Aiming For "Agape" Love
Notes
Transcript
Have you ever googled Jesus for… anything?
Because whats crazy is you can find a group of Christians that support anything!
I mean there is a cannine for Christ group
Also a kingdom dog ministries
On the other side their is Cats for Christ
There is a Christian Jeep Association
Theres Jenga for Jesus
There are Jerks for Jesus.
I mean you can find a group that supports anything right?
But where this gets harmful is you begin to find all these different groups, (and I don’t think cannies for Christ is causing to many problems,… Maybe cats for Christ).
But with all seriusness there are Christ followers that are are known for all sort of different things.
Some are known for being hateful, others are known for the things that they cannot stand, maybe its the white picket fenced yard and having their lives look perfect from the outside,
But the question that comes to my mind, is how are we supposed to live as Christ follower and really how do we live in a world that is changing?
Because a lot of people say the past centry or two has had the biggest changes in human history.
And so how do we navigate the world we live in.
And so like I mentioned we are starting a new series that I talked about briefly called “You Are Here”
And we are actually going to be looking at a letter in the Bible that is written from a leader in the early church to a young man named Timothy.
And Paul is actually in prison for being a leader in the early church
And he is beginning to realize that things are not looking good for Him (and that he will most likely have his life taken from him soon).
And whenever someone knows their life is coming to an end, one thing that happens is they begin to share really important things.
I mean if some is about to pass away and they are telling you somthing you are leaned in right?
And so Paul sends two letters to this young leader named timothy to show him how to navigate this uncertain time.
And my hope for us as we look at these letters is that we can begin to navigate the uncertain times of our lives and world.
And today Paul gives Timothy the foundation of how to do this.
So we are in 1 Timothy 3-11 and we will just be starting in verses 3-5. After Paul introduces himself this is what He says:
3 I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine, 4 and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith. 5 But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.
So I want you to note that Paul who wrote this is saying how there are different doctrines and speculations that have been creeping into the early church.
And scholars are unsure of what the exact speculations and different doctrines.
It may have been different heresys could have been creeping into the church, but it also could have been people were just creating their own version of Christianity that looked the way they wanted.
Where they could have said we like this whole Christian thing but we don’t like helping the poor or loving our enemy thing.
And so you can picture Timothy reading this and going okay, so what do I do. I mean how do we navigate this:
And whats amazing is verse in verse 5 Paul gives a way to navigate all the different voices that are there.
And He says “the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith”
Basically the aim of our charge is love.
And this is important because if you are aiming for something, you need to know what your aiming for to hit it right?
I have a nerf gun someone gave Liam. But if you told me “Brendan I want you to hit a target that is grey, brown or blue”
Well there would be a lot of things I would try to hit right?
I would try the ceiling, I would try to get this back wall I would try the floor.
But if you said Brendan, I want you to hit the organ box in the back. that gives a lot better of guidance on where to aim right?
And in a sence this is whats happening in this letter people are aiming at the wrong things and because of this they are most likely not where they should be and Paul is saying lets stop aiming for the wrong things and start aiming for the right things
And one thing thats interesting is in the Bible’s original language there are a few different versions of love that mean somthing different.
And here Paul uses a word translated as “agape” which is Christlike or God like love
And this is actually a really powerful verse and it should really impact how we live out our faith.
Because there were people that could not stand Jesus, they disagreed with him, they thought he was destroying their religion, and they ultimatley wanted Him dead
But you know what Jesus does for them? He actually dies for them, because He loved them.
And can I just say that the way we treat the people around us and in this world is probably a good indicator if of the faith we have.
the way we treat oru neighbor tells a lot about our faith
The way we treat the person we disagree with tells a lot about our faith
The way we treat the person that is on the oppisist side of the political aisle is telling
The way we act around the person that we even disagree with theologically and with their lifestyle tells about our faith.
Because to often the way we treat these people is not out of love but something else.
to often our aim is fear,
and we think what if this happens, that would be terrible
Our aim is we want to be comfortable
And we think that person makes me really uncomfortable
Sometimes there might even be hate, where we use the us verse them language.
But whats so powerful is that Paul writes to Timothy and says listen in the middle of a world that is changing
And really a world that the natural responses are to respond out of fear, or out of hate or to respond out of our hurt,
we should be responding out of the love of Christ.
And look at the next couple verses because Paul actually tells us just how serius this is that the aim of our faith is Chrsitlike love. He says this in verses 6-7. It says:
6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
Paul tells Timothy that it is so serius that people who’s aim is off should not even be teaching.
And to be honest its because when we are aiming for the worng thing it can cause damage.
I mean if I am aiming this at this glass it could be really destructive couldnt it?
And I want to encourage you to take an inventory of the things that speak into your life that inform your faith.
Because we all have things that speak in our lives don’t they? And we need to understand how it inclunces us.
Because to often what happens is we have all these different sources that speak into our life.
its kind of like creeks that come together in a river. (show picture)
And lets say just one of these creeks someone is dumbing sewage in it or some sort of toxic chemical.
And I asked you do you want to swim in this,
You would probably say no. because it is nasty (the chesepeak bay in downtown baltimore)
But heres the thing we have all these sources that speak into our lives friends, news outlites, political stuff, social media, Pastors (whether its me or someone on youtube) and so much more.
But if we looked at all these things we absorb how many of them speak in a spirit of love.
Because Paul is telling us if its not Christlike love, then its probably not from Christ.
And I want you to understand what I am not saying because what I am not saying is how we live does not matter if we are loving people,
In fact look at the following verses, because it implies the oppisite, because how we live flows out of this Christlike love. look at the rest of the passage (verses 8-11. It says this:
1 Timothy 1:8–11 (NRSV)
8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. 9 This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, 10 fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching 11 that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
So Paul tells Timothy the Law is not a bad thing but a good thing when its used the right way.
In fact in another area in the Bible (Matthew 5) Jesus even mentions that he has come not to get rid of the law, but to fufil it and he even brings up how the law required loving your neighbor, but Jesus wants us to love our enemy
He says the law says do not commit adultry, but Jesus comes and says not to even look lustfully at a person
And the He keeps going.
(I would encourage you to read that).
But you will also notice that Paul tells us that really the law is a reminder for us that its a reminder that we need Jesus, because otherwise there is no way we can live it out.
and we could get into all of these things that Paul mentions and spend weeks just on this one verse, but I think we need to understand how these guidelines that God gives us work,
Because its not just God going, haha I created these rules that they have to follow and it is hilarius, but its that God cares so much about us that He doesn’t just let us be but He gave us guidelines to live to have the most fufilling life.
I mean think about if you have a GPS, or realistically you have the maps app on your phone.
I mean the waze app is nice, because it will tell you the best route, it looks at traffic, it will give you an alert if there are police taking radar, (you shouldn’t be speeding right?)
But it tells you all these things along you route and the best way to navigate them.
And it can really save some heart ache to avoid some things and get to where you need to go in the best way possible.
And really throughout the Bible when we see these guidelines its God saying look this is the way you want to live, its not because I am annpying you, but I know that, that route will cause damage, and I have a better way.
And so during this series we will dive into some of these areaa, but we need to remember that first part of the passage that we need Christlike love to be the route of our faith.
Because if its not we have missed the target.
And maybe as we close this morning there are areas in our lives that have been rooted in something other than Christlike love.
because just being transparent I have found myself in a place like that where I have found myself going that person is the enemy, rather than saying that person is created in the image of God and Jesus died for them
And even if I disagree with them, I know that they are loved beyond belief.
What would it look like to respond out of love, because the world responds out of a lot of things but we are a body of believers that respond out of love.