LOVE LOUD - Get Off the Hill! (Sunday before event)

Here are some real headlines from printed articles:

10. If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While (that’s logic right there)

9. War Dims Hope for Peace (Yeah, it has a tendency to do that)

8. Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

7. Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told (that’s why these guys are so highly trained)

6. Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says (hmmm…you think?)

5. Miners Refuse to Work after Death (Can you blame ‘em?)

4. Kids Make Nutritious Snacks (says who?)

3. Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half (fairly severe penalty huh?)

2. Man Struck By Lightning Faces Battery Charge (I found that headline to be shocking.)

1. Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

You can’t make this stuff up! Right before these went to publish, someone needed to clarify exactly what was intended. Otherwise it leaves people confused or crying out in laughter.

That’s why I hope to clarify EXACTLY what we are asking of you NEXT SUNDAY for our Love LOUD event.

Today, I will teach from God’s life-changing Scripture and give some insight into WHY we are doing WHAT we are doing.

Next we will clarify Next Sunday’s LOVE LOUD Schedule (as seen in your bulletin) & share specific ways you can serve next Sunday.

Finally, we are going to pray together & ask God to move among our community and give us divine opportunities to share Jesus with our lips & lives.

PRAY

Years ago there was a phrase I heard a lot, a phrase many are still practicing, but a phrase we probably need to speak and apply more often:

GET OFF THE HILL!

This building and property sits on a hill, and it’s great that we gather here together to study, grow, pray, and build relationships, but we have so much more to do away from this place. Hence, we need to be reminded that the majority of ministry to reach our community is OUT THERE! So we need to....Get Off the Hill!

Next week we will do just that as we purposely GET OFF THE HILL and go to serve others in Jesus’ Name.

We do this on a Sunday for several of reasons:

We are used to gathering together on Sundays and we’ve had much more involvement and impact over the years by going out together on the day we normally gather.

We want to foster friendships where we serve together. There’s something about serving together & sweating together that helps deepen our devotion to Jesus and to one another.

We want this to be a launchpad to leads us to serve and share in our community. Every time we do LOVE LOUD others are greatly impacted and many of you say, “We ought to do this more often!” And then we are reminded that we have the opportunity to serve people in the Name of Jesus every day!

Further, this gives us a real life opportunity to live out our Vision Statement TOGETHER!

As most of you know, our Vision Statement is clear and concise, easy to remember and worthy of living out. Here it is. We exist to:

Love God. Love People. Develop Disciples.

Would you say that WITH me? We exist to love God, Love People, and Develop Disciples.

Where do we get that from? It comes from 2 commands from Jesus - that are often referred to as the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

GREAT COMMISSION

The Great Commission - where we get Develop Disciples from - comes from the lips of Jesus:

Matthew 28:19–20 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, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

GREAT COMMANDMENT

And then there’s The Great Commandment where we are told to Love God and Love People.

As many of you know, when Jesus was asked about the greatest command in all of Scripture, Jesus took the 613 Old Covenant Commands and boiled them down to 2.

Matthew 22:36–40 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Jesus echoes “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” in what is often called The Golden Rule:

Matthew 7:12 Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

What do we want others to do for us? Treat us kindly & help us when we have trouble. Yep…we are to do THAT!

WHO ARE WE TO SERVE?

So, who’s my neighbor? That can include your best friend or an acquaintance, but your neighbor could also be an enemy, or someone you’ve never met who has a need that you CAN meet. Look how Jesus responds when someone asked, “Who IS my neighbor?”.

Luke 10:30–32 Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

A priest, as a descendant of Aaron, was involved in offering the sacrifices for the people of Israel. As we have seen in our Hebrews study, Priests were mediators, representing the people before God and representing God to the people. If anyone would respond with mercy & compassion for a person God created, this would be the guy...but instead, he passed by on the other side of the road and goes about his business.

The Levite was a descendant of Levi and these men assisted the priests in various sacrificial duties including taking care of the Temple, God’s HOUSE! You would think that THEY would certainly take care one of God’s PEOPLE created in His image! But this man also bypasses the man in need. These religious leaders wouldn’t help, but then...

Jesus next introduces the most unlikely & unwelcome hero, a Samaritan. We need to understand what everyone in that Jewish culture understood - Samaritans were a half-breed culture, a different ethnicity that their ancestors had been at war with, a group of people that most Jews considered enemies - people they would do their best to avoid.

With that in mind, consider the significance of the story Jesus tells.

Luke 10:33–34 But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

This Samaritan man changed his schedule and took the time to care for a man he had never met. Despite their ethnic & cultural differences, despite the blood that would get all over him and his clean clothes, despite the cost to his personal resources (olive oil and wine). This Samaritan now put this badly beaten Jew on his donkey and took care of him.

