LN 21 "Love For One Another (pt. 2)" 05.18.08

William Law once said, “There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.” The mission of the Church is love – love for God, each other and the world. Last time, we learned that we express our love for one another through edification – building up one another in Christ - through discipleship and fellowship. I want us now to focus on doing that through prayer – expressing our love for one another by being a community of prayer.

I believe we see this reality in the example of the earliest believers. Check out these passages from the book of Acts:
Acts 1:14 – “They all joined together constantly in prayer …”
Acts 2:42 – devoted themselves to prayer
Acts 3:1 – regularly praying at the temple
Acts 4:24 – raised their voices together in prayer to God for boldness
Acts 6:4 – apostles give attention to prayer and the ministry of the word
Acts 12:5, 12 – church gathered to earnestly pray for Peter who was in prison
Acts 16:22-25 – Paul and Silas in prison praying and singing
Acts 21:3-5 – Paul praying with believers on the beach at Tyre
Clearly prayer was an essential element in the life of the early Church. They were built up through praying together. They expressed love by praying for one another. They were a community of prayer. And they are an example for us.

But what is prayer?
Communication with God - directing one’s heart and mind and will toward God in love, faith, hope and trust.
Communion with God – being in the presence of God; listening to God and allowing the Holy Spirit to intercede for us.
Commitment to God. Prayer is a form of life, for a life directed towards God is prayer.

But why pray?
WE ARE TOLD TO (Psalm 32:6, Ephesians 6:18, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, James 5:13-16; Jude 1:20). Throughout Scripture we are given the example of godly men and women praying. Prayer was a core element of their lives.

WE WERE CREATED TO PRAY. We pray because we were created to be in a relationship with God and communication is a vital part of any relationship. We find prayer to be instinctive … because it is. We are wired to relate to God.

We also pray because WE NEED TO. We need to because we are limited. Abraham Lincoln once confessed, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go.” We can’t do it on our own. We need God and that is why we cry out to Him. Often it is only when we sense our own limitations; when we reach the end of our rope, then we turn to God in prayer. But that is backwards. Prayer ought to be our first response and our ongoing response to life, not a last ditch effort. Corrie ten Boom once insightfully asked, “Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” We need to because we have a desire to respond to God. When we see something that is utterly beyond us in its beauty or grandeur or intricacy or impossibility, we instinctively desire to respond in some way. We have, in other words, a desire to pray.

WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE PRIVILEGE TO. Because of Christ, we have privileged access to God and therefore, with our prayers, we can cry for help, battle against evil and lovingly intercede for others.

Prayer is a cry for help. Anytime, anywhere we can sound the horn of prayer – we can cry for help – and help, in some way, will come.

Prayer is a call to arms. Karl Barth once said, “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” Prayer is the recognition that things are not the way they’re supposed to be and that God alone can do something about it.

Prayer is the voice of love. St. Augustine wrote that, “Prayer is to intercede for the well-being of others before God.” Prayer is a way of loving others – seeking their good by bringing them before the Lord.

How we pray. We pray privately and publically, silently and aloud, written and spoken, eloquently and simply. Sometimes the best prayers have no words at all. We pray in the ordinary and extreme – for seemingly mundane, day–to-day issues and for major crises and overwhelming problems. We pray humbly (knowing that we are unworthy) and yet confidently because Jesus makes us worthy. We pray according to God’s sovereign will and yet we also struggle with God in prayer. In prayer, we adore, confess, give thanks, and bring our requests to the Lord.

So then, HOW CAN WE BE A COMMUNITY OF PRAYER?
We must pray confidently. See Acts 4:24ff and 6:4. We must believe that prayer is effective, that it works and that it is vital to our personal lives and our life together.

We must pray consistently. See Acts 1:14, 2:42, 3:1. To be a community of prayer we must pray consistently – persevering in prayer. In good times and bad; in the mundane and extreme; when we feel like it and we don’t; when it seems to be working and when it doesn’t. We need to develop prayer as a rhythm in our lives both personally and together.

We must pray immediately. See Acts 4:24ff and 12.1-12 In two situations of persecution, we see that the early Church’s response was prayer. Notice that they had no time to throw their hands up in the air because they were folded in prayer. They had no time to voice their anxiety and fears because their voices were raised in prayer. Prayer was their immediate response, as it should be ours.

We must pray vulnerably and compassionately. See Acts 21:5. The believers prayed compassionately because they knew Paul was headed into danger and difficulty and so they knelt down to lift him up. And they prayed vulnerably. They humbled themselves before God and Paul humbled himself before them in asking for prayer. We need to be vulnerable to God and to one another in prayer. We not only need to pray, we need to be prayed for – to receive prayer, because when we do, we are able to pray compassionately for others.

We must pray victoriously. See Acts 16:22-25. In the middle of the night, with their feet fastened in the stocks, in a prison cell, what were Paul and Silas doing? Praying and singing hymns to God. That is victorious prayer – prayer that rises above one’s circumstances to the reality of God. We need to pray victoriously. In spite of our circumstances, in the face of evil, we must cling to God in prayer. Not pretending that evil is not there, not thanking God for evil, but praying in spite of it, in the face of it – believing that God is more powerful than it and can work all things ultimately for our good. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, we will not fear because God is our refuge and strength an ever-present help in trouble.

And so, as a community of prayer, we pray confidently, consistently, immediately, vulnerably, compassionately and victoriously. And as we pray, we build one another up in love. For when we pray in that way, we are unified in love and purpose and become conduits of God’s blessings to others.

As Oswald Chambers has written, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work.” Without prayer our love is weak, our faith is weak, our hope is weak, our ministry is weak, our worship is weak, our witness is weak, our lives are weak, our church is weak.

