Serving in the Love of God
So what’s your spiritual gift?
How’s it going in using it?
- Do you feel like your connected right into THE ZONE OF THE ANOINTING ?
- Describe the ZONE OF THE ANOINTING
- Or do you feel like, despite your best efforts, you’re just missing?
Ever been in a relationship that for whatever reason you just don’t connect?
Words miss the mark / are misinterpreted
Actions are seen in the wrong way
Sometimes that how it feels when we try to connect with God.
Most people want to connect with Him … but it’s awkward.
- What do I say?
- What do I do?
- I try … but I feel awkward
Intro to Passage and Theme
In this passage, Jesus is showing us what it looks like to really connect with God in our service.
READ PASSAGE
He’s being caught up in a controversy … whether or not to heal on the Sabbath.
I think that by looking at the way Jesus walked through this situation, we can learn how to really connect with God when we serve.
1. Religion Is a Tool That Tries To Prevent Us From Dishonoring God
A. This is a Noble Goal
Background from Deuteronomy:
Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ” (Deuteronomy 6:1–6, ESV)
The Law Was Giving to Help Us Love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our might.
- Separation from other Nations
- Compassion
- Justice
- Rest
The Problem Is Israel Began To Pursue This Goal Negatively
613 Commandments
- 248 Positive Commandments
- 365 Negative Commandments
Oral Law = Talmud & Mishna to build a fence around these to keep you far from disobeying the law.
- If it is “work” on the Sabbath to walk 5 miles,
- Then oral law would tell you to only walk 1 mile. That way if you make a mistake or have an emergency and end up walking 1 ½ miles, you still haven’t broken the “real Law”
The Oral Law went crazy with rules like this
- Throwing an object into the air with one hand and catching it with the other was prohibited.
- If the Sabbath overtook you as you reached for some food, the food was to be dropped before drawing your arm back, lest you be guilty of carrying a burden!
In All This, The Goal Wasn’t To Be Legalistic for Legalism’s Sake … It Was To Keep Anyone From Dishonoring God
It’s easy to criticize from 2000 years away … but they were trying.
This wasn’t just a game … They were willing to Die For This
Maccabean Revolt
- This history book tells of an incident during the time of Judas Maccabaeus when a group of Jews refused to defend themselves on the Sabbath against the Greek army lead by Antiochus Epiphanes.
- As the soldiers of Antiochus attacked, the Jews “answered them no, neither cast they a stone at them, nor stopped the places where they lay hid; but said: ‘Let us die in our innocency: heaven and earth shall testify for us, that ye put us to death wrongfully.’ So they rose up against them in battle on the Sabbath, and they slew them with their wives and children and cattle, to the number of a thousand people.” (1 Macc 2:31-38)
Roman Siege
- Able to build Siege works against the walls of Jerusalem unopposed b/c they built them on the Sabbath
We can learn a lot about their passion from this
2. Religion Ends Up Minimizing God To Keep Our Him “Safe”
Religion operates on the principle of "I obey, therefore I am accepted."
The Gospel of Jesus is "I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey”
RELIGION: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or myself, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life.
THE GOSPEL: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial.
RELIGION: When I am criticized I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a ‘good person’. Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs.
THE GOSPEL: When I am criticized I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’ My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ. I can take criticism.
RELIGION: My prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment.
THE GOSPEL: My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with Him.
Religion = a system of Control
Gospel = A Dynamic Relationship
New Narnia Movie
- Eustace Turns Into a Dragon b/c of greed
- How to turn him back into the boy
- Hollywood – Make him EARN it by fighting a sea-monster
- Lewis (and the movie) – It’s a Free Gift
- GRACE
- GOSPEL
- JESUS
Result of Religion = a relationship with God that just doesn’t connect.
Religion comes from the motivation of honoring God and tries to do it by avoiding DIS-HONORING HIM.
Good goal, negative approach
I advocate the same goal, but a positive approach.
- Servanthood honors God in a real way.
3. Servanthood Actually Honors God By Showcasing a Relationship With God
A. Motivated by the Love of God (v.18)
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. ” (Matthew 12:18, ESV)
1) God’s love for us
We cannot love or serve anyone unless we’ve experienced God’s love for us.
- By “Cannot” Its not like “I cannot eat ice cream because I’m on a diet.”
- Its more “I cannot leap tall buildings in a single bound because it’s impossible.
- Not a voluntary, self-limiting act of control
- But a statement of my obvious short-comings
God’s love breaks through our short comings
2) Our love for God
The goal is to love God, not as a means to a goal (i.e. heaven) but as an end itself.
- We don't love God the way a sick person loves his medicine
- Or a slave loves the work that keeps him in good graces with his master
- We love God the way a sick person loves health
- And the way a slave loves freedom.
