Unity Is Our Calling Card // This Is How We Change The World // Read
Nothing worthwhile happens by accident—especially the most worthwhile thing: Helping people find the Father, a family, and a fulfilling future. Living each day with Kingdom-minded purpose takes intention and dedication. We must be clear about who we are and what we value if we wish to change the world. At Cornerstone, we know who we are. We rally behind our core values that give us clarity, purpose, and an identity.
This is how we change the world.
Jesus is our King, and everything we do flows out of that truth. It’s not about us. It’s about him. We’re here to make Jesus famous and be coworkers in helping the Lord’s Prayer come to fruition: “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
Long live the King.
Hey, how are you? Is everybody good today? Isn't it good to see each other? It's good to see the folks online. It's good to see the people here. And it's a wonderful thing that we can choose whatever feels most comfortable, comfortable for us. Whatever feels wise is for us. We're glad to have you choose that. Well, you know, we just we're seeing all these differences that people have and what they prefer. there in that video. We have Browns fans, anybody Browns fans. Okay, Browns fans, we have Steelers fans, boo boo. We have dog people, cat people, Republicans, Democrats, we have divisions everywhere. Is that not right? People divide themselves everywhere. And some of them go very, very deep and very serious. And we're gonna be talking about that this morning. And then I just want to say at the outset, deep, serious, painful, hateful divisions have no place in Cornerstone. They have no place in the Church of Jesus Christ. We have a god we just sang about him who is yes and Amen. That's where he is yes, and Amen. And so we know at Cornerstone, it's a core value to us that we will be known for what we are for, not what we're against, right? We're going to be thinking about that. Now. Last week, we started a crash course on the values of Jesus that are the values of our church, the values of Jesus' followers should be the values of a church. So this week, we're going to continue and it couldn't be more relevant. These are not seven values that we have that were arranged in some order that we would switch them about for the services today. Our value that is unity is our calling card is actually the value that was a number two up for this week. And what a week for us to talk about that. Right? It's here for that pastor Jacob, as you saw, is getting better, it's kind of slow, pray for Jessica as well, she's had COVID as well, and is still having a quite difficult time breathing. So if you pray for them both, that will be wonderful. The kids have not had it, which is a mixed blessing. You know, you don't want to take care of children who are sick, that's hard. But having your kids be very energetic, and wanting to play when no one can help you with them, is not exactly what you prefer when you're not feeling well, either. So they'll be through this soon. Keep praying for them. And God willing, Pastor Jacob will be next here with us next week, I'm gonna ask you to pray with me real quick, just to get our hearts really, really focused. Okay, would you do that with me online in your living room right here? Let's just pray together. And in fact, I'm going to ask you to do this. I'm going to ask you to stretch your hand out wherever you are. And picture yourself stretching it towards the Church of Jesus Christ.
Okay, let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we pray this morning, that your Holy Spirit would be weaving and working among the churches that are yours. All around this world today. May we pray for what you pray for? May we want what you want? And may we be world changers? Because we do. Amen. Amen. Well, let's do a real quick review. Just in case you've had, you know, you might have had one or two other things on your mind besides last week, sermon throughout the week, so you might need a little reminder. And some of you probably were not here didn't hear it. So let's just take a quick check here. Last week, we revealed cornerstones word for the year. And cornerstones word is now just one letter different from the year before that which was new, but it's the newest. Now Jesus says it this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone and the new is here. So we were talking about core values. a core value we mentioned last week is anything that you're willing to get punished over, you believe it so much that it doesn't matter how much they threaten you, you're willing to be punished over is willing to do that, you will do more than just take pushback, you will live for it, you will live for it. That's a core value. And we talked about how we're not in a finite game, a game that you just play until you win or you run out of resources. If you're a Jesus follower, you're in it for infinity forever. Another thing we talked about next week, or last week is that it's not hard to make decisions. We need to keep moving on here, guys.
