How to Love Well while Standing Firm

AH SAY, " GO GET - UM BUCK!" SO, BUCK JUMP OUT OF THE BOAT AN RUN ON TOP THE WATER AN BROUGHT BACK DEM DUCK, RUNNING ON TOP THE WATER ALL THE TIME . THE MAYOR SAW THAT AN HIS EYES ALMOST POP OUT, BUT HE DIDN'T SAY A THING.

HERE COME TWO MORE DUCK. "BOOM I-BOOM! GOT ALL BOTH OF-UM!" SO, AH SAY, "GO GET UM BUCK!" AN BUCK JUMP OUT THE BOAT, RUN RITE ON TOP THE WATER AN BRING BACK DEM DUCK, RUNNING ON TOP THE WATER ALL THE TIME.

NOW, THE MAYOR GOT TOO CURIOUS, SO HE SAY “BOUDREAUX, DAT DOG IS RUNNING ON TOP THE WATER!"

AH SAY," AH KNOW, AH COULD NEVER TEACH DAT STUPID DOG TO SWIM!”

Intro

This series is about learning to navigate through our culture while standing firm. Daniel stood firm in a foreign culture, but he had great influence in that culture.

Today, the prevailing thought is that that you have to be one or the other. Some think you have to stand firm in a rigid, and even hostile manner. Other’s think that you can love well, but you have to throw out all of the Bible, especially anything that requires people to adjust your behavior.

Let me tell you today, The most loving thing God can say to someone is “turn from your sin and let me change your life.”

Galatians 5:6 NLT

6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

The church has not always done this well because some become very dogmatic. If someone doesn’t agree with us, we kick them out. SBC

Write this down,

We cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.

Zig Ziglar - You can’t kiss a girl leaning away from you.

Someone else said, You will never win your enemies to Christ.

So the question today is, How can we have influence and stand firm at the same time? How can we stand firm and not do it as enemies of each other?

Daniel did it in a horrible situation and he did it well. That’s why we have been looking at his life. Jesus did it as well. Look at what he said,

John 13:34–35 NLT

34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Jesus said your love for each other will show others that we belong to Jesus… Our love, not our knowledge or our doctrine… but our love.

The central message of the Gospel is love. Now when I say that, there will always be someone who says, let’s move on to the deep stuff. For the most part, today deep means to take something simple and make it confusing. You ask someone, what did that guy say, they go, I don’t know, but it was deep.

Here is what I know, if someone is drowning, they don’t care what the Greek word for life raft is, they just want a life raft.

But here is the deep for those that need it… ready?

Love your enemies

Pray for those who persecute you

Bless the mean person next door

if we are not doing the Basics, God will not reveal the deep. Look what Paul said,

1 Corinthians 14:1 NLT

1 Let love be your highest goal! But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives—especially the ability to prophesy.

Let love be your highest goal. We want to love well while standing firm in our culture. So today we will look at some principles of love from Paul’s chapter on what love is.

Without love everything I say is ineffective

You might think you are right, but that doesn’t matter. You might be right but no one wants to hear you. It’s not about winning arguments, but it’s about winning hearts.

We live in a nasty, mean and toxic culture… Paul says,

1 Corinthians 13:1 NLT

1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

You might be the most eloquent and smartest person there is, but if you don’t love people, no one will listen.

Our culture is so toxic. We live in a culture that glorifies opinions. And people look for clicks as if somehow that means they have a brain… Now, If I disagree with you, then I hate you. We have to stop this. This church needs to be committed to never doing this.

You even see this kind of stuff in churches…

Or the Extreme words that come from any of us when we talk politics… a friend in South Africa told me during one of our previously heated elections… It doesn’t really matter who you elect, you are still the USA. If we elect the wrong person, people do in fact die…

This has to stop. We have to stop the language coming out of our mouths.

You could be right, but it doesn’t matter.

Ephesians 4:15 NLT

15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

When we speak truth, it is always… always to come from a place of love with an attitude of love.

Ephesians 4:29 NLT

29 Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.

Everything that comes out of our mouths either builds people up or it tears them down.

Church, let’s commit that we will not say anything unless it builds people up. (home, office, politically)

Without love, all I know is insignificant.

