Values That Last A Lifetime I, Valuing Love

I encourage you to take your outline out of the notes. It's always a scary moment for me when I come back and preach for the first time. Someone's been here four or five weeks and says, you know, I like these other guys. I don't really like this guy. It could be your last Sunday here. But I encourage you to take some notes. You know, I visit churches when I'm away. The ones that don't supply these kinds of things, you know, I consider myself a pretty good listener and try to be tuned in. And honestly, you just, you're unable to absorb nearly as much. And when you can take it and just take a note or two or fill in the blank or write something on the side and then make it part of your life, it's very, very important. I'm going to begin with a couple of simple questions, and I need some honest answers. Can I count on you for some honest answers? This is church. And I'll ask the question a couple of times. Ready? Now, the first one is simply this. Compared to 10 years ago, is your life more or less complicated? Compared to 10 years ago, is your life more or less complicated? How many is more complicated than 10 years ago? How many would say that's less for me? Okay. Compared to 10 years ago, how many of you have more to do now than you did 10 years ago? More. How many have less things to do? Okay. Substantially. Higher number there. And in terms of 10 years ago to now, how many have really more stress in your life than you did 10 years ago? More? Less? Okay. The five or six recently retired people, I congratulate you all. Now the rest of you. Most people, not everyone, most people have found their lives, despite all the advances in technology and all the things that we've been provided to make life easier, life has become more complex for most of us. And that's why I was so gripped by a word from my devotional friend for the last 30 years, Oswald Chambers, when he said in a July reading as I was getting away, he said this, talking about God's sort of mysterious sense of absence at times when we feel like he should be there. He calls it being hidden in the clouds. And he says this, Is the relationship between myself and God getting simpler than it ever has been? That intrigued me. Is it getting simpler, not more complex? Am I understanding God's ways? Am I tuning in in a way that perhaps is easier than it was before? You know, in our life, certainly there's just a whole lot more going on for most of us. Experts tell us, I read this, a couple of different sources, American Demographics Magazine was one, that we receive between 3,000 and 4,000 stimuli a day to do certain things. I mean, all day long, just things happen. We receive more information in one week than our grandparents did in one year, if you're the average American today. I mean, look at, is it CNN headline news now? Did you see what they did? They used to have a person there giving the news report. Now they've got four screens going at once. They have the person reading the news, and then they have a picture or something graphic about the news, and then they have down here the weather all over the country, like, who cares what it's doing in Montana today? And over here, some other good news, like the stock report or something. So that's all going on at the same time, and that's where we're going, folks. It's just more and more and more. I'm not sure we're wiser than we were ten years ago. And I'm not sure we're more fulfilled, even though we have more to do than ten years ago. And that's why I really quickened to this whole issue in my time of simplifying my life. And that's why this statement by Jesus that we're about to read meant so much to me. I want you to read it with me, because you see, if you're like me, you want to know, how am I really doing? Listen, not equating busyness and activity with godliness, because they aren't the same. Now, a man came to Jesus. He was a Pharisee, a teacher of the law himself. And in Mark's account of this same story, it appears that he was kind of baiting Jesus, trying to set him up. This account doesn't quite portray it that clearly, but here's what he says. Let's read it together, would you? Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Now, remember, we said, just, I'm sorry, we said, you know, when you ask Jesus a question, you've got to be prepared for just about anything, because sometimes he'll come back at you with a question that you can't answer. Sometimes, you know, he would kneel down when he was given a question and write something in the sand. All these mysteries. But here, he just answers them right away. Jesus replied, read it with me. