❖ Video
❖ Audio (Message)
Love One Another and Serve The World
yourchurch covenant 2,3
Mari Ikeda
Today, continuing on from last week, I would like to talk about the Covenant of Your Church members. Today I’m going to talk about the second and third covenants together, but this is based on the first covenant, so if you missed last week’s talk about the first covenant, please visit the church website later on your own. Also, if you have any questions about membership in this church, you are always welcome to ask the pastors.
Now, you may have been surprised to see the bulletin, but today we will be reading many Bible verses. The first reading is a continuation of Jesus’ words introduced last week. After teaching that the most important commandment we should keep is, first, to love God, Jesus said,
A. Love and serve one another
1. Deliver Jesus’ love to each other through words and actions
(Mark 12:31) The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
The commandments that Jesus taught us to keep can all be summed up in these two. Love God and love your neighbor. And loving one’s neighbor includes loving one another and serving the world. Jesus goes on to say this about loving one another:
(John 15:12-13) My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Jesus gave His life for us, exactly as He says here. And He tells us that we are to follow His example. John, who was one of Jesus’ beloved disciples, put it this way:
(I John 4:19-20) We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
Loving is not an abstract emotion, but a concrete action.Having feelings of love for someone can be based on a self-centered desire to be loved, and can even trigger violence. But when we know that God loves us as we are and even gave His life for us, we can freely love others. Knowing that God’s love that is poured out on us is poured out on everyone, we cannot help but cherish someone in front of us whom God loves. Then, on a different level from gain and loss or personal feelings of likes and dislikes, we consider what is necessary for that person to feel God’s love and what we should do to convey that love to them. In Psalms of the Old Testament, there are these words:
(Psalm 27:10) Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.
The word “family” is very painful for some people, but as the psalmist says, God is the one who welcomes us all as His children, even when our own parents and siblings do not love us. To love one another means that we become a family that cares for and helps one another, regardless of blood ties, because of this love of God. This can be seen from the words of Paul, who laid the foundation of the church, to his own disciple Timothy.
(II Timothy 1:2-4) To Timothy, my dear son: …I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.
These are very emotional words, but they show that Paul deeply trusted and loved Timothy. Timothy was not Paul’s biological son, but there must have been an intimate relationship between them, like a parent and child, as he first says, “To Timothy, my dear son.” Paul further tells Timothy this at the end of this letter:
(II Timothy 4:9-13) Do your best to come to me quickly, …When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.
These are very specific requests. To love one another is to know one another in God’s love, to develop personal trust, and to help one another not only for spiritual support but also for practical needs, as in this relationship between Paul and Timothy.
However, none of us can always clearly understand and believe in God’s love. Everyone has times of suffering and times when we doubt God. There is no one who can continue to believe in God’s love on their own. That is why we also have a role to convey the following words of Paul to one another.
2. Believe the hope that is yet to be seen together (and on behalf of someone)
(Romans 8:25-28) But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. …And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Our faith begins with the despair of not being able to save ourselves in the first place, and grows when someone tells us of God’s love. Jesus in one’s own heart can easily become uncertain; on the contrary, Jesus in the words of a friend is strong and certain. We always need to encourage each other by showing each other the living Jesus in each other. But to do so, we need someone with whom we can safely show our weakness and suffer together and pray for each other. I hope that those who become members of this church will accept it as a blessing that you can be such a presence for someone else. Paul also says in another passage:
(II Corinthians 12:9-10) But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
I have learned this from many people in this church. I have been taught that God is truly alive by the way you are living with hope and trusting in Him in the midst of very difficult circumstances. I believe you could have such a deep trust in God because you have had many experiences of overcoming struggles, but to show it to me and many others by your words and your way of life has become a treasure for us. Therefore, our personal suffering never ends up as suffering if we share it with others in God’s love, but becomes a blessing, both to ourselves and to those with whom we share it. Here are two more quotes from Paul:
(Colossians 1:24) Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.¥
(Philippians 1:29-30)For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.
To suffer with those who are suffering because they cannot believe in Jesus’ love is to make up for the lack of Jesus’ suffering by bearing His suffering with them. Also, to walk in trust in Jesus even in difficult circumstances means to join the steps of many predecessors of faith who have lived the same way, and gives courage to those who will walk in the same way in the future. That is why we are strong when we are weak, and our suffering is also a blessing.
