Working It Out
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· 4 viewsJesus called us to love because He knew the effect we have on people. We are shaped by the people in our lives that have hurt us and loved us.
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Working It Out
Start by talking about the Big Give!!
We are in our last week of our series, “Christian”.
We started this series by talking about how we have a branding problem as believers.
That Christians in our culture are known as hypocritical, homophobic, exclusive moralists.
We have a branding problem because the word “Christian” isn’t really defined in the Bible.
So we tend to make up our own definitions.
Because of that we have “Christians” who are living different lives than each other.
That’s why you have Christians on every side of every issue.
Just about every war had “Christians” on both sides.
But that word Disciple is very well defined.
And one thing that Jesus made very clear is how people will know you are a disciple of Him.
John 13:35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
People aren’t going to know you’re his disciples by how many laws you keep.
By how much you go to church or how many verses you know.
They will know you are a disciple by HOW YOU LOVE PEOPLE.
And we are in a time right now that the church MUST rise up and show people how to love.
Jesus emphasized this again when asked about the greatest commandment.
Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Jesus is saying, I know you asked for one but unfortunately the greatest command is two parts.
EVERYTHING about the law and prophets stem from these two things.
Start living your life and looking at the laws through the lens of love.
We talked about last week how we need to ask ourselves every day, “what does love require of me?”
In every situation.
And that we better not DARE try to use God’s words to justify us not treating someone with love.
Because think about what Jesus said and why He said it.
Why did He stress love so much?
Why did He say that people will know you are His disciples by how you love?
Why not, they will know you by your theology or knowledge of the Bible?
Because if we look at our own lives we will see the significance of how we treat people.
So today we are going to look at two categories of people.
These two categories are the people that have influenced your life the most.
These are the people who have made you the father or mother you are today.
The spouse you are today.
These are the people that have set you up to be successful or not successful in your relationships.
What’s interesting about these two groups of people is that their effect on you had nothing to do with what they believe.
The impact they had on you being successful or having to limp through life with all kinds of struggles had nothing to do with their theology.
Honestly, it wasn’t even if they were a Christian or not.
The two categories of people that have affected your life in the most significant way are...
THOSE WHO’VE HURT YOU
THOSE WHO’VE LOVED YOU
The people who have had the greatest impact in your life in a positive way or a negative way are the people who have hurt you deeply or loved you significantly.
And what’s so hard is that many of you that have been hurt tremendously have been hurt by someone who had GOOD theology.
Many people have been hurt by someone who knew the Bible.
Who seemed to have really good theology
But behind the scenes did something that has devastated your life and had a lasting impact.
Just think about Pastors or anyone in ministry.
There are people whose lives have been ruined by people in ministry.
Prisons are not void of Pastors and Priests and other people involved in the church.
Many people have left the church or even given up on God all together, not because of a Pastors theology.
But because of how they treated them or did something that greatly impacted them.
I think of just last week my friend asked me if I heard about Carl Lentz
Carl Lentz is the Lead Pastor at Hillsong New York.
He’s known as a celebrity Pastor because many celebrities and athletes attend his church and are friends of his.
He’s very close with Justin Bieber.
He was fired last week because of a moral failure.
My heart dropped when I heard this.
Not just because I followed him and appreciated what he was doing in trying to reach the lost and show love to even people like celebrities who might not be believers.
But my heart dropped for the people who are going to be impacted by this.
I think of his kids.
It’s things like this that can set young people down a dark path away from God.
My father had great theology but he did something that crushed my mom and us and now everyone knows it.
Anger and resentment can start to build.
I think of the people in the church.
People that could look at him and say, “see I knew these Christians were hypocrites.”
I trusted this Pastor and now he just showed me he’s no different than the world.
The fallout could be significant.
And this has happened many times over the years.
Some people still are feeling the effects of situations like this.
But then there’s the other category.
Some of you came into adulthood ready to take on the world.
Full of confidence and potential.
You felt prepared and excited.
You feel this way because you had someone or multiple people who loved you deeply.
This person might not have even been a Christian.
Maybe they were but they didn’t know the Bible as well as others.
They couldn’t quote scripture off the top of their head.
Maybe they weren’t the most consistent church attender.
But they set you up for success in life.
They set you up for success because they loved you.
They were there for you.
For some of you it was your parents.
Maybe a coach?
A teacher?
A Pastor?
I’ve been EXTREMELY fortunate in my life and I don’t take it for granted.
I’ve had GREAT people in my life that have shaped me because of their love for me.
It started at home with my parents.
