Our Love: How God Works Through Us

Here’s my question, as we get started. How are you currently responding to sort of the darkness in the world and the darkness in your world? What is your, if you’re honest, don’t raise your hand, don’t whisper, don’t say anything to anyone. Just, in your mind, is your response fear as you think about the future and what is happening in the world or your life or work or family or finances or is it anxiety? Is it like, “Oh my, what is the world coming to and what about this and what about kids, what about grandkids, what if…?”

Maybe you’re an analyzer? You kind of analyze all the darkness and maybe on a bad day you’re a blamer. You know, I’ll tell you what, here’s the real problem and it’s those people or it’s the media or it’s education or it’s academia or it’s that other political party, whichever one that happens to be.

So how are you responding? Because we are all living in a world where there is breakdown and chaos and corruption and - The world has always been dark, there has always been tragedy, there has always been all kind of evil. And in the midst of it, there has been a small group of people that refuse to bow to the darkness and realize that, by the power of God, we can pierce it.

And our love is how God works through us. How He actually uses ordinary people like you and me to extend exceeding grace to undeserving recipients. That communities change and families change and neighborhoods change and workplaces change when Christians let the love of God and the light of God ooze out of us. And all through history, Jesus was the absolute epitome of that picture. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light came into the darkness and it pierced it, the darkness couldn’t overcome it. And that’s how God works through us.

If you’ll pull out your notes, we can jump in together. Jesus’ final conversation with the disciples was all about where He was going and what He wanted them to do. And He talked about they would do greater works than Him. His last conversation with Peter was one of a question: Peter, remember? He betrayed Him. He said, “Peter, do you love Me? I mean, do you really love Me?” And He wasn’t talking about emotions, He wasn’t talking about intentions, He was talking about loyalty.

If I could change one word, because our culture has so taken love and made it so squishy. When the Bible talks about love, it’s far more than any emotion or any feeling or liking someone or romance. Our culture has taken love and made it almost fully romantic. At the core of love is who you are loyal to. “Peter, are you loyal to Me above your life? Peter, are you loyal to Me and My agenda above your agenda? Peter, are you willing to obey Me and follow Me and do what I made you to do?”

And God’s heart behind all that has always been one thing: I want you to experience the joy of My presence. I want you to experience the love of My fellowship. I want you to experience the peace and the power of being used by Me. And so, we are going to talk about: How is it that God works through ordinary people like you and me?

When Jesus was asked, what’s the greatest commandment, of all the commandments, what’s the greatest? I put it in your notes, Matthew 22:36 - 39, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And you’re to “love your neighbor as yourself.” And when He’s talking about love there, He’s not talking about a good feeling. He’s talking about other-centered, sacrificial, being loyal, and doing actually life God’s way, by God’s power, to fulfill God’s purposes.

The evidence here is John 14:21. It’s a verse I memorized really early, because I thought, someone asked me, “Do you love God?” I love God. I have a good feeling in my soul, or my heart, or whatever about God. And then I read this verse, where this is the last night Jesus is with His disciples, and He says to them, “He who has My commandments and keeps them,” in other words, obeys them, “he (or she) it is that loves Me.” So, if we have His commandments and we don’t obey, we don’t love.

The commandments that He gives us are sort of three-fold - because you ask: Well, what are we supposed to obey? Well, the Great Commandment: Love God with all your heart And then, the Great Commission: Go into all the world and make disciples of every people group. And then, finally, what I just call the Great Compassion. Jesus said, “When you do it unto the least of these, you’ve done it unto Me.” We love when we help people no one cares about. He said, “When I was in prison, you visited me. When I was naked, you clothed Me.” Its helping people that just aren’t as fortunate as us. And that might be emotional, it might be physical, it might be spiritual, but it’s people, often, that are the disenfranchised of our world. Jesus has this very special concern for. And so, to obey Him is to love God, love our neighbor, share the gospel, and help the disenfranchised.