Luke 10:35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’

A denarii was a day’s wage. Beyond these wages, this Samaritan was ready to reimburse for any extra that was needed for the Jewish man’s care. So while his own people passed this needy man in the streets, this man of a different race and culture, whom many considered to be enemies, was willing to give his time, effort, and his hard earned money to meet a need for a man he had never met.

Then Jesus asks the question that will have an obvious answer.

Luke 10:36-37 “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.”

So, my neighbor could be someone I have never met, who has a need that I can meet. My neighbors also include my friends, acquaintances, & even people we or others have considered to be enemies - whom Jesus commands me to serve.

BIG TRUTH: We serve 'em BEFORE they deserve it.

And that’s exactly what Jesus and His disciples did - they practiced what they preached, they served others before they deserved it.

In fact, that’s what often got Jesus in trouble with religious leaders.

Jesus made time for people that many religious leaders avoided - including tax collectors, prostitutes, and people with life-long illnesses. Instead of waiting until they got cleaned up and healed up, Jesus served ‘em before they deserved it.

As we were reminded last week, Jesus made it crystal clear why He had come to earth:

Luke 5:31–32 It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

WHEN ARE WE TO SERVE?

Well, that’s an interesting question, because - believe it or not - there WAS a chunk of time when religious leaders thought you SHOULDN’T help other people.

Because of that idea, Jesus committed what they considered to be a grievous sin by healing on the Sabbath. And Jesus got in trouble for doing this over and over again.

Here’s an example where Jesus heals a woman who was “bent over and could not straighten up at all” for 18 years (Lk 13:11). Jesus touches her, heals her, and she glorifies God. That would be AWESOME wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t we all celebrate with her? NOPE!

Luke 13:14–16 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, responded by telling the crowd, “There are six days when work should be done; therefore come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day.”

But the Lord answered him and said, “Hypocrites! Doesn’t each one of you untie his ox or donkey from the feeding trough on the Sabbath and lead it to water? Satan has bound this woman, a daughter of Abraham, for eighteen years—shouldn’t she be untied from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”

Jesus’ enemies were humiliated while the crowd celebrated what Jesus was doing!

So Christians, just in case you are thinking, “We shouldn’t be doing work on a Sunday…it’s the Sabbath.”

You CAN/SHOULD serve people on Sundays because...

Sunday is not the Sabbath. Saturday is.

New Covenant Gentiles are not bound by the Sabbath law. If you think you are, then you need to stop working in your yard on the Sabbath (Saturday) - go back and listen to our teaching called “Our Sabbath Rest” on Mar 21st.

Jesus demonstrated that EVERY DAY is a GOOD DAY to serve people - and that included the Sabbath. Some people need immediate help so don’t DELAY when you can help TODAY.

And there’s one more reason why we should...

serve 'em BEFORE they deserve it.

And that’s why we must answer the question...

WHY ARE WE TO SERVE?

We serve others before they deserve it....because that’s exactly what God has done for us.

Romans 5:6–8 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

He SERVED US - He DIED for US…before WE DESERVED it!

Aren’t you grateful that Jesus left the comfort of heaven and came down to earth to serve us before we deserve it?

THAT’S why we are going to Get off the Hill and LoveLOUD as a church next weekend - to demonstrate God’s love in a practical ways. Sure, it would be much easier just to stay here in the comfort of our building for a couple of hours instead of 5+ hours of serving others and encouraging one another. But we’re going to follow our Lord’s example and go serve people in His Name!

You might cross paths with people you know, meet some people for the first time, or come across an enemy…Whoever it is…we’re going to LoveLOUD, and we’re going to...

serve 'em BEFORE they deserve it.

And WHAT IF…WHAT IF…God sends us to people who have been asking Him for help!? What if WE become the answer to their prayers? What if God sends us to people who NEED to SEE how Jesus loves them & HEAR how they can KNOW HIM?!?

We will talk more about that in a moment. But let me ask you this question:

Have YOU trusted Jesus with your life? Have you genuinely trusted the ONE who came to serve you before you deserved it? Do you CLING to the cross of Jesus or is His payment just a passing thought?

PRAY - You’re here today and you’re not SURE that you KNOW Jesus. Anyone here desire to talk with someone TODAY, face to face? (raise hand)

OUR NUMBERS ON SCREEN (Staff)

Deacons

Will you join us THIS WEEKEND to LoveLOUD?

Sunday Schedule:

8:30am Breakfast @ Fellowship Campus

9:00am Worship & Devotion

9:30am Out to Serve

12:30pm Lunch @ Fellowship Campus

1:00pm Share Stories

1:30pm Go Home!

If you haven’t signed up…please sign up TODAY or early this week.

PRAYER TIME - asking God to give us divine appointments this week. WHO are you praying for? We need to talk to people about God and talk to God about people. Let’s do that right now. Gather in groups and pray that God would use us. We will close together in prayer.

PRAYER