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A great email came to me this week about the challenge I issued Sunday where I asked all the married folks to make a tangible expression of love daily for their spouse and the single people to make a tangible expression of their love for Christ. The question is, “How do you make a tangible expression of love for Christ?”
Great Question! It’s a bit vague isn’t it? Tangible expressions of love for God…how do we do that? I don’t have this figured out entirely which is why I asked for people to share their experiences with me (if you have suggestions leave them in the comment section below). I do have a few guiding thoughts on this. First, the goal is to do something that physically shows your love for God, move it out of the cerebral realm and into reality.

Second a few tangible suggestions:

• Journal, write out a prayer to God or write him a letter
• Send a postcard to someone who needs encouragement or whom you have a strained relationship, let them know about your faith and conviction to care for them
• Help someone anonymously, buy groceries – leave it on the doorstep and run include a note letting them know it came from Jesus
• If someone asks you to pray for them stop and pray with them right there
• If you’re artistic or crafty make something for God then give it to someone or the church
• Make a sacrifice this week financially and give the money to the Salvation Army or the church (even if it’s five dollars)
• Go serve at the Salvation Army for a meal
• Pray and ask that God would show you something you’re supposed to do and then do it!

This is a short list, I’m sure you can add to it. Let me know how this goes.

I recently wrote to Terry Shoemaker the Director of HOTEL INC here in Bowling Green (visit their website here).  I had a few questions for him about HOTEL and wanted know what their ministry was working on, what needs they had and why they had limited their days for accepting applications for assistance.  He replied the same day with this letter about their current situation.

Weston,

Thanks for e-mailing me.

Here’s how we work:

On the first and third Tuesday of the month, we take requests for assistance for rent/utilities.  We do an interview process that takes all day on Tuesdays with the number of clients that put in for assistance.  We review those applications on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning and see who is approved for assistance.  (Approved usually means this is how much we have to disperse).  We then use the rest of the week for interviews with clients. These interviews are intensive.  We budget with our clients.  We seek job opportunities for them if applicable, etc.

The only reason that we do this every other week is due to a lack of funds at this moment.  It has been HOTEL INC’s history to do assistance every Tuesday.

Our food bank is open three days a week.  It is bombarded right now.  We literally have people waiting in our hallways on most days to receive food.

Should you need more information, please let me know.

Terry

I hope that this helps you know their situation and their need.  I pray that this moves you to action.  One tangible step you can take is to bring a contribution to our food drive for HOTEL INC.  Please remember to bring your non-perishable contributions this Sunday as it is our last day collecting for HOTEL.  They are especially in need of the following items: bottled juices, dry milk, saltine crackers and canned proteins (i.e. tuna, potted meats and meaty soups/stews).

The term “puritanical” today means overly zealous, legalistic, prudish.  But, the puritan understanding of evangelism was beautiful.  They wanted above all else a devout community that shined it’s light.  John Winthrop was the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and outlines their understanding or their mission statement in a work titled, “A Model of Christian Charity,” likely preached in part aboard the ship Arbella that took them to the new world.

“Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.”

Nothing about evangelism yet, but we see that their understanding of evangelism started with a church practicing Christian love.  Last week we talked about the church and our relationship with the church.  We talked about the defining characteristics of the church and defining characteristics of it.  When the church is the church the world takes notice.

1. My life is obvious. (5:14)

• We try to disguise this, but as soon as someone knows you’re a Christian they start making assumptions – about your values, preferences, conduct, etc.
• Transformed lives are different from the world.
  • 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
  • Jesus says it best in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world, a city on a hill cannot be hid.”  If you’ve ever gone driving at night you know this is true, cities can not be hid, the light shines and is shone all over.  We are those lights, together we make up a city on a hill shining light to the world.  We call this our witness.
  • John Winthrop understood this and sought to be different by being separate, forming a new witnessing fellowship by forming a pure church.  He continues in his thesis, “We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.”
• Transformed lives by nature bring hope or despair to others.
  • When you fly into LA during the day you are overwhelmed by the smog, the brown cloud this serves as a lens for viewing the entire city.  When you fly into LA at night its completely different, lights everywhere and they all shine beautifully.  Regardless, it’s the same city.  As Christians we are the same on the inside, the question is how are we revealing Christ to the world?
  • Philippians 1:27, “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.”
  • John Winthrop understood this and wanted to bring hope when he said, “May the Lord make it like in New England.”  May that be our heartfelt prayer, that we would be a model community that churches pray, “May the Lord make it like at BGCC.”
  • Yet the puritans in their heavy handedness and lack of grace drove many including Roger Williams away, to form their own community in Rhode Island. You see a believer’s life will bring either hope or despair.  For 2,000 years Christianity has claimed to have the best answers to life’s toughest questions, but when Christians go out and live lives with stupid choices the world stops, looks, shakes it’s head and says, “Apparently this is it, there is nothing better.”  What hope do our lives’ bring when they look no different?

