Love's Order For Life's Priorities VII, Life's Best Investment

We're going to read from Ephesians 5, so turn your Bibles to Ephesians 5, and we also use your outline as we do every week, in case you don't have a Bible with you. Don't forget, I did put in your notes next week's Faithful to Completion offering card. It's very important that every one of us who call this our church continue to support the effort that we have to complete our bridge loan, which is just about six weeks away. We're going to honor God as we pay off that bridge loan and move forward, so I trust you'll all be praying about that this week. Ephesians 5, verses 1 and 2, the imitators of God, therefore, is dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. I want to read that again, and if you have your notes, pick it up with me when I reach the second verse. Let me read it again, because some of it didn't register yet. The imitators of God, therefore, is dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Live a life of love. Say that with me. Live a life of love. Say it again. Live a life of love. Would that it would be that easy, if we could just say it and do it. Not quite. During a recent televised golf tournament, about three weeks ago, the commentator said of the field of players, he said, all of your favorite heroes will be on the links today. And something about the way he used the word heroes grabbed me. Heroes. And I thought, are these people my heroes? People are paid to travel to the most beautiful spots in the world, and only when the weather is agreeable, for four or so hours a day, for four days a week, for about 38 weeks of the year, to hit this little round ball around gorgeously manicured, beautifully maintained grounds, while hordes of people dote over them and cater to their every whim. Does that define hero to you? Not to me. That's not a hero. That's a celebrity, isn't it? What's the difference between a hero and a celebrity? Well, it's the difference between Madonna and Mother Teresa. It's the difference between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Norman Schwarzkopf, right? It's the difference between Billy Joel and Billy Graham. It's the difference between Larry King and Martin Luther King. One's a celebrity, one's a hero. It's not talent, it's not intelligence, it's not persistence or hard work that makes them different. What is it then? I mean, both of those groups of people used all of those qualities to be sure to get where they are. It's simply this. A celebrity sacrifices much of themselves to attain something for themselves, and a hero sacrifices much of themselves for someone else. See, celebrities, by and large, do all that they do to make a name for themselves, a reputation for themselves, fame, fortune, and a following. But a hero does what they do for the best interest of another person or group of persons. And if fame and fortune and all that come along with it, so be it. Many times they don't care, and often they don't even want it. In Hebrews 11, it's often called the Hall of Faith or the Hall of Heroes. It's a listing of the heroes of the faith. We're not going to turn there today, but in it, if you'd like to read it later, dozens of people are named who sacrificed themselves for you and for me, symbolically, as they laid down their lives for others when they lived. They were heroes. They were men and women who gave themselves so that the kingdom of God could continue to advance in the world. Now, three weeks ago, hundreds of you, this is just a portion of the cards that I received, hundreds of you handed in these cards, and you said, I have a concern for someone. I want to make an investment in another life. I want to make a difference with someone that I love. And you talked about your husbands and wives and fathers and sons and loved ones. You talked about people that you work with. And you said, I don't know what to do. Many of you said, I don't know what to do next. How do I proceed in making a difference in their life? And I want to talk about that for just a few minutes today. Because you see, in order for that to happen, it's going to take a release of the spirit of sacrifice. And that spirit of sacrifice is called agape laude. If you're going to take notes, write that down in the first blank, would you please? For God's purposes to be fulfilled on the earth today, it'll take a release of the spirit of agape love. Check, put that up, please. Agape love. If you've been here any length of time, you know that agape is the Greek word for love, the God kind of love. Look at this definition. This isn't love as you think of it. It's a volitional commitment or a commitment of your will to another that motivates us to act on his or her behalf. You see, agape love, the God kind of love, is an act of your will that reaches out to another person to act in their best interest. And oftentimes, dear ones, I have found that when I act in love to someone, they may or may not get it. They may or may not say thank you. They may or may not even have a clue as to what I'm doing when I act in love. And you see, agape love has this one interesting twist to it. Agape love acts in love regardless of the response that it gets. And that's a very difficult thing because sometimes the response that you get is disappointing. Sometimes it's even violent. Sometimes it hurts. Are you ready for a cat