MCC Podcasts
Love - Loving The Church
and it's coming to a close here pretty quick, but super fun to be thinking and talking about love all the time. Here's a little illustration. I -- we were told -- and this isn't my sermon, this is just an illustration of it, but we were told Linda and I a long time ago, you know, you want your kids to thrive and you want your kids to have a great self-image. You know what you should do then? You love each other. When your kids see you loving each other, then they thrive, like they come alive. Have you heard that before? Has parents? And this is true. It's really true. And so it was a great piece of advice to get. So early on in our life raising kids -- and I'm not talking about kids who are married today, but I'm making a point here -- early on in our life with kids, we -- we tried to do all kinds of gross things in front of our children. And then that way they would somehow, you know, this would happen for them. And so like Linda taught the kids early on, three little girls, a little boy, taught them early on when the garage door noise, you know, came, and then I was going to be walking in the door to teach them to come running at me. Daddy's home, the sweetest thing in the world. But early on I would be like, yeah, ditching my kids like, get out of the way. Where's your mother? You know, they'd be like, Daddy, clinging on, holding on to my legs. I'd be like, Spint move, get out of my way. And I would go find Linda and I would kiss her and they'd be like, ew, you know. And we'd go on a date and they'd be like, where are you guys going? Can we go? Are we going out? And we're like, no. I like her way more than you. You're not welcome to be with us. She's my prior, she's here, you're here. That's how it works in our family. And so, you know, we just thought of we could just really love each other than our kids would know what was true, that they were safe and that we were committed and that this was the passion of our hearts. This was our advice we got. Isn't that great advice? And when I started thinking about that and I started looking at this idea, I remembered a little remembered fact about Christianity. And that is that the way that the whole world will know that this is all true is if we love each other. Did you know that? This is what Jesus taught. In all the ways that we're longing to say, I want the world to know Christ. I want the world to know how beautiful it is to be a follower of Jesus. I want the world to know the truth. I want the world to know the light. I want the world to know the love of God. In all the ways that we strive to have the world understand and know this, Jesus taught it very simply in John 13. In the upper room, the last week of his life, he taught it very simply. Look at this text with me. He said to them, "A new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you." By this, everyone will know that you're my disciples if you love one another. This is how the world will know that you guys follow a risen Lord and that he's the true king, if you love each other. And so that becomes our job. And I love that. That's our job. How do we help the world know about Jesus? We get to love one another. So my sermon this morning is about loving the church. That's my title. I want to talk about loving the church and loving in the church. Now, I know that's hard to hear for some of us because some of us have had the experience where we understand the church. We've seen the church. We've seen some of the history of the church. We've seen at its worst some of the abuses of the church. And for somebody to say, we're going to talk about loving the church. You go, man, I don't have a lot of love for the church. And friends, I understand that and that makes sense to me. But this is not this morning especially. In fact, I think Greg next week is going to preach on forgiveness and loving our enemies. Loving when it's hard to love those folks. By the way, he's preaching right now at another church in Marin. Is there a one pastor church the pastor needed to be gone and so we're blessing them by sending art down to them. So he's rocking their foundations right now, I bet. Where was I? Oh, this is not about us affirming those things. This is not saying the church and all of its history and all that it's doing. I want you to affirm that. And I'm not going to say, certainly not going to say, that those few evil, truly evil individuals that have abused or misled or in the church. I'm not asking you to affirm that. What I'm saying is this call when we talk about love and this call to love the church is about you loving the real church, loving these people, the place where God has put you to live in the body of Christ and to serve together right now right here in Marin County. It's talking about loving the people. You remember this, don't you? Here's the church. Here's the steeple. You know this Todd? Open the door and that's who you've got to love. That's what we're talking about. Everybody do this, so you'll never forget the sermon right now. I want everybody to do this. I'm going to call you out if you're not doing it. Joe? These are here. Ben Kearns. Wiggle your fingers. These are the people. And we're called to be in relationships of love. We've been talking about love. Love God is the greatest thing. Love of your neighbor is the next greatest commandment and that includes loving everybody. And love those friendships in your world in deeper