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Wow. That is a statement of simplicity. All the law, all the teachings that have preceded, all the prophecies, they all hang on these two commandments. That's why they're called, that passage is called the great commandment. Let me share with you just two observations on this passage about love. The first one is love is wholehearted. It's passionate. I hope you'll write that down. It's wholehearted and passionate. I was gripped by this. Love the Lord with all. Would you say that with me? All your heart, soul, and mind. See, all of you didn't say it. Say it with me. All. It is so easy for us to love the Lord with part of who we are. To allow the compartment in which we have placed him to be fully devoted. But the rest of us to sort of, you know, deal with life because I'm responsible after all. Love, the kind of love the Lord is talking about here, and he's specific. He says heart, which is the spirit part of us, soul, which is the emotions and the will, and mind. All of that is to be engaged in loving God. One of the casualties of the information age in which we live, in my view, loved ones, is wholeheartedness. I see less and less of it than I did even 25 years ago. We are so prone to being spread out because we have so many opportunities. We have so many things to do. We are so unfocused. We are such dabblers in this and that. Our stacks of emails, junk emails, and mail this, catalog that, and to-do lists and that. I was kind of struck by this in my time away. I tried to get into one or two other devotionals to go along with my Oswald Chambers because I've read that for so long. I picked up two different ones by authors that you would all know. I won't mention their names. They have national ministries, and they've printed these devotionals. I have to tell you, in terms of substance, is there any connection with the fact that the writings of today can't compare with the writings of a few generations ago, and certainly not with people like Spurgeon, and Moody, and Luther, and Calvin, who lived several hundred years ago. What's the connection there? My view is, with all of our information, we have lost the sense of focusing all of our passion on who God is. Now, some of you are thinking, well, you're talking about, that's just not, I don't know how I can do that. I don't even have a frame of reference for being that focused and passionate. I'm not so sure about that. Don't put your hand up on this one. You heard me say it. Don't put your hand up. But how many of you remember a time when there was somebody in your life that you really loved with all of your heart, and soul, and mind, and every time you were thinking about something, you were thinking about that person, and every time you had the opportunity, you'd just write their name on a piece of paper while class was going on, or whatever it was. How many had somebody, see, if you're a married couple, and I asked you to put your hand up, and your hand didn't go up, boy, we'd have a real problem on our hands. I'm certain that many of you relate to the fact of what it means to be in love in the human sense. Am I right about that? It's okay to say yes. In fact, I would venture to say that God has allowed us little windows into the human experience that help us to understand what this kind of love is about, because he knows that we are to love him in that way. One of the books that I most appreciated in my break time was a book called The Reflective Life by Ken Garf, from which I've drawn a lot of this message because it affected me so. He talks in that book about one story about a Union soldier by the name of Sullivan Ballew. I like to read a letter that Sullivan Ballew, and we have an image up there of what he may have looked like. I can't tell you that was him, but that's a Union officer in the 1860s. He's writing to his wife on the day that he is about to go into his first major battle, the Battle of Bull Run. Here's what he writes, July 14, 1861, 150 years ago. I know how strongly American civilization now leans on the triumph of the government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and the sufferings of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt. That's quite a statement, isn't it? Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence could break, and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly as with chains to the battlefield. The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long, and it is hard for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years when, God willing, we might have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon divine providence, but something whispers to me, perhaps it's the wafted prayer of our little son, Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. But if I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. Sarah, if the dead can't come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you, in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights, always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath. As the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah, do not mourn me dead. Think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again. Sullivan Ballou died the next day at the first battle of Bull Run. But I would submit to you, here is a man that loved his wife and his family and his country with his heart and soul. And I would submit to you that the kind of love that Jesus asks of us is that same kind of love, pulling us toward him as with mighty cables. And I have to say to you, in my time, I looked at my life and realized I have drifted from that. I have allowed so many things to just get in the way of a simple love. How about you? It is easy in this life to get distracted from what really matters the most. Perhaps the question we ought to ask one another isn't so much, well, how well do you