And, furthermore, we are given another grace. It is a grace that allows us to accept and forgive each other’s limitations. Let’s read the scene where the resurrected Jesus came to meet his disciples on the morning of the Day of Resurrection.
3. Accept each other’s limitations
(John 20:19-23)On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
As we try to love one another, we will always face limitations. We cannot understand them, they do not understand us, and misunderstandings occur. We should have been trying to love without asking for anything in return, but we start asking for something in return, causing us to be disappointed and disappointing the other person. It is our human limitation, and a consequence of the fact that none of us can replace God. But we, like the disciples on this Resurrection Day morning, have learned that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God forgives our sins and wants us to live in peace. Moreover, we are even given the power to forgive each other’s sins if it is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul says this:
(Romans 8:11-15) And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. …The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.
As I mentioned two weeks ago, our sinful nature, unfortunately, will never disappear.But if we believe in Jesus and rely on the power of the Holy Spirit, we will not be controlled by our sin. On the contrary, we can accept each other as forgiven sinners and stand each as God’s beloved children. However, if the relationship is such that one person must constantly forgive the other’s mistakes, it is exploitation and abuse. No one needs to be a slave to the sins of another human being. There is a difference between forgiving each other and leaving the mistakes of others unchecked.
Now let us read one last time Paul’s words.
(I Corinthians 12:22-27) …those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, …If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
To practice loving one another is a very specific thing, as I have told you today, and it does not work with everyone at all times. However, we have already been met with each other by Jesus. It is for us to look up to Jesus together and to look for Him together when we lose Him in our weakness and suffering. Each of us is a part of the body of Christ.
B. Love and serve the world
1. Practice all three elements of A in society without expecting anything in return
Now that we have finished talking about the second part of the Your Church members’ covenant, I will now talk about the third part of the covenant, which is to love and serve the world. Please relax, I am not going to talk much longer. This is because “serving the world” means that each of us should practice the “love one another” that we have been talking about, in society outside the church, without asking for anything in return. I just want to add a few things, so I will read the Bible in just two places. First, let’s start with an excerpt from the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke.
(Luke 10:25-37) On one occasion an expert in the law … wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”… “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Who are our neighbors? Jesus said that the question itself is wrong and that we should be neighbors of those who need neighbors. In other words, it means that God’s love should be delivered to anyone who needs it. This is one of the reasons for the name Your Church. We do not exist for ourselves, but for the newcomers to this church, “you”. Having close relationships among church members risks making the church an inwardly closed place. But God’s love is always open, and is naturally poured out equally to those who are not members of the church or who do not have faith. Therefore, the practice of members’ covenant to serve the world begins with bringing God’s love to everyone, regardless of whether they are members of the church or not. That is why, although it may sound a bit harsh, being a member of this church does not mean that you get the privilege of being loved, but that you have the duty to love.
2. Realize God’s Kingdom in this world
Let us now read the last Bible verse of the day. It is from Peter.
(II Peter 3:8-9) But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
God has entrusted us with the role of bringing His love to all people. It means realizing God’s love and justice in society, thus bringing God’s Kingdom to the world. We often complain about why God doesn’t make this world a better place more easily and quickly, and sometimes we almost despair over it, but that is not God’s fault, it is ours. Besides, we should be more excited about the possibility that even in the most trivial of events that seem insignificant to us, the seeds of God’s love are sown and may eventually grow. For in God’s eyes, a day may be worth a thousand years, and a thousand years of work may be for just one day. So let us continue with hope and not give up on realizing God’s love and justice in our personal relationships, in society, and at the global level.
Today I focused on the second of Your Church members’ covenants: to love one another. All three covenants are essential as a church, but I feel that the Covid crisis of the last few years has made this second covenant less meaningful than it used to be. If God is making a desire in your hearts, please join us again this year or newly become a member of this church and walk with us.
(Prayer) Lord, You have led each of us to this church in a wondrous way. Please pour out your spirit on each of us and guide us so that we can deliver more of your love to each other. Our Lord Jesus, we pray this in your name, Amen.
Summary
“Love one another” means, 1. Deliver Jesus’ love to each other through words and actions, 2. Believe the hope that is yet to be seen together (or on behalf of someone), 3. Accept each other’s limitations. “Serve the world” means, without expecting anything in return, to teach the faith, hope and love that we have learnt in loving each other to those who don’t know them yet. It also means to work for the rule of God’s love and righteousness (=God’s Kingdom) to be brought to this world