Loving Well Below the Surface Series: Part 7 11/8/20 – New Life Church Pastor Jim Von Wald
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Loving Well Below the Surface Series: Part 7 11/8/20 – New Life Church Pastor Jim Von Wald Introduction: Welcome, online, announcements STL auction going on today. Pray for our president. The purpose of any church which is founded on the truth of God’s word has at its core the great commandments and the great commission. There is no escaping these elements necessary for a church to be a church. Jesus is asked by an attorney which is the greatest commandment, but instead of answering summarizes all of the commandments into this one phrase. Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV) "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Then Jesus before He left this earth commissioned anyone who wants to follow Him in discipleship with the Great Commission. Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Without these two elements, an organization is not a church. But just because an organization practices them, doesn’t make it a church. They are the foundation of a church but can be the foundation of other Godly organizations too. As a church we attempt to follow these in practical ways and to do them well. STL for instance, youth pledge and raise tens of thousands for missions through things like the STL auction today. It is one way we as an organization can love others well and also support discipleship. There is fellowship and serving involved, more elements of a church. Helping fund the Smiths financially for the missions field is a way we can love them, love others across the world and support discipleship, but also they have been serving here and Abby was raised up through our youth group. The establishment of our missions team, now called MissionLife, is giving structure to this foundation. As a church organization we want to follow Jesus in the Great Commission and the Great Commandments and do it well. But the church is made up of individuals and so the question comes up, can we do something well as an organization, but struggle with it as individuals? The answer is, for sure. Jesus would preach great messages to the crowds, but He knew it wasn’t enough for people to truly internalize it, so He chose 12 disciples, which grew to 90 and then 120 where He would model and teach the practical aspects of discipleship, of living and loving others well. It’s one of the reasons we have had small groups with this study, one of the reasons we have been dealing with a side of discipleship which often is never dealt with in the church. To be emotionally healthy as we mature in our journey with Christ. Because if we are emotionally mature we can give the greatest gift of being a follower of Jesus, loving well and making disciples. This series of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, with credit to Peter Scazzero, has been taking us below the surface as an individual, to do the hard work within us so we can love well, so we can be discipled in order to disciple others. There have been some things in my life that have come up that I would prefer not to deal with, but I know if I don’t they are not going away. They will hinder my spiritual growth. Today I hope to you some practical tools or insights into how to love well and so we begin by first giving definition to emotional maturity that is necessary. I. Emotional ages. (Ephesians 4) Make sure and read all of Ephesians 4. Paul is addressing many things, but one of them is Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. Ephesians 4:13-14 (NIV) until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching… Do you realize that all of us have at least 4 ages? Our chronological age, our intellectual age, our spiritual age and our emotional age. The interesting thing is that each of these ages can and usually are different. Since we are in a series dealing with our emotional being, lets take a look at some distinguishing factors of our…. Now if you want to get really personal, check all the areas that apply to you. Andy Please put up the definition of each that I describe below. Thanks. A. Infant. They look for others to take care of them; struggle to enter into the world of others; are driven by instant gratification; and use others as objects to meet their needs. B. Child. They are happy when they get what they want or their way and if they don’t they complain, withdraw, manipulate, take revenge or resort to sarcasm; disagreement is personal; are easily offended; struggle to stay calm under stress or disappointment. C. Adolescent. They are preoccupied with themselves; become defensive and alarmed by criticism; keep score of what they give as a tool to get something; when in conflict they blame, pout, appease, go to a third party or ignore the issue; struggle to listen to someone else’s needs or pain. D. Adult. They ask for what they want clearly and honestly; take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings; when under stress or in conflict they can state their values without becoming adversarial or defensive; give room for people to make mistakes; love others for who they are, not what they can get from them; can honestly assess their own strengths and weaknesses; can love and respect others without having to change them. Most likely we all have some work to do in some of these areas. We can revert back to them if we are not careful. Loving well requires us to mature into emotional adulthood. Here’s a step we can take in that direction. II. Practice the presence of people. Put quote up: “Loving others is to reveal the beauty of another person to themselves.” ---Jean Vanier--- Jesus confronted the religious leaders of the day for failing to connect the importance of practicing the presence of God with practicing the presence of people. As a result Jesus was criticized as a friend of sinners for showing them how to grow in their love of people. Jesus was criticized because He delighted in spending time with the non- religious people. How can we better love people by practicing their presence? It helps to understand through the Jewish Theologian, Martin Buber’s, descriptions of relationships. A. I-It relationships. Andy can you put up two circles with the words I and It in them with space between them? Unfortunately we are all born into a I-it world. We are narcissistic at our core. The world is all about me. Go back and look at the emotional steps to adulthood. I am at the center of the universe and everyone else is an object or an it to meet my needs. When we fail to move into Emotionally Healthy Spirituality we end up treating people as a means to an end, like a toothbrush that is useful in certain times to be thrown out for something new when it is used up. Here’s what it might look like. Consistently walking into the office and dumping work on the secretary without saying hi; Treating my wife or kids as the picture I have in my head of what I want them to be or do, without considering their own dreams or autonomy; Being threatened when someone disagrees with my political views; Listening to my neighbors problems or helping them with chores hoping I can invite them to church and when they don’t attend I discard them; the way I see things is right and if you don’t see it like me you are wrong. One way St Augustine defined sin was the state of “being caved in on oneself.” C.S. Lewis described hell as that place where each person lives in isolation, completely apart from anyone else, because they can’t get along. Recognizing the unique and separateness of every other person in the world is pivotal to emotional maturity. We can’t be emotionally mature if we are living in an I-It world. B. I-Thou relationships. Andy can you put up two circles with I and Thou in them, with space between? There will be another slide with the same, but with “God’s sacred place” in a circle between them. See page 174 for sample. Practicing the presence of people means we have matured in our emotions to be able to see and treat other people as a thou instead of an it. We have recognized that we and every other person on earth are all created uniquely in the image of God. It means every single person deserves dignity, value and respect as one of God’s creations.