know the Lord or how well do you understand the doctrines or how are you doing with this teaching and that gift? And so maybe the question we need to ask one another is, how are we doing with our love? How's your love for the Lord? Because in the words of Jesus, that's the greatest commandment. And when we consider our shortcomings and when we come to a time of confessing our failures and our weaknesses, if, as in the words of pastor and writer R.A. Torrey, if the greatest commandment is to love him with all of our heart, perhaps the greatest sin is to not love him in that way. Maybe we would reevaluate our lives a little differently. I know I have, as I've pondered these things. So how do I grow in this whole hardness? I mean, if perhaps you're like me and you feel a sense that this is something that you just need to re-engage, what do you do? Is it a life of just uninterrupted, sort of quiet time? Do I bail out of my job and cash out and go find some kind of a cabin somewhere up in the woods and just read the Bible and... No. I mean, if that's what it was supposed to be, Jesus would have come to this earth and done just that. But he didn't. He came to the earth and he mingled with people. He was a carpenter. He had work. He lived a normal life and yet he had perfect communion with the Father. The Apostle Paul was a tent maker. He got engaged in being with people all the time. So it's more than that. And that's where the second commandment comes in. It says, Love for God is measured by love for others. Love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus says. In that simple statement, Jesus tells us how we can measure our passion for loving God. He says it by loving one another. And that is so frustrating, isn't it? Don't you wish it just said, Oh, just love God and don't worry about anybody else. Don't you wish it was just sort of you and Jesus walking together? But all the way back in the beginning, it began that way. God has always linked together holiness and love for him with love for one another. All the way back to the Ten Commandments. How many of the commandments were about loving God, vertically speaking? Four, that's right. And the other six were about, you know, don't steal from one another, don't covet one another's wife, and all that kind of thing. By the way, have you ever thought of the image of the Ten Commandments? Have you ever thought, in your mind, have you seen the two tablets? Just be honest again, we're in church. Have you always seen them as having five on either side? Come on. How many of you said, Yeah, five on this side, five on that side, right? That's what Charlton Heston had. I mean, okay. You get five on either side. But when I read that, if you go and read it in the Book of Exodus, you'll see that the first four are really kind of long. And there's just no way that they could have put five. I bet there was like, it could have been seven and three. Does that mess up your whole theology? I don't know. It's not supposed to, but it's just not even important. I just wanted to throw that out there. I'd never thought of it that way. But you read it there, it's the first four are real long, and the last, there's just a few. Anyhow, Ten Commandments, then Jesus came, and he was very clear. He demonstrated love for the Father by loving others, caring for their needs. Paul did the same thing. We read about, all of his epistles are about loving each other in the church, and unity, and those kind of things. John writes, look in your outline, for anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot, circle the word cannot, cannot love God who he has not seen. It is not possible, you see, to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and not care about your brother. And that's why we in this church are just so doggone insistent to the point of being sort of irritating about getting connected. And that's why, here we go again. We're going to start once again to remind you that there is no real future for you here at North Way for your growth unless you get connected in a small group. I mean, you can come, and you'll just sort of absorb some things, but to really grow, you've got to get connected. You've got to take a step of involvement. There's some very safe environments, and we're going to be rolling out a whole lot of them in the fall, in just a few more weeks, where you can just, you know, if you're sort of conservative and haven't ever shared with people, there's some of you here that have never prayed out loud. I know that. We don't throw you into a group and make you say anything. We have groups of all different levels, but you've got to get connected because, you see, it's the very person in that group who you think is weird is the one that God put there to help you to grow. You wish that they missed that night. You know, maybe they're not going to come, and they show up, and God wants, you know, and that's why God puts you in a family where you're the only perfect one because it's other people that he uses to remind you of how you're doing in your love for him. I wish it wasn't that way. That's why you work with people that just aren't as good as you are, and that's why God gives us so many daily encounters with people who just don't seem to have their life