update? It's been a month or so. I have to tell you about cats. As I said before, we have three. We have two that I wish would go on a long vacation. But ironically, these two never leave home. They're always there. They never go out. The one that I think is kind of cool, the one that's going to make it to the cover of my cat's magazine at some point, goes out all the time. But one day this week, I think it was Monday, the cat came back proverbially licking its wounds. They'd gotten into a fight. And any of you who have cats know when they get into a fight, and especially, they usually get bitten in the back, backside. And when that happens, it's bad news. And so we took the cat into the vet, and he confirmed our worst fears. It was a bad bite, poor thing. And I said, well, how bad is the bite, Dr. Veterinarian, sir? And he said, well, it's bad enough that he's going to need shots. He's going to need ointment. He's going to need treatments. He's going to need a hospital stay. He's going to need antibiotics, and he's going to need electroshock therapy, I said. So the cat was admitted. And all I'll tell you is this. After two and a half days, we picked the cat up, I couldn't believe how much the damage was. Have you ever had a veterinarian say, down the hall is our finance department? I've never had that before. We take home equity loans. So we got the cat back. That's not, I mean, that's enough for most people to say that's the end of this cat, but, you know, it's part of the family and all that stuff, so we're going to try. But now what we have to do, the vet said, well, when these bites happen, they're so deep down in there that they have to heal from the inside out. So that means that several times a day, someone has to help open up that wound and put ointment on it. So two or three times a day, my mission is to grab the front of the cat, lovingly, and hold its claws and body still while my wife does her thing in the back of the cat. It's all shaved and everything, you know? And so when I do that, as soon as Carol touches that wound, the cat just snarls and spits and tries to turn around and rearrange my face somehow, and I'm there lovingly holding that cat like that. And if you move another inch, I've got about 700, no, whatever it is, I've got a lot of money in you here. And you think that cat's ever going to come up to me a month or two down the road and say, just rub up against my leg and say thank you for taking care of me when I really needed it. No! That cat doesn't have a clue what's going on. It doesn't understand that we literally are acting in love, painful love, expensive love, to help that cat get healed. Now I share that story not because I just want you to know how much I'm enjoying being a cat parent or whatever I'm called. I'm sharing it because it reminds me how much cats are like people. Have you ever done something for someone in their best interest and all they wanted to do was spit and snarl and claw and they just reacted negatively? Of course you have. Because many people don't understand their condition, and when you try to share in love with them, when you try to help them to understand what's going on, all they know to do is just to lash out. And sometimes, best case scenario, they just ignore you. It's sort of thankless. Well, you see, agape love just continues to sacrificially do what's best for another person regardless of the response. And I pray today that as we look into how we might invest in the lives of others, you could find a few ways to express agape love. Let me just mention three reasons why you should. Real quickly, and then we're going to have communion. Number one, we should be motivated to walk out of here and love people. Number one, because Christ loved you. He sacrificed for you in just that way. Friends, make no mistake about it. God never asks you to do anything for someone else that he hasn't already done for you. The Father sent his Son, Jesus Christ, demonstrated agape love to you and to me when he gave his life on the cross, when he suffered. And friends, Jesus Christ suffered a horrible death. And do you know what, interestingly, you and I get offended when we do something nice for someone and they don't notice, let alone if we did something nice and they got mad at us. Imagine being the Father and he sends his Son who lays down his life in a brutal, horrendous way. And many people to this day ignore what Jesus did or worse, openly reject him and say, so what? Who cares? But that's agape love. You see, it loves regardless of the response. Second reason why you should love that way is because you were created for it. I say this often, but you know, God has a purpose and a plan for your life that involves touching others. Look at the scripture on your outline right there. It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus. And long ages ago, he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others. I underlined that last phrase, but why don't you circle it? Spend these lives in helping others. That's what God ordained for us. That's the purpose in our being here. Friends, have you ever used a tool or an implement for a purpose other than for which it was designed? For example, have you ever used a knife to tighten a screw or try to unloosen one? Whatever happens when you do that? The edge of the knife gets all gnarled up and ruined, doesn't it? Ever try to