Focus: Love at Advent
Function: To help people see the welcome that God gives to humanity.
Form: GOK
Intro:
What a strange scripture for advent and Christmas season.
But today's lesson and emphasis focuses on love.
For those who have been in Churches most Sundays for their entire lives, how many have ever heard a sermon about Christian Love titled “Sloppy Agape?”
Agape is one of the 4 words for Love in the Greek language, the language in which the New Testament was written. Some theologians say that the meaning of this love can only be fully described by in the context of Christianity.
However, the word existed before the Christian faith began. The ancients understood the concept. I remember the first time I heard a sermon titled: “Sloppy Agape.” It was a rebuke toward the Church I attended about how because of their fighting they lost their Christian identity. They were harboring bitterness, envy, and unforgiveness and the pastor was calling an end to it.
I heard the sermon, and I was a babe in Christ. My wife was not really buying into my fanatic Christian faith at the time and that caused some conflict.
And the pastor, speaking from 1 John 4:7-8 says “God is love and everyone who knows God, knows love.” And then, he said: “Everyone who does not yet know God, does not yet know what love really is.”
So I took that last statement too far, went home and told my wife, a year and a half into our marriage, that I didn't love her when I married her because I didn't yet know God and therefore, could not have known love.
Guys, that isn't a good way to win your wives love, or to bring her to a relationship with Jesus. Learn from my mistake.
Actually, that was really bad bible theology. Ephesians 5: 21-33 tells us that everyone gets a view of God and His love for humanity in the way that a man and wife should love each other. Marriage, in God's eyes is a covenant of commitment, self-sacrifice, love and respect that also illustrates the love, respect, commitment and self-sacrifice that God has for us.
The word agape is unique in that it expresses love that is an act of the will, not based on a feeling. It is a choice we make. That is perhaps why the King James translates “Love” as “Charity” in 1 Corinthians 13.
Agape love, self-sacrificing love, is something that believers and unbelievers, those who are in the family and those not yet in the family of God can understand.
Christmas, is a time when everyone celebrates that idea. That is why crimes committed against Christmas, like stealing presents, or defrauding someone's good nature around the Christmas Spirit offend us more than others.
This passage deals with the love inside God's family.
It talks about how members of God's family should treat each other. And that love is a test for whether or not a Church can grow. If they can treat each other right, then God will entrust them with His babies to care for.
So, look at what God is teaching us in the lesson the Apostle gives about accepting those who are weaker in faith.
I love the clear words: “we put up with each other's weaknesses.” And, “we do it because as Christians, we are no longer living to please ourselves.”
Did you know that before Brethren baptized, and the reason they never baptized Children, was because the decision to follow Christ was and is not to be taken lightly. The phrase: “Count well the cost” was preached to every candidate for baptism.
It comes from the biblical commands to put others first, to accept both Jesus' salvation and His lifestyle of service to God and others.
Too often, the Church has turned away from the idea of living sacrificially. It sometimes has turned in on its head. I remember a youth retreat once, one of the advisors came to me in a panic because it was raining and the kids weren't having fun.
But love, Christian love, demands sacrifice. Sometimes it isn't easy.
You probably know the history of the fish symbol and Christianity. During the first 3 centuries, Christians were hunted down and murdered, placed in the Coliseums as entertainment for the crowds and sacrifices for the lions and gladiators. So they hid. And in Rome, and most Roman cites across the empire, they dug underground tunnels to bury the dead. Christians hid in those tunnels. In order for them to find each other, they marked their hiding places with a fish. The Greek Letters that spell fish, IKTHUS are an acrostic for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.
When they were baptized, they did indeed count the cost. Their conversion into the family of God would cost them their lives if they were caught.
Count the cost. The symbol of baptism is this: We are buried (in death to ourselves) when we are plunged under the water and we are born again to a new life, a life living for Jesus when we are brought back out of the water.
The image is death to ourselves.
And so, back then, as it is now, people made the covenant to live for God and others, as living sacrifices, but soon crawled back off the altar and started criticizing others.
And what was happening was nothing more than religious pride. In the previous chapter, we read how the Church got into a battle of legalism. Legalism happens when we place the rules over the relationship. When we elevate the letter of the law over the Spirit of the law. Or, when we use the letter of the law to denounce our brother and sister just because we are having a personal conflict that Jesus is testing us with. For example, the Pharisees condemned Jesus' apostles for cracking open wheat to eat on the Sabbath day. And Jesus said, the law of the Sabbath wasn't made to place a burden on people, but to give people rest. And so, if a person is forced to be hungry, then they can do what ever it takes to eat.
At the time of writing the letter, there were three practices that some did which didn't bother their conscience, but they bothered others.
The first was eating meat. If you read the Old Testament, or go to a 7th Day Adventist Church you may hear this. When God created humanity, all the way back in the garden of Eden, it wasn't His original intent for humanity to eat flesh. And this group of legalistic people believed it was more spiritual to go back to the created order, and therefore decided that if you really love God, you will not eat meat.
I AM NOT SAYING THAT VEGETARIANS ARE LEGALISTIC. There are good reasons to be vegetarian, even the idea that they do not want to take the life of any other animal. But in Rome, they turned it into spiritual competition.