together. You ever notice that? Ever notice when, and that's why it's interesting. He says, love your neighbor as yourself, and neighbor is very broadly defined. You know what I mean? Your neighbor can be the person that waits on you at lunchtime today that just loses your order. You ever find it hard to love that waiter that's like, oh my gosh. You know, your neighbor can be the person that backs their car onto the lawn that you just spent all Saturday fixing up and terfs it unintentionally or whatever it might be. All of us have those kinds of things where God's putting something or someone across our path to help us to measure. I thought a lot about this. We encounter every experience in life with one of two mindsets. Every exchange, every relationship, almost every experience with one of two mindsets. It's either one of fear or one of faith. We go into it either fearing that somehow something beyond our control, something is going to diminish us, reduce us, marginalize us, this is going to happen, or we can come at it with a mindset of faith that the sovereign God who gave his son for us will not withhold anything good to bring about his purpose in our life. Loved ones, that's so very important. If you don't get anything else, get that. Do you approach your encounters with others in life with fear or with faith? And I don't necessarily mean big deal things. It can be everyday things. The big deal things too. Those of you who are going through job transitions, are you going to them, through them in fear or in faith? The most moving moments I have when I'm away are the hours that I spend with these. These are your prayer requests to me. Hundreds of them. These are just some of them. And these are snapshots into your life. And some of you are very, very transparent, and I so value that. And I would not even dream of reading any of these out loud, but people say things in here that you wouldn't believe about what they're going through. Pray for me because my spouse thinks I'm a nut about God and doesn't ever want to talk to me, and I'm so lonely in my own home. Pray for me because my kids don't want to have anything to do with God or with me anymore. They're just tired of it all. Pray with me because I heard from the doctor that if something doesn't clear up, he's going to have to put me in the hospital, and we don't have any hospitalization, and I don't know how I'm going to pay for it. Pray for me because my parents are getting older and more feeble, and one of them has Alzheimer's, and we can't afford to put him in a home, and I can't bear to keep them in my home any longer, and I don't know what to do. Pray for me because I'm in a relationship with somebody, and I know it's wrong, and I don't have the power to break it, and on and on and on they go. And I'm thinking, loved ones, do we approach these things with fear? Because you see, perfect love casts out fear. Paul writes and says, he says clearly, the only thing that matters is faith working itself out, expressing itself through love. That's where the strength comes, and that's why my prayer for this church is that in the weeks and the months that I'm so looking forward to, we would see the barometer of love begin to rise, because in the environment of love, faith begins to build, and breakthrough begins to happen, and these now become, listen, answered prayers. Hallelujah. God intervening on behalf of a hungry people who love him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Do you know how much difference your little bit of love can make in a life? One little thing that you just might innocently do is no big deal. It can change a life. Would you like to hear one story of someone who experienced that? We have a testimony, just a brief testimony, but a beautiful testimony of someone whose life was going nowhere, and someone cared enough just to hand them a Bible. Listen to her story. Give a warm welcome to Michelle Simon as she comes to share. Hey, Michelle. Thanks so much for sharing. I'm used to this now. It's the third service. I was baptized as a baby in the Presbyterian Church, and although I did attend church sporadically as a child, I really never felt a sense of belonging and really never developed a faith in God. My parents divorced when I was 11, and I carried a lot of emotional pain from the divorce, but I kept that all inside. I started using drugs and alcohol when I was 14 to escape from the pain, loneliness, and emptiness that I was feeling. I really never cared if I lived or died. In fact, I attempted suicide about 15 years ago, and only by the grace of God was I not successful. I struggled with addiction and depression for 15 years. My family lived in constant fear that they would lose me. I remember watching Cornerstone television and I'd see testimonies of people that had been saved, and it was really hitting me, and tears would just be streaming down my face, but I was still unwilling to take that step of faith. On August 1st of last year, I hit my bottom emotionally and spiritually, checked myself into an outpatient program at Gateway Rehab, and began to attend AA meetings. There were people in the program that had similar stories to mine and somehow found hope and joy in their lives. I learned that I was powerless over my