Let Love Be Your Highest Aim

Lafe Angell

Servant Leadership • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

2 Corinthians 6:1–13

Love

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The Message (MSG)

6 1-10 Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us. God reminds us,

I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help.

Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing. Our work as God’s servants gets validated—or not—in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right; when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.

11-13 Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!

Personal Intro (have family pictures ready)

C. S. Lewis: Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

Motorcycle Story

New Living Translation (NLT)

33 After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?” 34 But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”

New Living Translation (NLT)

42 So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 43 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

New Living Translation (NLT)

3 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. 4 So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

6 When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”

8 “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”

Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

9 Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”

10 Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet,[a] to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you.”

So why is serving such a big deal to God?

Show individual pictures of 3 kids one at a time while I discus them:

Callie: brilliant, caring, funny, beautiful

Caleb: ingenious, giving (brownie or Diego story), warrior (defender of those who can’t defend themselves)

Noelle: sparkplug, energy, artist, connector

(I will take time here and express my love for my kids)

If I see my children the way I do, how much more does God, our Heavenly Father, see us as priceless gifts? The same way I took just a minute to desire what is awesome about my kids, I believe God’s heart is to stop us in the midst of our busy-ness and show us the incredible gifts He’s given us in one another.

He would say, “STOP! Don’t just let this one slip by. Let me tell you what this one means to me. Let me tell you what I have in mind for them and the gifts I’ve placed inside them.”

Imagine for a moment that I see you down the hallway of the church and you are spending time and encouraging one of my children. Imagine I see you making them feel valued and loving on them. Letting them know that they can make it and how much God loves them. How do you think I feel about you in that moment? I might not even KNOW you, but I know I already like you.

In scripture we are called “The Children of God” 16 times in the New Testament (NKJV). We are called His children 5 times in 1st John alone.

New King James Version (NKJV)

3 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of [a]God!

Point 1: Serving is a Big, Big Deal to God!

Point 2: Let Love Be Your Highest Aim.

We can’t keep this love to ourselves!

(NLT)

13 There are three things that remain—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. Let love be your greatest aim…

Let me put that in a different perspective for clarity. Love being our greatest aim is the same as saying that we want to be known first for loving. It’s tantamount to saying that we want to be the best in the world at this one thing.

Think about a professional athlete. Their job is to be among the best in the world at shooting a basketball, hitting a baseball, sinking a long putt. If they are going to be the best, they don’t focus their practice on the easiest layup, the fastball right down the middle of the plate, the two-foot putt with no break. They practice difficult shots so that they’re ready for game time application.

The same is true for love being our highest aim. How do we make love our highest aim? We serve the way Jesus served.

The Danger of “Churchy” Words.

We can become complacent and satisfied based on our traditions. An example of that is when we call ourselves a congregation. When we call ourselves a congregation, our only real responsibility is to congregate. Another tradition that has done far more harm than good is a short sighted belief that the goal of evangelism is to have someone say a prayer and then our evangelism is complete. Jesus never asked anyone to pray or sinner’s prayer. His message was always the same: “Repent and follow me.” Following Jesus means doing the things He did.

To be clear, I believe whole heartedly in a prayer of repentance and a vow to make Jesus the Lord of your life. I’m just convinced that it doesn’t end there! We are to be DISCIPLES of Christ! Followers doing the things He did! You can say He’s the Lord of your life, but if your life doesn’t change in any real way… is he?

New Living Translation (NLT)

17 The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, 19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.[a]”

If that is what Jesus was here for, it should be what we are here for.

(Read with my name inserted)

Let me tell you why that’s the most exciting news you’ll ever hear! Because God wants to do miracles THROUGH you not just FOR you.

Point 3: God wants to do miracles THROUGH you not just FOR you.

We move into maturity as Christians when we stop needing a miracle and start becoming the miracle in the lives of others.

In the book Discovering God by Henry Blackaby, there is a vitally important shift in thinking that the author proposes that we make. Instead of praying to God to show up in the middle of our situation and come to where we are, we need to open our eyes, find where God is moving and move ourselves to get involved in what HE is doing.

What we’ll find if we’ll meet God where He is moving rather than continually asking Him to come to us is that He has placed gifts and abilities in us that we may not even know we have BUT they can ONLY be unlocked in the context of serving.

The surest way to have God show up in your life is to be a part of what He is doing rather than asking him to come continually to come fix our mess.

(Choctaw casino gas station story)

God wants us to learn a servant’s heart in the church.

New Living Translation (NLT)

12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

In short, we are supposed to practice in the church the way God wants us to play as He sends us out into the world.

The Message (MSG)

6 1-10 Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us. God reminds us,

I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help.

So, in this passage Paul is telling the Corinthians that there is a promise they can live in! A “Wide open and Spacious life”. What he is describing is a life of significance and blessing. While that is true, what comes before this kind of blessed life is serving. The kind of serving Paul is telling the Corinthians about here demands a commitment on a higher level than mere excitement can generate. It demands PASSION!

So here’s your challenge/ call to action!

Pray for God to give you a heart for the unreached, broken, and hurting. Pray that God would give you eyes to see the person you struggle with the way He sees them. Pray that God would give you the strength to walk it out and Love they way Jesus loved when He prayed, “Father, don’t count this sin against them for they know not what they do”

Begin right here in the church! Get on a serving team and practice loving and serving others.