The Acid Test, I’ve given you is, on this little study on love, is in John, chapter 15. Let me just read uh, verses 12, this again, is the last night. “This is My commandment” - says this to His disciples and later to us - “that you love one another,” how? “just as I have loved you.” And so, imagine being with Him and pondering how He’s loved you. And then verse 13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: that one lay down his life for his friends.” And then He goes on to say, “You are My friends if you do what I command you.”

And so, all I’m trying to get is that love is not just an emotion, it’s not an intention, it’s not singing songs, and it’s not coming to church. All those have their place. Love is loyalty to God, and to God’s agenda, to the point of making very specific sacrifice with your time, your energy, your life, your dreams, and your money. So that you care about what God cares about and we care about other people. That’s what love is.

The challenge, however, is we have an adversary, if you will, right? Like does anyone have, like, a big argument like: No, let’s not love people. I mean, who wants to do that, right? We all want to love people, right? We all want to be selfless. We all want to be kind. We all, we all want to care about others. We, you know, we watch movies where someone makes a great sacrifice. And I don’t know about you but I’m a weeper. You know, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe they did that. It’s so beautiful,” right?

So, why is it so hard for us? Here’s why it’s so hard. I put it on the very bottom of your notes. Uh, I put it in the New Living Translation: there is an adversary, there is an enemy, who energizes a philosophical world system that is trying to seduce your heart, and your emotions, and your passions, and your goals away from the Lord Jesus Christ. We get it in 1 John, Chapter 2, verses 15-17. And it’s in the form of a command, and notice how many times the word love shows up. Because love is about loyalty. “Do not love this world nor the things that are in this world, for when you love this world,” are you ready for this? “you do not have the love of the Father in you.” So, you can love the world or you can love God, you just can’t love both.

“For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.” Another translation says, “The world’s system is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” In other words, sex, salary, and status. The world says, those are the things that will bring security, and happiness, and significance.

Now, God would say: All those things are gifts from Me, as a by-product of walking with Me, but, boy, they’re really bad goals. Now, notice, it goes on. “These are not from the Father, but from the world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave,” or lust after. “But anyone who does what pleases God,” notice, “will live forever.” So, all I wanted to do in the first part is just say, could we get real, that love is not a feeling, love isn’t an emotion, love isn’t crying when you see little kids on TV that, you know, with their bellies out, love is not just being a nice person. Love is loyalty, and action, and obeying - have we got it?

So, how in the world could God use ordinary people like me and ordinary people like you to pierce the darkness and really make a difference? And I’m going to suggest two things. First and foremost is God has to work deeply in you, and second, He has to work very powerfully through you. Notice I’ve put in your notes: How can you bring all that you are and all that you have to pierce the darkness in this moment of history with the light and the love of Christ?

How does God work deeply in you? Open, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 12, because we are living in a day where it’s really easy to get discouraged, it’s really easy to get weary, it’s really easy to want to just back away and find a, sort of a safe place and hope things get better somehow, someday.  The writer to the Hebrews wrote to a group of people that after, you know, fifty, sixty years of the Church growing, pretty soon it got really, really hard. And a lot of them were saying, “You know what? I don’t think I can do this anymore. I don’t think I can follow Jesus anymore. The price is too high.” And so, they were going to go back into Judaism. They were going to go back into, “You know, we’re just going to go to the temple and worship. I can’t handle any more of this.”

And the entire book is written to them: Don’t shrink back. The theme of the book is endure, endure, endure. Don’t give up, because Jesus is a greater priest, He’s a greater Savior, He’s the only hope. Don’t shrink back; walk with Him, endure whatever.

And then they give this chapter 11, which is this history of all the people of Old Testament history who were faithful and they paid a huge price. And then in chapter 12 it opens up, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,” then here comes the command, “let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Well, how? “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of the faith.” Motivation, “Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him,” Jesus, “who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.”

Let me make a couple observations about this passage and [if] you have a pen you might want to jot them down, because I think life is going to get way, way harder for people that really walk with God. Maybe better than ever before, but harder. First, for God to work in you deeply, you have to get perspective.

