Loving God

 

Text: Matthew 22:34-39

Focus: Loving others

Function: to help people see that we love God by loving others.

³⁴When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Well, it seems to me to pretty simple to explain this passage. According to the Apostle Paul, it is the summary of all of the teachings in the bible.

And I love to focus on the concept because it frees us to obey Christ and to set his example to a broken and needy world. I want to be able to look at the world through the eyes of the Christ who sees the good and value inside of each and every human. Christ believed that all of humanity is worth redeeming.

We were valued worthy of redemption by God and it is evidenced in the cross of Christ and his example of non resistance in the face of evil. Oh that we could love and forgive like Jesus the Nazarene.

And we can! By the power of the Holy Spirit.

The gospel of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic, the language that Jesus and the disciples would have spoken to each other and it was translated into Greek. We don’t have any of the original Aramaic manuscripts left, so all of our translations are translation from an original text.

And Matthew, as a gospel was written for a specific audience. It was written for the Jewish constituency and it has a lot of symbolism about it that shows Jesus as the archetype of the sacrificial lamb that the Jews used to obtain forgiveness of sins.

Matthew shows how all of this happens during the week of Passover. And he shows Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. The lamb was chosen on Palm Sunday every year, it wasn’t known as Palm Sunday then, just the Sunday before Passover. And the lamb was presented to the leaders for inspection.

Matthew demonstrates how Jesus passes the inspection during Holy Week.

We read in the text that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees. That was Matthew showing us he passed the first part of the inspection. And now the Pharisees, the experts in the law, ask him a question and the text says that it wasn’t really a sincere question that they wanted to learn about or hear Jesus’ opinion on, but an insincere question used to test him.

I believe they were hoping he would fail. But in the end he outsmarted all of their tests, and passed.

It was in insincere question. But it isn’t the only time Jesus is asked this question in the different gospel accounts.

In this answer, Jesus gives the textbook answer: Love God with all your heart…. And he doesn’t stop there, he equates the answer with one other one. He won’t let “Love God” stand alone without saying, “Love one another.”

He makes them equal. And when he does this in one place, the Pharisees seems to agree with him and seems to perhaps repent and believe in Jesus’ message. In this case, the expert doesn’t seem to respond with an act of faith in Jesus’ teaching.

The question is asked sincerely at other places.

I would ask it this way: How we we practically God?

What does loving God look like?

There have been a lot of answers to that question over the ages. And sadly too many wars have been fought over misplaced devotion to religious principles.

During the Charismatic movement of the 70’s and 80’s, I used to lead the worship in a small Charismatic church. In that church, and during that point of my own Christian journey, I defined my love for God in the way I worshiped God. Mostly by singing and praying.

I wonder if a Church with “Bible” instead of Jesus in its name defines themselves as loving God by staying true to what they call God’s word.

There are a lot of ways Christians have defined loving God. Some good, some over zealous and destructive, like the Spanish Inquisition, or the Salem witch trials.

But Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey me.” And “the one who has seen me has seen the father.”

So, one could respond with the answer “Loving God is obeying Jesus.”

And I like that answer, it seems simple enough, or it can seem complicated. It gets complicated when our doctrine gets in the way of loving others.

I look forward to the day when we can share the same bread and cup of communion with our fellow Orthodox, and Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. But alas, our love for our doctrine has overshadowed our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

So, the question of how do we love God is made easier for us by Jesus who said: A new commandment I give you, Love one Another. By this, all people will know you are my disciples if you have love for others.” We call that the Great Commandment.

Last week we looked at the Great Commission. This week, we look at the Great Commandment. Love One Another.

Every single command in the bible is a subset of this one command that we love one another.

Time and time again, Jesus emphasizes this point in his teaching. And John the Apostle echoes the same sentiments exactly in his gospel and in his letters.

So, as I pointed out, Matthew exposes Jesus as the once for all sacrificial lamb for humanity. And after taking all that time to make the point, he comes to the 25^th chapter whereby we read the words from Jesus that those who care for the least of these are the sheep who will get the rewards and those who refuse are the goats who are denied the rewards of heaven.

He makes the case that if we refuse to show these physical acts of love then we are lost and not part of the new Kingdom that Jesus has come to establish.

It is almost like he is saying that by loving others, we gain our eternal reward.

