Where is the Love?

"Where is the Love?" (Ephesians 5:16) Anyone who possesses some spiritual and social sensitivity cannot help but feel an almost smothering depression settling over our souls as we look out over the deteriorating conditions of the world around us. By almost any gage the consensus seems to be that we're passing through a period in our history that is unprecedented in its violence, its destructiveness, and its futility about life. After the exit of the first African-American President, many people, including me, once beamed and bubbled with hope and talked exuberantly about better days, are now forced to tone down the rhetoric and adjust the lenses of our optimism. Considering the 1st 2 years of Donald Trump we can only begin to now wonder whether we will be able to even survive long enough to face the future. A value system that once stressed the importance of family, a respect for self and others, and perseverance against all odds, has vanished from our lives and is now being replaced with a set of values that emphasize racism, prejudice, personal pleasure, selfishness and covetousness. The tragic result is that we are losing an entire generation to this heathenistic and hedonistic lifestyle. In a song from the pop charts of a few generations ago, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway melodiously mused over the question, "Where is the love?" And when we look at the fragmentation of our family life, the epidemic of brother against brother and sister against sister, and the disdainful disinterest among our children, then we too, can't help but wonder, "Where is the Love?" Where is the love we ought to have for God and for ourselves? Where is the love we ought to have for life and for each other? When people are in touch with the life preserving and soul empowering force of love, they do not privately mutilate and publicly castigate themselves or each other. Love ought to inspire us to guard against hurting ourselves and each other. Love insists that we seek the welfare of others, regardless of the cost. Love perseveres, love preserves, love sustains, loves corrects, love connects, love cares and love caresses, but love does not brutalize and destroy. There's never been a time in the history of our people or any people that anything came easy. Any time an achievement was made there was always some sacrifice and some struggle. But through every dark, difficult, and gloomy day, our strength in God and our love for each other held us together. Our love gave us the hope that we would make it, somehow. We've never had much money. We've never had big estates. We've never owned any companies that were bequeathed from one generation to the next. But we did have love. We've always had to break through barriers or leap over walls that had been put in our way. But no matter what we had to fight for and what we've had to overcome, we always had each other. We could always embrace each other in acceptance. We could always be depended upon to love each other enough to soothe each other and love the pain and the hurt away. But all of this seems to be behind us now. Now we're faced with the frightening reality that we've become our own worst enemies. Analyse the world from any angle you chose and the only conclusion that can safely be drawn is "where is the love". When a government cares more about building bombs and conquering other nations, than it does about feeding the starving, educating the ignorant, and housing the homeless, "where is the love?" When there's sympathy for the murder and only injustice for the deceased, "where is the love?" When many of our youth believe that there's a better living in selling dope and gang banging, than there is in preaching a Gospel of hope, "where is the love?" When people would rather come to church to be entertained by lies of prosperity and half-truths, than be informed and inspired by a Gospel of Peace and a message to overcome, "where is the love?" Any assessment you make from any sector of society, you come out with the same conclusion, that these are evil days devoid of any compassion or love. Corrupt politicians: evil. Godless governments: evil. Commercialized religion: evil. Mothers against daughters: evil. Parents against children: evil. Children against parents: evil. Fathers you can't find: evil. Youth gone wild in the streets: evil. Church "where is the love?" However, you look at it, there is no other assessment that can be made, except that these are evil days we are living in and you must ask the question. "Where is the love?" One of the great temptations that evil always puts before us is that we should blame everything that has gone wrong on God. When natural disasters occur, when poor people are plummeted into the deep dark abyss of life's hellhole, when things go wrong, when troubles rise, evil thoughts creep into our minds and make us want to put the blame on God. For some reason, there's always this tendency to blame God for the cruel, evil and unexplainable events that happen in our personal lives. At some time or another all of us have been guilty of looking away from our blessings. All of us have taken a moratorium from the million and one blessings that God has graciously bestowed upon us. All of us have been guilty of turning our back upon our blessings, walking over and sitting on in our pity pot, and engaging in a moment of self-pity where we sat down to blame God for all the hurts and hassles that have befallen us. Some of us blame God that relationships never worked out. Some folks blame God that their children went astray. Some of us blame God that sickness came in to the living room of our lives, sat down and never left. Some of us blame God that we lost something or someone we didn't think we'd ever lose. Some of us blame God for one thing and then another. That's at least one way we have in dealing with the disappointments, disasters, defeats, and evil events that have occurred in our lives. We just sit down and when we don't understand it, we simply put the blame on God. But my brothers and sisters, God is not responsible for evil. God gives us life and with this precious rose of life, be very sure that there are some thorns along its stem. It may be a thorn of sickness, a thorn of pain, or a thorn of disappointment and these thorns must be endured. God gives us the freedom to choose and with our choices there are consequences. Like it or not, both good and evil occupy the same space within the perimeter of His permissive will. And God has given us the grace to know that what we don't understand now, if we keep on living, if we keep on going, if we keep on keeping on, we'll understand it better by and by. Not only do we seek to deal with evil by blaming