And the perspective of this passage is all of Hebrews 11, whether it was Abraham or Sarah or Noah, whether it was Isaiah, whether it was all that list of people who endured hardship, who believed that, you know what? There is a real heaven and there is a real God and I won’t give up no matter what. And life that is really life comes from Him. And he is saying, “Since we have such a cloud of witnesses,” since we can look back and see how, the result of their life – don’t give up.

And then he gives us some real specific application. He says: Eliminate distraction. He says, “Lay aside every encumbrance.” It’s an athletic word and in fact, the literal word for “encumbrance” is lay aside every fat. It’s a metaphor. In other words, anything that would drag you down, anything that would weigh you down, anything that would keep you from pursuing as fast as you can. He says: In your faith, you need to understand and lay aside, not just bad things but anything.

He says, “Lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which easily,” this word, “entangles us.” In some of the original manuscripts, they were trying to get the right translation for this. And it’s either “entangled” or “traps,” or in some early manuscripts, “or things that distract us.” Lay aside the sin. Lay aside the things, even the good things that weigh you down. Lay aside anything and everything that distracts you from making your number one passion following Christ and making Him known.

There is a path, there is a way that seems right to men and to women that the world just is bombarding you with each and every day that leads to darkness and death. And there is a path that is narrow and challenging and deep and rich and fruitful that leads to life. And the writer of Hebrews is saying to them there are so many who have come before us, this cloud of [witnesses], so lay aside. It’s a command. Lay aside, get rid of, clean the closet, declutter your life of relationships and hobbies and idols and things that distract you and entangle you and keep pulling you away from the path that is correct, because of how much God loves you and because of the consequences.

One of the greatest things you can ever do is just don’t give up, just don’t give in, just don’t become cynical. And then in verse 2, he tells us how. He says, “All this is so you can run with,” hupomeno, that’s the word for endurance; he uses it three times in this passage. It’s the word James uses when he says, “Consider it all joy, knowing the testing of your faith produces,” hupomeno, “endurance.”

And that as you endure through difficult times, that’s how God builds character, that’s how He builds faith. He says, “Lay aside and run this race,” how? “…fixing your eyes on Jesus,” not fixing your eyes on other people and what they have, not fixing your eyes on all the problems, not fixing your eyes on circumstances, not fixing your eyes on the if/when or the if/then scenario that if I get married, then I’ll be happy. If I can get healthy, then I’ll be happy. If my kids turn out right, then I’ll be happy. If we can ever buy a house, then I’ll be happy. If/then, if/then, if/then, if/then. And then when you finally get the “then” you want a bigger “then.” There’s no end to it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. In the gracious love of God as you follow this path, what He promises, in the presence of God is fullness of joy. What He promises is My peace I give unto you. What He promises is is there is fellowship and love and connection with people. And what He promises is as you’re on this path, the byproduct is He may bring prosperity and blessing, He may have you go to a good school, He may actually give you wealth, both material, family, financial. What He is saying is God delights in the prosperity of His servants.

God never wastes hard times. He’s not down on you. He is for you and He loves you. The world says easy, quick, leverage, scale. God says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Me.” Because those who seek to save your life will lose it, and those who seek to give your life away, that’s when you find it.
“Fix your eyes on Jesus.” In other words, pursue intimacy with Jesus as your number one priority. This is Jesus: The one that has My Word, the one who does My will, that’s family. The people who don’t, aren’t. He that keeps my commands is the one who loves me.” And then the promise is, “And I will love him or love her and then I will disclose Myself. We get it all too complicated. Just obey what God shows you for where you’re at right now, and He’ll show you what’s next.

But you can’t get direction and you can’t get to know Him if you don’t take Him up on the fact that He said the way He is going to create new life and sustain new life and transform us is taking the Spirit of God and the written Word and making it the living Word and putting it inside of you in a way in the context of relationships where, little by little, and it takes time. And it’s a process and He will make you, over time, more and more and more like Jesus.