It's not hard to make decisions once you know what your values are. That's really pure. Now we're starting our fast. We start our fast this week tomorrow. And you know, sometimes when we do a fast, we just kind of say I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna cut back on something, you know, I'll cut back on something. And you know what happens when you do that. If it's a diet, if it's fast, whatever you're doing, and you don't have it centered down. When you get to the point you don't do it very well. You don't do it very well because you're wishy-washy and you Give yourself all kinds of excuses. But if you decide, let's just say, let's say that you decide that during the fast that you're you're a big coffee drinker and there will be no coffee, that makes it easy. Because on Monday morning, you don't get up and say, Well, I wonder when I'm going to fast today, you get up and say, there will be no coffee for me, right? When it's a core value in your life, you know, it's this and not that. So core value helps you make decisions. And even starting your fast will help you there. And then last week, we talked about our very number one, our overarching value of all of it is Long live the king, long live the king, he is the king, he's what's important. He's who's important, not as we want to make him famous in all of our life in all of the people who watch us knows we want to make him famous because it's about him, not about us. Listen, the way to make his fame famous is not by enacting more rules, more laws, it's not by doing that, the way to make him famous is by loving like he loved living as he lived. That's the way the world changes. That brings us up to today. Value number two, unity is our calling card, like Jesus, we want to be known for what we are for, not what we're against. Now, the pagan world before Jesus was very, very negative and known for what it feared and condemned. And this is from the pagans. And actually, I don't want to, you know, break out your circuits this morning. But even to a large degree, the faith that became the face that we follow today, the Jewish faith was known in that way as well. They didn't consider it the Jewish faith. It's just the way that we're living. Now in the pagan world, the chaotic gods of anger and wrath and unpredictable moods dominated everything. They believe that the weather that weather crops were in good weather crops were bad if a fire came, they believed all of that was either because the gods disapproved of what they were doing. Or it could simply be that one of the gods was in a bad mood. Now, even the Jews drifted into this kind of thought, even though God was a God of love. That's not primarily what they focused on. They focused on fear and pain. They did believe that they were the chosen people, God's chosen people, they believed it. And they believe that even though he loved them, he didn't love other nations. He loved them. They were the chosen people. That's that was their take on everything. And when you read the Old Testament, it certainly leads you in that direction. That's what they believe. But then when things bad things happen to them, even a force of nature thing, they believe that it was God against them, they believe that he can be treacherous. It was, he could be very, very hard on them. That's where they all believed. So they made many laws to protect themselves. Do you realize we started out, you know, with the 10 commandments? Actually, that's not true. Did we start out with one right? In the garden of Eden, we had one. Don't eat that anything from that tree. See, if you think laws will correct the world when the world only had one law, we couldn't keep it. We just are bent in the wrong direction. laws don't seem to help us much. So we had the 10 commandments. And then people made more and more laws, more and more laws. They added to them over and over until there were hundreds by the time of Jesus, there were hundreds of laws. It was like, you know, you've got a guard rail going down the road to keep you from falling off. It's like you made five or six guardrails. In fact, I talked to a lady and I said, You're joking right at the end of this. But her laughter told me she wasn't joking. We were talking on the phone and she said, Are you taking this COVID pretty seriously? And I said, Yes, I Yes, I am. I said I, I mostly stay home. And I, you know, I wear a mask when I go out and I wear it exactly the way you're supposed to and all that kind of stuff. I do that carefully. And she goes well, I'm very careful. She said I wear a surgical mask. And then I wear a homemade mask on top of that, that has a place where I can put a coffee filter in there to block it more. And then I wear a face shield on top of that. And I stay at home almost all the time. That's the way I answered the door. I was like, you really do all that. Just kind of