clean out your ear with a pencil eraser? I'll just get down to where you are, okay? Yeah, of course you have. Well, it's not the right tool. What happens? I mean, you get all frustrated, and if you're a little bit clumsy, you can make a mess of your head. You see, you're supposed to use a specific item, a Q-tip, to do that. You're supposed to use a screwdriver to unloosen or loosen a screw. And God said, I've created you, I've fashioned you to help others in agape love. That's why you're here. When you learn to do that, you're going to be fulfilled. And if you don't learn to do that, you're going to be like so many in the world today that are chasing after things, out there trying to find the reason, trying to find what it is that's going to make life make sense to them. And can I say to many of you who've been believers in Christ for a long time, listen carefully. I'm speaking to a lot of you whose eyes I can see right now. You've been a Christian a long time. There's a tendency in all of us to get weary in well-doing, and we tend to back up a little bit and say, you know, I've really kind of done my thing for God, and I'm just going to have a time of it now. I'm just going to let someone else go with it. As much as I believe that there are seasons in our Christian walk when we are really carrying the mail and sometimes when we rest, there are many of us even here in this service today who have not really said to the Lord in recent years, God, use me. Let me pour my life into someone. Let me make an investment in a life that's going to change them forever. Third reason why you should be willing to sacrifice in agape love is because God will reward your sacrifice. One of the reasons why we stop loving people the way God wants us to is because we think no one notices. One of the reasons why we stop serving is because we think, who cares? No one ever notices. No one ever appreciates it. No one sees our sacrifices. We just get taken for granted. And in fact, if we're honest, we get kind of frustrated because we see people who don't do anything, or maybe we go to work with someone and they're skimming, you know, and not getting their job done and doing the very minimum and still getting by, and we're thinking, well, why should I knock myself out and do extra when they don't even do the basic and they just seem to get the same reward I do? Well, friends, listen to this. When you think no one else notices and no one else cares, understand this. God always notices and God always cares. Look at the scripture I put, bottom of the page, Ephesians 6, 10, I put there. God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him, circle him, as you have helped his people and continue to help them. Do you see the relationship there? This is really, I hadn't seen this before because of this translation, makes it very clear. When you love people, when you serve people, as we're going to talk about in a moment, when you give of yourself to the purposes of God through people, you are loving and serving and honoring God. And you need to understand that no matter what happens, if you pour out your life and no one even says, well, thank you very much, you need to know something, God doesn't miss it. In fact, it says in Mark 9, 41, that not even a cup of cold water given in his name will be forgotten. And so I want to say to the scores of you who sacrificed in the first service, put up your hand. How many of you were working in the children's ministry or nursery, anyone in this service? I want to say God noticed you, even if the parents picked up the kids and didn't even say thanks to you, God noticed. Those of you who will be meeting with our students tonight and Tuesday and Wednesday and during the week and meeting in small groups with our students, if the parents never say thanks or the kids say, oh, you know, big deal, remember, God notices your sacrifice and it's pleasing to him. You're loving him when you're serving our students. I want to say to those of you who come in early to set up and stay late to clean up, those of you who serve Friday night in the power of a dream, God noticed your sacrifice. God notices those of you who lead study groups and community groups around the body. Those of you who serve in tangible ways, God notices. Those of you who clean up here Monday through Friday, those of you who make it happen, God notices and he will reward you. He's also going to say to some of you, you know, you accepted me, but you lived a pretty selfish life. I mean, you checked into church now and then just to let the people know that you were still on board, but you really haven't done anything to share my love with anyone else. I believe every person comes into the world with a deposit of a God they love when you come into the kingdom of God. It's kind of like a monopoly game, you know, when you start the game, how much do you get to start? A couple thousand, 1,500, whatever it is, and we all start with the same. But some of us spend that love that Christ brings into our heart on ourselves and we just get fatter and fatter and fatter and bigger and bigger and we just love God, but we don't do one thing for another person. God said, learn the principle of investment because when you start investing in lives, as Dan and Bonnie shared, as you start giving of yourself, God said, I notice it and I'll reward you. And what you sow into