Love God

Love God

Sermon for Sunday, September 9, 2007

1. Good Morning. Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

2. Opening Comments: Welcome all! Obviously today is a very very special day in the history of Trinity Communion Church. I would liken it to the day that the children of Israel fought and won the Battle of Jericho and realized that God had given them the “Promised Land!”

Clearly many of us today are feeling very excited, very happy and very thankful to our Lord for giving us this place. God has given us a home – this place in this neighborhood and we are all feeling so very blessed.

The question for us this morning is what does God want to say to us on this very special morning as His challenge and encouragement to us?

Think about it. If you were God what would you want to say to your people as they embark on a new ministry in a new home? What did God say to His people on that first day as He lead them towards the Promised Land?

Now before I go any further I want to acknowledge you who are visiting us this morning. What does God want to say to you.

Now I know the people I serve but I don’t know you yet so I’m going to have to rely upon God totally to say what He wants to say to you. Let me assure you though He does have something to say to you – O yes, He most certainly does.

So what is it that God wants to say to us this morning through His Holy Word?

Please listen once again to God’s Words In the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy. By the way, I’m going to be reading from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase “The Message” since he sheds some fascinating insights into this passage with his paraphrasing. Let’s read:

Deut. 30:15

Look at what I’ve done for you today: I’ve placed in front of you

Life and Good

Death and Evil.

Deut. 30:16

And I command you today: Love GOD, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by GOD, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess.

Deut. 30:17

But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, 18 you will most certainly die. You won’t last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

Deut. 30:19

I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. 20 And love GOD, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that GOD, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Don’t you love God’s sublime clarity? I mean if anyone grasps reality He does! Ha!

What’s going on in these verses is that God is reminding His people that He’s the author of all reality – of all that is happening to them. He is leading them into the Promised Land but they have a choice – we always do – to choose life and prosperity or death and destruction (v.15).

Starkly clear, the Lord through Moses set the choice before his people. Will it be obedience or disobedience—life and prosperity or death and destruction? Which will it be?

The choice of obedience itself is twofold: It requires one “to love the LORD” and “to walk in his ways” (v.16).

And so today God comes to us and asks the most fundamental question – “As you launch out in ministry in this new home I have given you will you love me – love me with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength and will you walk in MY ways and not your own?”

At this most critical time in our history God again places the choice of life or death before us.

For those of us who are visitors we too are being reminded of that choice that always stands before us – will we choose life or death? Will we choose to love God and follow His lead or will we choose to ignore Him and follow your own lead? The former leads to life the latter inevitably leads to death – many many little deaths to all that is alive!

Listen once again to God’s warning to us who choose our own way. Look at verses 17 and 18 once again:

Deut. 30:17

Another translation puts it this way – 17. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship others gods and serve them . . . “

The image that I picture here is someone turning their face away from God. This is the quintessential opposite of what it means to “love God.” To love God means to turn your face towards Him and in humility to look upon Him and love Him and be loved by Him and then to do what He wants us to do.

We’re going to explore what it means to “love God” but first I want to look briefly are our Psalm response.

In our Psalm response this morning we are reminded that God is our refuge in every point of life. He’s our hiding place. He Himself is the place where we can be totally ourselves – feel totally safe and secure. Yes, it’s not about this place – this church building - it’s about Him! As He is made the center of this place so this place will become truly what it was made to be – a safe haven – a refuge, a sanctuary - for all of who need to find home. Truly the great St. Augustine had it right when He wrote, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

This morning God is reminding us once again to love Him and to follow Him and we will find rest for our souls. That gnawing sense of restlessness and homelessness that plagues so many of us will most certainly melt away as we turn our faces towards God and truly love Him and follow Him.

It’s a simple message isn’t it? Too simple? Too simplistic for this complex time perhaps?

Let’s keep exploring this thought then.

I want to turn now to our Gospel reading. Please turn with me to the Gospel of Luke 14 beginning with verse 25:

Again I’m reading from “The Message:”

Luke 14:25

One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, 26 “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple. 27 Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple.