We have taught in evangelical theology that there is nothing we can do to add to the love of God with our own works. Otherwise we could say that we earned it and it was not God’s mercy and grace that has saved us.

I believe it is a false understanding of what it means to be saved. To be saved is to be restored to God and to others. In my formative years, it simply meant we were not going to hell anymore. And for that blessing, we owed a lot.

But Jesus came to us to heal and restore us to God and to others. So no one can say they earned mercy because what we are talking about is the healing and restoring power of God in our lives that transforms us from selfish peoples into the light of the world, Christs’ disciples, Christ’s body in the world, the Church. Us.

So, we love God by loving others and that restores us to God and to each other.

Echoing Christ

 

Text: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Focus: Witnessing

Function: to help people know the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives

¹I Paul, together here with Silas and Timothy, send greetings to the church at Thessalonica, Christians assembled by God the Father and by the Master, Jesus Christ. God’s amazing grace be with you! God’s robust peace!

^2-5Every time we think of you, we thank God for you. Day and night you’re in our prayers as we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in following our Master, Jesus Christ, before God our Father. It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special. When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn’t just words. Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions.

^5-6You paid careful attention to the way we lived among you, and determined to live that way yourselves. In imitating us, you imitated the Master. Although great trouble accompanied the Word, you were able to take great joy from the Holy Spirit!—taking the trouble with the joy, the joy with the trouble.

^7-10Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God. They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom.

My goal this morning is to help us see how the power of the Holy Spirit is inside of us to witness our faith to other people.

Just last week, while looking at a map I noticed how close we are to Pleasant Hill Missionary Church. I was raised in the Missionary Church, as a matter of fact, my uncle was the presiding elder in the denomination. He was a great man, full of conviction and he allowed the power of the Holy Spirit to work in his life.

And true to the name, Missionary Church, I was raised with a strong emphasis on the Church’s responsibility to share the faith with the entire world. In Matthew 28:18-20 we read this: ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We call these verses “The Great Commission.”

And these were our marching orders. It was our mission from the Missionary Church to fulfill this command of Jesus and make converts of the entire world.

And according to 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 it is God’s plan to reconcile the entire world to God’s own self. And we are indeed part of that plan.

I believe in the importance of the Great Commission and take it seriously. I especially like the idea of “teaching them everything I have commanded you.” I hope you notice that I focus on the teachings of Jesus and His commandments when I am preaching. Even today, I am using the introduction to this letter where Paul commends them for their incredible witness to their faith as a way to get back to what Jesus said in his final instructions to the disciples. I love to focus on Jesus.

When I read this text, I read Paul’s commendation to them for the way they were growing the faith beyond themselves.

So they too, like the missionary that Paul was, were taking this command from the Christ to reconcile the world to God seriously and it was working. And our text today tells them why it is working.

They were doing it in the power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus commission, he says that because he is given all authority and he is with them, they are to go out trusting in his power to transform people through the love that they show to others.

I wish I was always as loving as Jesus.

Love is the Spirit’s witness to the world.

In the Matthew 28 Commission he gives them some components to this work.

The first is to be willing to Go. Go is the imperative command. In other words. Take the risk when necessary to show the love of Christ in a given situation.

Nest, he says: Baptize them. I don’t believe that water baptism is necessary for salvation. But I have seen time and time again, professing Christians who love Jesus and never been baptized filled with the Spirit in an overwhelming way when they are baptized by water. It is what Paul is talking about in our text when he tells them how the Spirit emboldened them.

I think that step of baptism, in obedience, is a public witness to our faith. But, be careful, baptism doesn’t restore a person who does not repent from doing the things that are destructive to themselves and others. From 1 Peter 3:21 we read that baptism is a symbol of the fact that we have given over our lives to Christ and are trusting in his power to heal the brokenness in our lives.

I was filled with the Spirit of Christ when I was baptized, it was an experience that I have seen repeated in others and sometimes not. It isn’t feeling that confirms our faith. But God’s promises to seal us in his love by the power of the Spirit inside of us according to 2 Corinthians 1:21.

The spirit is the breath, the power, the life giving force in the supernatural world that energized us and opens the door to the success in showing our faith in the midst of trials like the Thessalonians were doing.

Paul commends them for the way they obey, even thought they suffered.

About suffering. Witnessing was the word I heard when I was growing up.