lives, you're going to reap from God. That's the beauty of it. And so today as we come to the communion table, what a beautiful picture it is to see that the Son of God sent by the Father to bring us to a point of relationship with Him was an act of a God they love. Did you know that? If the worship band could come. I want us to come to the communion table right now and stand before the Lord and say, Lord, thank you for the sacrifice that you've brought to me. And our servants are going to serve us by preparing the elements and let's all stand before the Lord right now and just prepare for communion together. It says in the book of Romans, let me read this scripture. We aren't saved. Listen, we aren't saved by knowing the commandments of God because we can't and don't keep them. Let me hear an amen to that. We don't. Let's just get real here. We can and don't keep them. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours and destroyed sin's control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins. Think of it. It's because of Christ's incredible sacrifice for us that we can sacrifice for others. And I know in a crowd this size, especially at the second service on a Sunday morning, there's some of you who have really never come to terms with that personal God love, that agape that Christ wants to bring into you, into your heart, into your life. I'm not talking about trying to get better or cleaning up your act or being a nicer person or stopping drinking or smoking or, you know, sexual activity. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a relationship with God that transforms you from the inside. And it starts when you acknowledge that you desire and need that relationship because the wages of a sinful life is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. In just a moment, the servants are going to come and hand you one of the communion elements. Now here at North Way, we say to people, everyone is welcome, but God would say the only folks that should really participate in communion are ones who've opened their hearts to him. You see, that communion is a symbol of Christ's body. You are literally ingesting, in a symbolic way, Christ into your life. It's a symbol of being so united with someone that you're one, that you become one. And it wouldn't make sense for a person who doesn't have faith in Christ to take communion. And so before we pass out the elements, I want to have a word of prayer. And if you're here today and you say, you know, Jay, I've kind of been uncertain about this, and I want to make it clear today that I've received Christ into my life, that he's in my heart. You can pray this prayer with me right now and receive him. Let's bow our heads, please. The Lord invites you, as the song says, that his arms are open wide. And at this time, I'm going to invite you right now to receive Christ into your life. Pray this prayer with me from your heart, if you desire to receive him. Heavenly Father, say the words to him. Heavenly Father, I need you in my life. And Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for the sacrifice that you gave for my sin. I receive you now, come into my life, and make me a brand new person. I pray in your name. Amen. And now, if the ushers will come, and all who know Christ, receive and hold the elements. And as they're coming, let's just continue to worship the Lord with that new chorus. Let's just tell him how much we love him. Just hold your elements, for all are saved. Because you are to me the greatest of things. Your love is far above all this world can give. Your arms are open wide, as you call my name. Drawing me closer into your embrace. You are precious to me. Jesus, you're precious to me. You are my strongest and dearest affection, my Lord. How I cherish you, Lord. You're precious to me. Your voice is my delight, your presence so sweet. Such loving, tender ways have won my heart complete. The glories I behold when you fill my soul. Dearest of treasures, I want you to know. You are to me. Jesus, you're precious to me. You are my strongest and dearest affection, my Lord. How I cherish you, Lord. You're precious to me. You are precious to me. Jesus, you're precious to me. Betrayed by friends, took bread, and when he'd given thanks, he broke it and said, Do this in remembrance of my sacrifice, of my agape love for you. Won't you be seated for a moment as the servants come, and we'll hold the cup together. And this cup is the new covenant in his blood. And because of the cup, we can leave the mundane, ordinary, worldly things behind, and just for a moment, enter into the presence of a holy God. As you hold the cup, we're going to sing this chorus together. Just think for a moment, are you ready to stand before God in his holiness? Let's sing this together. In the presence of a holy God, I bow down and I adore you. You reveal the secret of my heart, and I'm shaken to and ahorn. In the presence of a holy God, there's new meaning that's today. You took all my sins upon yourself. I can only say amen. And I cry out to meet your face. Lord, there's none of us, not a one that's here that doesn't want to one day be with you in heaven. We may not think about it all the time, Lord, but we know that without the hope of heaven, life really has no meaning. And we hold in our hand right now the promise that through the new and living way, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, we will one day be able to enter through the veil and stand with you. Lord, we know that as we now take this cup, it's our way of saying, purge from us, Lord, anything that would keep us from being ready to make that glorious transition into your presence. Lord, thank you that you forgive all of our sin. When we honestly repent, when we honestly turn, and that you're willing, oh God, to receive us because of the blood of Christ. And so we share together now. In the presence of your infinite might, I'm so small and frail and weak. When I glance your power and wisdom, Lord, I have no words left to speak. In the presence of your glory, all my crowns lie in the dust. You are righteous in your judgments, Lord, and you are faithful too. And I cry, Holy, Holy, awesome is your name. Holy, Holy, Holy, we are weak and sick in your hands, Lord. I hear that in this moment there's fullness of joy. Thank you, Lord, that some of us are feeling a strange distance from you, Lord, because we know we're not. Help those of us, Lord, who feel just a little bit confused, just to take a step of obedience, to give ourselves to you as living sacrifices. Holy. With our heads bowed as well, I'd like the privilege of doing something that we do regularly here at North Way, and that's agreeing with anyone who prayed the prayer. A few moments ago, when we asked if you wanted to make public an acknowledgement of Jesus Christ, when you wanted to open your life to invite the Lord to come in and to take his place in the throne of your heart, what I want you to do in just a moment, if you prayed that prayer, I want to ask you just a moment to lift your head and look this way and let our eyes meet, and that'll be the contract, as it were. That'll be the sign of agreement. I'll agree with you. I won't embarrass you, but I'll agree with you that today you began that walk with Christ. Friend, if you've lacked assurance, if you think one day, well, yeah, you've got this, and the next day you don't, or one week you're on fire and the next week you don't know what's going on, then you need to come to assurance. You need to know that Christ has taken his place in your heart. And I want to agree with you that today is that day. Heads are bowed. I won't embarrass you. I'll agree with you. I'm going to ask you now, if you prayed that prayer, look up right now and look this way, and hold your hand up as well at the same time so I can agree with you. All right, sir. Hold your hand up. Thank you. God bless you here. Hold it up, ma'am, in the red. I agree with you. Thank you very much. In the U.S., I see you. God bless you. Keep holding him up high. In the back row, ma'am, thank you. I see you. Next to the back row. God bless you. Are there others? Just look this way. Ma'am, in the white. I agree with you. God bless you. Thank you. Now on my right, ma'am, in the green, white, I agree with you as well. I saw another hand over here. Where else did I see that hand? Thank you, son. I see you in the yellow T-shirt. I agree with you today. You're saying, yes, I want Christ in my life today. All right, anyone else? Look this way. If I missed it, it's not too late. I want to agree with those of you who said that. All right, thank you. I see you in the brown. Yes, right there. God bless you. Thank you so much. Now those of you who looked at me, look up again, please. Everyone else has their head down. Now if you know the person that you came with, just tap them on the shoulder and say, I prayed with Pastor Jay. Just tell them. Tap them and say, I prayed with Pastor Jay. If you don't know him, that's okay. You don't have to say anything to him. All right. Now those of you who are looking up at me, listen. We're going to sing one more chorus. We did this in the first service, and it works very, very well. One more little chorus. We're all going to remain standing. And when we sing this chorus, if you came with that person, I want you to go with them over here to my left. There's Pastor John Sighs. You see him there? Just those of you who prayed, look over that way. He has his hand up. And he's got a little packet of information to give you about this walk. And even if you're way over here, I want you to come all the way out and just go in the back, and John will wait there until you're all there. And then he's going to spend five minutes with you while the rest of the folks are finishing up the service, and we'll all be done at the same time. It's real important that you do that. You'll be glad that you did. And let's just sing this little chorus together. Lord, prepare us to be a sanctuary. As you go ahead and go. Here we go. Lord, prepare us to be a sanctuary. Pure and holy, shy and true, with thanksgiving, I'll be a living sanctuary to you. Let's have a couple elders go and help John, please. A couple of elders. Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary. Pure and holy, shy and true, with thanksgiving, I'll be a living sanctuary for you. Isn't it exciting to see God work and see about eight or nine people that found their way today. This service. Same thing in the first service. Folks, I don't know where you're going to go to see every week God doing that. It's a powerful thing. It touches my heart. Let's give the Lord just an applause of praise for that. Hallelujah. Faithful God. Yes. Faithful God. Hallelujah. And that happens because some of you had the courage just to reach out to someone. And if you lifted your hand and looked this way but didn't go out, that's all right. The Lord still hears your prayer. You can come up here afterwards and we'll have a couple more packets up here for you. Let's be seated. I want to close the service off by finishing what's on the back of your page. Get your pen out again. Because I haven't told you quite yet. Well, what can I do? See, the attitude is crucial. The attitude is sacrifice. Agape love. Without the attitude, these next three things, I'm just going to say them, bing, bing, bing. You'll never do them. But with the attitude, then what do you do? If you say, I want my life to count, what should I do? Here's three things. And I've reduced what was about 15 minutes to about three minutes. So just jot down these three points. Maybe they'll make another message at another time. The first thing you got to do, if you really want to invest in another person, to see them come to know the Lord, is to pray. No big surprise there is that. We know that. But anyone who sincerely seeks to pray knows that it's a labor. It's difficult to continually pray for someone who doesn't seem to want to respond. But friends, God hears our prayer. And I want to encourage you with one other opportunity, and Chuck's going to get an overhead on this for us. We have, beginning this coming Saturday morning, we did some polling of the congregation. People say, I can't come Tuesdays and Monday, Tuesday, and Friday to pray. I've got kids at home to get off to school. I've got a job to get to. It's too early. I can't come this time. I can't come this evening. But when can I come and pray? Pray for my needs. Pray for what's on my heart. Pray for my concerns. But also to pray for the people that I love. Well, we have a time for you that the elders have agreed they're going to come to pray. And it's going to be Saturday morning, up at the prayer chapel, right up here, from 7 to 8 a.m. You say, well, wow, Saturday? I mean, I can't come to pray Saturday because that's what I thought. The only thing that people do Saturday morning at 7 o'clock is, there are times you need to sleep, no doubt about it, but there are times you need to pray as well. And I'm excited about this. I think the Lord's prompted this. So those of you who need prayer, and I hope you caught that this is going to be around the needs that you bring. Some of the elders will be there every week to pray and lay hands and anoint with oil. And we're going to intercede, and we're going to cry out to God together in prayer. 7 to 8 a.m., up in the prayer chapel. And if you have other things to do, you can start at 8.05. But I think it'll be the best hour of your week. Second thing we need to do is to practically serve. And I won't get into this at all. I just want to say, some of the most powerful investments of love you'll ever make have no words attached to them. It's when you deliver a meal to someone in need and just say, it's just because God loves you. It's when you take a moment and write a note to somebody and just tell them, because of God's love, you want them to know that they're loved. It's when you do an act, you go to someone who can't cut their lawn because of an injury or an infirmity, and you cut their grass for them. I don't know. There's a lot of things. And you know, another thing that's part of this, it's the whole financial side of things. Some of you are so occupied with your own lives that you're too busy to do the kinds of things I'm talking about. But you make a lot of money! And you could invest some of that money in helping meet the needs of other people and quietly give agape love. Just by investing directly, giving them money, or ideally, anonymously giving it through the congregation. Our food bank every week helps people because someone cared enough to give. Folks, I say this not very often, I'm going to say it again plainly. Our church exists today. We have this wonderful building, this great ministry because people like you, everywhere, all throughout the room, know that you make the difference through your giving. Agape love is expressed through generous giving. And finally, agape love is expressed simply through passing on the Word, just speaking. When the Lord prompts, it doesn't have to be eloquent, you don't have to know a sermon, you don't have to have a ten-point outline. How many of you have a comfortable way to present the Gospel to somebody? If you don't, I'm going to bring one to you next week. I hope we'll have it ready by next week. Very clear way that you can sit down. Something I use all the time. Because it is not difficult if it's plainly presented. But we all need it. 1 Peter 3.15, is that on your outline there? It says, always be ready to give a reason, an answer to everyone who asks you for the hope that you have. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you, rather, to give the reason for the hope that you have. You have to have something on your lips that you're ready to give. So it's prayer, practical serving, and passing on the Word as the Lord gives. And so that's it. Those are three simple things, but that'll make an enormous difference. And so I just want to end the morning this morning by asking you, are we going to be a church of celebrities or heroes? How many vote celebrities? I want to be a