If we are to be the people of God, then we must be a community of prayer. If we are going to fulfill the mission of the Church to love God, one another and the world, we must be a community of prayer - a community that is connected to the Source of love (the One who is love) and connected to one another so that love can be shared. Let us be a community of prayer.

LN 20: "Love For One Another" 05.04.08

The mission of the Church is love: love for God, love for one another and love for the world. The last two messages have focused on our love for God expressed in worship. Today we look at our love for one another and how we are to love each other. But first I want us to consider why we ought to love each other.
- The first reason is because Jesus commands it. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13.34).
- A second reason is that loving each other is a part of our worship. The apostle John wrote, “This is love for God: to obey his commands” (1 John 5.3). In other words, we worship God - we show our love for God - in obeying His commands. And what are His commands? John tells us: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us” (1 John 3:23). In loving each other we worship God.
- A third reason is that loving each other is a part of our witness. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13.35). Our love for each other validates the message of the Gospel and proves that we are truly following Christ. Just as we cannot truly worship God if we do not love each other, so we cannot effectively witness to others without loving one another.

Loving one another is an essential part of the Christian life. It is Jesus’ command and therefore it is part of the mission of the Church.

But what is love? What does it mean to love? The word used in Scripture to express the love we are to show one another is agape – the same love that God shows us. Agape is basically a self-giving love that is not merited. We see this love illustrated in Romans 5.8: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God’s love in Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of self-giving, unmerited love. And that is the kind of love we are to show each other - the love of Christ. We love each other because God has loved us.

But, how do we love each other? I believe that as a community of believers, we show love to one another through EDIFICATION. To edify is ‘to build or construct’. You can hear the word ‘edifice’ or building in it. Edification is therefore building up something or someone and that is what love does – it builds up (see: Ephesians 4.15-16). So how do we show love? By building each other up. How do we build each other up? Through discipleship and fellowship. I believe we find this exemplified by the first believers who we read of in Acts 2.41-47.

The first believers were devoted. In particular, there were four things they were devoted to. We read in v. 42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” In those four things, I believe we see the elements of fellowship and discipleship, through which the Church is built up.

And so, let’s first consider discipleship. I’ve mentioned the fact that a disciple or talmid was one who not only knew what the rabbi taught, but did what the rabbi did. A disciple literally walked behind the rabbi. But for the early Church, their Rabbi was not physically present to walk behind. So how could they follow? How could they develop as disciples? Our text tells us they devoted themselves to Jesus’ teaching (as carried on by His apostles), and they devoted themselves to communicating with Him in prayer. That is how they grew: by listening, learning and praying. Discipleship is a process of growth. As we feed on Christ through the Word and through prayer, we are built up and formed into His likeness.

Now, that’s all well and good, but how is that a form of loving one another? Isn’t discipleship simply a personal discipline, a private process? No, not really. Discipleship takes place in community. The call of Jesus to follow was and is a call to follow Him along with others. It is not a private affair. It is a journey together (See: Hebrews 10.23-25 and 1 Thessalonians 5:11-18). The commission given to us by Jesus is to make disciples and clearly, discipleship is the work of the community. We are to love one another and that involves encouraging and responding to encouragement, correcting and respecting, teaching and learning – keeping one another accountable. Unlike Cain, we are our brother’s and sister’s keeper. We are to be concerned for each other - to build each other up in Christ; to make disciples and be made into them.

Secondly, we show love through fellowship. Fellowship is defined by the Greek word koinonia, meaning, “a close mutual relationship; participation, sharing in something and partnership”. Fellowship is not a passive word, but rather an active one. It means participation in a shared or common life (koina=common). The early believers actively shared in a common life.
- They shared resources. We are told that “All the believers were together and had everything in common.” This does not mean that they were communists, but rather that they actively cared for the needs of one another.
- They shared time and space: “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.” They were together often and enjoyed it. They shared their lives with one another.
- They shared in worship. They met in the temple courts together to pray and to praise God. And they shared in the Lord’s Supper – breaking bread together in a visible symbol of their unity with Jesus and one another.
- They shared food. Breaking bread refers also to eating together. There is something special in gathering at a table and sharing food. That’s why the dinner table has been the centerpiece of families and friends throughout human history.

We show love for each other through fellowship – through active participation in a shared life and mission.

Love is the mission of the Church. And that love must be expressed to one another as we build each other up through discipleship and fellowship – through a shared life together: encouraging one another, keeping each other accountable, bearing one another’s burdens, teaching and learning from each other, worshipping together, eating often with one another, sharing our resources and spending time together. That’s how we grow: we grow as a people.

But love is a choice. Love is a decision. I can list all the ways that we can show love to each other and all the biblical instructions for how we are to share in a common life together but it won’t make any difference unless we make the decision to love each other. And on the flip side, being loved is likewise a decision. We must choose to let people love us; to receive their love.

Being a community like the one we find in Acts is not impossible. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. However, it starts with a decision to love and be loved. We have been loved by God with a self-giving, unmerited love. Will we show that love to one another? Are we willing to bear with each other, forgive each other and accept one another? Are we willing to be devoted to each other and walk alongside each other on this journey of life?

The Church father, Jerome, tells the story that when the apostle John became so weak that he could no longer preach, he used to be carried into the congregation at Ephesus and simply give a brief encouragement and challenge. He would say, “Little children, love one another.” When his hearers grew tired of this message and asked why he always repeated it, he responded, “Because it is the Lord’s command, and if this is all you do, it is enough.”

We often desire to do great things for God – have a huge church and massive ministries. But what does God require? That we love Him and that we love one another. For love is the mission of the Church and what holds the Church together. We are to be a community that loves.