and rich ways. That was last week's sermon. But there's this unique call in the lives of the people who gather in God's body to say you will show the world that all of this is true when you love each other. So now we've got to talk about how to love each other in the church. How do we love each other in the church? And so that's for the rest of our time together. That's what I want to talk about. I want to look at another passage, Romans 16, and I didn't put it up here because it's too long, and I want you to look at it. So everybody grab a Bible in front of you. Everybody grab a Bible. You've got to have a Bible in front of you because you've got to see this. And you've got to follow along. Romans 16, and if you're in the front row, then you've got to get off your tail and go find a Bible for the other people in the front row. Really? Thank you, brother. If your wife did that for you, I was going to mock you the rest of the sermon. Romans 16, it's page what? Let me give you a page number. 1050. Thank you. 1050. 1050. Turn to page 1050. This is Paul's letter to the Roman church. And it's a list of people. It's so great. It's one of the only, I think there's only one other book Colossians where Paul talks about individuals and greets a substantial list of individuals. And so it's kind of interesting because when we talk about the church and we sort of talk and teach about these concepts, but this is one place where Paul actually had a list of people that he was engaged with and connected to and he started talking about them individually. And I thought this is a perfect place to go when we talk about what does it look like to love the people? What does it look like to love these guys? And so we're going to go to this list and see. When I read this, I want you to think about what it is that this passage could teach a show us about love, about loving in the church, about loving one another. And I may even call somebody out, okay, Stephen, and ask you if you learned anything about not everybody, I wouldn't call new people out, but Stephen. I'm going to ask you after this, like what did you see about loving the church? Here we go. Look at this with me. Such a great passage. And you got to be honest, you bleep over this passage most of the time, don't you? You get to this part in the Bible and you're like Romans, Romans, Romans, Romans, 1 Corinthians, right? Here we go. We're in it. God's word. I commend you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in San Kriya. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people including me, or the helper. Verse 3, "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risk their lives for me. Not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets in their home. Greet my dear friend Appenatus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me, they are outstanding among the apostles and they were in Christ before I was. Greet Amplietus, my dear friend in the Lord. Greet Urbanais, our co-worker in Christ. And my dear friend Stakis. Greet Appelis, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristopolis. Greet Herodian, my fellow Jew. Greet those in the household of Narcissist, who are in the Lord. Greet Trifena and Trifosa, those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother, who has been a mother to me too. Greet Essenkritis, Flagan, Hermes, Patrobus, Hermes, and the older and the other brothers and sisters with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nairus, and his sister, Olympus, and all the Lord's people who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. That's the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Isn't that cool? Isn't that a cool list? You've read that whole thing word for word ever before. Couple of you. Good for you. I want to talk about how do we love the church. What do you, Stephen, did you see anything? Any clues about what how it looks like to love in the church there? Any clues at all, anything that you thought was cool? They risk their lives for one another. That's going to be one of my points. Good job. There's stuff in here. There's details in here that I think when we could talk about how to love the church and we should, most Sundays forever. But just a couple things out of this text that I thought would sort of ring our bell and help you remember this in my time remaining. Number one, this is how to love the church. We welcome those not yet on the inside. We welcome those not yet on the inside. See, this whole letter, I mean, this letter was being sent by Phoebe and he said, "I want to recommend to you, Phoebe." It was like a letter of transfer. She was on the outside. She came from a different place and a different geography and a different group of Christians and she was different than them. And he said, "I want you to accept her. Welcome her the way the saint should welcome somebody." And this first point is if we're going to love the church, we're going to love, we're going to welcome people like there's no real inside, friends. Because that's the myth that there's insiders and there's outsiders. He said, "I want you to welcome her, even though she's not one of you." She's not a marine covenator. She doesn't do things the way you do things. She doesn't look the way you look. She doesn't express her Christianity the way you express your Christianity. You've got to welcome her the way the saints would be welcomed. I like that thought. He expects them to