she's trying to make real sure she doesn't step over the line. Right? Well, that's what all these laws were about. So much was no and so much was fear. And it was everyone against everyone. Now, I wish I could preach a long time about this because I don't want to get you confused. You're all worked up. But I want you to know this. The Jews felt and it really, it really played out that way that it was pretty much them against the world. But Jesus made it very, very plain. He came to change all of that. After Jesus came it was never to be us against the world. It was never to be that, even though they didn't have an Old Testament, they called what they had the law and the prophets. And they were the things that Moses and David and a few others had recorded. It was all about the old covenant that God had made with them. Now, the way the old, the old cabinet worked was, when Adam and Eve were the first human beings, they came into the world, and everything was great. Everything was at their disposal, everything, they could do anything they wanted to do, except eat from the fruit of that one tree. Anything they wanted to God was such a generous father, just such a great father. And then the simple rules he had, they couldn't keep that one thing. And so what did he do? He did, like maybe you have done as a parent. He said I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I've loved you and trusted you so much. But you just don't make good choices. And because you've refused to make good choices, I'm going to have to make the choices for you. There's going to have to be some strict rules around here. Does anybody ever do that at your house? Yeah, anybody had it done to you at your house? Yeah, that's kind of the way it works. And that's the way it was. God's perfect world was broken by sin. And so now, even though this was not he had what he had intended, they would be living by the law. And he said that from this one man who he chose Abraham, Abraham, who was living as godly as he knew how to live, would come a chosen people, and from them would come to the Messiah, who would be the only one and only perfect person who could ever be capable of saving everyone from their sins and change everything. And that would be because he was God himself, who chose to leave Heaven, leave a perfect world, and come here. And so finally, the king came, the Messiah came, sat with me long-lived the game, long live the king. When he came, he didn't change everything. He came as a humble baby, he came into a world that was broken, he came into a hurting world. And he came right into the middle of it. And when he came, the first message that we heard from the angels is this good news is for everyone. It's for all people, Jesus came for everyone. It was the first time in all of creation, that people could really hear with their own ears that God was here for everyone. That the message was for everyone. The Love was for everything. He said everything is new. Now, it will be right now new now for all people it was not in the future is for everyone right now. The joy of God, forgiveness for everyone in this new way. love and unity were the cornerstones of God's new relationship with the world. Jesus announced that he came now this is so important. This is so important. Jesus announced that he came not to enforce the rules, not to enforce the law. Are you hearing me here? And here's the secret. He didn't announce that he delegated it to, you know, Jesus did not come to enforce the law, but to give life and make it abundant life and put his heart so much inside of us inside of everyone. That love would be our law. It would be love that guided us. Paul said it like this in Ephesians 214. For Christ, Himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles. And that's the reason he said it that way. It was saying everybody, it was the people who, who used to think they had a relationship with God and the people who thought they never had could have everyone for Jews and Gentiles, he united Jews and Gentiles into one people. When in his own body on the cross, He broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. Let me teach you an important fact right now. If you think that the primary reason Jesus came was so you could go to heaven, you are wrong. It's a perk, we get to go. But the primary reason he came was to bring peace to us. peace between God and us. And us and everybody else. Isn't it funny? When do we think about peace between us and everybody else? We don't feel like amen so much. Yeah, it's just kind of who we are. He broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. So when Jesus Christ comes into your world, it's supposed to take away the hostility that divides you from other people. No more hostility, no more division. He has united us by His work on the cross with all of our unique backgrounds and our perspective. into one. That's what his church is supposed to look like. But can you tell it? Honestly, this week showed us that right here among us, right in the middle of the people who call themselves his church, his followers. The people who claim his name, there's nothing but unity.