addictions. These people taught me that I would have to turn my life and my will over to God to overcome my addictions and find the peace and joy that they had. The same week that I admitted myself into Gateway, I began attending services at a local church. I was trying to grow in my faith and understanding of God. I did share with them my story and my background, and I really didn't find the encouragement that I was searching for, so I eventually just quit going to church. I got into reading some New Age literature, and at that time, it was really making sense to me. I was just looking for some answers. I began to create God as I wanted to understand Him. Satan was really trying to pull me back into the darkness and despair that I had lived in for so long. I was losing hope and began feeling very discontent and lonely again. There was a girl who I had met in AA, a single mom with three children that was really struggling to get by financially. She had asked me if I had a recovery Bible, and I told her I didn't, and she wanted to get me one. For some reason, this meant so much to her, and I felt really bad, and I didn't want to accept this gift from her because I just figured this would be another book and another Bible that would sit on my bookshelf unopened. But I was very wrong. As I started to read the life recovery Bible, I found the Scriptures coming to life. I had never been able to read Scripture before and see how it was relevant in my life, and I found myself reading this book every night until all hours of the night. I really had a hard time putting it down. I began to feel that peace and serenity from reading the Scripture that definitely was not coming from reading the New Age material that I had gotten into. It's amazing how God works in our lives through other people. Lee was in my life for only a brief period of time, but this was the most treasured gift that I had ever received in my life. If it weren't for her giving me the recovery Bible, I don't know if I would have worked my way back towards God. I have never seen Lee since that time and have never been able to have a chance to share with her what that gift has meant to me. So I decided to try to find a church again, and after trying several other churches in the area, I attended Easter service here on Good Friday with a friend. Christ's death and resurrection suddenly became so real to me. I was completely overwhelmed with knowing in my heart that Jesus died on the cross for me. I felt a comfort and a peace that I had never experienced before, and I also found a new sense of worth. I was absolutely certain that I had been forgiven and had been rescued from the life of bondage that I had lived in for so many years. This was the first time that I genuinely accepted Jesus into my heart. So I started to attend... Don't make me cry. Don't make me cry. I started to attend services here at North Way every weekend, and I really felt the Lord's presence here. I was completely amazed at how uplifting and beautiful the worship was, and sermons were so relevant to my life. I also found hope and encouragement here. I was welcomed and accepted for who I was. I really felt like God was calling me to take the next step and become a member, so I began taking the 101 membership class in July, and I immediately felt a belonging. I've made some wonderful friendships, and I've had overwhelming support and encouragement from people that I barely know. I feel so blessed that I have found a church family where I can be open about my past and honestly share about my current struggles. I found people that genuinely care about me, people who want to help me grow and mature in my faith. And this is the largest church I have ever attended, but it's so intimate. As I learned more about North Way's core values and purposes, I knew this was exactly where God wanted me. God has blessed me with so much more than I could have ever dreamed he would have given me. I found a church that fosters my spiritual growth and encourages me to investigate my talents and gifts so I can use them to reach others. I never thought I had talents or gifts. For the first time in my life, I feel that I have a purpose. I was rebaptized at Moraine State Park on July 28. My baptism meant so many things to me. I think that most importantly, my baptism was symbolic of God delivering me out of the spiritual darkness and into his forgiveness and light. Nine people who are very close to me, friends and family, were able to join me and celebrate my baptism. I felt so honored that they came to join me. They had supported me over all these years. I felt especially blessed that my grandparents were able to be there. My grandparents have always been a strong Christian role models in my life, and they have spent the past 15 years praying for my salvation. It meant so much to me that the Lord has blessed me to be able to come here still and in the celebration of my new life with Christ. Thanks. I pray for you. Let's stand. What I want to do is very important because I have discovered repeatedly in the last years as a person steps up and gives their testimony, almost without exception, they come under some intense attack, doubts. They'll hear, you know, you hypocrite, if some little thing happens in their life, they're