Luke 14:28

“Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn’t first sit down and figure the cost so you’ll know if you can complete it? 29 If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you’re going to look pretty foolish. Everyone passing by will poke fun at you: 30 ‘He started something he couldn’t finish.’

Luke 14:31

“Or can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first deciding whether it is possible with his ten thousand troops to face the twenty thousand troops of the other? 32 And if he decides he can’t, won’t he send an emissary and work out a truce?

Luke 14:33

“Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple.

Now when I spoke about this to Brother Jerome at the Abbey of the Genesee he had, as usual, a fascinating take on it. For him the most critical word in the entire passage was the word “turned” – Luke 14:25, “One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them.”

Jerome laughed and said when I read this I think of the Keystone Cops – Jesus is walking along with a huge crowd following closely upon Him and then suddenly He turns upon them and they bump into each other and fall all over the place.

You see that word signals a real turn around – a sudden stopping and turning!

And you can feel the sudden turn in sentiment – one minute Jesus is sharing stories – parables – when the crowd and they are enthralled and even entertained by His words but suddenly He turned upon them and asked them the hard question:

Listen to it again:

Luke 14:25

Now jump forward to verse 33:

Luke 14:33

“Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what’s dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple.

Ah! This is the cost of discipleship! This is what it means to love and follow Him!

You see God is jealous for our love – our undivided love!

So today God is asking us all – visitors and TCC members – do you really love me? Then please follow Me!

Now I want to look very briefly at this “loving of God.” What does it mean to love God?

Now some of us are emotional while others of us are just not that emotional.

Some of us may use the word love easily while others of us struggle a bit with it.

But God is speaking to all of us – even the person in this sanctuary who doesn’t love God and quite frankly doesn’t feel the need to.

Yes, God is speaking to you also this morning and reminding you that your choice is the choice for death – ultimately.

But back to this challenge to love God – what’s it all about?

Let me tell you a true story to bring this out a bit.

Now some of you will remember this story but that’s OK – it’s a lot like a good parable – it can be read again and again and it only grows deeper with the reading.

Now remember we’re trying to discover what it means to “love God.”

A young missionary couple were serving in Korea just after the Korean war. It was at the height of winter upon in the Korean mountains. The couple were living in a missionary compound situated just between two small villages. It was getting dark and the snow blizzard was building. The missionary wife began to gather her clothes to go the be with a young mother who was getting ready to give birth and the missionary wife wanted to check up on her. He husband seeing what she was about to do begged her not to go as the roads were too treacherous in the middle of the blizzard – he feared for “her” life.

She acquiesced sadly and they went to bed.

That night the baby began to come. The young Korean lady got up quickly put on some scanty clothes and ran towards the missionary compound because she know that they would be able to help her.

She got almost to the compound when the baby began to come and so when she came to the bridge just a few hundred yards before the compound she could go no further and she slipped under the bridge and gave birth to her baby – a boy. She wrapped him in her clothes lay back and went to sleep.

The next morning the missionary woman got up early and gathered all of the gear she might need to aid in the birthing of a baby and get into her land rover and drove towards the village. Unexpected her can stopped at the bridge. She go out angrily – it had broken down! As she turned to walk back to the compound she heard the whimper of a baby coming from under the bridge. She quickly went to investigate. She found the child wrapped in warm clothes held firmly in the frozen arms of her dead mother.

The missionary could adopted the little one and brought him up often reminding him of how much his mother loved him – of how infinitely valuable he was to her.

On the boy’s twelfth birthday

This is what love is – it’s willing to die for the one it loves. Our most noble response to this sort of love is to wonder at it and then to respond in like kind and in so doing to truly plum the depth of the love of the one who died for us.

(Now turn to the crucifix) – this is love in action and it is a great and sublime mystery to all of us! It has held the imagination of millions and millions of people throughout 2 millennia!

This is love in action and our most noble and sublime response to this love is to wonder at it and then to respond in like kind by stripping ourselves of all would separate us from that love and in so doing to fully identify with Him!

This is a great great mystery!

God is calling us to love Him! Look upon Him – look at how much He LOVES US!

Love Him – follow Him.

Turn towards Him – never turn away!

And follow Him wherever He leads!