I love this church. It’s so great to have this kind of worship where our Hispanic and Anglo congregations can get together, pray, sing praises and study God’s Word together. I’ve preached for about 24 years now, and every couple of years or so, I’ve preached the type of sermon I’m going to preach today. And I preach it because it’s one of the most important topics any church should hear.
Read Scripture and Pray.
OPEN: Several years ago there was an Olympics held in Seattle Washington. As in any Olympics, there were various competitions where athletes compete for a prize. But at this Olympics, there was one event that was so powerful that it was talked about for years afterward. And that event was the 100 yard dash. Nine contestants lined up at the starting line. The gun fired. And the nine competitors started to run… kind of.
You see, this was something called “the Special Olympics” - a competition for physically or mentally handicapped people. And the nine young men and women were filled with excitement as they ran and laughed and raced to the finish line. That is… until one little boy stumbled on the asphalt. He tumbled over a couple of times and fell on his face and lay there crying. The other eight heard him and slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back - every one of them. One girl with Down's syndrome bent down and kissed him and said, "This will make it better." Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line. And everyone in the stadium stood, and the applause seemed to go on… forever.
APPLY: What had that audience seen that day? They had seen 9 young people who loved each other more than they loved the race. And their love for each other had such a powerful effect on the crowd that they stood and applauded.
Jesus told His disciples: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35
In other words: if we show love by our actions the world will notice. They might even stand up and applaud.
Now, this “loving one another” was not just a passing comment by Jesus. This was called the royal law of the Kingdom. James 2:8 tells us “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.”
In fact, love was to become such a crucial part of who we are as Christians that Galatians 5 tells us about it.
Galatians 5:22-23 declares “… the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Notice, LOVE was the very first item on the list. That was because love MUST BE what we are known for as Christians.
The phrase “Love one another” shows up at least 14 or 15 times in the New Testament. And as I looked over those passages, a question arose in my mind – how do I know if I’m truly being a loving Christian? Then it occurred to me that I should look at some of the other “one another” passages and see what they said about loving.
ILLUS: One scholar noted that the phrase "one another" is used 58 times in the New Testament. "Greet one another," "Bear with one another," and "Be devoted to one another" are but a few examples. It's the "one anothers" in the Bible that pull us together as family of God.
For example, Galatians 6:2 declares “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.” You can carry another’s other’s burdens by praying for each other, meeting each others’ financial needs, or making food for someone when they’ve been sick. When someone is struggling in the church you can help them by carrying their burdens and making life easier on them.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says we can show love in another way we can love each other: “… encourage one another and build each other up...”
Encouragement is when you tell others that you’ve seen what they’ve done.
ILLUS: The famous UCLA college basketball coach - John Wooden – used to encourage his players to acknowledge the assists of their teammates. If one player received a pass that allowed him to score, Wooden wanted him to give the other man a wink or point to him as they moved down to the opposite end of the court.
One of the new players once asked Wooden. “But what if the other player isn’t looking when you point him out?” Wooden just smiled, “Oh don’t worry. He’ll be looking.” People like to be encouraged.
ILLUS: The Univ. of Michigan did a study some time back where they split students up into teams and had them compete to see who could complete tasks faster. But when they created the teams, they told one set of group leaders to give 6 encouraging comment for every negative comment they gave. The other team leaders were instructed to give 3 criticisms for every positive encourage. GUESS WHICH TEAM DID BETTER?
The point of the study was this: if you want your group (or church, in our case) to succeed you and I need to compliment each other more than we criticize each other by a ratio of SIX compliments to any ONE criticism.
ILLUS: I have been criticized in the past (pause) for complimenting the church I served as much as I do. But I do this on purpose. I know that a church needs to hear how well they do way more often than they need criticism. If you and I don’t compliment other people at church on a regular basis then we’re not loving each other like we should. We MUST do this on purpose. We have to do it deliberately and aggressively or we’ll not be honoring Christ’s command to love one another.
But love is not just words. One man put it this way: "Whoever loves much, does much." This is what Romans 12:10 says “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.”
How do we do that? How do we “Honor one another above ourselves?” Well, it’s all about realizing that the church isn’t about ME… and it isn’t about YOU… it’s about everybody else in the church other than us.
ILLUS: It was the closing night of a summer VBS. In the group of kids was one young boy who’d only come to one night of the VBS, and who was distinctive because he was missing one of his hands. It just so happened that the teacher of that class was missing that night and didn’t know about him until the closing night activities. She’d already determined what her class would do for the closing program. And part of her class’ planned activity was the children were to put their hands together in the form of a church building (and I formed my hands and recited “Here is the church, and here is the steeple. Open it up and there’s all the people.” And that night she told the children "Now, let's all build our churches. Put your hands together now and repeat with me ‘Here is the church, here is the steeple...’” and suddenly, in horror, she realized what she’d done. Here, in her group was the one boy who couldn’t build a “church” because he only had one hand!!! But the awkward silence was broken when the boy next to him held his hand up and said, "Here, let's build the church together."
You see, without being devoted to one another and honoring one another above ourselves we can’t build Christ’s Church – we need each other and we need to join hands to build His body.