going to be used. I want you to pray with me because Michelle is just so new to this whole journey. Let's ask the Lord to really sustain her and help her to grow. Father, I thank you for the incredible way that you have delivered Michelle and set her feet now on the path of righteousness. We all as a congregation surround her with our prayers and ask you just to increase her confidence in your presence, her knowledge of the Son of God and her love for you, Heavenly Father. Thank you for all that you're going to do in her and continue to use her to help others find their way to the fullness of Christ. We ask you now to set a hedge of protection by the blood of Jesus all around her. We thank you for what you've done, this great miracle in Jesus. Thank you. All right. Thanks. Thanks. One simple act of love, somebody reaching out and giving her a Bible. What am I going to ask of us as we go forward? Well, just to keep in mind, loved ones, that we have some wonderful things that are going to be happening in the next few weeks, some amazing opportunities to grow in our understanding of God, to grow in depth. Classes where gifts are going to be released. But listen, 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us, if we understand mysteries, if we have faith to move mountains, if we can prophesy and speak great truths and all these things, but we don't have love, we have nothing. So may the Lord grant us this simple truth that we can say that our love is growing day by day. And here's what I want to suggest to you. This is what I've been doing. It may not help you, but it certainly helped me. I've decided that the one thing I need to do at the end of the day is ask the Lord, Lord, have I lived a life today that's been pleasing to you? What about my life's been pleasing to you? And I've kind of come down to the conclusion it's not so much about whether or not I've had some great sermon or whether or not I did some great act of service or great truth that I shared with somebody, but it's just that I obeyed the Lord and that I loved well. And that's the last statement I'd like you to write down. Have I loved well today? Have I done my best to obey the prompting of God and do what He's wanted me to do with every life that I've encountered? Have I approached life with faith and not with fear? And here's what I'm going to ask you to do to fulfill that. And just maybe to give yourself a little bit of a gauge in how you're doing every day. In your notes, in the little yellow insert that's in there, it looks like this. Would you take that out right now? Because on it there should be a little post-it note like this. I know this is just a little basic, but here's what I've done. I want to commit this to you. Suggest it to you, rather, for your consideration. Would you write on there, if you've been taking notes, write on there those four words, Have I loved well? Write them down the page or across. Just take that little sticky and write them on there. And then what I did is I put this on the lamp next to my bed. Or maybe you can put it on your nightstand or on the headboard or any place your eyes will see it before you go to bed at night. And if you can end the day by saying, Lord, have I loved well today? And you sense the Lord affirming, smiling upon you and saying, Yes, you have, then you can say, Thank you for your grace that has given me the ability to do so. And if you sense just, you know what, man, I've had a bad day. You can fall to your knees before you go to bed and say, Lord, thank you that you can forgive me tonight. And I can start afresh tomorrow. And if you're like many of the days that I had some yeses and some noes, I just am reminded of the amazing grace of God that gives me the opportunity for a second chance again and again and again. Take this little thing and put it somewhere. And by the way, it wouldn't hurt you to buy a whole packet of them and stick them a lot of different places. In your office and in your car, reminding yourself, Have you loved well? Because in the end, that's the greatest commandment and that's what makes life really simple. Let's stand together. Father, in the name of Jesus, I would pray that as we open our hearts now to receive the elements of communion, that we would bring focus to your love for us at a personal level and that we would gain sustenance in our spirit to obey you and overcome the things that keep us from loving you and loving others. Help us as we receive the elements to know that they represent the degree to which you loved us. In your name we pray. Just a word about communion. In a moment, the ushers are going to come and serve you all communion. I'm going to invite you all to come and participate, whether or not you're a member of our church. The only real prerequisite, if you will, is this. Do you have a relationship with Christ? Because if you don't, then you're not really ready to commune with him. I'm not asking if you have a perfect week. I'm saying just do you have a relationship. And if not, you may want to wait until you do. But everyone else, I want to encourage you to take the element and hold it, ushers, if you'll come. We're going to worship the Lord together and just be reminded of his greatness because the Lord is great because he loves.