A Good Church Loves
Notes
Transcript
Handout
When the International Space Station was built in 1998, it was built with every cutting edge technology that could sustain an astronout in space over months. They had the ability to breathe and to take space walks and to travel and to eat.
But eating was an interesting experience. There isn’t any real gravity so you eat in pouches and stick things to the wall using velcro. Everything is already to eat and in bags and such.
You aren’t eating off a plate and don’t necessarily need knives and forks so you didn’t need a flat surface.
The ISS was originally built without a table. They didn’t need one. Makes sense doesn’t it.
But they found that there was a lack of normality, a lack of routine. A lack of commorodory around a shared space.
So they built a table, not because they needed one for a functional purpose but because they wanted one for relational stability.
Even though the table wasn’t functional and usable it was entirely needed for relational purposes. The point was to provide a relational space because they realized they couldn’t live without one.
Everything in the iss was built with function in mind. The table was built with relationships in mind. It created the ability for relational space. For people to gather together and share a meal and conversation. The table became a symbol for relationship
We live in a culture, and we experience a world kind of like the ISS.
It is a culture without gravity, one that is looking for ultimate efficiency. So everything floats around with no real sense of quality. We live in a world of absolute convenience. And in that world the table was the first thing to go.
Just like the ISS astronouts realized over time that they needed a table, so that they could connect with each other, we realize that as we live in a culture where everything and everyone is kind of floating around, we need something bolted to the floor.
This is the work of love.
Love is the table on the international space station. It is something bolted to the floor, and deeply connected to the human experience.
Love is the space created for relational flourishing. It is the experience that invited people in. That invites to sit down and connect.
It is a core of Christian living. Last week we looked at connected and Christ said the Father would care for us, love us, and that we are called to love one another.
To love God and neighbor.
To exist charitably in the world.
This morning we are going to talk about what it means for a church to love. We are going to talk about what it means for us to love as individuals.
A Good Church loves God and loves others in a way that looks like God.
A Good Church loves God and loves others in a way that looks like God.
It’s important to stop and talk through the language we use from time to time. Because we talk about loving your neighbor and loving God but we don’t always define it.
Defining love
We need to define it and then describe what it looks like.
Because we are often told to use love to satisfy our wants and needs. but are not sure what they even are any longer
We got what we chased after but what we got is less than good.
Because there are some less than helpful definitions of what love is and how it is defined in our culture.
Love can be defined as a feeling. But what if that feeling runs out
Love can be defined as passion.
Love can be defined by itself. Love is love. But what does that mean?
Love can be defined as tolerance. But what happens when our tolerances crash into each other.
We need a better definition of love. Something that is more than just tolerance, something that is more than just a feeling. Something that may have to come from somewhere other than just whatever example we can find in this world. Because love seems to be a rare commodity and we need a better source.
If you have ever found love wanting in your life, that you did not have enough love in your inner tank, or you are wondering where in the world love is. Or even, what does love look like, we are going to explore all of that this morning.
Love is not mysterious, it’s just difficult.
By the end of this morning I hope that each one of us can define what love is, not by some vague action but because of a lived reality.
Love is difficult because it is dynamic and it will always cost us something. Often we would rather not pay it.
We will define love a few times this morning.
The overall way that I will be defining love is this:
Doing whats best for the other person regardless of what it costs you.
Doing whats best for the other person regardless of what it costs you.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
Love always has a source and a target.
Love always has a source and a target.
Love is always on the move. From somewhere and to somewhere.
Titus 3 gives us a helpful understanding of what it means to have recieved love and then from that place, act on it.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
This is the first mover, the initiator of what love is. God through Christ is how we learn what love is, and more importantly, receive love’s actions in our lives.
This is the crux of what it means to be a Christian. It doesn’t come down to our actions, it begins with God’s actions.
Christians are not the source of their own love, or righteousness or holiness. the Christian has no hold or ownership of any of that. It is recieved.
The self is not the source of Christianity, Christ is. If Christ is the source of all love and we receive and learn from him, then when it comes to expressing love, we realize that we are just as needy as anyone else. Our expression of love comes from our own need for it not from our construction of it
We want to know how to love, but in order to know how to love, you need to know you are loved.
Hear it here and right now. You are deeply and unashamedly and eternally and constently loved by the God of the Universe. The same God who created you and sustains you, absolutely loves you.
and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
When we know love it becomes possible to show love to others. When we have seen it and experienced it, we know it.
Love Toward: Love as action. Love is always moving toward something
But how we love others matters.
Love is giving our best for someone else's best
Love is giving our best for someone else's best
This follows Oliver O Donavan’s definition of love as that which is both delight and wisdom
This means we love others for who they are and why they are (created in God’s image). But we also love them for who they can become (wisdom).
To delight is to celebrate who they are based on how far they’ve come.
To show wisdom in love is to encourage what they could still be.
This is how Christ shows love.
He loved based on His delight for us in our own sin and brokenness. He loves us despite our sin. But if He only delighted in us then there would be no way out. He could express love but not offer it
He shows wisdom in offering salvation. This is how we are loved fully in Christ. In both delight and wisdom.
It is how we love others.
We delight in who they are
We show wisdom in who they are and can become.
Look at our Titus passage
The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.
and before that those works are defined:
Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
Love pushes past every border and boundary we set up.
Love pushes past every border and boundary we set up.
love is not allowing people to do anything they want. No parent lives that way. IN fact no functional relationship lives that way. But that is the cultural order.
We work hard to delight regardless of where anyone is at. And we show wisdom to invite people into who they can become.
This will always stretch our understanding of love.
But if anyone is going to get it right, it’s got to be the church.
We should be working at this idea of love with everything we have. Both delight and wisdom.
People are living without relational anchors. Just like the ISS everything is floating away. Love will begin to tie things down again. Love bolts things to the floor. Love invites people in and creates relational space.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. That is the love that God provides and that is the love we are called to in Christ.
Anything less is a fake
Being a Christian is hard because it means we have to love after everyone else has stopped. And after everyone else seems to have good reasons for doing so. But we also learn love from the God who built and sustains all through His love. But then we get to take love we have experienced from the Creator and make it real and concrete and personal. Who else?
Eventually, a love that exists outside of Christ will dry up. Love that is a feeling will wither. Love for loves sake will grow old. People will not return love for love.
And the church has to make a choice on how we will continue on. How do we live when the love we express is not reciprocated?
We love.
Because the love we show is not from reciprocation. It comes from God our Father. So we have reserves and reserves of love.
This morning know you are entirely loved. And Christ has offered love enough to live from and to give from.
For our application we are going to hear from our mens group, shot club with Chris Morin. But first, gentlemen: