Having set the scene last week that Life Church is a family let’s develop this a bit further as we consider Life Church as a caring community.
Love is a heart issue. It begins there. It’s also an act of will. There are times when I am hard to love but Barbie, as an act of will, does anyway.
I ended last week by reminiscing about a song we used to sing when I first became a Christian. Mulling this week’s message over, another song came to mind that we used to sing. We would sing this to each other, not even to God, so for a young teen this got a bit embarrassing:
I love with you the love of the Lord,
Yes, I love you with the love of the Lord,
I can see in you the beauty of my King,
And I love you with the love of the Lord.
A few things about this.
· Firstly, are we saying, “without God’s help you’re unlovable!”
· Or are we saying, “I love you because God loves me.”
· Maybe we’re saying, “Because God’s in you I can love you.”
Maybe we’re saying all three and more. Sometimes people are just easy to like and sometimes they are not.
But I think love in the church needs to be reciprocal. Why? If one person demonstrates love to anther but without love being shown back then then the relationship is in danger of being open to abuse.
Now that does not mean we love conditionally, for love should also be unconditional. But there should be this constant multi-directional love demonstrated through -each other (1 John: 4:7-11).
There are several reasons in the Bible why love in the church is vital.
1. Loving One Another Reflects Christ:
John 13:34-35: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
How has Jesus loved us?
Ø He has loved us totally – we are His obsession! (Heb. 12:2)
Ø He has loved us in preference to status (Phil 2:5-7).
Ø He has loved us to death (Phil. 2:8).
One of the things you will find in your ATM report is a proposed pastoral care strategy. To be honest there are two teams in church that we should never need – pastoral care and welcoming. However, without a structure sometimes we fail at things. Both these areas are having a revamp at present.
2. Loving One Another Completes The Law:
Rom 13:8-9: Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
Woman’s Letter: "Dearest Jimmy, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Marie. P.S., And congratulations on winning the lottery."
The debt of love we owe each other is not based on what someone else has done or can do for us. It is to value people for who they are not what they can do. That is why love completes the law. The law had at its core the love of God closely followed by the love of others, the ethical behaviour towards others that people should show.
Loving someone for what they can do for us is not love, it’s narcissism.
3. Loving One Another Is A Result Of Salvation:
1 Pet 1:22-23: Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
Do you remember when you first became a Christian and the world just seemed brighter? The flowers more vibrant, the shy bluer, the bird song sweeter and people more valuable?
When the Bible tells us that we have now received the imperishable we discover that, not only is this for eternity, but it is for the right here and right now. We have a love inbuilt into us that should be demonstrable to others.
4. Loving One Another Is An Evidence Of Christianity:
1 John 3:10-11: This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
Note, loving is evidence of Christianity, but that does not mean that our personality changes! We have to allow the love of Jesus to leak out over others, even if we’re shy, loud, gregarious or introvert.
Child's Letter: Dear God, I bet it’s very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it. Mike
How we expect love to be given is the key to understanding this. One of the things that is covered on the Marriage Course (which I’d highly recommend for all couples) is the idea of love languages put forward by Gary Chapman.
He has defined five of these:
· Touch
· Receiving Gifts
· Affirming words
· Acts of service
· Quality time
The interesting thing is that these languages are limited to marriages; if you ‘speak’ one of these are your primary language, you speak it all the time!
This can be part of the reason why some feel the pastoral care in the church is great, it just naturally speaks a language they understand, wand why others feel it is hit and miss, because it doesn’t speak their language.
For instance, if your love language is quality time that may translate into quality time with one of the pastors. But that can be difficult because if everyone’s language is quality time then we’d never be able to meet that expectation.
In our new Pastoral Care Strategy we are aiming to make sure that everyone feels loved and cared for – but that is not the sole responsibility of the pastors. Now we do love and care for you but we can’t always show that on a one to one basis.
The new structure will have the following elements to it:
· Pastoral Care Companions: these will be respected church partners who will look after up to 8 households. We are not expecting them to engage in counselling, but to be in touch with folks to offer a listening ear, a coffee, and encouragement. We’re using the word companion because they are there to walk alongside.
· Pastoral Care Champions: these will look after four of the Pastoral Care Companions. They will offer support and encouragement and make sure that those who are doing the caring are getting cared for.
· Pastoral Care Coordinator: this will be Phil Hannam, our new assistant pastor, as part of his role. It is important to note that he is not a replacement of what we had in the past as his role will be split between the youth and pastoral work.
· The Oversight team will overall be responsible for pastoral care, as they are. However, Tony will continue with looking after those who can’t make it to church due to age/infirmity.
All three of the full time pastors will be available to be contacted directly. We’re not creating an ivory tower! If you need to see us then an appointment is always the best way. But if you have an urgent need one of us will see you within 24 hours. If it’s life and death one of us will be there quicker.
We know you’re going to have questions about all this and how it will work out in practice. That’s okay, and we’d encourage that. There is a report in the ATM agenda and we will be presenting this a bit more in depth then too.
5. Loving One Another Is A Commandment:
1 John 3:23: And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
Do you know why loving one another is commanded? Because sometimes we just wouldn’t do it given the choice. We’re essentially selfish in our fallen nature. That means that loving one another means we love when we don’t want to.
To love when we don’t want to can be one of the hardest things.
I once had two ladies come to see me who were at loggerheads with each other; it was boing over and affecting the rest of the church I pastored at the time. Having listened to their complaints about the other, which seemed to have the themes of, “She doesn’t, she won’t, she always, she never…” statements.
I suggested the following: go and spend £10 on each other! Go and think through what the other would really like as a gift, think about their likes and dislikes, their personality. Wrap it up and give it to her in the next week.
Now this was not about the gift at all! It was about beginning to think of the other in a positive way. One of them did it. She brought a gift, wrapped it and gave to to the other; the second lady refused to participate (even though she said she would).
What happened; lady number one got over her angst and began to love the other even though she found it hard. Lady number 2 ended up leaving the church because she refused to love when commanded to.
6. Loving One Another Demonstrates Our Love for God:
1 John 4:12: No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
There are several classical Greek words for love. We have eros, physical love. Then there’s phileo, a love that has things in common. Storgé is brotherly love. Then there’s agapéo, or agape, which is describing God’s love for us.
Principally in the NT there are two commons words used, phileo and agapéo.
What John is communicating here is that God’s love in us should be oozing out to others. It means that there is a quality to our love that the world doesn't have, for agapéo is given entirely voluntarily without condition not anticipation of repayment. It flows.
Now I said at the beginning that love should be reciprocal because otherwise the relationship is open to abuse. Here’s the point of agapéo – even when abuse it still loves!
That means sometimes we get taken advantage of by those in churches who don’t love, and we know it! But we still love.
That’s easier to do with non-Christians because we don’t expect them to love with God’s love. But it can be a bitter pill when those who profess to love God don’t show that love to others who do show love.
Fortunately we all have enough grace to allow for others immaturity in this area. But can is say this? If you find yourself isolated at times by those around you and you blame them for not loving you, could it be that you lack of love pushes people away?
We are the only demonstration of God’s love most people will ever know. It’s important to show what’s on the inside of us.
Wrapping it up:
Becoming a loving community is not the job of the pastors only; it’s all of our responsibility.
We have to take the care of each other seriously if we are to be a loving community.
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