We have a great big wall of hostility between us. And anyone who doesn't think like this. Isn't that awful? It's a terrible thing. And you can say, Well, this was just one day. Are you kidding me? This has been building for years. This has been building for years. And it's not one party. It's both parties and people who are no party. It's everybody. We have hostility and we throw it out. We say insightful things we say demeaning things. We say disrespectful things. We act in disrespectful ways. And we expect it to have no consequences. Because if they have a thinking brain cell, they'll agree with me. Right? Isn't that the way we do it? Wow. And when we take it away from politics, let's just put it in the church. We value our interpretation of Scripture over someone else's, and we're willing to fight over it. You know what I have days when I wish they'd burn every theology book. Because they're the source of so much fighting. I do not believe that God allowed us to have letters and thoughts from his early followers, for us to write millions and zillions of books tearing each other down because they don't see it the same way we do. This is not meant to be that way. It was not meant to be that way. And we'll fight over everything thinking that we're right. The whole culture, everybody around us is right here. And the most heartbreaking of all of it, I believe to myself, and I believe it surely must be the Jesus is that we who call themselves bar name, his name is right in the middle of it. In fact, I kind of think if you want to take back the canceled culture, what we call it now if you want to take it back to its origins, Christians, may have been the ones who started it way back. Do you know why? Because if you disagree with me, out of my way, I'm starting another denomination. Yep. If you disagree with me, I'm no longer related to you. I cannot believe my mother would vote that way. You're not my mother anymore. You are not a Christian? How could you think that you are not in my family, and we've increasingly narrowed it? You know, you can drive around, you don't have to drive. Real far you can have you can find churches, not just one, but churches, who identify themselves by the version of the Bible they use. Isn't that crazy? It's just crazy. We have Christians, people who named the name of Christ who identify themselves in that way. And it's funny to me, they'll say I asked about it. And they say we want to use the language that Jesus used. Well, just a little bit of history will tell you that Jesus was more than 1500 years before King James, he spoke Greek and Aramaic. He didn't speak that. He didn't speak that we just come up with these things. This week on Facebook after that horrendous day at the Capitol, I posted on Facebook, if you know me, Well, you know, I'm not political. I don't belong to a political party. I care very much about our nation, and I vote, but I have no allegiance to either party. So I posted on Facebook, and this kind of thing has happened to me before I didn't mention a political thing. The only thing I said was, please, if you call yourself by the name of Jesus,
filter everything through the way he spoke, the way he thought, the way he lived the way he loved. And within 24 hours, I got chastising letters from both sides. One telling me how could you stand up for the insurgents in the Capitol? And the other one? How could you not defend people who have for you know, being against this godless party over here on two opposite sides? And I wrote back, could you explain to me where I said I was for a party? Could you give me any evidence there? What has happened there filters are so big for what they believe that they can't even see scripture without a bias Wow. In this kind of culture, how can we change our world? In this kind of a culture? How can we? Well, first of all, we got to change ourselves, right? We got to make sure we're not doing that. But the truth of the matter is, if you look at it from Jesus' perspective, we have the perfect circumstances right now to change our world. Do you know why? We can model Jesus in our culture better now than ever? The question is not, can we? The question is, do we want to? Do we want to our world is so divided. Everybody, you know, even the ones who appear to be most hostile, is ripe for love and unity, love and unity look so different, it stands out. And that's one of the reasons we don't want to love. We want to get to roll our eyes, we want to get to thump the watermelon and see whether they're really a ripe Christian or not, right? We want to get to do that. We want to resolve our right to be cynical, to be unloving, to say the things that we want to say. You can share your opinion without being ugly. You can disagree without being ugly. But you have to have unconditional love to be there. You can't demean people. That's the difference between a Christian and a Jesus follower. Anyone can call themselves a Christian. A Christian is a religious group, you can mark it on a box, you know, lots of places where they asked for surveys, you can mark it on a box-like there. It's a religious group, you can be a Christian by simply believing, joining, becoming a member steward. But a Jesus follower is different. Oh, that's where the rubber meets the road. It's really different being a Jesus follower than a Christian, a Jesus follower. You can't follow without getting up and going somewhere, right? You can't follow from the recliner. You have to get up and do something. You're a follower. When Jesus said to them to the original Jesus followers come and follow me. What did they do? They immediately left their fish. They immediately left the tax collector's table. They left what they were doing, and they followed him and they imitated him. And you know what some of them decided the cost was too great, and they quit following. They weren't just Christians. And that was good enough, a follower has to actually be doing what Jesus does. You don't allow your children. You don't allow your children to say I'm coming. I'm coming and they're still in the playroom, right? Now they have to get up and comer they're not following you. And you know that and Jesus knows the same thing. A Jesus follower must pay the price, and live like Jesus in our world with love and unity as he wanted. You have to get up and go. And as many of the people said, who followed Jesus is recorded in the gospels. They said, Oh, this is a hard thing when he said you have to pick up your cross and follow me deny yourself, this is a hard and saying, and they quit following. They quit following me back to where they were. Did they believe in the rabbi? Yes. Did they believe in Jesus? Yes. But they were not followers. Same way with Jesus today. When he says, yep, up and follow me and live as I live in love like I love and do what I do. We just go back. We just go back, we become Christians, we quit following. Are you willing to evaluate your life? And the way you treat others through the filter of Jesus through the filter of who he is, rather than the way you've already constructed? your view? Are you willing to put your filters, your political beliefs, your religious beliefs, your personality preferences, all of those? Are you willing to put all of those filters behind what Jesus has said? And how he has lived specifically, are you willing to be with like Jesus, when it puts you and some people that you love with some space between you?