We are concerned with how we appeared to those around us. Did they see us as followers of the Christ? Or did they see us as the same as them?

Because of this, some of us adopted the plain dress so that we could indeed be seen as different.

I have always been concerned with showing Christ in the way I love and practice forgiveness more than in the way I look.

But the word witness here has a connotation to it that is kind of scary.

The word witness in the New Testament is actually Martyr.

Paul commends them for the fact that once they received the word of Christ, they were persecuted because of their beliefs and they stayed true. They witness by the way that some of them were martyred for their faith.

That is kind of scary.

Sadly, I heard a lot of shame in my motivation when I was growing up. I was taught to be a witness and unless I was willing to go as far as being a martyr, I really didn’t love Jesus.

Shame does not come from God. God’s love empowers us to be faithful. It is up to God, not us.

I never was allowed to question why love for Him demanded that I die.

And sadly, it was just a bad focus.

Yes, Christians were martyred for their faith throughout the Roman empire.

Remember, the first thing they did with Jesus’ teaching was start a commune.

When they said, “Jesus is Lord” it was a political statement and that was a capital offense. The only legal and correct Roman response was “Caesar is Lord.”

Jesus came, he said, to establish a new kingdom in the hearts of men and women and it had a completely different value system to the Roman system of economics and government.

We read in the epistles how Paul commanded them to follow Christ by sharing their resources, some freeing their slaves and etc because this is a different kind of Kingdom than the ones of mankind that do not exist to care for the least of these.

So, they became martyrs for the faith because they were wiling to live by different values.

I mentioned that I had a bad focus when I was told that I didn’t love Jesus unless I was willing to die.

But Jesus said and is still saying, come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.

I preach this because I do not want you to be afraid of failure. You are already doing this obedience to Christ ministry. And I commend you for it.

If we get to the point where we are called upon to be martyrs, success won’t be up to us.

In that Matthew passage that we used to focus on the teaching of Jesus while looking at Brother Paul, Jesus said, “I am with you to the end of the ages.”

Instead of fear, Christ fills us with faith in the power of the Spirit to love God by loving others.

The believers in Thessalonica rested in this fact and endured and it was a great testimony to their faith.

May we show the love of Chrst as well.

Think About It

Text: Matthew 21:28-32

Focus: obedience

Function: to help people see that God is merciful to those who walk in love

²⁸“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ²⁹He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.

I love the way Jesus says What do you think. It is his way of saying, “Think about this!”

And this is a parable from last week’s lectionary lesson, but I choose it for today because I have never heard a sermon on it and I want to tackle the subject and think about what Jesus is trying to teach us here in this story.

The focus of the text speaks to us about the way we obey Christ’s teaching.

And you might remember me mentioning a month or so ago about how Jesus didn’t focus his teaching on what we believe, but on what we do.

And this parable has a profound message. It isn’t the one who says the right thing who are participating in God’s kingdom, but the ones who do the right thing.

And Jesus is asking another question here about what we think about what obedience is actually about.

Let me refer you to another passage of Scripture from the First letter of John the Apostle to the Churches. He says in 1 John 4:¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

He says, the ones who love others are the ones who are the just, or what we in the West call, “the righteous.”

Righteousness is established in the fact, or the way, that we love others.

I hope you don’t get tired of me preaching this, but there is so little love in our culture, in our world and there are so many forces of evil that justify violence as a path to peace and forget that from the cross, the Savior said, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing” about the men who were making a callous mockery of his suffering right there at his feet. He was in more pain than we can imagine and these men were ignoring him and gambling over his belongings as if stripping him naked was not enough.

He forgave them in the midst of heinous evil.

Evil begets evil, and then begets more evil, And then begets more evil and the cycle never stops. Unless we all look to the Christ who cried out those words in Luke 23:34 and realize that by example, we do not need to take our our own revenge. Forgive them is the command we are given.

In the midst of evil, forgive them. That is the way of peace that Jesus taught.

I don’t know about you, but the events of last Saturday in Israel and the terrorist attack on and kidnapping of non-combatants, a war crime, re-traumatized me over the events of 9/11.

I remember how we sat shuddering and in shock as we watched over and over again images of the towers falling down and the planes crashing into them and we imagined the terror and suffering of those who were victims of that terrorist attack.

I remember how wanting revenge. And even though I oppose war as a pacifist, I was not dis pleased when we sent troops somewhere for revenge. God forgive me. But, it is human nature to want to fight back and take our our own revenge. And we did, and whether it was worth it, the consequences and benefits will be debated for years. Eventually, ISIS was quashed until this latest terrorist attack in Israel and I have to ask the question, how is the cycle of revenge, fire matched with fire, evil with evil, a way to bring peace when Jesus forgave his own heinous murder?

I refuse to side with terrorists. So, my heart breaks for Israel and my heart breaks for the innocents who have unwillingly been used as human shields for forces of evil.

And I don’t know what to do beyond pray that God will appoint someone to mediate peace.

And, pray that God will heal our own feelings of trauma that this attack may have brought on us.

I pray to God for a just peace. One that cares about justice for peoples, about half of whom are fellow Christians, who have called the land home for millennia and also a safe and secure homeland for the Jewish people.

Enough of that trauma.

In this parable, Jesus is not separating the members of the Kingdom by what they say, remember, the one son said the right thing but didn’t do it. That is like the believer who feels the leading of the Holy Spirit to forgive, or do a certain act of charity, or speak up for someone who is defenseless and all the other acts of justice that Jesus showed us to do by his actions and has called us to follow in his footsteps by living the same kind of life of love and acceptance of others.

The clear message is that it isn’t what we are saying that matters, it is what we are doing.

And John, as we pointed out, emphasizes that point when he tells us that believers will walk in love because God is love and God lives inside of them.

God dwells in us and gives to us the power of his Holy Spirit to overcome the tendency to want to take our own revenge.

That same message, as it relates to the cross and how Jesus set the example for us to react to those who are unjustly persecuting us, is reiterated by the author of the letter written to the Hebrew believers to help them understand the symbolism of the Jewish religion as it relates to their trust in Christ.

We read it here in Hebrews 12:2-3: ²look(ing) to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary in your souls or lose heart.

The phrase, “Consider him,” is literally translated “picture this in your mind.”

It is the same phrase given to us by Jesus to introduce this parable and the one I used to introduce this sermon.

Hebrews tells us the same thing: Think about this.

But he tells us to think about this and what Jesus did when we are being attacked and persecuted.

Was Jesus weak or a wimp?

No, he endured terrible suffering willingly, for us, so that we too can remember to trust in the inevitable and loving justice of God for us on our behalf.

So the message is this, before you react out of your human instinct which may be violent because we are hard wired toward violence, whether it is with force or speech or even silence, which in the face of evil is consent, before you react, consider what Jesus would have you do and respond with faith in the love and protection and justice of God.

When we think about it, instead of reacting, we can respond in love and show the divine inside of us.

Trusting or Earning

Text: Philippians 3:4b-14

Focus: trust

Function: to help people see

⁴If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not practicing a justice of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, doing the justice from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. ¹³Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Throughout my ministry of over 45 years, this passage has been an inspiration to me. Brother Paul, a fellow minister of the gospel explains the passion, or the zeal that he has had his entire life for God.

I titled this sermon Trusting, or Earning because I want to explore the difference between human zeal and the power of God, through the Holy Spirit, that results in our lives when we place our trust in the Christ.

Over in Ephesians 2:10, brother Paul tells us that the purpose of our salvation was so that we could in turn respond by doing good works.

In this passage, again, brother Paul speaks of his zeal for serving Christ and he compares it with the zeal that he had before he trusted Christ. That was when he was trying to earn his salvation with his zeal.

At both times, after trusting Christ and before trusting Christ he was a deeply religious man, committed to the scriptures and to serving Allah, the name he would have used for God.

You can be religious and zealous for God and not committed to doing the justice that Christ calls us to do.

There is an element to zeal that has to do with our own personal choice. Brother Paul speaks of the sacrifice of Christ, and most probably having heard the stories that would soon be recorded in the gospels, heard that Jesus himself said that if we want to follow him we must take up our own cross and follow. (Luke 9:23)

Brother Paul reiterates those words in verse 10 when he says “I want to know Christ, the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.”

I often think how someone who has never heard of the way of the Christ before and how they would take some of the statements and phrases that we take for granted in our Christian sub culture.

And the question comes up here. Does this mean that in order to become a Christian I have to die?

