Living a Life of Love

Message Transcription

Now. How cool is that, Emily Lemley. Oh my goodness, what an incredible story. Love the connections between Broadway and Lubbock Christian University. Just out of curiosity, if you are connected in some way, either as an alum, a trustee, a faculty member, would you hold up your hand? Let's just do that. We won't make you stand. Look around at that. That's kind of cool. Lots of connections. I do like the cover art. I mean, we may have to work out some kind of sponsorship deal to have this every week. That'd be kind of nice. And if you could just wear that to lead worship every Sunday, that'd be fantastic. We would appreciate that. If you've got your Bibles, open them to Ephesians chapter five. We're going to be looking at that text in just a moment. And, uh, I am indebted to this place. What an amazing connection. And I am so thrilled. I love history and I love the stories, and I love that, uh, doctor, the other doctor Lemley shared just a moment ago a little bit about that history, but thinking about the great history of this church and, uh, the preachers that have been here Norvel young and Bill Banowsky and others, that's just, uh, really a pleasure to be with you today and great to be able to celebrate the good things going on here and the great heritage and connection to LCU. So we're thrilled to be able to be with you today and take things over just a little bit.

So Ephesians chapter five, be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Let's pray. God, we love you and we confess. We don't love you enough, but we want to love you more. We're thankful for your love for us and the great gift of your Son. God. Help us to live in light of your love every moment of every day. Father, we're thankful for the chance to be here, to open up your Word and God. I just pray that as we as we look at your at your word, that you would open it up to us, that you would speak a word through me, that your spirit would move among us. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. So a life of love. What does it look like to live a life of love? I've got a couple of pictures that we're going to flash up there. The first one is of a Bible study I've been in for over 20 years. That's obviously me taking the picture in the middle, but the guy with the ball cap is one of my mentors, Carl McKelvey. The occasion was his 93rd birthday on July 1st. That group, as I said, we've met. We've met in person for over 20 years. And then with the advent of technology, the last few, we still meet virtually.

And it's a wonderful blessing in my life. People in Texas, people in Tennessee, people in California that still get together and share. But we're led by that guy that's 93 years old, who has lived a life of love and has had an incredible influence on other people and has left an incredible legacy. I remember I was he was an elder, I was the preacher at the Voltage Church of Christ in Nashville on the occasion of his 60th birthday in 1991, and I attended that July 1st, 1991. Kay and I were freshly married, and I remember going to that party and celebrating 60 and thinking how this guy is old. And I turned 60 this year. And what gives me heart? I tell Keagan this. What gives me heart about that is I realize 33 years later, he's still pouring into me, pouring into people like me. It's never too late to start really loving people and making a difference in people's lives. And then the next picture is my son and I did a Father's Day trip. We went to Normandy. We did the Allied invasion tour. That's me wading in the waters of Omaha Beach. And I'll tell you, that's a sacred place because 2500 casualties in the initial waves up on Omaha, 777 deaths on that piece of land. And when you think about that text where Jesus said, greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.

The people who went up that beach that day put an exclamation point on, on their love for, for you. And I really still today, I tell people all the time, I love to drink a cup of coffee in the morning, and I get to drink my coffee because people like that love me enough to give everything they had. Life of love. What's it look like and what would it look like if we as God's people, were really serious about loving well and we had the reputation? If that was the single, the single thing people thought about more than anything else about the Broadway Church, about Lubbock Christian University, is that those people love well, what a blessing that would be. So what's a life of love look like? Well, I'm glad that you asked. And I'm glad that we're in the book of Ephesians. It's one of my favorite texts in all the world. I love this book. I really discovered it in intensely about 25 or 30 years ago. I was preaching full time in Memphis, Tennessee, and I remember it as as tragic as this is. I had a degree from two different Christian universities at that point. I'd been preaching for a number of years. I'd been raised, like Emily said in the church, I had no choice. Early on, I but I didn't understand what it was all about.