everything on God, one of the most prevalent responses we have is to give in and give over to evil. There are some people, even in the church, who call themselves Christians, who say they believe in Jesus Christ, but they also live by the philosophy, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." There are some people who couldn't stop their friends from using dope, so they sat down and got sucked up in the harmful habit themselves, so they could call themselves having companionship. There are some people who couldn't stop other people from stealing from them, so they just started stealing from somebody else, so they wouldn't feel naked and feel like somebody has just gotten over on them. For some reason, we have this inclination that the way to deal with evil is by giving in and giving over to it. When you're confronted by deceitful disciples, flim flam friends, and chintzy church folk, then some so-called Christians will settle for putting their religion on the shelf and they'll just get down in the dirt and deal with an evil set of circumstances by resorting to evil tactics and practices themselves. But you must be careful about this portable religion in these evil days. You must be careful about this religion that you can take off and put on the shelf when you get good and ready. Because if you're not careful, one of these days you're going to fool around and take it off, you're going to put it down somewhere, and forget where you put it, and the devil will catch you, and have you and sift you like wheat. You just may fool around one day and the devil will overcome you, simply because you can't fight fire with fire, you can't fight hate with hate, and you can't fight evil with evil. But you can walk through fire in faith, you can conquer hate with love, and you can overcome evil with good. Yes, these are evil days, but you can't give in to the evil that's in these days. These are evil days. Things are happening that with such regularity that, if you didn't know any better, you'd be tempted to think that things are going just the way they're supposed to be. And as bad as it seems there is still some Good News! The good news of the Gospel is that all is not lost. The good news for God's children is that evil always presents us with an opportunity. If you're a child of God, evil days will give you a chance to strut your stuff upon the stage of life. The darkest hour gives the light a chance to shine its brightest. When the disease is in the body, the medicine has its best chance to work. When temptation seizes the soul, that is the time to flex your spiritual muscles. When the going gets tough, that's when the tough get going. It is because these are evil days that good people, and Christian people and decent people and honest people and God's people must come together and rescue the world and dare to be the saviours of our time. We can't simply sit down and look out on the evil of our world and shake our heads and fold our hands and talk about how bad it is. We've got to have courage in our souls, we've got to shake the spirit of fear out of our spirits, we need to step out from the shadows of complacency and do-nothingness, we've got to come together and bond together and pray together and stay together and work together and get busy redeeming the time. The days are evil, "where is the love?" Paul writes this letter to the church of Ephesus. In Ephesus, spirituality had married sensuality. In Ephesus, money and immorality walked hand in hand. In Ephesus, cultic religion had laid its unholy hand of approval on every evil under the sun. In Ephesus, the Christians lived in a sin saturated city; an evil infested environment and Apostle Paul calls a spade a spade and puts before the church the spiritual challenge to redeem the time. Paul is saying to them and to us that our souls have been redeemed. And I hope that's a fair assumption; I hope that's true about everyone here this morning. That you are fully aware, that you've been redeemed. I hope you didn't simply show up to see who was here. I hope you didn't show up simply to style and profile before the congregation. I hope you're here today because your soul has been redeemed, that your life has been dug up by the ploughshares of the gospel, and hopelessness is behind you and faithfulness in before you. Church because our souls have been redeemed our agenda is to get inline with the redemption agenda that God has laid out for us and before us. You see, there are too many Christians just standing around, looking around, waiting around, walking around, and ain't doing nothing. But our responsibility is to get busy trying to redeem the times, because the days are evil. We have been redeemed so that the world can be redeemed. We are saved to serve. We've been called to make a difference in the world, bring lost souls to the Lord Jesus Christ and save a sin sick humanity from going to Hell in a hand basket. Far too many of us are star gazing. Far too many of us are simply lost in space. Too many of us are impressed with ourselves and we're looking down on others, when we need to be redeeming the time, because the days are evil and the times are overtaking us. If you've been redeemed, you can't sit there or stand there while the world just waltz's its way to hell. No, God didn't call us to be so holy that we're detached and don't have anything to do with the world. God called us to get down in the ditches of life and get involved on His side. In other words, once we've been redeemed then we're to use our spiritual influence to turn things around and make a bad situation better. That's what Paul means here when he says, "Redeem the times." He means that we ought to live in such a way, serve in such a way, witness in such a way, that you can turn evil into good. That's the challenge before the church. We have an opportunity to redeem the world in these evil days. In days like these, people need to hear a word from the Lord and as Christians, we've got a word. In days like these, people need to feel the power of God in their life. If you have been redeemed then you ought to be able to put God on front street, rather than hide Him on back street. In days like these, you should be strutting your stuff like never before. We need to come together and redeem the evil days. IN THE FIRST PLACE, THERE IS SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN DO IN THE MIDST OF EVIL. Now evil is frightening, evil is intimidating, and evil is unprincipled. Evil is so mean and violent and destructive that evil takes a car, van, or some other vehicle, to spill your blood and think nothing of it. Evil will shoot an old man in the head and go out and brag about it. Evil will crucify the savoir of the