Tag Archives: Love one Another

A New Way of Thinking

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“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God”
Romans 15:7 (ESV)

Last Sunday I began a series of sermons here at Memorial Presbyterian Church on the New Life in Christ, focusing then on Ezekiel 36:26-28, how we recieve a New Heart from God to replace our hearts of stone.  In God’s mind-blowing way, and with no contrivance on my part, the sermon tied in so well with the “Midweek Message” which I wrote about being a loving congregation.  One of the reasons why the church has a hard time being the kind of loving community that Christ intends for us to be is our cold and wandering hearts.  This week, I am preaching on what it means to receive a New Mind from God, a mind not fixed on the things of the flesh, but on the things of the Spirit (Rom 8:5-8).  (You can listen to the sermons at www.cmpres.com.) If we’re honest, our old minds are another reason why we are not always the kind of community Christ has called us to be.

If you’ve done any reading on Church Growth, Mission Development, or just plain Church Management (though I can’t imagine why you would have), you’ll find most of the literature is written from a corporate or sociological perspective.  After all, if the business models work for corporations and non-profit agencies, shouldn’t they work for the church?  So many attempts have been made to model the church after the world, to judge the success of the church by the world’s standards – have we forgotten what it means to be the church?

If we are to really be the church, the body of Christ in the world, shouldn’t we look different from every other business model that the world offers?  We are not a corporation who gathers to put on a good show to entertain our audience.  We are not an organization that exists to serve its members. 

We are a community called by God, and when we come together, we are to renew and re-commit ourselves to the God who has covenanted to be with us.  We are a community marked by the cross, and when we come together we remember the calling of Christ to die to ourselves, our passions, our goals, and to follow Him.  We are a community filled with God’s Holy Spirit, and when we come together we need to listen to the Spirit’s teaching in God’s word, sing and pray in the joy of the Spirit, and go into the world to serve God in the power of the Spirit.

Too often, the worldly mind, the mind that is “set on the things of the flesh” can creep into and overwhelm the church.  When we start thinking about church in worldly ways, in ways that lead to death as Romans says, the life and joy of what the Christian community dies.  The church will not survive if it operates like the world, and the world will not survive without the church. 

If the church cannot be a place of forgiveness, what can?
If the church cannot be a place of peace, what can?
If the church cannot be a place of grace, what can?
If the church cannot be a place holiness, what can?
If the church cannot be a place of purity, what can?
If the church cannot be a place of love, what can?
If the church cannot be a place of service, what can?

What we need, once God renews our hearts, is for God to renew our minds as well.  We need to come to church, to do church, with our minds set on the things of the Spirit.  Letting the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) guide and direct our every word, our every decision, our every action will dramatically transform the church from a gathering of man to the community of Christ.

SDG

A more excellent way…

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“And I will show you a still more excellent way…”
I Corinthians 12:31 (ESV)

I have to confess, in preparation for this morning’s men’s bible study I was convicted in my reading of I Corinthians 13:

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends…
1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (ESV)

Usually this passage is read in weddings, and it is a wonderful text for the wedding service.  If more couples would take these words to heart, we would find stronger and healthier marriages and families. 

The reality is, though, that this passage has nothing to do with marriage.  The letter to the Corinthian church was written to a broken and divided community.  They were divided over which pastor they liked, they tolerated overt and heinous sin openly practiced by members of the church, they were filled up with pride in their accomplishments and fighting over the importance of their giftedness in the Holy Spirit.  Most notably, the Corinthian church made a mockery of the Lord’s Supper by allowing the wealthy to gorge themselves on the meal, getting drunk on the wine of the table, while ignoring the needs of the poor and keeping them from the table.  This was a broken and divided church.

Paul gave counsel and correction on the issues that plagued the Corinthian church, addressing the particular problems they faced.  But in chapters 12-14, Paul addresses the heart of the matter.  The problem of the Corinthian church wasn’t necessarily poor theology, the problem was a lack of love.  The division and in-fighting of the church was a direct result of the lack of love the community shared.  They were tremendously gifted, but all of those gifts, without love, were meaningless.  Of all the gifts we could desire from the Holy Spirit, the greatest and most fundamental gift is that of love.

Every day it seems we hear of divisions and fighting within the church.  Competition between denominations, controversies that arise in national churches, arguments that ensue within local congregations; the problems of the Corinthian church are with us today.  I wonder, how many of these divisions are a result of our lack of love?

I know that I struggle with this daily.  It is easier for me to respond in the way of the world.  When somebody offends me, or questions my integrity, or says something to cut me down; my first inclination is to respond in kind.  But I hear the Spirit teaching me: Love is patient, kind, humble; it does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful.  Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.  Love never ends.

Have you been upset by someone in the church, or some decision made by your church recently.  Have you said to yourself, “I just won’t have anything to do with that person,” or “I’m just not going to participate in that event?”  Are we divided as a church, as the body of Christ, over the songs we sing on Sunday morning or the decision made by a particular committee, rather than, in love, “not insisting on our own way, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and believing all things?”  John MacArthur wrote in his study on this passage, “It is tragic that in many churches, as in the one in ancient Corinth, the love that is basic to Christian character does not characterize the membership or the ministry.” 

I have been challenged by this passage today to be a more loving person.  Have you?  May we, regardless of where we may be, commit today, by the grace of God, to be a more loving church!

SDG