And then I discovered the book of Ephesians. And F.F. Bruce calls Ephesians the quintessence of polytheism. C.h. Dodd calls it the crown of polytheism. The whole idea is in the same imprisonment when he wrote Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon. Those other three books, all are addressing a problem. Philippians. There was a conflict going on between Euodia and Syntyche, and he's trying to bring peace. Colossians. There's some kind of a heresy that he's addressing, probably an early form of Judaism. I'm not really sure if it was Gnosticism or just Judaism warmed over. Philemon is addressing an escaped slave and a problem that's going there and trying to smooth that over. But when he writes Ephesians, he's just spending time looking at the great themes of Christianity and what God intended for we his people, for we his church to be. And so this exalts those themes. And in the fourth chapter, I remember discovering it like it was yesterday, the fourth chapter, he's discussing all of us using our giftedness. And when we actually use our giftedness as leaders use their gifts to help us use our gifts, then it says we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there, by every wind of teaching, and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming, instead speaking the truth in love. We will in all things grow up into him who is the head that is Christ.

From him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. And that idea of growing up into the head, that is Christ, it finally hit me. As simple as it is that grown up Christians look like Jesus. Grown up Christians look like Jesus. Say that with me. Grown up Christians look like Jesus. And it was just like the sea parted and I remember, oh my goodness, it's that simple. Love God, love people. Be like Jesus, say that one with me. Love God, love people, be like Jesus. And that's what Paul's writing about in this beautiful letter to the Ephesians. It's really probably a circular letter, and it's meant as much for us as it was for them. And now he unpacks. He begins this section after he's described. He actually started in 41 as a prisoner of the Lord. I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Living a life the way we live matters. And then he starts to talk about using our giftedness. And then after he talks about growing up into Christ, he says, so now I tell you 417 and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. You're not going to live that way anymore. I want you to live a different way. And so he begins this section in 417 about the taking off and the putting on.

You get rid of certain things and you add other things. You remove activities from your life, you replace them with other activities. And as he's moving down through this section, he he continues and and we've got him on the screen there. Five, two live a life of love. Five, eight live as children of light. And in 515 be very careful then, how you live. Not as unwise but as wise. Living the way we live matters, and all those are different ways of really saying the same thing that Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and have it to the fullest. So a life of love. A life to the fullest. A life of light. They're all the same thing. So what does it look like? How do we do that? Let's look at the text. We start in 432, one verse earlier, where he's concluding that section of putting off and putting on, and he says, get rid of all anger, rage and malice, and you're going to replace that anger with kindness, compassion and forgiveness. And I love the way he says it in 432. Look at the text. 432 says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you, just as in Christ, God forgave you. Forgive as Christ forgave. How do you live a life of love? You start with the idea of the song that we sang.

I'm forgiven because he was forsaken. And we think about that text that was read the parable of the Unmerciful Servant, and understand how in the world am I supposed to love people that are so different than me? How am I supposed to love people who maybe mistreat me? How am I supposed to love people from the wrong colored state? I remember that I'm forgiven. I remember what Christ has done for me. I remember that I'm the man in the story who had nothing to pay the great debt that I owe. And I realize I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt he did not owe. Forgiveness. I do this a lot. But you know what the book of Romans says? It says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that he. Then he says that the wages of sin is death. So if all of sin that would include us and we are under the death penalty. So let's just check this out. How many? How many in here have ever told a lie? Let me see how many people have ever hold up your hand high. Now look around at that. Look around at that. Look at all those liars and the ones that didn't hold up your hand. You're a liar too. Okay, every time I do that, I have the same reaction. We like to laugh, and it's a nervous laugh.

But none of us stand on our own merit before God. And if I got out the catalogue of sins in Galatians five, we wouldn't want to raise our hand quite so quickly about some of those things that are our darkest secrets. Right? But I am forgiven. And when I understand that I am forgiven, then I become a forgiving person and I become capable of loving everyone. A lot of headlines lately about an assassination 43 years ago. You remember when John Hinckley Jr shot President Reagan? And one of the things that that surprised a lot of people was how intent Reagan was on forgiving John Hinckley. And he was he was he talked to his family about it. Some of them didn't want to do that. He even wanted to have an audience with him. He wanted to look him in the eye. The Secret Service and others said, that's not a very good idea. So he never followed through on that. But the basis of him wanting to forgive him was because he prayed the Lord's Prayer a lot. And the last line of that is, forgive us our sins, or forgive us our trespasses, or forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who sin against us, who trespass against us. And the little parenthetical statement, then, is for if you forgive men their sins, your father will also forgive your sins. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive yours.