And here’s the weird thing, the more you’re like Jesus, the more people like you, right? You’re a kind person, you’re a forgiving person, you’re an understanding person, you’re an others-centered person, you have more friends, you have more joy. The more you give your life away, actually, the more you get. But there’s – it’s really hard to do, isn’t it? I want my way. My flesh says, “If I had that or if I accomplished that or if, if, if…”

I’ve got news for you. I’ve been around awhile now. Everyone keeps reminding me the last week! Saint Francis was right. He said, “Lord, O Divine Master, grant that I might seek to console instead of to be consoled, that I might seek to love instead of be loved, that I might seek to give instead of receive. For in giving,” he says, “we receive, in pardoning we are pardoned, and in dying we are born again to eternal life.”

This paradigm is hard and upstream, but it’s the road to life. And then he says, “Rest in His direction.” He says, “Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author,” it’s a picture of someone with a machete blazing through a forest. It’s – the word is pioneer. The one who blazes the trail, the trailblazer.

Remember what He said there? Just follow Me. Just do what I do. Respond to evil the way I responded to evil. Respond to people in the way I responded to people. Speak the way I speak, drive your car as though I’m inside of you. Do your job as though we’re showing up together and I’m inside of you. I want the world to see who I really am through you.

And so, He says, “I’m the author.” And then He’s also, the last, the completer or the finisher. He’s got your front and He’s got your back. He’ll provide for you and He’ll protect you. And that all He says is: Just stay on the path. He’s the author and perfecter of your faith. And then remember that the cross always precedes the crown.

Having an eternal perspective changes everything and it’s really hard to maintain, and that’s part of why God wants us in His Word.  “In Thy presence is fullness of joy. At Thy right hand are pleasures forever.” Jesus has created this world in such a way, as one of the great ancients said, “There is a vacuum in your heart and my heart that can never be filled apart from a relationship with Jesus.” And you can know Him and be saved and be a part of His family, but really be looking for purpose and meaning elsewhere and to other things.

And I will tell you, you will live one frustrated life. The most miserable people in the world are people that actually really know Jesus and God is pulling them this way and their own flesh and their own desires and trying to find fulfillment over here. And you have this lack of peace nearly all the time.

And you’re so afraid to go all in, so afraid to trust God. Yeah, He only made the universe, I mean, what could He do for you? He only knows the future backward and forward. He only uniquely made you in your mother’s womb with your personality and your background. I mean, I mean, what could He ever know that could be really good for you, right? I mean, you know better. Or the Internet knows better, I mean, Google it.

You see, when God says, “I want you to love Me with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength,” what He’s really saying is: I want you to be loyal to Me, above everything and everyone else. And His motivation is: Because I love you. We love because He first loved us, and not just, “I love you,” but: I have the best for you. Every command I have, or when it’s swimming upstream, or when it seems so hard or so challenging, that just happens to be the path, but that’s where there’s life.

Meet a good athlete, a good artist, a good musician. I mean, a really great one. They were practicing when no one else practiced, they were working out when no one else cared. You can have gift and you can have talent. The great, great people are people who pay a tremendous price and position themselves with delayed gratification to get something that most people aren’t willing to.

And that is what he is saying here. Fix your eyes on Jesus, refuse to give up, and remember that before - again, the athletic metaphor - you know, it was just a little wreath for them but a lot of prestige. Before you get that, there’s the cross, there’s sacrifice. And all I want to tell you is that’s normal. We have been so bombarded with this click, click, now, now, get, get, me, me that we think that if we don’t get satisfaction and happiness and meaning and everything, I mean, like that…life doesn’t work that way. And if you believe that, you’ll get disillusioned with God.

