On Sunday we are having our first PREVIEW SERVICE. For all intents and purposes, this is a REAL church service. Not fake. Not a practice.
All the messages that I am preparing are all titled "OURSPACE" - a play on the myspace.com thing...the online community. Basically all that we will talk about in the next weeks or months is COMMUNITY (i.e. ourspace). This is ourspace - expand your network.
The first message is about RELATIONSHIPS. Specifically, that good relationships are necessary to build Community. That may seem basic and elementary, but you and I both know that it's not as easy as it sounds.
Here's the journey through the text... see if you can follow my line of thinking (I'm not yet fully prepared for the message)... when you're done reading, please leave a comment, a question, a suggestion, a frustration... a response. What does this mean to you?
Mark 12:28-29 Says:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is
the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
Jesus quoted the "Shema" (a jewish prayer). The Shema is found in Duet. 6:4-7 (part of the Torah). In Jesus day (and for centuries before and after) the jewish people quoted the Shema regularly, maybe even several times per day.
Here's some notes about the Shema:
- Meant a renewal of your relationship with God
- A celebration of Gods promise of Grace
- Acknowledgment of allegiance to God alone
- A whole-hearted acceptance of life IN God… Again, and again and again... quoted regularly
When Jesus was asked the question (in the above verse) by another teacher of the law - he was asking Jesus what his interpretation of the Torah (the first five books of the bible) was. He was asking Jesus to give the bottom line about living the faith.
His answer (found in the scripture above) puts emphasis on 3 relationships... I highlighted it in RED
- A relationship with US and God (love the Lord...)
- A relationship with US and others (Love your neighbor...)
- A relationship with US and US (...as yourself)
Let me summarize love: "Doing the best thing possible for that person". Love is an action.
- Us and God - doing the best thing possible in our relationship with God
- Us and Others - doing the best thing possible in our relationship with others
- Us and Us - doing the best thing possible in our relationship with ourselves.
In Luke 10:25-37 Jesus expounds on "who is our neighbor"... I will re-tell this story in a modern setting so that we "get" the shock of the story like the original listeners where jolted when Jesus originally told the story.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE THE CHURCH? HERE? NOW? TODAY? How does this scripture speak to these questions?
- What is the bible all about?
- Who is a Christian? What’s a Christian supposed to DO?
- How do you summarize Axis?
- What’s the big picture for our lives?
- What's ourspace (our community) supposed to be about?
The answer is found in the scripture I quoted above. The answer is to do the best thing possible for God, for Others, and for ourselves... the answer is LOVE.
I suggest that all the problems in the whole world are relationship problems. Everything can be traced back to a problem in one of those 3 relationships (God, others, self).
The answer to the problems is Love.
We are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Axis will be part of the solution.
That's the basic idea... there are details and examples that I want to throw in, but that's it.
Please give your thoughts, opinions, illustrations, share your story.
Need help responding?
How about this... WHAT SHOULD LOOKING AT A SCRIPTURE LIKE THIS MEAN TO A NON-CHRISTIAN? WHAT WOULD YOU PULL OUT OF A VERSE LIKE THIS (the Mark 12 verse quoted at the beginning) AND TELL AN UN-CHURCHED PERSON?
WHAT SHOULD IT MEAN TO A NOMINAL CHRISTIAN?
WHAT SHOULD A SOLD-OUT BELIEVER DO WITH A VERSE LIKE THAT?
2 comments:
My two cents.
Love the title, very appropo!
Love the use of the Shema!
Love where you're going with this!
Non-Christians read Mark 12:28-29 and say something like, "Ya, sounds good. But this doesn't really exist anywhere. Love to them is a fairy tale (just look at our movies). And for the most part, the church (those bearing the name of Christ and His love) has done little but prove them right! Loving yourself is confused with ego and confidence - not self care. Loving others is ideal, but denotes weakness. Loving God is out of the question altogether for most people. God, to them, really isn't lovable or believable. He's harsh, He's distant, and He's barely real to them.
Most non-Christians want to know "why"? Why should I love God? Why should I love anybody? Why should I love myslef? Most crave to have this question answered in such a way that their loyalties, their conceptions, and their passions are overwhelmed with God's impossible love.
People love passionate devotion; football fans, national patriots, music fans, nature lovers, art lovers, porn addicts, alcoholics, history buffs, gamers, etc... we all were born to passionately love something - we were born with this inate craving to be taken up in awe of something. We feel it, we desire it, we daydream about it, we pursue it...
Too many Christ-followers believe in God's love and and leave it there. Like some answer to a multiple choice test. They got the right answer, but it fails to seep into their core; into the heart of their soul. It's passionless and almost cold. We just attatch the neat little principle to make our little life seem better. "I know God loves me. That's why he died so I can go to heaven." To even believe or say that without tears welling up, without our souls rising, without our hearts skipping a beat, without the swelling in our gut - makes us near dead. God is so much more awesome than that!
Awe! We need awe!! That Mark verse is simply stated by Jesus, but it is a massive, gigantic TRUTH laid out, that around, all the universe revolves. Jesus was a master at these kind of statements. Simple, clear, graceful, and beautiful -- awe inspiring! I think this is what the Shema was really about. Jesus was qouting something they all knew by heart, but it was not yet IN their heart. It was passionless knowledge.
I think if you can answer the question "Why?" my friend, with an awe inspiring answer, you will have answered the threefold question. What does love mean for non-Christians, nominal Christians, and sold-out Christians? AND What does it mean to love God, others, and yourself?
It all starts with understanding, experiencing, and imitating God's amazing love. When the earliest church in Acts 2 is described it's interesting to point out that they all shared something in common - whether Greek, Hebrew, Roman, Samaritan, Egyptian, man, woman, child, rich, poor; they understood God's passionate love personally, they experienced it in their community, and they imitated His love to others outside the community. They shared everything, they gave without reservation, they prayed together, they ate together, God added to their numbers daily, and everyone was in awe!
That's what everyone is looking for: A place like this. Too many people have given up on the idea and labeled it a fairy tale. I think it's because we don't teach people about God's awe-inspiring character anymore, we teach little principles to make life better. We play beautiful God songs, but sing them with little emotion. We don't share anything anymore (life experiences, art, thoughts, stuff). We give out of obligation or duty, not joy. We don't eat together or meet regularly (except to sit in a chair and watch a service once a week). We don't pray for each other together unless the pastor leads us. We don't teach the core truths of God anymore. I think it's because "church" now is more defined and rated by the preacher's eloquence and the coolness of the music. How does a "church" define God's love?
"Church"(ecclesia) actually means "called out ones", or a community of those built up around God's amazing love. They were different, peculiar, holy (God-like) because they were living by and through God's love - personally and in community. Unheard of then just as it is now!
Maybe "church" should resemble this again: sharing, giving, praying, eating, teaching, singing, all centered around God's unbelievable love. How would Axis do this? What would a church service look like if we did this? How would we sit? Where would we meet? What kinds of things would we do? Who would talk? Who would pray? What would we give? How would we know what to give? What would we share? How would we share it?
Long story short... start with "Why?"
True...Relationships are at the bottom of every problem.
I love the notion that the Shema was a renewal of ones relationship with God. I think renewal is what we need on a daily basis. We constantly try to maintain relationships all the while we have a tainted one with God when we sin. Renewal MUST happen before we can love others and God is the only one that can truly renew and refresh. I think this mostly applies to people who are already Christians. However....I think the notion of renewal is something that would appeal to a non-christian after a life separated from God. I think the realization of the need for renewal, and really a brand new start in life, is a concrete concept to grab people Christian and non-christian alike. God Bless, Mike Rich
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