world and spit on the ground and say, "He deserved it." Evil is real. It behaves in such an irrational way that "us little old meek and mild, nice and clean Christians tend to get scared and we want to let the lord handle it." When we see all this evil happening all around us then we want to throw up our hands and say, "Well what can we do about it? It's too much for me." Evil has intimidated us to the point where we feel that there's nothing that we can do. But when you take the attitude that there ain't nothing that you can do, then you have surrendered to the devil and let him have his unholy way. The church can't afford to do that any longer. We must tell our children and tell our people that they don't have to walk around in defeat. We must tell our people that they can do something positive and constructive and productive with their life. And be sure that when you do that, you have made this world a better place. If we could just help somebody find their way out of darkness into the marvellous light, then our living will not have been in vain. Christians don't have any business acting like we're confused and always mumbling and grumbling and talking negative about what we can't do. We stand up and say that God can do anything but fail, out of one side of the mouth, then out the other we talk about how we're just one person and we're too small to make a difference. Listen, one person died to save the world. One person always makes a difference. One person with God is still a majority. You alone with God is more than the whole world against you. And with God, one can chase a thousand and two can put ten thousand to flight. There's always something that you can do in the midst of evil. I don't care how bad it is, with God on your side, "Greater is He that is within you, than he that is in the world." With God, you've got somebody dwelling in you. God the Father dwells in you. God the Son dwells in you. God the Holy Ghost dwells in you. And that's all you need. With God in your life you can stand against evil, you can overcome evil, you can handle evil. With God in your life and on your side, there's always something you can do in the midst of evil days. Don't run around waving a white flag talking about giving up and giving in. Don't walk around asking what can you do. If you can do nothing at all, get on your knees. I found out that's a good praying position. When you get on your knees heaven gets moving. THE SECOND THING IS OUR RELIGION OUGHT TO BE ACTIVELY INVOLVED ENGAGING THE ISSUES OF OUR TIME Notice here, the word redeem is a verb. Redeem is an action word. It implies activity and positive, constructive engagement and involvement. When Paul said, "Redeem the time." He was trying to let them know that they were to have an active religion. A religion that would allow them to get involved in the world so they could correct the troubling issues of their time. Paul was telling them to make a statement. What kind of statement is your religion making today? Now if you feel that you should leave everything in the hands of the Lord, then you need to check out the bible all over again. The bible reminds us that the reason God saved you is because He thought you were going to straighten this mess out. We sing a song about how "He's got the whole world in His hands." Well, that's true and it isn't. We are in His hands, but He left the world in our hands. He gave us some work to do. Don't you know that the devil will try anybody? The devil would tempt God if he could. If you want things to get any better, you'd better get up on your feet, you'd better get the sword in your hand, you'd better get the Holy Ghost in your soul, you'd better get the Gospel shoes on your feet, you'd better get some salvation in your life, and you'd better get on the Battlefield for my Lord! The old folks used to think of the church as an army. Well, we've allowed ourselves to get fooled now. We want to be innocent doves, peace-loving people, so we say. But evil is tearing us up and bringing us down. We need some Christian soldiers, who'll stand up on the streets and snap their swords in the air and tell the devil to "get back." We need soldiers who'll put their feet on the ground and tell dead-beat dads and promiscuous mothers to go back home, we need some fighting soldiers. It's all right to have peace. I want peace and we need some peace. But in a battle, peace doesn't come till after the war. We're still in the midst of the war. The Lord instructs us to put on the whole armour of God! We are in a war and we need to prepare ourselves for battle. I don't know about you, but I'm a soldier in the army of the Lord. And I promised Him that I would serve Him till I die. FINALLY, SOME GOOD CAN COME OUT OF EVERY SITUATION Sometime things seem to be so bad off. All the strange things happening in the world; people killing each other, babies having babies and more babies. It sometimes looks like the world has gone from bad to worse. Some of it has happened because the church has just sat back and decided to play church. We've got these young boys and young girls with all this rap music. They can say all this low-down stuff. But we weren't raised like that. When churches used to look after the community, they taught us how to treat each other. They taught us how to live. They taught us how to have hope in our hearts. But strange as it may seem, there's some good that can come out of every situation. It may look bad. But hang in there. I wish I could tell you how it's going to work its way out. I wish I could tell you that life would be all sunshine and roses! But I can tell you, if you keep on trusting and keep on fighting and keep on praying and keep on trusting, God will work it out. Because God will take care of you. Beneath His wings of love abide God will take care of you We have an opportunity. While others are running around to churches where they preach health and wealth, where they say you won't have any problems. You can say "I know that's a lie," because you know that God is a problem-solving God. We have an opportunity to tell lost children to trust in Jesus. We have an opportunity to put broken families back together We have an opportunity to tell somebody "I don't know how, but the Lord will make a way somehow." ........................ We have an opportunity to tell the world that Jesus is the answer for the world today, above Him there's no other, Jesus is the way. And through Christ, we can do all things. Christ who strengthens me Christ who leads me Christ who guides me Christ my mother's companion Christ my father's friend Christ Grandma's walking cane Christ answer to every problem Christ joy in my heart Christ ................................................ 8