And what you’ll find, if you look in the mirror, is that who you really worship, regardless of what you say about Jesus or sing some songs, who you end up really worshipping is you. Me, my needs, my agenda, my fulfillment, Jesus help me. When Jesus doesn’t work out the way I want it to work out in my job, if it doesn’t work out the time that I want it to work out, if we can’t do this, if I don’t get this, if people don’t say this about me, well, Jesus…

I’ve got news for you. You’re not the center of the universe and neither am I. He is and He made it. And what He has invited us to do is follow Him, not make Him some guru or genie to make our lives work out the way that we think they ought to work out, because the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t work that way and if we would ever get what we really want, you’d be so surprised how negative that would be.

Run the race with endurance, get rid of, declutter anything, anyone that is holding you back or weighing you down, and run your race with endurance, fixing your eyes on the person of Jesus, and not on problems or people or circumstance.

And then notice, I love this last part: Adjust your expectations. “Consider Him who endured such hostility of sinners against Himself.” If it was hard and difficult and painful and dangerous for Jesus, do you think it’s going to be easier for you? Jesus said to His disciples, “If they hated Me, they are going to hate you. If they persecuted Me, they are going to persecute you.”

And then He did this big deal that we – I don’t hear a lot of people wanting this – “Blessed are you,” blessed, happy, rewarded, God’s favor on you, “when you’re persecuted for My sake,” when you stand up for Me, when you are loving and kind and give good for evil, when you’re willing to say, “No, no, no. Excuse me. I know this isn’t politically correct in this meeting. That’s wrong. Okay? We don’t kill little babies and we don’t kill young kids and we don’t kill old people. That’s wrong.”

And then you get canceled and then they don’t invite you to stuff. Blessed are you. God must work deeply in us before He will work significantly through us. The second, let God work powerfully through you.

My favorite Old Testament character is a businessman. It’s about 445 B.C. He is the cupbearer to the king, his name is Nehemiah, and the whole nation of Israel, which is such a picture for us, decided, “We will do life our way.” So, God says, you know, okay. Do your thing, knock yourself out. For seventy years, God promised judgment.

And so, they end up in Babylon, they end up worshipping idols, they get to the point where a lot of their kids can’t even speak Hebrew anymore. And so, different people take a stab at trying to pull things back together. And Nehemiah finds himself in the Silicon Valley of his world, a place of great power, a place of great wealth. He wasn’t a prophet, he wasn’t a king, he wasn’t a religious guy, he wasn’t a scribe. He was, by all practical measures, in our words, he’s a strategic businessman.

Yes, the cupbearer would taste the wine and eat the food before he gave it to the king so he wouldn’t be assassinated. But it meant he was next to the king, it meant he lived a life of luxury, it meant he was a one-percenter or a half-of-one, of the one percent, a lot like many, many of us. And God strategically placed him next to the most powerful person in the world, like some of you are placed strategically in the most powerful companies in the world, which are far more powerful than most countries in the world. And you guys are creating amazing, amazing, amazing things. And for whatever reason, you’re sitting hearing God’s Word right now.

And so, the process, if you read the first six chapters of Nehemiah is first and foremost, he had a dislocated heart. He’s living in the lap of luxury. His life works. He’s not a refugee. He’s wealthy, he lives in a palace, has great food. And when he hears that the walls are broken down, temple worship hasn’t been restored, the gates are burned, there’s not even worship of Yahweh the one and only God. When he hears it, he stops, he weeps, he fasts, and he prays. He has a dislocated heart. His heart is for God’s agenda, God’s purposes around the world, where is yours?

Second thing is instead of using all of his natural talents and saying, “Great! I’m smart. I’ve got money, I’ve got connections, I’m going to make this happen.” That’s not what he does. He prays one of the most amazing prayers: “Oh God, the all-powerful, the all-knowing, the mighty God, the loving God, the covenant-keeping God, we, me and my fathers, have sinned greatly against You.”

And he has a broken spirit. And the Scripture says that a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, You will never despise. When God can find a regular man, a regular woman, or a student who looks at the situation in your school, or at your company, or in families, or in our world and instead of blaming or complaining, when it breaks your heart and you cry out and ask Him to do something great, to cause there to be a breakthrough, to bring about change. Ask yourself, what makes you so mad you want to punch a wall? And what makes you so sad that you want to cry? And your passions and your vision from God will probably be very close to one of those.