welcome her even though she's not one of them yet. How would you welcome somebody in a way worthy of the saints? Well, for sure. He said, "You give her all the help she's going to need. You give her all the help that she's going to need. She's coming. She's different than you, but you've got to help her." Everybody who ever walks in the doors of a church comes looking for something. They're coming for a reason. And the saints say welcome. We're going to help you with what it is you're looking for. That's what we do. That's how we welcome someone in a way worthy of the saints, even though they're not part of us yet. They're not on the inside. I think that's the biggest myth that we live with. That just sort of there's us and then there's others. And you're one of us, right? You're the us, us and them. You're the us. You know you're the us because you have your seat. You have the same seat that you sit in every week if you can get it. God has. You know you're right there. We know where it is. So we start to feel some sort of a, you know, like this is my place. There's us. I write the check and I pay for the light bill and I help pay the cold salary in Japan and it's us and then there's them. Friends, there's no less than them. Part of how we love the church is we welcome those that are different than us outside of us, not yet part of us. I mean, I want to use the word inside and outside. We welcome. And part of this is going to be really, really challenging. There's no us and so if there's no us, that means we're always growing and we're always changing. It isn't just us. Thank God it's not just us. Be like stale bread. Be like stale water. It's no inflow, no outflow. But have you noticed? It's not just us. It's always changing, right? And growing. And that's going to happen and that's going to happen and that's going to, if it's not just us, then we're going to be challenged by that. We're going to be challenged in a few ways. You know, one of the ways is you're going to be challenged is that you're not going to know some of the people. You're not going to know some of the people. Do you know it's just statistically look around. We've gotten to the place. We've gotten to the size. Two services. This size. We're not going to know everybody in our church. And that for some people is like, they used to be just us. Well, this is what God did. We got to deal with that. And some people go, well, it should be a family. And in my family, I know everybody's name. Well, then we got to change our concept of family. It's a bigger family. It's an extended family. And we're not going to know everybody. And that's going to be hard for some of us. We're going to be like, it used to be me and my friends. And now it's all these people that I don't know and their kids are noisy. And I can't find a seat. One of these days is going to happen. You're going to come in here and somebody's going to be sitting in your seat. It's going to be challenging when it's not just us. We're not going to know some of the people and you're not going to get some of the people. Get them. You're not going to, they're not going to be like you. And that's really the passage here. This is really why he said to them, you better welcome Phoebe because she's not like you. She came from a different part of their world. She came from a different group of Christians. She worshipped differently. She responded to the Lord differently. She thought differently. She may have had some different theology on certain issues. She didn't look like them. She was not one of them. And Paul's like, that's going to be challenging to you. And you're not going to get it. But how we love the church is that we welcome people who are not us. And you go back through this list and you see there are men. There are women. There's married people. There's single people. There's a mom. There's a famous guy in there. I don't know if I'll have time to show you that. But there's a famous guy in there. Special points next week if you can come tell me who that is later and you know why. But there's slaves. There's Gentiles. There's Jews. There's all kinds of people in this story. And they're not all alike. And that creates a challenge. But it's simple, right? How do we love the church? We love by being welcoming. This is our church. If you've met me, or any of our team over at the Have We Met table, or you've ever sat in one of our pastor's offices after becoming kind of coming into our church new in your journey. I hope you've heard some version of this message because we believe it. And I try to say it at every turn. And this is the message. You are now in. There's no in and out here. There's no inner circle and you've got to work your way. Like, well, there's you know, there's the quals and they're in. And there's you. And you've been coming for a while. Two different categories. You come once. We try to say to folks, I need you to understand something. I literally have done this to somebody to Have We Met table. Listen to me. I've done this to new people. I don't recommend it, but I do it. I'm going to tell you something. I know I talk a lot and I'm going to say something that's worthwhile. This is what I do. This is your church. It doesn't take anything more to get on the inside. We love the church by welcoming in a way worthy of the saints. That's the first point. Second point, get connected. I could preach this sermon. I always do. I've preached it about every