2. My witness is necessary (5:15-16)

• The world has no hope outside of Christ.
  • John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
  • I think that we have lost our sense of urgency in our sensitive and tolerant culture.  We have thought that Christianity is a way of life instead of the way to life.
  • William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, “‘Not called!’ did you say?  ’Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
• God’s witness outside of “me” is ineffective to save! (Romans 1:19-20)
  • Creation shows God’s presence, not his plan.  Creation serves to start a conversation, not end it.  Creation is there proclaiming God’s existence, but not the way to God.
  • God must use “Me” to reach his people!
    • Romans 10:14, “But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?”
    • We believe, I believe in lifestyle evangelism, but there comes a time for words.  So few people live so intentionally that others will ask questions, it’s not apparent by the way you pour coffee or make copies that you’re a Christian.
    • We keep the world at arm’s length and think to ourselves that if I live a good enough life then those who come in contact with me will catch salvation.  Salvation is not a cold!
    • How can we live a lifestyle of evangelism if we have not invited others into relationship with us?  So much of what causes questions are the internal struggles.  How do you have hope after loss?  How do you treat people?
  • People must go through “Me” to reach God!
    • This is the flip side of the priestly equation we live in, if God must use me to get to the world, then the world must use me to get to God.  While God can certainly meet someone in any way he would like, there is no occurrence of someone entering into a saving relationship with Jesus outside of another Christian.
    • Even Paul who is knocked off his horse by Jesus himself is told to go to Ananias to receive the full truth about God. (Acts 9)

“In the beginning, the church was a fellowship of men and women who centered their lives on the living Christ. They had a personal relationship with the Lord. It transformed them and the world around them.    Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy.    Later it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next it moved to Europe, where it became a culture.    Finally it moved to the United States, where it became an enterprise. We’ve got far too many churches and so few fellowships.”    -U.S. Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson, quoted by Karl A. Pohlhaus in his religion column for The Glendale Star [Arizona], July 16, 1998, C5.

How can we move beyond this?  1 John is written by John toward the end of his life and throughout this book he calls the people of the church his, “dear children.”  John calls us the reader his “children” 15 times!  Listen to the words of our spiritual father as he pleads with us to hear and obey.

As he approaches the end of his life, he thinks of his children and writes down all the really important things that we need to know about being the church.  He talks a lot about love, righteousness and remaining pure.  He wants to guard the fellowship and gives us five marks of fellowship in 1 John.

1. Separate

• 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; 16 for all that is in the world-the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches-comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever.”
• The church, or literally ekklesia means the “called out ones.”  We are those who have been called out from the world.  Therefore we should be different, 1 John 1:6 tells us that we can’t claim to have fellowship with God and with the darkness of the world at the same time.
• Sometimes we go a bit too far and form our own ghetto Christian communities. It’s not subbing the world – or being “better” just different.  We should be recognizable as different, we should be light in the world – we’ll talk about that next week.