I have great parents where I have NEVER questioned how much they loved me.
And I didn’t know they loved me because we said it to each other all the time.
My family is not super lovey dovey.
We don’t say I love you very often and we never have.
And we never needed to.
I didn’t need my parents to say that consistently to know that.
They showed me by how they treated me and how they were there for me.
My parents were at EVERY game possible I played in.
They would do whatever it took to make sure they were at my games.
I think my dad missed one game of mine in high school because he was out of state.
He was so upset he had to miss it and then he was even more upset when he found out we only won by 3 and I had 30 points.
My dad was that father that bragged about his kids to EVERYONE.
We have to tell him, dad nobody cares how we did in our games last week.
But he couldn’t help himself because he was so proud.
And that love that my parents gave me I see myself doing with my kids.
I don’t ever want to miss anything my kids are in.
Because I know what it meant to me to have my parents there.
My parents hated when I played in 3 on 3 tournaments.
They said it was just football out there.
But EVERY tournament my parents were there and my mom would have a massive cooler with all kinds of food and drinks for the day.
I think that’s why I’m so big on what people DO and not what they SAY.
I always say, “talk is cheap.”
I don’t care what you say, I care about what you DO.
And some people's love for you might have been driven by their faith but many times that’s not what mattered about them to you.
It was just about how they cared!
The point is when you tell your story, you talk about the individuals that have been in your life and how they impacted you.
Some of you talk about the hurts in your life and the people who caused that.
Some of you talk about the good things in your life and how the people that LOVED you shaped you and taught you how to do the same.
Andy Stanley put it this way.
“The way you’ve been treated has more to do with who you are than what you believe.”
This is why Jesus said what He did.
Jesus knew the impact you can have on people by the way you love.
He knew that how you love and treat people was FAR more important than just telling them what you believe.
And the problem with today is over the years there has been a shift.
We’ve shifted from BEHAVE TO BELIEVE.
The Disciples of Jesus knew the importance of BEHAVING like Jesus did.
But somewhere along the line it’s changed from worrying about how we should behave and live as Christians to it’s just all about what I believe.
Christians don’t care about how they behave.
But they will argue to the death about what they believe.
This is why Christians have a brand problem.
Because we don’t want to change or actually live like Jesus did.
We just want to have good “THEOLOGY” so we can feel good about ourselves.
If Christians were more concerned with behaving like Jesus called us to, rather than arguing over what he said, the world would be a different place.
Believing is easy
Behaving is extremely hard.
But Jesus didn’t say, “A new command I give you, believe correctly.”
Again, that doesn’t mean that what we believe doesn’t matter at all.
But Jesus knew the hearts of men
He knew what was going to make the greatest impact on people’s lives.
And it wasn’t going to be their theology.
It’s how they treat people.
Some of you are here today and this is hitting home with you.
You look at your life and see what you’ve become and throughout this entire message certain people have been popping up in your head.
People that you know have molded you into the person you are, for good or bad.
And I just want to say, to those who have been fortunate in their lives to have people who have loved them and set them up to succeed, to be grateful for those people.
Learn from them and remember how they impacted you.
Now do the same to those around you and in your life.
And for those of you that have unfortunately had people in your life that did not show you what love is.
That did things that hurt you deeply.
That have impacted your life in a way that lead you down a dark path to where now you are dealing with things in your life you never wanted to deal with.
Whether it’s addictions, or alcoholism, abuse, or anything else.
I felt like God put on my heart to emphasize to you today that you can find HEALING in Jesus.
That just because you grew up in an abusive family doesn’t mean you have to be abusive.
Just because your dad was an alcoholic doesn’t mean you have to be one too.
Just because your parents neglected you and didn’t show you real love doesn’t mean you can’t show your kids love.
There is healing and restoration in Jesus.
1 Peter 5:10 “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
When you truly commit to being a disciple of Jesus and let Him get a hold of your heart and not just your head, HE TRANSFORMS you into the person he created you to be.
He didn’t create you to be like your parents
He didn’t create you to be like the people around you who are broken and hurting.
He created you to LOVE GOD and LOVE PEOPLE.
And if you just truly let Him into your life, seek his face, you will be able to overcome ANYTHING anyone has ever done to you.
And then you will be another living testimony of God’s amazing grace and power.
And that’s how we defeat the enemy.
We defeat him by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.
Church how we love is one of the most important things that will help us bring Jesus to this world.
That’s why we have to constantly ask ourselves the question, “what does love require of me?”
Because love is how we change the world.
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