And the unbeliever may very well answer follow up that question with this question; “Why?”

Why should I die in order to gain salvation? That doesn’t sound very life giving. In John 10:10 Jesus said that it is the thief, or Satan, or evil, that has come to take away life and that he, Jesus, came to give us an abundant life.

So, we have a contrast here and Paul addresses it in this passage. We ask ourselves the question: Is our zeal mere religion or is it spirit led?

When Paul met Jesus he had a transformation. He too, was born from above by the Spirit of God and now he practices, he says in our text, a justice or righteousness that is not his own making, but one that come from faith in what Jesus has shown us.

I believe that on the cross, Jesus showed us how to face down evil. He did not resist it, or spare his own life. Instead, he conquered death by rising from the dead.

Now, understand, Jesus’ death was political. They killed Jesus because his politics were upsetting the Roman system of slavery within which the rich were exploiting the poor. They killed him to maintain the status quo. They wanted him to be silent, to go along to get along. ButJesus was a prophet, led by the Spirit of God and he couldn’t keep silent, even though it got him killed.

But Paul’s persecution of the church was religious, not political. He was persecuting the Church because he thought it was a cult. He was an important leader in the Jewish gatherings, also called churches, and felt he had a responsibility to keep the faith pure. And he was offended that these people were following a man they believed to be a false prophet.

And then he met Christ by a vision after the resurrection and was changed.

All of a sudden he says, his zeal changed from one of judging and persecuting others to one of carrying out the justice that Jesus preached so much about.

We are called to continue the work of Jesus Christ. We are called to be just people.

Paul says we are called to do that work even up to the point that we might have to give our lives.

And again, the question comes up, “why?” Why should I die when he promised abundant life?

Well, I believe that part of abundant life is living with a purpose beyond ourselves.

Paul regarded his life as on a mission from God.

And if we had the kind of revelation, vision, blindness, immediate healing and hearing the voice of God from heaven that Paul had, we too, might be more apt to be willing.

I imagine that the vision was overwhelming.

And that is part of why we worship. When we sense the moving of the Spirit in our midst, we too can be overcome with a sense of love from God and a sense of love for others in total forgiveness that frees our hearts and leads us to care for others as much as we do for ourselves.

At least, that is how I describe the moving of the Holy Spirit in my own life.

Before Paul trusted in Christ. Before he trusted in the fact that no matter what happens to him here in this life, God has shown him through the resurrection that in the end, our love for others will be vindicated.

Now, I confess, I do work to earn a reward from God.

But it isn’t an earthly reward. Jesus did call us to work for rewards in heaven that are eternal. (Matthew 6:19-21)

So, what do I believe Jesus is calling us to be willing to do?

I am certainly willing to have an abundant life.

And this is where faith comes in for me. I trust that speaking for the justice that Jesus died for, no matter what it cost me to be defiant of the culture and cry out for God’s Spirit to rule over human selfishness, I trust that speaking the truth will fulfill my calling as well. That will be me thriving in the purpose for which God has called me. This is the zeal that comes from the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Now sometimes I get in trouble for what I say.

For example, I believe that God commands us to treat the refugees at our borders as we would our neighbor. I believe the term “Illegal” is a dehumanizing term designed to assuage our guilt. I believe politicians garner following based on how tough they appear but most importantly, from scripture, I believe, that God will either bless or curse our land based on how we care for the least of these. Godly people in a righteous nation full of abundance can figure it out how to care for the least of these. I know from personal experience that you cannot out give God.

Jesus has called us as his followers to be different from the culture around us. It is normal for them to express that kind of bigotry, it is part of human nature to congregate into tribal groups and be afraid or warlike toward the others.

But Jesus wants us to overcome this hatred and teach people to love one another.

Paul was transformed by the Spirit of Christ and all of a sudden, he started accepting foreigners without conditions! God was moving and he was willing to forgo the command in scripture to not associate with people who were not Jewish and started caring for peoples everywhere.

And as Paul is saying in this passage, the righteous person is the one who follows Christ’s example and does these acts of justice and kindness and perhaps even speaks up on behalf of the voiceless and marginalized, as Jesus did.

When I think of zeal, I think of boldness. And I love the boldness of Jesus who keep up the message even though it cost him his life and then triumphed in the end by raising from the dead.