You're not unkind to them, but you just can't love their statements anymore. You just can't do what they do anymore. Because your value is love. Your value is love. Not having a political party when not having your personality override another personality, not any of that. You're just willing to stand for Jesus, and to love like him. More than what your mom and dad say, more than what your homie say. More than anything else. Don't you love hearing me say homeys? Isn't that great? It's so great. It's so it's just so great. I just thought I'd throw that in just for the shock value of and you know why we do it? Because once we have our sins forgiven, we assume that Jesus is in lockstep with us. We kind of think he's following us. Instead of us following him. We say Jesus is with me. Well, the big deal is are you with him? It actually flows a little differently than that. It's a little different. I want to tell you a story about the last moments that we have here today. It's a story Because that has shaped my life. And if you're a Jesus, it will shape yours as well. It starts in john chapter 13. And it goes all the way through the rest of the gospel of john, through the resurrection. And it's only a four-day period of time, but it's more than half of the book of john. It starts the night before the crucifixion. Jesus had just told His disciples, He never sugar-coated anything. And he had just told them persecution is coming because of me, you're going to be persecuted because you love me, because you choose me. After all, you live like me, you're going to be persecuted. And then he told them that he was going to leave, they didn't understand that that's a famous thing in John 14, where he says, I go to prepare a place. He told them that he would be leaving, he washed their feet. And then he shared the last supper with them. And then he invited them to go to a prayer meeting with him. A prayer meeting in the garden of disseminating. Can you imagine sitting in a prayer meeting with Jesus, like with him right there? Does someone say anyone has any special requests? Think about Jesus. Jesus knew that he was literally hours away from his crucifixion death. He knew it.
If you were in that prayer meeting, and you knew it, what would your prayer request be? Oh, God delivered me guys pray for me. The father is gonna let me be killed tonight. If he can't deliver me from it, please help him, you know, but please ask him to make it strong. And please help him too, to make it not hurt in that kind of where we'd be. Isn't that what we'd be doing? That's not what Jesus was praying. You know, what Jesus prayed. John chapter 17 is his whole prayer. JOHN recorded it because he heard it right from the mouths of Jesus. And you know, the first thing he said, the first thing he said was father helped me glorify you. Do you know what he was saying? He was saying, God, I'm coming up on hard circumstances here. Help me represent you Well, when we face hard situations is that our first prayer, rarely, almost never. He said, help me represents you well, and then moving on down. It's recorded here in verse 11. He's talking to his father who said, he's, he says, I want to live in such a way here. I want to handle this in such a way that you will be glorified, by the way, I handle myself here. And then he said, I pray that you will protect these dear ones that I love. But you know what he said, it wasn't don't protect them physically. He wasn't saying don't let them be captured. Don't let them be killed. He's saying protect them. That they may be one as we are one. Don't let them blame each other. Don't let them fight with each other. More than anything else. He said, Let them be one, God help them be one because if they divide and Splinter, everything I came for is done. It's all over. It's all worthless. Don't let them divide and Splinter. And then moving on down. Verse 30. He prayed for us to he said, I'm not only praying for these that are with me right now. I'm praying for everyone who will believe because of us, because of me. And that's us right here. We all believe because of what happened right there. And then he says, moving to a will read all of this verse here, if you'll bring it up. He says, Now I am departing from the world. They are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name. Now protect them by the power of your name. So what? So they'll live through it all? No, so that they will be united just as we are just as God and His father were. So they won't divide so they won't splinter. Move on to the next verse. I am praying not only for these disciples but for all who will ever believe in me through their message. Next, verse 21. I pray that they all this is all of us. I pray that they all will be one just as you and I are one as you are in me, Father, and I am in you, and may they be in us. So why do they'll get to heaven, no? Bigger than that we're supposed to change the world so that the world will believe you sent me to verse 23. May they experience such perfect unity, that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them? As much as you love me? That's what Jesus prayed for. That was his prayer request, doesn't it? make yours seem pretty lame. It does