Now, that truth led me to another question: Why does God put so much emphasis on this? I mean, you’d think it would be obvious that Christians ought to ALWAYS love one another. Isn’t that what a church always is? (Pause) Well… no.
ILLUS: One individual said that the Church is often like a bunch of porcupines trying to get together to get warm. They might get warm… but they can also get hurt. They get hurt because too often church people can be hard on each other.
Remember that passage out of Galatians we read earlier about the fruit of the Spirit? Everybody likes those verses because they make us feel good about ourselves. These are the things we’re to be known for. And these things make us feel warm and fuzzy inside.
But few people realize that the verses just before the ones describing the fruit of the spirit are less comforting.
Paul begins his conversation with these words: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Galatians 5:14-15
Whoa! Wait a minute! You mean that the Christians in Galatia were mean to each other? Yeah… Paul says they were “biting and devouring each other.” (Pause) That doesn’t sound very nice! Then Paul goes on to talk about the activities they were doing, and he called these activities “the works of the flesh”. Amongst those “works of the flesh” were these: “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy...” Galatians 5:20-21
And then he says: “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:21
Paul had warned them before!!! Don’t do this! If you do this you WILL NOT inherit the kingdom of God. You will go to hell!
Now, that brought another question to my mind: why would so-called Christians do this? Why would church people end up biting and devouring one another like the church did in Galatia? Why would they get into fights that end up with hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, etc.
Well, there is one reason. And it’s described in Galatians 5:15-17 “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the SINFUL NATURE.”
You see, the reason some church goers do back biting and “devouring” of others is summed up in one word: SIN! And that sin is the desire to pass judgment on others. It’s the desire to play God. And that’s never a good idea.
Romans 14:4 says “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”
That’s what the Pharisees were good at. They loved to judge. They loved to play God. And the mark of a judgmental person is anger and hatred. And that’s just what the Pharisees were like.
Now how many of you don’t want to be like Pharisees? (I asked for a show of hands) Good! But how do we avoid that? Well, there are 3 things we need to know to avoid being like them.
1st –we need to start by realizing “all are sinners.” “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). In other words: we’re all kind of like that little boy who stumbled in that Special Olympics in Seattle. Everyone stumbles. Everyone falls short. Everyone can be criticized. Everyone can be condemned.
2ndly - we need to remember that the person we might criticize is a SERVANT OF GOD. And God doesn’t like us passing judgment on his other servants. You see, our God is known for His willingness to wait on the people who have fallen… to get up again.
ILLUS: Max Lucado put it this way: “Can the sick mock the ill? Can the blind judge the deaf? In the same way, can the sinner condemn the sinner? Absolutely not!” Then he said: “Be careful! The Peter who denies Jesus at tonight’s fire may proclaim Christ WITH FIRE at tomorrow’s Pentecost. The Samson who is blind and weak today may use his final strength to level the pillars of godlessness. The stuttering shepherd in this generation may be the mighty Moses of the next.
The point is this: Christians who struggle and fall short, may need time to change. And you and I cannot always tell what God is planning. It’s never good to count people out before God’s done with them.
3rdly – we need to accept that fact God DEMANDS that we love one another. This is not an option. We will not want to stand before God on the judgement day and say “well, I didn’t love them because I don’t like them.”
Peter put it this way: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8
And Proverbs 10:12 said it this way: “Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.”
ILLUS: Have you ever been in a supermarket and seen a little kid in a shopping cart? And you know that little kid is there, because he’s constantly screaming and yelling throwing a fit. I don’t know about you, but my first reaction is “SHUT THAT KID UP!” I’m annoyed. I’m angry. I just want to be somewhere else. And I really don’t like this child.
Now, my kids aren’t small enough to put in a shopping cart anymore, but when they were I would take them to the supermarket… and sometimes they’d throw a fit. Granted, I’d probably discipline them, but do you think I still loved them? Of course I did. I might not love that brat in someone else’s shopping cart, but I loved MY kids. But what was the difference? The difference was - the kids in my shopping cart were MY kids and my love for them covered a multitude of their sins.
God is essentially telling us: when people in church throw a fit - they are in YOUR shopping cart. They belong to you. They’re your family. Let your love for them cover the multitude of their wrongs. True love doesn’t hate. It isn’t angry. And It doesn’t bite and devour.
That’s because TRUE LOVE is simple… and childlike. It’s the kind of love those 8 Special Olympic kids had when they turned around and picked up their fallen friend. The whole objective in Christianity is pick up the fallen brothers and sisters in Christ. Our objective is to love our them… even when they’re not so lovely.
Jesus says this: "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” Matthew 18:15
Why should I go to my brother when they’ve offended me? To WIN THEM over. It’s not to prove I was right and they were wrong. It’s not to prove that I had was justified in being offended. It was to WIN THEM.
CLOSE: I love this church. And one of the reasons I love this church is because you are the kind of people who truly do try to love one another most of the time. And it’s because I you’re that kind of church, I don’t have to feel uncomfortable in asking people to step forward to become Christians here. I know this is a safe place to become God’s child. That’s why we offer an invitation at the end of every service…
INVITATION.