And that rang in his ears. And his son said later, he was a man that didn't want to just pray that prayer. He wanted to live that prayer. When I understand I'm forgiven, I become forgiving one of my dearest friends is a man that we actually talked about baptism just the other night, and he was telling about his his baptism as a young boy. Youth minister probably put the screws to him just a little bit and influenced him to go be baptized. And he said, you know, I don't know how really well it took. And he had a prodigal experience. And he did some things that he deeply regrets, but he's been forgiven. And one of the great joys of my life with that dear friend, is that I never knew the guy that had the prodigal experience. The only person I've ever known is a man that loves God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength, and loves his neighbor as himself and is a gracious man because he recognizes how he's been forgiven. May we recognize our forgiveness, and that'll help us be more loving people. But number two, it's fostered an imitation, fostering an imitation. Forgive just as Christ forgave you and gave himself up for us. And then it says, be imitators of God. Therefore, as dearly loved children, the imitation begins in that forgiving spirit. And so what does it look like to just imitate God? You know, again, we're in this political season.

How many of us remember that that cringeworthy moment in a debate in 1988 when they were putting the pressure on Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen is there and they're debating, and they kept going after him. Are you old enough or are you experienced enough? And he kept trying to defend his record and who he was. And finally he uttered those fateful words, well, I'm as experienced as Jack Kennedy was when he became president. And it was just like he said it on the tee for Lloyd Bentsen. You know, I knew Jack Kennedy. I served with Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was my friend. Mr. Quayle, you're no Jack Kennedy. Oh, and there's a part of us when we think about being an imitator of God. I mean, how can I be anything but a cheap imitation? How can I how can I presume to even use my my name in the same sentence with God and trying to imitate him, trying to imitate Jesus Christ? And yet that's what he calls us to. Peter would write about becoming partakers of the divine nature, and Paul just earlier said, we are created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. That's our destiny. And so being an imitator of God and loving like he loved is exactly, precisely what we're called to do. And I think about that old line that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I remember our youngest son.

He's always kind of had a flair for the dramatic and kind of a jokester. And we were on a mission trip one time over in England, and everybody been saying how much you look like me. And we, the two of us were out on the the porch for a breakfast. Nobody else was up. We're just sitting out there by ourselves. And he said, dad, everybody says I look like you. His name is Cole. I said, yeah, I guess so, Cole. I guess you look like me. He said, I could be like you'd be. You'd be Big Scott, and I'd be little Scott. I said, yeah, I guess that would work. I mean, your name is Cole, but big Scott, little Scott, that's fine. And then he. Then he thought a second and he said, Then I'd be big Scott, and you'd be old Scott. Yeah, that's kind of how it works. And then he said, thought a minute, and he said, then you'd be. I'd be old Scott, and you'd be dead Scott. He was right. But imitation. Our children love to imitate us. We are called to imitate God. And then that's the next idea. It's found in an identity. But this idea of of we imitate but our identity be imitators of God as dearly loved children. I love what John said in first John 316 or first John first John three. He says, uh, behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God.

And that is what we are. All right. You think about your identity, our identity, and we we have a lot of people talking about identity today, but how wonderful is it to know that our identity is in Jesus Christ? Isn't that right? And that we are children of God? That we are dearly loved children. And when I recognize who I am in Christ and what he's done to reconcile me to him, what he's done to reclaim me, what he's done to overcome the estrangement, and to welcome me back to the table and to invite me in and deeply love me and cherish me. Oh my goodness. It's easy then, to love. One of the great tragedies of the last couple of weeks as we watched another assassination attempt, was the people trying to figure out the motive of young Thomas Cook. And we may not ever know all the details. Right. Well, one of the great tragedies is, is as I watched the reports and and saw the interview with one of his classmates telling about how this kid was kind of bullied and the word that just rung in my ears was when his classmates said he was an outcast. He was an outcast. I love that song. I will change your name. You shall no longer be called. Remember that. And one of the one of the lines in that change of name is that you're no longer an outcast.