Out of this love for God flows a love for others.
Example: Prayer
"Jesus' example teaches us that prayer is about relationship. When he prays, he is not performing a duty; he is getting close to his Father.
Any relationship, if it is going to grow, needs private space, time together without an agenda, where you can get to know each other. This creates an environment where closeness happen, where we can begin to understand each other's hearts.
You don't create intimacy; you make room for it. This is true whether you are talking about your spouse, your friend, or God. You need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can't get to know God on the fly.
If Jesus has to pull away from people and noise in order to pray, then it makes sense that we need to as well."
- Paul Miller, A Praying Life , page 47
B. Servants Are Concerned With Activity Because They Were Created For Activity
v.11 – Would You Rescue an animal
(Answer is “YES”, they would)
v.12 – Humanity?
- This isn’t “safe”, not in the letter of the Law
This cuts against the way we were made and the reason the Law was given.
The Law was given so that we would Honor God and Love People.
(Example of gleaning laws)
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. ” (Leviticus 19:9–10, ESV)
- Poor
- Widows
- Travelers / Sojourners
- RUTH
We Were Created to Reap Personal Benefits from Service
(stuff from Ortberg & Post’s Why Good Things Happen to Good People)
Stephen Post in his book Why Good Things Happen To Good People
- Studied organ-transplant recipients and found that the more gratitude they felt, the faster they recovered
- People who offered social support to others in a financial crisis saw a marked reduction in their own anxiety about money.
- Giving in high school predicts good physical and mental health in late adulthood, a time interval of over 50 years! Psychologist Paul Wink of Wellesley College studied nearly 200 individuals who have been followed closely since the 1920’s, when they were children, and found that giving protected longevity as well as mental health even half a century later.
- Giving significantly reduces mortality in later life. In this new study from Doug Oman of the University of California at Berkeley, 2,000 individuals over age 55 were studied for five years. Those who volunteered for two or more organizations had an impressive 44% lower likelihood of dying. The only activity that had a slightly higher effect was to stop smoking. And sociologist Marc Musick of the University of Texas at Austin found that individuals over 65 who volunteer are significantly less likely to die over the next eight years than those who do no volunteer work.
- Generous behavior reduces adolescent depression and suicide risk. The Institute sponsored four special studies on teens. Boys, in particular, benefit markedly from feelings of love and from generous behavior.
- Giving quells anxiety. Neal Krause of the University of Michigan followed 976 churchgoing adults over a period of three years. Offering social support to others reduced their anxiety over their own economic situation when they were under economic stress.
- Late in life, giving to others helps facilitate self-forgiveness. Krause also found that giving is a potent trigger for forgiveness, and particularly for African-Americans. He studied nearly 1,000 older adults and found that providing emotional support to others enhanced the ease with which African-Americans forgave themselves for their own mistakes.
- Giving to others increases your longevity, although receiving the same kind of help did not. Psychologist Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan spent five years studying 423 older couples. After adjusting for age, gender, and physical and emotional health, Brown found that those who provided significant support to others were more than twice as likely to remain alive in that five year period. These surprising findings ruled out other factors like personality, health, mental health and marital relationship variables.
- Giving is so powerful that sometimes even just ‘thinking’ charitable thoughts helps us. The simple act of praying for others, Neal Krause found, reduces the harmful impact of health difficulties in old age for those doing the praying. A new study from the National Institutes of Health shows that merely making a decision to donate to a charity increases activity in parts of the brain that release our feel-good chemicals, dopamine and serotonin. And a new Harvard University study showed that just watching a movie of helping activity boosts the immune system.
"The science shows that we're hardwired to be giving," he says. "We're talking here about a one-a-day vitamin for the soul."
"The remarkable bottom line of the science of love is that giving protects overall health twice as much as Aspirin protects against heart disease," he says.
If giving weren't free, pharmaceutical companies could herald the discovery of a stupendous new drug called "Give Back"--instead of "Prozac"--and run TV ads about love.
4. Service Should Be …
Service Can Be …Spirit Directed
ILL – Marc A’s comment about creating NASCAR drivers and not having NASCARs
Service Can Be …Gospel Modeling
v.19-21
Absorb the cost & pain to set others free
ILL – back to disconnected marriage
v.14 – They plotted to “destroy” Jesus after this.
Service Can Be …Excellent
Conclusion
You were created to connect with God.
His love is real. I don’t know everything that this world has thrown at you to convince you otherwise…but it’s real.
This week I’d challenge you to take at least one step to draw closer to God and to try to experience His love.
- Pray to ask Jesus to show you His love
- Take time to discover your spiritual gift
- Find a way, through prayer, in community and with excellence – to showcase the love and gifting of God