mine. Every time I read this, I'm like, God, I'm shocked you even listen to me. You know, it's so different. He didn't pray, what we prayed for. Most of us have never, and would never think of praying when he prayed for unity. Most of us would never think of praying for those people. We disagree with those Trump supporters, those Biden's supporters, those Muslims, those this those that you know the names, you know what you'd put in there, we would never think and show them, Jesus, that you love them just as much as you love me. Because we don't think he does. We think they're inferior to us, we feel superior, we want to be seen as the top of the stack. That's where most people are. But maybe, if you and I could get a hold of this. If we would beg God for this. If we wouldn't be in our moments of greatest hardship, we would still be focused on the will of God in the heart of Jesus so much that we would beg instead of any of our needs. That Jesus would help those who call him by calling themselves by his name would be one, maybe the world wouldn't be a different place he thought it would be. Jesus said I want everyone. Everyone who calls me Lord, no matter how good, how bad, how connected, how disconnected, how black, how white, how whatever. I want them all around the world to agree. That unconditional love in the name of Jesus is the way to go. I want them to live it by their lives. I want them to say it with their lips. I want it to be there. All around the world. I don't want any more fights between the King James version and the passion version. Do you realize that every time a new translation of the Bible comes up, there are hundreds of websites set up to tear it down? Dear Lord, wouldn't you think that someone with that one brain cell would just be happy that the word of God was getting out somehow? Wouldn't you think it? Wouldn't you think it Wow? We have people divide over the no does the one Duncan completely done you know, we have people who fight over that we have conservative and liberal. liberal is a beautiful word. I hate that it's been trashed in our culture. All Jesus is saying is everybody that's had a different experience, the abused and the ones who've never been abused that have worse than the ones who've never been divorced. The ones who have things in their life that other people reject and say you can't be a Christian with that. And you know what, it's so scary to say it I'm just having a hard time even saying that out loud. Because I know judgment goes up immediately.
Lack of love.
Everyone different will know the love of Jesus. That's what he wanted. It sounds impossible. But Jesus knew it was not only possible, but it was also vital. Do you know why? Because of three things.
First of all, he knew it was mission-critical, absolutely mission-critical. It wasn't a general just can't we all get along. You know, we've heard that phrase so much for quite a few years now. But it wasn't just a general Can't we get along do this was the only way the world would be saved. And the only way the world can be saved would be for us to quit running out there with our banners and state what we're against, instead of saying what we're for, this is the only way the world would be saved. Listen, the entire Old Kevin at the entire Old Testament was keeping the law in the world. And what happened, we got worse and worse. humankind got worse and worse, with the law just worse and worse and worse. When John recorded why Jesus came john 316, the most famous verse in the Bible, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever whosoever would believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. We love that verse. And that's a good verse. Lots of times we forget everyone, everyone who believes and then does this, this, this, and this. And that's not what he said. It's not what he said, everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Should we grow? Yes, he wants to help us do that. But that was not his advertisement. His advertisement was come put your faith in me. Come put your faith in me do that. And then you know what the very next thing he said was, and we don't tout this verse very much. It says For the Son of God did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. And let me say it again. He did not delegate to Cornerstone Church, the job of condemning the world. He said he did not come from That. He said the Holy Spirit would convict of sin. And we would convict of the love of the Father the love of Jesus. That's our job. Then he said, it was not only mission-critical, we can't do it without it. It's intentional. It was a call for intentionality. Has anybody here ever notice that loving? Everybody doesn't come naturally. I mean, you can even be married to somebody you love with all your heart, you know it in your head, but sometimes you don't feel it in your heart, right? You feel like, Oh, I'd like to clock you just once. You know, you kind of feel that. We all know what we know. We know how we were raised. And we have experienced what we've experienced. And we tend to believe that our conclusions from all of that are true. Jesus knew that was not true. Jesus knew that we've been raised in very, very different ways.