You're accepted. You are. You're part of the family. We are children of God. We're not outcasts. And Paul tells us earlier in this letter that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. We're his work of art. That's how he sees us, and that's how we see our children, right? We see them as works of art, and we we treasure them. And that's how God sees us. But that's not just how God sees us. That's how God sees every soul that he's created. And what would it have looked like if just one of Thomas Cook's classmates had seen and understood themselves to be a child of God, and the love of God had overflowed in their heart to where they they would see a kid that was left out. They would see a kid that was sitting by themselves. They would see a kid that was an outcast and they'd say, not on my watch, not on my watch. I'm going to love that kid. I'm going to befriend that kid. You certainly might have averted an assassination attempt, but how many people do we come in contact with every day that we need to recognize that they are a precious child of God? And then finally, I love this idea of a life of love is finished in sacrifice. And so in 432, we forgive just as Christ forgave us.

But here in it says, be imitators of God. Therefore, as dearly loved children live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Just as Christ second time, just as the third time will be in 525 when he says, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. So we don't have to wonder what it looks like. We've seen what it looks like, and it just means that we consistently, actively give ourselves up on behalf of others just as Christ loved us. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. This is an appropriate place and an important place to also say that a life of love doesn't mean a life of license. Right? Because it doesn't mean just go do anything you want and and validate anything that's going on. If we really love people, we're going to call them to a high standard. The high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And so it makes a lot of sense that he talks about sacrifice. And we hear the word sacrifice. We've got to be reminded of the cross. We've got to be reminded of the cost of sin. And so we would never take license in our lives and act cavalier about sinning, and we would never do that with anybody else.

And so the very next verse he says, among you, there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality or of impurity, or of greed. Now get that he lumped those all together. Those are improper for God's holy people. We're called to holiness. We're not called to a life of license, but a life of love. And that's why I love Romans 13 so much. It says, leave no, leave no debt outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another. For whoever loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this you won't kill, you won't steal, you won't commit adultery. And if there's any other commandment, it's summed up in this love your neighbor as yourself. Love works no harm toward its neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. Love is the fulfillment of the law, as it's the only motive that enables us to keep the law. And when we truly love people, we won't sin against them. You'd never commit adultery on somebody that you love because you know it would break their heart. You'd never steal from someone you love because you love them. If we live lives of love, all our doors would be unlocked. And so it's grounded in sacrifice. I, uh, I close with a couple of stories. One has to do with a sometimes dramatic form that love takes. I started by talking a little bit about Normandy. All of the World War Two stuff's been on my mind lately, and I read a lot of books about this.

But it was also 80 years ago. Well, a little longer than that now. 83 years ago, August 1941, when Raymond Colby, more well known to us by his Franciscan name, Maximilian Kolbe, shocked that Auschwitz death camp after in that month of late in July, a prisoner had escaped and the commandant said, I'm going to put ten of you in the starvation bunker. Franciscan cabana check was one of the ones that was chosen. And he cried out, oh, my wife, oh my family! And Colbey, a monk who'd been thrown into Auschwitz, said, I'll take his place. They let Gabernik go free. Kolbe went into the starvation bunker and they starved seven of those ten people, literally to death. Kolbe and two others lasted so long they had to give them injections to kill them. And he died on August, I believe, 14th, 1941. He took the place of his fellow prisoner, and the thing that happened was that even in Auschwitz, a light went through that camp because people saw the power of sacrificial love and they were revived. So sometimes it's dramatic. More often it's much more mundane, and it's much more ordinary. I had a cup of coffee about three weeks ago with a young woman that's a CEO of a company in town. If I called the name, you'd know the name of the company. The case said, you need to take this woman out for breakfast or for lunch.

You need to get to know her. I just spent time with her. I'm so impressed by her. You need to connect with her and get her connected in the LCU world. And so we went to breakfast and she shared her testimony with me, and I was just blown away. And it really all came down to her coming to this city to do a job and coming to a company that was run by Christian people and being so overwhelmed by their reckless love of that people. The founder of the company eventually told her later after she'd come to the Lord. Love is our secret sauce. But she said she'd never experienced people just self-sacrificially loving her. And she said, here I am moving into my first house, and there's the founder and his wife, and his wife is helping me unpack my dishes. And they just kept loving and they just kept loving and they just kept loving. And she finally surrendered to Jesus. And her husband was not a believer, and she just knew that he would be. And eventually it was the same thing that happened to him. He just saw that love of the people in the workplace poured out, and he could not resist it. And so he became a follower of Jesus as well. And now they're raising a family of Jesus followers because of a life of love lived out in the workplace. May we, as Jesus followers live a life of love. May it be so in us.