It also centered on the day for worship. Some said, the OT law establishes Saturday, the Sabbath “forever.” Therefore the day of rest should be Saturday. Others said, But Jesus rose on Sunday. They called it “The Lord's Day.” And in order to celebrate the resurrection they switched worship to Sunday. There is New Testament support for both practices. He also mentions those who don't practice a day, but use the concept of Sabbath as a Spiritual metaphor. The exact phrase in Romans 14:6 is One person believes it is one day (Saturday), another person believes it is another day (Sunday) and some people regard every day the same.
And finally, he mentions the drinking of wine.
All of these areas are areas that are subject to personal conviction and preference. We are not to make a moral judgment about another person because they are not convicted in the same way we are. These things are are a test to see if we can love.
The Spiritual principle in the test is this: ”The way we treat each other is to live `not just to please ourselves' but to please others.”
So when people who call themselves Christians walk around letting everyone else know just how badly they have been hurt by someone else, or how uncomfortable they are with someone else's music or worship preferences. When people complain that the other way of doing something doesn't please them, then they have forgot to live in a manner that pleases Christ by pleasing others.
We have died to ourselves and have come alive to Christ Jesus.
Christmas is this time of giving, sharing, extending hope, expressing love. The whole idea behind the presents was supposed to be about self-sacrifice.
When I was in Bible College, we had 2 children born without health insurance. I was working part-time and going to school full-time. Kathy was baby-sitting up to 16 kids. Our lives were hectic and we were really poor. But it was beautiful time.
I remember one year we decided to give sacrificially. We weren't focused on our own poverty, because we saw the poverty in 3rd world countries and compared to them, we were living rather well.
So, we gave $50. $50 that we didn't have. Someone gave us $100. We turned around and gave away that $100 and someone gave us $500. So we gave away $500, and a car to someone whose needs were greater than our own. Someone gave us $1,000 and then, a wealthy family decided to spend their Christmas on us and showed up with two huge bags of presents, toys, coats, clothes and etc.
We finally realized that we couldn't out-give God.
I've told that story many times. And inevitably, I hear: “You should have given away the $1,000!”
I was tempted. But I needed that $50. I needed that $100, I needed that $500 and I needed that car. Everyone of those was still a sacrifice.
By then, I learned the lesson. You can't out give God. I believed that to have given away that $1,000, I would have sinned by putting God to the test. I wasn't doing a financial transaction, or an investment.
You see it, don't you? The Command is to live self-sacrificing lives to please God and others.
There is only one way to be self-sacrificing. Count the cost.
I was talking with Dave Beebe last Thursday. Dave was a seminary student who attended here while he was preparing for ministry.
He told me that he preached here, about three years ago, the Sunday before I came to this Church as its pastor. He said his sermon was this: He showed you Ephesians 4:12, that the Pastor's job is to equip you, the Church, to build the Kingdom and he said: “Pastor Phil isn't responsible for building this church up, you are.”
Many of you know and love Dave. He called me for some encouragement. When he was posted at the Church he pastor's, I told him this: “No one should have to go there for their first pastoral placement. That church is a pastor killer.” I know the history of the Church. So, I didn't congratulate him.
And he is having quite a bit of problems with some shenanigans created by a few who have leadership authority. They are trying to fire the youth pastor and they are fudging the budget numbers to justify it when he knows the real problem is lack of forgiveness and loss of control.
Pray for Dave. He needs prayer support. He recognizes that it is spiritual warfare.
We talked a little bit about here. He is aware of what is happening, the conflict around this criminal case and he said this when we were talking about Brethren values.
I want you to hear it. He said: “The problem with American Christianity, the churches that buy into a form of civil religion is this, people don't count the cost when they are baptized. They are told that becoming a Christian is a smart financial move, a solid political move, and a move that will bring the blessings of God into every area of your life.”
His point was that maybe we need to remind people that when we are in conflict, we made a vow to God, a promise to Jesus, and a promise to this Church that we will live for each other instead of ourselves, we will put our pettiness aside. And if we have counted the cost, then whatever price that costs us, we will pay it. If that means we have to repent, if that means we have to call out the sinful behavior of someone whose actions put everyone at risk. If that means we have to grow up and put aside our own pettiness for the common good, then so be it.
Dave was speaking about his situation. He said, there is this beautiful older generation of believers there who founded Timbercrest nursing home. They placed it next to an orphanage and they sacrificially funded and staffed it themselves. These people lived the Christian life. They lived sacrificially. He said: If I could resurrect those Brethren values in the younger generation, (and he would be talking about people MY AGE), we can get back to being the Church Jesus called us to be.
Then he said, “remember Phil, just because a Church has a cross on its steeple, it doesn't mean they are following Christ Jesus.” I know he was trying to convince himself, because we don't have a cross on our steeple.
But he went on to say about counting the cost, and easy believe-ism. Too many people “got Jesus as a fire escape from hell” but have no willingness whatsoever to actually put their own pleasure aside and live for the good of God and others.
Then, he was getting wound up. He said, “way too many people, people who refuse to accept the price and live sacrificially will get to heaven and tell Jesus how they preached His name, and prayed for people, and tried to witness with words and Jesus will say, “I never knew you because I was naked and you didn't clothe me... I was hungry and you didn't feed me....”
I know he wasn't talking about you all because he went on to speak of the great saints here. He told me about Hazel's faith, Doris' faith, Hilda's faith, Bill Farrel's faith, Bub's faith, Ray's faith, Garry's faith, Gloria's faith and Jill's faith. He said, you have a core of people there that understand what it means to count the cost and live for God and other's. I think he was jealous. Pray for him. But let me remind you, don't give up doing good. Great is your reward in heaven.
Can we count the cost and forgive each other?
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