We too, do not need to fear death or its power because we are in the grace of God and have the promise of heaven and are willing to live our lives here for our heavenly reward instead of chasing greed.

The Whole World Together

Text: Philippians 2:1-13

Focus: the sacrifice of Christ

Function: to help us appreciate World Wide Communion Sunday

^1-4If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

^5-8Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

^9-11Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

^12-13What I’m getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you’ve done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I’m separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

I love this passage, It gives us a perspective on how we are to live our lives. Which is like Jesus did, who lived his life with the purpose of caring for and loving others.

Today is World Wide Communion Sunday and I chose this passage out of our lectionary because it deals with the community of believers worldwide.

Because of Christ and his mission of salvation for us, we share with believers across the planet a memorial this morning to the sacrifice of Christ.

Jesus said, “Do this to remember me.”

Remember him when we live our lives and we have to make a choice about sacrificing our pride, ego, money or time to forgive others and or care for the least of these.

At least, that is one of the points that he is making in this passage. He says, “Think of yourselves the way Christ thought of himself…”

And there are a lot of ways to consider how Jesus thought of himself, but he emphasizes the fact that Jesus came and lived as a servant for others.

Think of yourselves in the same way.

My theology professor said at the core of all sin is selfishness.

When we take on the attitude of Christ, the attitude of someone who has come to serve rather than to serve, the problem of selfishness seems to diminish.

Of course, all of this, the passage says is done in the power of God, or, as our translator put it, “In God’s energy.”

If we rely on our own power, we are tempted to be selfish over loving others. The passage promises that the Spirit of God is inside of us to empower us to live this kind of sacrificial life.

Let the Spirit of God lead and control your life.

I do that through prayer, bible study and acts of charity. As we perform Christian action, the bible says that the Spirit of God flows out our bellies like rivers of living water.

Baking cookies for Kairos is a great example of this. As we gather together, we are in that beloved community that cares for each other and that community in turn reaches out collectively in care for others. It is a pattern repeated often in scripture.

How do we clothe ourselves with Christ? How do we take on that nature?

Apparently it is a decision we make. It is a choice, we are faced with every time that selfish nature raises its ugly head. We choose to be like Jesus.

Who, the passage says, made an huge choice. He was God and he gave up the privileges of being Deity to lower himself into mere human form. He lowered himself to be with us.

We can lower ourselves as well to be with those that society calls outcasts. I think one of my favorite parts about giving my dollar bills to the homeless who are begging on the street corners, after the proverbial “God bless you,” which I know God does because those who give to the poor lend to the Lord, is talking with them human to human.

We have a second until the traffic light changes, but I can ask them about the weather, or talk about my car, or anything to humanize them so that they know that I see the Christ that is inside of them. Remember, when we meet them, we are meeting the Christ. It changes our perspective on how we treat them.

The passage emphasizes that Jesus gave up his privilege as deity to become human and show us the way. He lowered himself and calls us to the same.

And the result of that action brought salvation to the entire world.

There is a promise, or a prophecy in this passage that says that eventually, I believe at the judgment seat of Christ, every single knee shall bow and every single tongue shall confess Jesus is Lord.

That is what the text says. In the Greek, it implies that they will do it willingly.

This is an extreme message that upsets those who would add to grace their own conditions. I quoted this scripture at a District meeting and got accused of being a universalist and banned from preaching in of the churches in the district. But the thing is, I am the one being true to scripture.

I, like Alexander Mack, the founder of the Church of the Brethren, believe in this passage and its promise of a universal restoration which is the faith empowered in everyone without force.

Perhaps at the Judgment seat of Christ, Jesus’s incredible love and sacrifice will overwhelm those who did not choose Jesus while living here on earth. And they too, will join the family of God.

It makes sense if you believe that there is no other way to God. At the end, when all souls are gathered on the glassy sea, if there really is no other option for salvation, then trusting Jesus will be so obvious that all will accept. There would be no other choice. And Jesus mission to seek and save the lost will be fulfilled.

God’s mercy and grace always triumphs over judgment.

And Jesus came to break down the barriers between God and human and human with human. Jesus came to reconcile and as we partake together of this bread and cup communion, let us rejoice that we are one with believers in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Iran, Iraq, every nation we are at peace with and every nation on our bad list, all believers everywhere are part of a kingdom that supersedes the kingdoms of men.