Speak Truth in Love

Intro

Everyone, please pull out your phones. If you do not have an articulable, emergent need that your phone be on during this service, please turn it off.

It’s time for us to remember how to be human again. It’s time for us to disconnect from our phones, get off of social media, turn off the news, and just be.

So many questions pop into my mind. How did we get here? How do we respond as a church? How do we respond as Christians? Where do we go from here?

How do we process and grieve the state of our country? Where the news of innocent men, women, and children being murdered has become a regular part of the media we consume?

How do we process the assassination of a 31 year old Christian man recorded for the world to watch? And what do we do with a world where there are people who would cheer in the streets that someone they disagreed with ideologically was killed?

How do we respond to the endless display of evil, sin, and fallenness in this world?

I don’t have the answers to all of those questions, but I can tell you one thing for sure, this doesn’t change any element of Mazevo’s mission. Today, we gather at the Lord’s table. We ground in God’s word through worship, prayer, and community. And after this service, you, believer in Jesus, you go as Spirit sent neighbors, making disciples of all nations. We will continue to Gather, Ground, and Go, but with a renewed sense of urgency, a renewed zeal to see the Kingdom of Heaven brought down to Earth.

And to summarize the responsibility that each of you bear, we speak truth in love. Boldly, zealously, urgently.

The Gospel

In Genesis 2, we get the creation story of Adam and Eve ever since the fall in Genesis 3, all of humanity has been separated from God. That was how Paul began his letter to the Romans.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 10:9–10 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

And for the last two weeks, we have been in Romans 12, where Paul shifts from his defense of the Gospel to our response. What now? Where do we go from here?

Romans 12:1–2 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Because of God’s mercy, our spiritual worship is to present our whole selves as a living sacrifice. How do we do that? By the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. We resist being conformed to this current secular age, and we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, through our study, and meditation on God’s word. Through the conversations that we have with fellow believers. And that word Paul uses for “spiritual worship” can also be translated reasonable worship, rational worship, or logical worship.

Our only logical response to the mercy that God has shown us through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ is to offer every part of ourselves as a living sacrifice.

Speak Truth in Love

You may have disagreed with Charlie Kirk’s political views, you may have believed that some of what he had to say wasn’t true, but as soon as he opened his mouth about Jesus, it was all truth. It was all love. It was the solution to all of the problems that he sought to solve on the political stage.

A return to Biblical morality. A reunification and strengthening of the family. He told our young people to find Jesus, get married, and have kids. In a world full of lies and hate, Charlie spoke truth in love.

Ephesians 4:11-24

The death of Charlie Kirk is not a call to action. The death of Charlie Kirk is an exclamation mark to every single word that I just read. The call to action is scripture. The call to action is to speak truth in love with boldness and courage.

The War Against Satan

We are at war. We are under attack. We know the enemy. His name is satan.

Our enemy is not flesh and blood, but Satan himself (Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

There is a dark world of evil that is unseen and it is all around us, and it is real.

We fight not with worldly weapons, but with spiritual armor and the Word of God.

Charlie’s fight reminds us that Christians are called to contend for truth.

The Urgency of Obedience

The Great Commission is not optional

(Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” ).

Delayed obedience is disobedience. We must act now—speaking, loving, and living for Christ.

James 1:22 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

reminds us: be doers of the Word, not hearers only.

We don’t know how long the Lord has us here, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know if this is the end of a dark chapter for our country, or the beginning of a darker one. In all of those cases, our response is the same. Make much of Jesus, TODAY

VI. Grieving with Hope

We mourn Charlie’s loss, especially for his wife and young children.

But we rejoice in the hope of the gospel: he has finished the race (2 Timothy 4:6–8 “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

His crown is secure—ours is still before us.

VII. Conclusion: Pick Up the Baton

Charlie’s race is done. Ours is not.

Our days are short, our mission urgent, our Savior worthy.

Charge: Speak the truth in love. Live boldly. Labor faithfully. Hope expectantly.

Closing Scripture/Prayer: 2 Timothy 4:7–8 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

Speak Truth in Love

On a morning that is usually somber as we remember the terrorist attacks of 9/11, I am overwhelmed with grief. Charlie Kirk represented two separate movements that were deeply intertwined for him, as well as for many of us. He was a leader in the conservative movement, fought for open and free public discourse, especially with the next generation of American leaders on our college campuses. He was 31 years old, a husband to his wife, Erika, and a father to his two children, a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son. More than any of those things, Charlie was an ambassador for Jesus Christ.

We must celebrate the good that the Lord has done through Charlie, but there is also a responsibility that each of us bears. Charlie’s life and now death serve as a testimony to a life lived boldly for Christ. No man is perfect, but the Gospel message that he carried is. You may have disagreed with much of what Charlie said, you may have thought his approach was unloving, but Charlie’s devotion to the truth that Scripture teaches is the most loving mission that we can set out on as believers.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

Ephesians 4:15

The sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is conforming us to the image of Jesus, and at the same time, Paul exhorts us in Romans 12:2 not to be conformed to this age. The secular culture of our modern age is the direct parallel of Ephesians 4:15: Those who are tossed by waves and deceived by men. Deceived that morality is something relative to us and our feelings and intuitions. This moral relativism is one of the many enemies that Charlie fought against. It is not news to the informed Christian that we are at war, but our fallen humanity tries desperately to convince us that our enemy is flesh and bone. Our enemy may not have flesh and bone, but he does have a name. Satan.

As you process the death of a brother in Christ, let’s be clear here. You have an obligation to fight. Not against those who are lost, as you too were at one time, but against the deceiver, the thief, the enemy, the devil. This fight isn’t one that’s fought with physical armor and weapons, but the spiritual armor and the living Word of God. As Paul brings his theological dissertation in Romans 1-11 to a close, he implores us because of the mercies of God to present our whole selves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our only spiritual, reasonalble, rational, logical, response, in worship (Romans 12:1). This is what we are commanded to do. This is the very thing that Charlie died doing.

We must be bold and unwavering in the truth of Scripture, but boldness without love hardens. We must be extravagant in our love for our fellow man, but love without truth is not love. We all have a responsibility, and Charlie’s death is a strong reminder to Christians that there is an urgency to the work that we do. We need to be at work for the sake of the gospel now. Charlie’s area of influence was mainly with young college students. Your area may look different, but your work looks the same. Speak the truth of the Gospel with boldness and with love.

As we remember the work that Charlie has done, take this as a charge to pick up the baton. It’s easy to criticize what others are doing, or to armchair quarterback all of the problems or opportunities that you see, but the harder thing is to get up and do the work yourself. Theodore Roosevelt puts it beautifully:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

As Christians, we don’t have the luxury of only cheering on those who champion the gospel, but we ourselves are called to the very same work. As a body made up of many members, our work is all unique and equally necessary, so while our work may look different, our mission is the same.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28:19

It’s moments like these, when the media gets noisy and emotions are high, that we(especially us men) retreat into passivity and wait for the dust to settle. I simply ask that you consider the urgent need for those who labor and ask, What does obedience look like in my life, right here, right now? The response won’t be an audible voice, or a dream, but a burden that drives you to know the God of the Bible more deeply, more personally, and His call will become abundantly clear.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

James 1:22

We do because it is our only rational response to the mercies that have been given to us by the Father, through the sacrifice of Jesus. We do not have it in our power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. We desperately seek to do the will of the Father, as we are conformed to the image of Christ. We must do.

As we mourn the loss of a man who contended for the faith, we also have full assurance that He is now in the loving arms of our Savior. We don’t mourn for his sake, because he is experiencing peace and joy that we anxiously await. We mourn for his family. His wife, who has lost her husband. His children, who have lost their father at an age far too young to comprehend. Please keep his family in your prayers.

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:6-8

Charlie’s race is finished, but ours is not. Until the Lord calls us home, we are to walk faithfully, speaking truth with love, and holding fast to the hope that is ours in Christ. May his example remind us that our days are short, our mission urgent, and our Savior worthy. Let us grieve with hope, labor with joy, and long for the day when we too will see our Lord face to face.

Your brother in Christ,

Ryan Pierce