Good morning Sunrise! I am Tim Roberts,
the pastor here at Sunrise Church and I want to take just a moment to just
thank you for being here this morning and to honestly tell you once again that
I love you guys (gals) and how much I love being your pastor. I consider it one
of the greatest honors that I could be afforded.
It is because I love you that I feel
safe to make a confession to you about myself. Without beating around the bush
too much, I just want to let you know something that you may or may not know
about me. I don't know any other way to say this except, Folks, you have got
one messed up person as your pastor. That might deserve an Amen right there.
Now before any one of you feels the
need to begin listing how I am messed up, I will sum it up for you. This is
what I have discovered about myself over the last few years - I am an
introverted extrovert (and that has nothing to do with orientation either).
Basically, that means I love being around people, which is from where I draw
energy, especially in large groups. But when it comes to one-on-one, Brrrr,
that can just give me an acute case of the Heebie-Jeebies. Well, initially it
does.
That may not sound like that big of a
deal, but for a pastor, it can be the factor that precipitates dismal failure.
Think about it - a pastor who gets all knotted up from being in close proximity
with individuals - not a good recipe for success there is it? Actually, as I
discovered that about myself, I have come to realize that I have probably
always been that way and it was the unrecognized source of much consternation
throughout most of my life.
Of course, by now you may be asking
yourself, why in the heck is he telling this and what does it have to do with
what is God's vision for Sunrise? For me to answer that is to say, "It has
a great deal about God's vision for Sunrise"
This morning, we are looking at one of
the elements that we, Sunrise Church, prayerfully discerned as God's Vision for
Sunrise. The one we are focusing on is: Be Relational. Let's take a look at it
and read it together.
The Vision: Be Relational - The whole message of God's love is to love
God and love each other. The only way we can live out this love is to have an
authentic and vested love and compassion for each other.
Within our tradition, the way
we test something to determine if it is really something from God is to filter
it through fours processes: our reason experience and tradition. Those help to
clarify. As we look at this vision, it seems pretty evident that it meets these
criteria. But, I said there are four processes and we have only used three.
What about the fourth?
The fourth process, I have
separated out because it is the primary process, the one that cannot be negated
at any level - Scripture. What is the scriptural evidence that undergirds this
vision?
For this element of God's
vision for Sunrise, I invite you to join me as we take a look in John's Gospel,
13.34-35.
John 13.34-35 (The Message)
34 "Let me give you a new
command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. 35 This is how everyone will recognize
that you are my disciples - when they see the love you have for each
other."
These verses are part of the passage that tells of the
events of when Jesus and the disciples gather the night before Jesus was
crucified. If you read this chapter, you will find it telling of Jesus washing
the disciples feet, them eating the Passover meal, Jesus confronting Judas as
his betrayer, and then Jesus giving the new command - to love each other.
But it is on these two verses that I want us to carefully
focus this morning. For us to do so, I believe we must first consider this:
What John 13.34-35 is NOT
1. Example of Hospitality
-
often referred to as such - an example of how we are to treat each other - to
be kind and hospitable.
-In
our modern context, since we don't wash feet, we have started to equate this
practice as being a friendly place
where
members and guest are greeted with a smile
2. Based on the Golden Rule
-
Most likely, even if you don't know it as such, you have most likely heard it,
or some variation of it, before - "Do
for others what you would like them
to do for you." (Matthew 7.12)
-
But that connotes a sense of reciprocity, Quid
Pro Quo, This for That. There is absolutely no inference of that
can
be found in this text
3. A General Commandment to Love
-
This command isn't about just loving other people. There are plenty of times that the command to love was
told either explicitly or implicitly,
before Jesus spoke at this time. This is not simply a restating of any of those
commands.
About now you may be saying to yourself,
"Hold on now, this preacher is not only an introverted extrovert, he's
just downright nuts! How can he say this passage isn't any of these?"
Friends, I can say this with all
assurance because of one little word that is hidden within this passage -
hidden in plain sight. Let's go back and find it.
John 13.34-35 (The Message)
34 "Let me give you a new
command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. 35 This is how everyone will recognize
that you are my disciples - when they see the love you have for each
other."
So if it is not these things, then what
is it? It is a new command.
So the million-dollar question before
us then is "What's 'new' in this command?"
To best answer this question, we need
to take a look at
What John 13.34-35 IS
1. Specifically for the Church
-
Later on, but during the same discourse in which Jesus issues this command, he
discloses to the remaining
disciples
this insight, "You did not choose me: I chose you (John 15.16). It
solidifies that Jesus chose a very
specific
group of people to carry on his mission.
-
This command was not spoke in general, but to these followers who would become
the founders of the church. So, the
implication is that this breadth of love for the inner-circle is different from the love for the world
- George
Pidgeon, in his essay The Root and Fruit
of Christian Love, tells the story of an event that happened during the Sino-Japanese
War. As the Japanese invade one village, the young members of a Christian
congregation take refuge in their church. The pastor of the church slips out
and stands as a diversion to protect his church members. As the soldiers
approach him, they begin to beat him severely until their young officer
arrives, who orders them to stop. Then with all Oriental courtesy, he helps the
pastor to his feet and into the church where they stand before a picture of
Jesus. The officer asks, "Are you Christian?" As the pastor nods in
agreement, the officer responds, "I too am a follower of Jesus. In war,
one has to do many things that are hateful to him. But not this time. Please, give
me the name of Christian leaders in the other towns and I will see that they
are protected."
- This story
exemplifies that through the love that Jesus commands of his followers,
barriers of race, ideologies, nationality can be broken, even those gouged out
by war.
2. A New Paradigm (a new understanding)
- As we saw earlier, the Golden Rule
doesn’t define this new commandment, but instead by the willingness to lay down
your life for the others. That kind of love can never be repaid.
- This kind of Love is not equal
with service. Service denotes what one "must do" like it or not. Love
is about doing simply because we want to the best for the other.
3. A Witness to the World
-
There is no doubt about this one, as it is exactly why Jesus said for us to do
it.
-
It is also the basis of why this command is specifically for the Church.
Friends, if you cannot love a brother or sister in Christ in the manner that
Jesus commands, how is it possible to love anyone else?
-
To love each other is, without exception, a transformative witness to the world
of the love that God has for the world.
-
If outsiders cannot clearly see the love within the community, then there is no
basis for them to believe the message that "God so loved the
world..." The visible truth of the gospel hangs upon our visible
countercultural understanding of love.
Towards the beginning of this message,
I confessed to you what some might consider as a flaw within my nature. Now why
would I tell you this? Simply put, if you are going to love me, you've got to
know me, know why I am the way I am sometimes. You need to understand me. In
turn, it reminds me that for me to love you, I need to understand you - that
you don't always think like I do or respond as I would.
Quite often, we remind each other of
our uniqueness by looking at the differences of our fingers, that no one else
in the world can leave a fingerprint identical to yours or mine. While that has
become ingrained in our understanding, we often fail to remember that as unique
as each of our fingerprints are, our personalities, or disposition in life, our
thoughts, our opinions, our actions and reactions are even more unique. No two people are alike and when there are
two more gathered, there is just as many difference of thought.
If we are to take serious, to truly
take to heart Jesus' command to love each other, we must do so knowing and
understanding that we are each different...and that...that's okay.
So friends, it all boils down to this -
beyond anything and everything else, the one thing that must be clear for the
world to see about God's vision for us to be relational - Love for one another
must always be our identifying mark.
Pray with me.
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