I say for me, you know, for me, I was raised with wonderful parents who never had abuse of any kind in my life. And so it only stands to reason that I'm at least 50 miles down the road from the average person, before they even get in the starting blocks.
What kind of a God would have the same kind of standard for them, as he has for me. I just shot a couple of circuits right there. I can see it on your faces.
We have a God of unconditional love. He doesn't love me more and better chances and some of you did. That's absolutely true. Jesus knew that everyone was so different. The only starting place we could have was unconditional love. This is head. And so what did he do? He gave us a new command. Listen, john 1334. He said this at the beginning of the evening, he said it again in the evening and he said it many times. A new command I give you love one another and then Jesus really tightened it up. Because we can call love a lot of different things to write. You know, I share my popsicle with you that's left Well, not so much. You know, not so much. We can call love whole different kinds of things. And so he specified it. He said as I have loved you.
You must love one another. Think about that one for a minute. That should give you a lot to chew on the whole week. How has Jesus loved you? He forgave you. How many times has he forgiven you? Oh, have you messed up once or twice? Yeah. Yeah. How does he keep he keeps forgiving you right? Yeah, yeah, he does. He does. He prayed for oneness. Because through us, he wanted to change the world. Did he want you to get to heaven? Yes. Does he want me to get to heaven?
Yes.
But he wants us to change the world. He wants us as he told us in the verses we read before. He wants the way we love to convince people that God sent him here for them. Let me just ask you this. Is your life a witness to the people who don't yet know Jesus would watching the way you love, convince them that God sent Jesus because of his great love for them? If not, something is sorely missing here friends. Jesus in His last opportunity to talk to the Father. Before he went to the cross, he was asking his father to continually nudge just towards what he had just commanded us to do. And he said it's a new command. It's short, it's easy. Love each other the way I loved you. And I'll throw stones at me for this. You don't have to memorize the 10 commandments. You don't need them on the wall at school. You need to love as Jesus loved you. And you don't even need to know if there is a commandment out there. Because you will not lie. You will not steal. You will not abuse other people because His love is in you to love other people. He said love is I am love you do what I have modeled. It's not a suggestion. He said he didn't say just give it a little bit of effort. Try You know, I'm suggesting and go well, you could cope a little better if you do this. No, he said it's a command not to just get along, but my name is attached to you. People need to know by the way you live the way you love, the way you talk the way you act, you are my disciples, and he prayed Father, please help them get this right. Everything revolves around their unity Gods you know this. If they have the core of love that you and I have the world will change. So then Jesus did it. He laid down his life he left that night, he laid down his life. In a few days, he was resurrected. He came back to life, the disciples saw that everything he had said about who he was was true. He went back to heaven. And they went into the world with this kind of love. And they changed their world.
You say, what doesn't work anymore? No., the world doesn't look like that anymore. Because we quit doing it. We quit loving like that.
Did you know that it was Jesus, the followers of Jesus who loved the world the way he loved them, that brought Western civilization into being? It's the values of Jesus that changed everything. It changed everything. Listen, sometimes we think, and we heard it on both sides of the political game, this campaign. We heard that you know, we win or lose, on which political party wins. Ridiculous. We don't win or lose the Church of Jesus Christ never wins or loses on a boat. We never lose, win or lose on what people believe we win or lose on how we love. I didn't say that Jesus said that. Jesus said that. And so we must not let anything or anyone divide us. We must not let anyone or anything divide us. The teachings of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It changed everything. We have our faith because of that. Now, should we fight for justice?
Yes.
Should we love justice? Yes. Should we love fairness?