2. Loving

• This mark helps us to combat the ghetto from forming and our heads from being too puffed up.
• 1 John 3:23, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.”
• Our faith should equate to love, that’s what we’ve been talking about.  Lately my children who are very young have started playing together, sometimes they’ll run off into one of their rooms and just start laughing together.  Nothing warms my heart more and nothing warms the heart of the Father more than to see his children get along.
• We here at BGCC encourage, desire, need for every member to be in a small group – whether it’s a BFC or home group.  We want you to be well loved and cared for – we want you to know people you can love and care for.
• We see that the early church met in large groups in the temple and from house to house.  Now houses then could not accommodate the thousands that had been added to the church – so they broke into small groups.
• This love and concern is more than a small group meeting it is giving as well.  Last week we talked about giving which includes finances was a way of worship.  It’s also a mark of fellowship as well.  In ancient Judaism a minyan was a group of ten Jewish men and whatever city in the world had a minyan there was a synagogue.  Why?
  • Well the Jewish people took meeting together seriously and wanted to have services.  They would do this without a synagogue but when they got ten Jewish men they could formally gather as a synagogue.
  • Ten Jewish men, represented ten Jewish families and ten Jewish incomes.  When ten men tithed, or gave a tenth they had one income – that income provided for their rabbi.
  • The rabbi then would tithe and give a tenth – his tenth would provide for the supplies of the synagogue and so church could happen. No one gave anonymously, no one gave less, they all carried their own load and as such their fellowship was sustained.
• We see a model of small group fellowship in the early church and the grandmother of the church – the synagogue was a small group.  Today we must continue to get small as we desire to grow as a church pleasing to God.

3. Discerning

• 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
• The command to “test the spirits” is plural.  We need to test the spirits.  As we live in a spirit filled community such as this church we need to rely on each other for wisdom.  We have more wisdom together than separately, more insight together than apart.
• Last week we saw in Acts 13:2 that when the church got together to worship, the Spirit gave them the perspective they needed to discern his will.  We need each other to hear the voice of God.  A community that cares, gives, and worships together will discern together.
  • This is why there is a plurality of elders, no one man is capable of discerning the whole and total will of God alone – we need each other.
  • We together as a body of believers have great insight and wisdom into God’s heart and mind.
  • Some churches practice a process of discernment where young people come for prayer and discernment for everything from vocation to marriage.
  • That’s why I want to drag everyone up here who is going off on a mission trip or to Bible college.  Let’s pray for these people and be discerning for them.
• 1 Corinthians 6:3, tells us we will judge angels and that as such we are more than capable of judging daily matters.
• I would delight to hear of a church, or church member who comes to an eldership or other church and says, “Will you please settle this matter between us?”  We don’t need courts to arbitrate, we have the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth among us.

4. Incarnational

• As we discern the voice of the Spirit and move as one body we become Incarnational, it’s a process and we mature in this. Incarnational is not a word evangelicals use often but is popular in other flavors of Christianity.  Simply stated it takes Matthew 25 literally where it says when we minister to people we meet Christ in them, particularly in the poor.
• We meet the incarnate Christ in other and in turn we become Christ to others.  There is an intentional order to the mission statement, it starts with worship, moves into a fully functioning community and then once we’ve done that our love becomes so attractive to the world that evangelism comes naturally.  We must master this.
• 1 John 4:16, “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.   God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
• This week it was shown so clearly when we descended on the home of one of our young at heart lades in the church because of the downed trees in her yard. I put out two emails on CCB to the men’s ministry and we had vans, cars and a truck arrive to finish the job.  As we were unloading the branches a family from the church pulled up and went to work raking. It doesn’t have to involve money, that one hour made a huge difference.

5. Confident

• Finally if we exist as a separate, loving, discerning and incarnational community then we will be a confident community.
• 1 John 5:4-6, “for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.”
• Definition of “Fellowship” or Koinonia is literally “common” all things in common – we belong to each other.  Therefore there are times when we lend our spirituality to our neighbor in discipleship, or lend our joy in celebration with each other, or lend our tears in mourning with each other.
  • I remember studying this epistle with another student who had a Bible that had been translated into Hawaiian pidgin where they had a community word for something that belonged to the community or village.  It was a word that literally meant our community owns this.
  • We each have gifts that belong to each other according to Ephesians 4:11-13, “11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
  • 1 Corinthians 1:7 says that the church in Corinth wasn’t lacking any gift, why because they had come to share them and I dare say we too are not lacking any spiritual gift among us.
• Look at the diagram and see that God blesses “Me” and gives me gifts.  Why?  So that I might turn around and give them to the church.  How does the church get all its gifts through us, through me!  Our confidence comes from knowing, serving and completing the body of Christ together.

Today is the day some of you need to start loving the church by committing to this place your fellowship.  We call it membership and it’s nothing more than a public commitment of your love for this church.