Sermon nuggets Mon Sept 1
Theme LOVE TALK
Verses John 13:33"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
Love Involves a Relationship
Letters to God: "Dear God, I'm taking violin, but you shouldn't listen yet because I still squeak a lot, Love Russell"
I still feel a lot like Russell, I squeak a lot. I feel like saying, Dear Lord you have given me lessons to be like Jesus only don't watch yet because I still squeak a lot. We fall short of being what we want to be and even fall short of being Christians that we know we should be and fall short of being what Christ wants of us.
Doesn't that make is seem like giving up? Or pretending before others that we've arrived, and not letting anyone in the church or around me know that I have failures, doubts, questions, problems.
I think one of the key elements in resting in Jesus' love is the reminder that we need not try to love God more, and therefore try to be better, but rather by be more aware of God's love for us and letting Him do it to us. As that happens we have a mark, a distinctive feature that ought to make us different than the rest of the people around us.
As Jesus is about to leave he calls his disciples “My Little Children”. As he prepares to give them this love talk there is something important that precedes any lessons on love. It is the understanding that love involves a relationship with another person, or with God. It isn’t just something we do, it is someone we are involved with.
Jesus identifies his relationship comparing it to a father loving his children and wanting the best for them. He is involved most certainly with loving the world, but there is something special that includes intimacy with this most special of friends whom he sees as his little children.
We can talk about loving God and His loving us, but the relationship in which we find most delight is the intimacy that is personal and special. The uniqueness of the love relationship we can have with our Father is the special understanding and conversations that is for us and us alone.
He loved the disciples. But more than that, He loved John and Peter and James. He loved Bartholomew and Simon and Nathaniel. He called each one individually to Himself. He knew their individual struggles, gifts and heart. He knows you by name and plans to have an individual special relationship that is special from others.
Marriages have wedding bands as symbols of love. In some of the Moslem nations a woman wears a veil if she is unmarried, or a half veil if she is married. In Africa the marks of love might be a stripe on the face or a ring in the nose, but with the believer the mark of love is how we treat the Lord, and others.
There are some things we can observe about Love as Jesus is sharing in this intimate setting with his special friends.
Pastor Dale