sermon I've ever preached. I preached it last week. We get connected. That's how we love the church is that we get connected. And there's connections galore in this church. Verse two, Phoebe had helped him somewhere along the line. Verse seven, look at it. Andronicus and Junius were in prison with him. They had some connection. That'll forge a connection. Tends two. Verse 13, Rufus' mom was a mom to him. There's a connection there. He probably gave up his family when he became a Christian. Apostle Paul. And Rufus' mom said, "Honey, you need a mama." I got you. A pinnitus is his dear friend. It says, verse five. He's called, in fact, the word is the beloved. And they change it in English because it has a little bit of intimacy implied with it. It's my beloved. It's my heart. My heart is with you. And there's three friends of Paul's in here where he had this connection where he said, "This is my dear friend. This is my beloved like I love you." These are romances Paul's got going on here. Guys that he loves and is connected to. And his friends Priscilla and Aquila in verse three through five, they risked their lives for him. This is the message that I gave last week that love like God loves is where we take the initiative to give sacrificially to meet the needs of others. We give sacrificially to one another. We give of our lives and they actually risk their lives, potentially costing them life and death for one another. That kind of a connection he had that kind of a connection with them. That's what connection looks like where we're giving of our lives in rich and real and sacrificial ways. And those guys, it's Priscilla and Aquila, they had a church in their home. Did you see that in verse five? He said, "Greet the church that meets in their house." Priscilla and Aquila said, "We got to be connected with people." They knew all their names friends. They were in their home probably every week for a meal and for worship. And Priscilla and Aquila actually did that in Ephesus and then they probably did it in Corinth where Paul met them the first time. These were people who said wherever they go, I'm connected. I know people. I have significant relationships with them. That's what connection looks like. And this was not just a dinner party. These were intentional relationships for growth because the opposite of being connected is isolation and alienation and loneliness. And that friends is the root of all kinds of brokenness and evil. I think every sin you can imagine is either caused by or is the result of or is a symptom of alienation. Get connected. That's how we love the church because when you're connected then you love people in close up ways and they need your love to be who they're supposed to be. And you need their love. I've preached that sermon a million times. We know how the body of Christ works and I just have to ask you, "Now, are you just welcoming? But are you connected?" I mean really. Are you connected? Very quickly. I'm just going to throw these last couple at you. Welcome those not yet on the inside. Get connected and third do your job. Everybody in this thing had a job. Everybody had a job and it's part of being connected. They all had a role to play in the church in Rome. They all had a role to play in their relationship with Paul. Each person didn't supported their job so that the other people were supported and encouraged and all that stuff I talked about last week. And look at them all. They all had their place. And Paul refers to their place. First five appenditists. He was the first one saved in the province of Asia. I love that. Can you imagine? This job was crystal clear. He came to Christ. He's the first one in Asia. Paul put his arm around him and said, "Hey, appenditists. In Asia. It's Jesus. And you." Good luck with that. So he had a job. He had a whole continent. No, he had a whole province to himself. Mary, verse 6, worked very hard for the Roman church. And Veronica's and Junia were some sort of apostles or leaders. Urbana's was a fellow worker, verse 9. Verse 10, a pelis was tested and approved. Whatever his job was, it was hard and he did it. And he kicked tail. That's what that says. Trifhena and Trifosa work hard. And Parris is too. Worked very hard. Trifhena and Trifosa. I just want to tell you, these were twin sisters. Trifhena and Trifosa. And their name, they were probably Jewish people who had been given gotten names. And the names mean the dainty one. And for lack of a better translation, the other one's name means like Jaime chick. Like it's sort of a, like this recognition that these were women of a high calling and a high cast and a high social structure. And so it's like the believers said, "You know, dainty one." And gave them those names. And Paul's affirmation of them was that they worked hard in the Lord. They worked hard. They didn't live into their little dainty-ness. Everybody had their job and people worked for the Lord. Rufus' mom's job was to be a mother to Paul. To be a mother to Paul. Because she needed she saw that. She goes, "You know, you need a mother. I'm in. This is what I'm going to do." By the way, Rufus is the famous one in this story. Do you know who Rufus' dad was? Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross for Jesus when he stumbled and fell after his beating and couldn't carry his own cross. And so Rufus saw that. Their family became Christians and Rufus became Christians. Isn't that awesome? And he was like an all-star in the church that were like, "Dude, your dad carried the cross." He was like a superstar, spiritual superstar. It's like having Ben Kearns in our church, like really? But then of course in the midst of the church, Rufus, it's just Rufus. These guys all had their job. They all played their role. They were all part of something that was going on. Are you doing your part? Do you know what your job is? Because to love the church is for you to take your role seriously and to live into it because nobody else is going to do it. And I just, I've preached on a million times, but I just need to ask you, do you know your job? Do you know without a doubt that you say, "This is where God put me in this church because this is who I give to, and this is how I give, and this is how I serve, and this is what I do." You have to know that, friends, or you're attending the church. You're not loving it. We need you. And I would challenge you this week, and this may be your only take home, if you do not know your job, if you do not know how God uses you to love and strengthen and give courage to this church or to individuals or to a group in this church. If you can't tell me that I want you to go home and start to write a job description and start to figure it out. And it can say, "I think it's this." We're not talking about getting connected as some sort of a euphemism for paths on the back and knowing people's names. We're talking about life together to be strengthened for the ministry that God has for us, life and death, spiritual battle. We've got to be connected, and we each got to do our jobs. Oh, challenge us to know what our job is. And the last thing is, I'll finish with this, but you silly. You've got to see it. This is the last thing. This is how we love the church. We kiss a lot. We kiss a lot. And it is exactly what it sounds like. They would greet one another in this culture with kisses on the cheek. It would come up. It would kiss the cheek. You know those cultures. Don't you love those cultures? You're not all Italian, are you? Steve, my new friend, yeah? You kiss one another on the cheek. You say, "I'm here. I'm with you." But listen, it's funny. He says now after this whole greeting of all these people, he says, "Greet so-and-so and these people and do your job and welcome them and get connected." And then he says, "And greet one another with a holy kiss." I'm not kidding. I bet I spent an hour and a half reading about the history of the holy kiss this week. I know it's not a real job, but it was really fun. They greeted one another with a kiss. Paul said, "You greet one another with a holy kiss. You make it pure." What does he mean by that? Of course he meant it's not a sexual kiss or anything like that, but he meant more than that. It's a holy kiss because it's a kiss that clarifies and expresses our love and commitment to this connection in the body of Christ. It's a solemn vow that says, "I am present with you." I'm committed to you, and I love you. That's how come it's holy. And it's also holy because you can't get that close to another brother's sister without the pangs of conscience if you're not right in relationship with them. You hear me? And I think Paul and his genius said that whole cultural kissing thing, let's take it another step. You make it a holy kiss, you express your holy commitment, and then you use it as a barometer about whether you're right in the body of Christ with these people. In fact, St. Augustine, in a sermon from like 412, like 350 years later, talked about this kiss, and he said, and after we passed the peace in our liturgy and we worship, he said, "Then the Christians must embrace one another with a holy kiss." He said, "Let peace be made in your conscience." That is, when your lips draw near to those of your brother, do not let your heart withdraw from him. These then are a precious sacrament. And so we kiss a lot. Some of us do that. Really, some of us do it metaphorically. But we draw close and express our love to one another. And we keep our accounts short in that. Are you expressive in your love and commitment to your friends, to your body of Christ? Do you express it? Do you live it out? This week, from my sermon last week and from my preparation this week, this week, I told three male friends of mine, listen to me, I love you. I'm with you. And my masculinity survived totally intact. The last hour, I'll wait, but I'm not doing the kiss on the lips thing, okay? Do you express your love and commitment? And then are you keeping your accounts short so that our kisses, our paths on the backs, our good mornings are not impure because they don't mean a lot because we're withholding resentments, fights, but they're pure because we're right with one another and we've made things right. And again, we'll talk about forgiveness more as we go forward in this series. Friends, over time, I'm done. Listen, it's easy to look at the churches a whole and say, I don't love that. It's easy to look at some individuals and say, that's hard. I don't start for me to love that. But Jesus still said, this is my beautiful bride and I love the church. And so must we then. In fact, we must because then the world will know that we serve a real Savior. As you go from here, I pray that God calls you to a welcoming ministry, to an connection that's real, to an expression of your love for one another, and for short accounts. If Jesus loves the church, then we can too.