Listen to me… No one cares how much you know… if you don’t love them. They don’t want to hear you. That’s what’s going on in our culture today. We have people who have no relationship with each other trying to convince the other side of their opinion.

Knowledge is also doubling now every 3 years.

1 Corinthians 13:2 NLT

2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

Without love, all I believe is insufficient.

You may believe in Jesus, but so does the devil. We have to put some behavior with our belief.

1 Corinthians 13:2 NLT

Without love, all I give is incomplete.

Our church is a generous church. It’s not the amount that you give, but it’s the heart and love for God in the giving that matters. We show love in many ways.

1 Corinthians 13:3 NLT

3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

We do a lot. We feed the homeless, the needy and the sick. We take people places, we do all sorts of things for individuals and the community, but we have to do it out of love.

Without love, all I accomplish is inadequate.

One day we will all stand in front of Jesus. He will not ask us what we did to deserve heaven. We will get into heaven because we loved Jesus.

Once we get there, we will be awarded rewards according to our hard work for the Lord.

1 Corinthians 13:3 NLT

3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Write this down.

Anything minus love = 0

Check this out.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 NLT

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!

Daniel stood strong agains the Babylonian culture but you never saw him being disrespectful. Even though he stood firm in his faith, he was well liked and respected in a foreign culture.

Daniel 6:1–5 NLT

1 Darius the Mede decided to divide the kingdom into 120 provinces, and he appointed a high officer to rule over each province. 2 The king also chose Daniel and two others as administrators to supervise the high officers and protect the king’s interests. 3 Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all the other administrators and high officers. Because of Daniel’s great ability, the king made plans to place him over the entire empire. 4 Then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn’t find anything to criticize or condemn. He was faithful, always responsible, and completely trustworthy. 5 So they concluded, “Our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel will be in connection with the rules of his religion.”

There were a lot of things that were out of Daniel’s control, but he chose his responses to those things, and so can we.

So how can we be like Daniel?

How can we Love Well?

1. We love well when we serve others.

This is what Paul did and showed us to do in 1 CO 9:19

1 Corinthians 9:19 NLT

19 Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.

Paul served others in order to bring them to faith in Jesus. Jesus himself did this as well. Write this down…

Jesus connected before He corrected.

story of Zaccheaus

Jesus was walking by and looked up at this crook, and he didn’t say, you dirty rotten thief… He said, Z, I want to come to your house for dinner. After dinner, Z was a different man. Jesus connected before he corrected. The woman caught in adultery.

Always connect before you correct.

2. We love well when we set an example for others to follow.

If you are going to talk the talk, make sure you are walking the walk. How do you do that? You get plugged into a church so you can grow in community with others.

You don’t have to be perfect, none of us are, but like Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ.

Jesus told us to be salt and light…

Matthew 5:13–16 NLT

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. 14 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

Salt provides flavor. Did you know you might be the only flavor of God someone my experience?

Salt also preserves. We are to live in a manner that preserves Biblical morality in our culture.

Salt provides traction on slippery places. We must live life in a way that shows people the way to negotiate slippery moral issues.

Light is medicinal. cold cloudy day and the sun comes out - doesn’t it feel good when the sun comes out.

Light illuminates the way to follow Jesus.

The greatest influence we can have on our world is how we live.

3. We love well when we share Christ with others.

Whenever you do something good for the Lord, people will see it and want to know why… When that happens we have a new opportunity to be a witness for the Lord. When they see you helping them because of your love for the Lord, it will help to draw them to the Lord themselves.

1 Peter 3:15–16 NLT

15 Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. 16 But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.

Whenever we help someone, we need to make sure that they know it’s because of Jesus in our lives.

How we act is more important than what we say.

We have to allow God’s word to live in and through us.

Conclusion

Now maybe for some of you that might be a problem because you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. Some here or watching may be trying hard to live the Christian life on your own, and that will wear you out and not work. We have to allow the HS to live in us and work through us.

We can’t even lead anyone to Christ unless the HS is drawing them in the first place. That’s why we need to be lifting them up in prayer. We you and I experience His love, then we have the capacity to love others. Remember this,

Romans 5:8 NLT

8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.