Mine is when I see Christians not living like Christians and churches being places of hypocrisy, it makes me so mad I get livid. And when I see Christians in the beauty of Christ and loving people and helping the poor and caring for one another and doing authentic community and giving their resources and their money and dreaming dreams and skills to, I mean, transform the world – I just go off in levels that you can’t even imagine of joy.

So, that’s what God called me to do. I have people ask me, like, “When are you going to retire?” Like, from what? From doing what I love? From doing what God made me to do.
I may get slower, I may get where, like, you know, the guy doesn’t have it anymore. Could we just, you know, get somebody else? Okay. But there’s an eternity and I’ve got this little thing called time. And whatever I do or you do in this little thing called time, I’ve got news for you people, the implications are forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

If you want to think about real reward and real impact, you start laying aside every encumbrance and the sin that so easily distracts you and you get on board with: I want to do what this Jesus is doing because He is going to reign and He is going to reward. And there is a real heaven and a new earth and a perfect world. Any my salvation is based totally on the gift of His work on the cross and resurrection. I have received that, but my long-term eternity, qualitatively, gets really impacted. You ever think about that? It gets really impacted by what you do now.

And not only that, but is there anything more joyful or more amazing than getting to be a part of watching someone’s life change? Or watching people that don’t have fresh water have water and live? Have people with no food who get cared for? People that don’t know Jesus then find Him. Is there anything more wonderful than being a part of something that transforms cultures and communities and churches and nations? I mean, that’s part of why you love to work. From the very beginning we were to co-labor and co-create with God. And so, he has this broken spirit.

And then he takes a radical step of faith. He steps out and says, “Hey, king, can I leave and go help?” You’re going to leave your good job? You’re going to leave your money? You’re going to leave your role? Yeah, I’ll be back in twelve years or so. And he leaves and he rolls up his sleeves.

And he develops a strategic plan, because he’s got those kind of gifts. And he organizes people that, for seventy years, can’t get anything going and he organizes them and he casts a vision and he uses administrative skills and he’s a great leader. And, bam! Fifty-two days later, a wall is built and then worship starts. And then this is what leaders do, they blaze a trail and then pretty soon people go, “Hey, I think this could work.” You think this could work? I think it could work. Well, let’s do it. Okay. We didn’t believe it would happen before.

We could never see this happen at our company or in our neighborhood. Really? You start it. You start it. Some of you are the greatest leaders people have ever, ever met. And, by the way, don’t think great charismatic personality. Leaders are people of influence, leaders are people who do things and say things and literally blaze a trail that other people go, “Hey, would you like to help?” And neighborhoods change.

What is on your heart? What step could you take? And then he makes a personal commitment. And he realizes that, you know, the world is big, this is what I’m going to do with my life. And then it usually gets much harder before it gets easier. And he has a courageous soul. He refuses to give up.

And I know what I have shared may inspire some or scare others, but here’s what I will tell you with absolute certainty, now that I’m older. I’m not old. Old is when you start looking in the rearview mirror and talking about stories of what you used to do. Old is when you talk about what you can’t do. Old is about a mindset. Older is when your body doesn’t work quite so well and your mind may not be quite as sharp. But you haven’t lost the fire in your belly.

The summary is this - we are the Nehemiah’s of our day, and our sacrifices and our tribulations to pierce the darkness will seem very, very small when we look back from eternity.

None of you will be with Jesus and look in the rearview mirror about your time on earth and go, “Oh, I wish I wouldn’t have sacrificed so much.” It’ll be like, “Oh… ” You’ll have a Schindler’s List moment. And if you know the story, he bought Jews out of the Holocaust so they won’t be killed. And at the end of the movie that tells his story, he has a gold pocket watch that was precious. And he looked at it and he thought to himself: How many more people could I have saved if I would have sold this watch? You’ll never have regrets of being a radical, committed follower of loving people and loving God.