Yes. But let me tell you,
the Jews love justice. The old Old Testament, covenant love, justice, and love fairness, didn't change the world. No, he got worse and worse. The only thing that has ever changed the world is the love of Jesus Christ, the love given to everyone. And so what do we need to do? We need to obey the one command, the one command, you can remember it. love others the way I loved you, love others away. Love you. He took it far beyond what he originally said he kind of eased into it. He originally said, treat other people the way you want to be treated. And then after he warmed him up a little bit, it's like, Ah, no freedom way I treat you, not just how you want to be treated, the way I treat you. Obey the one command answer the prayer of the king. That's how we change the world. How do we change the world? obey the one command? Answer the prayer of the king, it changes the world. So I want to ask you this.
Why would you?
And why would I, as followers of Jesus Christ, allow ourselves to be divided by any one thing? Why would we? Why would we allow ourselves to be divided by any one person? by any one party? by any one belief by any one thing? No. This is how we change the world. This is an infinite game that we're in. You know, and if you if you're going, to be honest with yourself, if you were raised in the church, you know that you and your parents and your grandparents fought over things that don't matter anymore, right? Has anybody here ever believed that? You go straight to hell, if you had a tattoo, anybody ever taught that? Does anybody ever hear a sermon about holes in your ears? Why would you put holes in your ears and I heard all that kind of stuff? Well, none of those people are doing that anymore. They're not cutting off people from feeling loved because of that. Do you know what we need to do? We need to quit arguing about verses of scripture. Which I can preach a whole sermon on that I'm already over time. But we need to quit doing it. We need to just love like Jesus. And let God the Father do what he does.
When Christians love like Jesus, it would change our world. Why wouldn't we do it? Would you join me this weekend? Would you pray for oneness? Would you pray for unity? Would you pray for that? That's what Jesus prayed for. It's his prayer request. If you want to know what he wants, that's it. He wants us to love each other as he loved. Would you look for an opportunity this week? To express in person unconditional love to someone that doesn't think like you. Wow. And if you don't immediately have somebody bounce into your mind. That should tell you something. You're living in a bubble. You're not living in the world that Jesus came to save. When you say about another person, I don't know why anyone would ever act like that. You have just admitted your limited perspective. You don't know what their life has been like, you don't know where they come from. And so the only
the thing you need to do is not figure that out. You need to figure out if Jesus were here in the flesh. How would he love them the way he has loved me?
This has changed the world. This is how we change the world. And you know what Jesus said? You know, we have people cowering, thinking, the church is falling apart. And, you know, everything is terrible. And oh, my gosh, you know, the Christians are losing and, you know, all of these different places are taking over the world and all of that you know what Jesus said? He said, When you love like me, I will build my church, and the gates of hell have no power. And that's it. It's not when you elect a certain politician. It's not when you pass all of these laws. It's not when you drive every sin you hate out of the church.
It is when you love
Jesus,
when you love like Jesus when you love the way he has loved you. The gates of hell cannot tear us down. The crazy thing is, Jesus did build his church. He built on love, and we are part of it. And we can make it grow and go and change our world. When we love him, would you pray with me, please? Lord Jesus, we are here. Because of what you were for, not what you were against.
For us.
You were for us exactly the way we were broken, hurting, ugly, hurting other people. And you love this. Just like that. And you love this into newness. Thank you. Thank you. Now, Jesus, I pray this week that you would tenderize my heart towards every person that I've been angry with this week and I've had I pray that you would help me to not say that stupid phrase, hate the sin of love the sinner. Because when I think that way, I just get caught up in hating the sin and trying to explain it helped me just love the center, Lord. Love the center the way you loved me. And may I be a part of changing this world and I pray it for everyone here. I pray that one is down. I know if we love like you. We're going to get just what you told your disciples, we're gonna get persecuted. Because people don't want us to really love. They want us to be part of their party part of their team part of their side. I pray that you would help us take courageous stands for love. And let the chips fall. And know that you will change this world as you change our hearts and help us love others the way you love us. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Long live the king. Make unity our calling card. Amen. Amen.
