One Life to Love

Preaching What I Don't Practice

Sunday's message was a little tough. It was week one of our 40 Days of Love study and I was talking about the fact that there is nothing in our life more important than relationships. I spent the first twenty minutes establishing that principle with Scripture and end-of-life illustrations. After all, when we contemplate funerals (our own or those we love) we quickly realize that the most important thing in life is relationships. As Rick Warren puts it, when someone is on their deathbed they don't asked to be surrounded by their diplomas or their trophies, they want to be surrounded by those they love. In the end, relationships are the only thing that matter.

So after establishing the principle, I asked the tough question....If that's true, and we know it is, then why do our relationships tend to get the short end of the stick? Why do we short-change the relationships most important to us or neglect the ones we love the most? The answer is usually that we're just too busy. Deep down we sincerely believe that our relationships are the most important thing in our life, but we're so busy and distracted with things of lesser importance that we don't give them the attention they deserve. To quote Warren again, "most of us have first class allegiances to second class causes." Ouch.

At the end of the sermon I went "off notes" and started talking about how if you asked us to rank what's most important in our life we would put God and family first, way ahead of work or hobbies or sports or anything else. But if you ranked those things according to time spent or attention given, the rankings would look very different. The reality is that our time and attention speaks louder than our words and promises. If our relationships are truly the most important thing in our life, then shouldn't we give them more attention that we do?

I don't think I said it exactly like that, but it was something along those lines. It wasn't part of the original sermon because I didn't really want to preach that part. Not because I don't believe it's true, I just didn't want to be guilty of preaching something I don't practice. In other words, my time doesn't always communicate my values. I wish it did and I wish I could have stood up there and said, "You all need to be like me and get your priorities straight." But I couldn't. I've been guilty of neglecting relationships for things of lesser importance. We all have. It's crazy and stupid and one day we'll regret it, but we're all guilty.

So the big question is "what are we going to do about it?" Are we going to wait until our deathbeds to make relationships a priority or are we going to start now? That's the challenge of this study our church is doing together. Do we really believe what God tells us about love and are we willing to make relationships our top priority? I can already see that its not going to be easy and they'll be plenty of things in the study that step on my toes. They're still stinging a bit from Sunday. As one member emailed me after worship..."I'm not sure I can handle another 39 days of love."

Love Defined

Love never gives up.
Lover cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

1st Corinthians 13:4-7 from The Message.

Love

Last Sunday we kicked off our 40 Days of Love study and I've been thinking on our theme verse (1st Corinthians 14:1). Here it is in its various translations...

Follow after love (ASV)

Pursue love (ESV)

You should seek after love (NCV)

Follow the way of love (NIV)

Love should be your guide (CEV)

Let love be your highest goal (NLT)

Love is the thing you should want more than anything else (Worldwide)

Eagerly pursue and seek to acquire love. Make it your aim, your great quest (Amplified)

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it, because it does (Message)

Easter

About three or four years ago our church decided to start making Easter a really big deal. We hadn't before primarily because of our background. Many of us we're raised with the notion that the church shouldn't really celebrate special Sundays because every Sunday is special. We should remember the resurrection every time we gather for worship. And we should, but we usually don't. We decided that it would be good a thing for us to recapture the importance of this event by placing a special emphasis on Easter Sunday and celebrating the resurrection together!

The reason is simple. The resurrection is one of central tenets of our faith, if not the central tenet. Take away the resurrection and you take away Christianity. It's the underpinning of everything we believe. The sacrifice of Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, the hope of eternal life--all are held up and supported by the truth of the resurrection. Without it, Jesus was just a martyr and we are still dead in our sins. I know that sounds a little strong to those of us who've grown up with a more cross-centered understanding of Christianity, but this doesn't take anything away from the importance of the cross. It just reminds us that the story of Jesus doesn't end in death and neither do ours.

Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection? If there's no resurrection, there's no living Christ. And face it--if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ--sheer fabrications, if there's no resurrection.

If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ wasn't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they're already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries. (1st Cor 15:12-19 MSG)

Have a great Easter!

Green Street

On Wednesday nights a couple of our members (Bob & Suzanne Derryberry) have started "skipping" church and going to Nashville to work with a homeless ministry. Last Wednesday, our small group decided to skip ourselves and see what it's all about. The ministry is with the Green Street Church of Christ. It's a small congregation on the east side of downtown. Here's their story as best I can recall from the conversation I had with one of their Shepherds.

The church is 117 years old. It was once a fairly good sized congregation in a thriving community, but the Interstate came through (literally 60 ft in front the church) and changed things. The traffic patterns changed and the community deteriorated. Most of the members moved to the suburbs. The church lost 200+ members over the course of time, but it didn't move. It stayed put. Right in the place God originally planted it. Then they did something that a lot of churches don't have the courage to do (although we should), they opened their doors to the disenfranchised, the homeless, the outcasts, etc. They offered them a place of worship, a hot meal and some basic necessities.

It all started seven years ago. There was a ministry group feeding the homeless once a week on the streets near the church. One winter night it was particularly cold and they asked the church if they could use their fellowship hall. The leadership said "Yes." Then some of homeless began asking if they could sleep in the building during the really cold nights. Again, the leadership said "Yes." It didn't last long because Metro Codes shut it down, but how many churches do you know that would say "yes" to that request? Anyway, the meals continued and the church now handles everything on their own (with the help of a few supporting churches).

Every Wednesday night they open their doors to anywhere from 75 to 150 people. They worship together, share a message from the Bible, offer everyone a hot meal and a visit to the clothes closet. They also have some toys, diapers and other odds and ends (whatever anyone donates). They run two vans back and forth to different locations in the city, including "tent city." A handful of students from Lipscomb help out and some young families have recently joined the church to help out. The minister is bi-vocational. He doesn't take a salary and he has the heart of a servant. The Shepherd I met also had the heart of a servant and the heart of a shepherd. He stayed after the meal to listen to prayer requests and pray for any needs. He explained, "We figured that we could either close the doors or we could become a mission. This is what church is all about!"

The service was not your typical service. There were about 100 or so in the auditorium. A cloud of cigarette smoke from the front steps drifted in whenever someone opened the doors. The rich and poor sat intermingled on old worn out pews. People from the suburbs sang together with people from the streets. The worship was spirited and heart-felt. The message was a simple talk from a selected passage. Folks got up and wondered in and out as they pleased. If they agreed, they said "Amen." If they had a question, they asked it. If there was an announcement, the floor was open. I would consider them to be a fairly traditional church, and yet there were several things that happened that a traditional church might frown upon. As I worshipped, the thought crossed my mind..."Apparently they don't have time to fuss over all the issues we fuss about in the suburbs. They're just too busy helping people."

The most moving part of the night for me was when they lead the song "You're the God of the City." I've always loved the lyrics to that song, but it took on a whole new meaning in that context.

You're the God of the city
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the light in this darkness
You're the hope to the hopeless
You're the peace to the restless
You are

For greater things are yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this city

Greater things are still to be done and many of them will be thanks to the good folks at the Green St. Church of Christ. May God bless their work.