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STAY IN LOVE WITH GOD
Sunday Worship Sermon
SEPTEMBER 27, 2009 - “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually.” (Psalm 105:4)
This is the third week of our sermon series, “The Three Simple Rules, A Wesleyan Way of Living.” We’ve looked at the first rule, “Do No Harm” and the second rule, “Do Good” and now we’ll complete our series by studying the third rule, “Stay in Love with God.” A way of looking at this third rule is to break it down into why, how, and what.
Why stay in love with God?
Perhaps the strongest argument for staying in love with God is that Jesus commanded it. In Matthew 22: 37-38, “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” So we are to stay in love with God because it is commanded by God.
But we rational, thinking humans always want to know the “wiifm?” which means “what’s in it for me?” Reuben Job writes, “What if we were told we could have access to God’s very own life-giving strength and guidance? Well, the good news is that we do have access. We gain that through loving God. Loving God keeps us in touch with Christ’s presence and power so we can fulfill our desire to live as faithful disciples. And from such a life of love will flow the goodness and love of God to the world.” That’s the wiifm, that’s what is in it for us.
How do we stay in love with God?
Well let’s then move on to the “how” - How do we stay in love with God? We stay in love with God through our practice of God’s spiritual disciplines. When we practice each of these a pipeline is created allow God’s love and power to flow from God to us. Bishop Job says, “It is in these practices that we are able to hear and respond to God’s slightest whisper of direction and receive God’s promised presence and power every day and in every situation. It is through these practices that we learn to love and trust God.” Here are the practices.
A daily time of prayer. Prayer is plain and simple conversation with God who created, saved, and sustains us. In prayer we praise God, we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, we thank God for his blessings, and we pray for others and ourselves. We pray alone and as families in the privacy of our homes. We pray together here at church. After each sermon, there is an opportunity to come to the altar railing for prayer. Prayer helps us stay in love with God.
Study and reflection upon scripture. Like prayer, studying and reflecting on scripture becomes a conversation with God. We come to the bible with our hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows, praise of God and anger at God and then God converses with us through His living word. Find a special place in your home for bible study and keep you study materials there. Pick a time during the day that works for you and a length of time. Join the Monday evening bible study or the monthly bible study that is held when the youth groups meet. Or join a short term study like the one held this summer. Studying scripture helps us stay in love with God.
Another spiritual practice is regular participation in the life of a Christian community through weekly worship and participation in the Lord’s Supper. Worship means the work of the people, and the work we are about in worship is praising and glorifying God. And we come to the table of the Lord’s Supper to remember Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, and to be filled by God’s love and power so we can go out into the world to serve. Sunday worship is competing with children’s sports programs and time for rest from the hectic pace of our lives. We cannot allow worship to be looked upon as an “if we can go” thing. If we signed up for an activity and our view is “I’ll show up when I can,” we’d say that activity doesn’t have a very high priority in our lives. Let’s not put Sunday worship in the category of “I’ll go when I can” for what could be of greater importance? Regular participation in the life of a Christian community helps us stay in love with God.
Acts of goodness or mercy are another spiritual discipline. In John 21:15-16, the resurrected Jesus appears before the disciples and singles Peter out asking him three times: “do you love me.” When Peter replies “yes Lord you know that I love you,” Jesus tells him to “feed my lambs and tend my sheep.” Peter had denied Jesus three times, he was drowning in guilt but with the question “do you love me” repeated three time Jesus erased Peter’s guilt giving him a new future and a new beginning. With God’s help, Peter went forth doing acts of goodness and mercy. Spending time with another, listening to their needs and offering encouragement; a visit, card, or call; contributing to one of the 16 mission projects we support; attending local and out of the area mission trips: there are many ways we can practice this discipline at Salem. Acts of goodness and mercy help us stay in love with God.
Taking opportunities to share with and learn from others who also seek to follow Jesus is a spiritual discipline. This can happen in all different kinds of ways: before worship in the pews, in a small group, at a fellowship dinner, on the drive to and from a mission trip, during a visit to the hospital or someone’s home, in the workplace, at the hunting cabin, on the golf course or on the sidelines of the soccer field. Taking opportunities to share with and learn from others who seek to follow Jesus helps us stay in love with God.
Jesus modeled staying in love with God. Mark 14:36 records, “‘Abba, Father,’ he [Jesus] said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” In Romans 8:15, Paul reminds us, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” We have the same access to God that Jesus did, Jesus’ death on the cross assured us that access. Jesus stayed in love with God. Bishop Job writes, “He found not only his strength and guidance but his greatest joy in communion and companionship with his loving Father.”
Henri Nouwen writes, “Look at Jesus. The world did not pay any attention to him. He was crucified and put away. His message of love was rejected by a world in search of power, efficiency, and control. But there he was appearing with wounds in his glorified body to a few friends who had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand. This rejected, unknown, wounded Jesus simply asked, ‘Do you love me?’ He whose only concern had been to announce the unconditional love of God had only one question to ask, ‘Do you love me?’”
Rueben Job reminds us today what the apostle Peter learned from Jesus a long, long time ago: that staying in love with Jesus doesn’t just happen, but rather it takes us being deliberate about making it happen. It takes us finding the way to integrate the spiritual practices into our daily routines. Someone rising early to meet a carpool or milk a cow might practice prayer and bible study later in the day. Someone not required to get up so early might find time alone with God first thing in the day. The important thing is that we each find a way to practice prayer and bible study each day. The same is true for the other spiritual disciplines. And what this really comes down to making staying in love with God a top priority in our lives.
If we don’t, there is a risk: that we will fall in love with other things and put them above God. That those other things will become our true gods. That we will turn away from God who created, saved, and sustains us. For a marriage to succeed, the couple has to spend time together. For us to stay in love with God, we have to spend time with God by practicing the spiritual disciplines. They are the pipeline through which God’s love comes to us and our love is returned to God.
This brings to a close our sermon series on the Three Simple Rules: “Do No Harm,” “Do Good,” and “Stay in Love with God.” There are many opportunities right here at Salem to put these rules into practice. Each of us has failures we can recite but the good news is that we can start again. We will stumble along the way and that’s ok. God is gracious in allowing us to repent, receive forgiveness, and go on. Rueben Job encourages us. “These three simple rules will guard your life from doing evil and enable you to do good, they will allow you to claim your full inheritance as children of God, and they will change your world.” “It is in these practices that we are able to hear and respond to God’s slightest whisper of direction and receive God’s promised presence and power every day and in every situation. It is through these practices that we learn to love and trust God.” Let us pray for and encourage one another to live by these rules. Amen.
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