s joys and it’s sorrows. In fact I am so proud of the way you do this, the way you make meeting each other’s needs each other’s responsibility. I mean, you faithfully give sacrificially to our deacon benevolence fund enabling our servants to give tens of thousands of dollars to help our membership over the years. You faithfully bring meals to the families who have sickness. I was so proud to hear that five of our teens recently gave a precious Saturday to do much needed yard work for one of our widows. A couple weeks ago Belinda Jarrett gave a day and a tank of gas to transport all the school supplies to Baltimore that this body of believers donated to inner city children. Twenty some odd of you went with Brian and Carrie Lagas on a recent Saturday to work at the Manna Food bank. And again I could go on and on. But understand, I do all this name-dropping not to make you prideful but to prevent your becoming forgetful, because this is an essential around here. This is part of what makes Redland special. We believe in being our brother’s keeper. We believe in sharing life. We believe in bearing each other’s burdens.
You know, when we get our one-anothering right, not only do we benefit, the lost world does as well, because as I have said repeatedly in this message, healthy one-anothering lifts Jesus up and draws lost people to Him. When we love one another the world sees God in us and they sit up and notice. We find a perfect example of this in the response of Christians to Hurricane Katrina and I say this because over the past few weeks I’ve seen a very rare thing. Numerous Christian leaders have been interviewed on shows like Good Morning America. People like Franklin Graham and Rick Warren-and that is indeed unique-I mean they are not the typical guests on morning talk shows these days. But because of the response of Christians to this tragedy, they are making the news; they are getting a unique opportunity to say that we do this because of the love of God.
Robin Williams told Rick Warren, “Rick, we’ve noticed that thousands of churches-tens of thousands of Christian volunteers are helping people. Damaged churches with no help from Fema or Red Cross are opening their doors to help people, WHY?” Warren replied by saying something like,
“Well you are right, Robin. Christians ARE helping. In fact most of the volunteers at the Red Cross are church members, and most Red Cross shelters are at churches. You know, people wonder where God is when hurricanes strike. Well they need to know that God cares for them and here’s where He is. He’s in these Christians. He’s in the lives of thousands of people who love Him. They are acting as His flesh. . . showing His love in practical ways.”
Even the Washington Post, a newspaper that I think most of us would admit has liberal leaning-even it noticed the church getting it’s one anothering right. In last Sunday’s edition there was an article entitled, “For Wandering Souls, Shiloh is Salvation. ” Listen to this excerpt:
“Kelly Ann Taylor, sickened by Crohn’s disease made it out of Katrina to Shiloh Church after the storm destroyed her home. Dwayne Martin stepped outside his New Orleans apartment during the early hours of Katrina and was shocked by what he saw. He said, ‘It was like the wind was pushing back Pharaoh’s army. ‘ Two days after the storm hit, he too landed at Shiloh Church saying it was nothing short of a miracle. Thomas Lallande, a 60-year old Navy retiree, thought his life might end out there on Interstate 10, his arm broken, his feet bleeding and swollen. After he knocked on the door of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, he collapsed. Three souls landing at a church on a street none had ever laid eyes on before. In some ways, there is nothing special about the haven these three have found. It is neither overly large, overly rich, nor overly righteous. It is merely one of hundreds of houses of faith that have opened their doors to the diaspora wrought by Katrina. ”
Isn’t it wonderful to see the world recognizing us as God’s children? Well Redlander, I hope this helps you see that we must never forget the importance of getting our one-anothering right.
Now, I want us to stop for a few moments of self examination. Bow your head and ask yourself, “Am I an encourager? Do I help others in this body with their burdens? Do I help keep the individuals in this church on the right track? Do I honor the members of this church? Do I love my fellow Redlanders in the way that Jesus loves me?” Father God, Show us what we each need to do to get our one anothering right. Help us to never forget the importance of our doing so. In Jesus name I pray. AMEN
As we come to our time of decision you may feel led to go to another member of this church in coming days and apologize for a time when you didn’t respect them, or thank someone for admonishing you, or tell someone you want to help them bear a burden. God may have put it on your heart to encourage someone. I encourage you to obey God if He leads in these ways.
This morning you may realize that God is calling you to be a part of this church. We would love to have you! And then, perhaps you’ve never professed your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and today you realize that this is what’s missing from your life. As we stand and sing, come as God leads.