Love Sermon

Not long before I left the senior high group at Christ Community, I gave a sermon on I Corinthians 13. What follows is a sort of abbreviated version of my notes and thoughts.

(read I Cor. 13)

This summer (of 2004) I was encouraged by the unity in our youth group. I am even more encouraged to see us moving back towards that state. But what creates unity?

I speak today in love because I want only what is best for our youth group, church, and community. I am using my talents as a leader and public speaker to get my thoughts and feelings across to my brothers and sisters.

I am not perfect, and neither is anyone else, but that does not mean we cannot strive to be perfect. We should aim for perfection as individuals and as a group. Matthew 5:48 says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Love is not easily angered. This is something I struggle with every day. I don't like that I get angered so easily, but I can control the way I handle it. If I blow up in my friend P.Diddy's face, I am not being very loving. If I let something slide until I can talk to him about it in private, I am loving him and the others around us.

Forgive and forget is what we are called to do. I have been working at forgiving others and then forgetting what they have done. I am still getting better. I see people like me friend Josh, who can't hold a grudge to save his life, and I am amazed at the power given to him by the Holy Spirit.

Hope for the future. That is what I have to do on a daily basis because it has been rough the last couple of months here in this room [due to administrative personnel changes]. But I have a hope that we will pull each other through this and be unified in walking through a new stretch towards heaven. I want there to be something for the freshmen and sophomores in a few years, and something for my little brother to look forward to when he enters high school. I strongly believe that the other seniors are behind me when I say that we are going to persevere through to the end for, and with, this youth group until we are no longer here. This is about more than any one person or small collective group; this is about a group of kids, teenagers, you adults, who get together to worship our God. Isn't that the whole reason this place was created?

Finally, we know that hope never fails. Some of you might say this would never work and that there are things that you just can't change or deal with. Let me say this, that I have been working on this for several months now, and I see a difference already in how I feel towards others, and hopefully that leads to how I treat them. Many of you have seen "Love Her" written on my hand and asked what that means. Well, here it is: take anyone's name and replace "her " with that name. Strive to love that person more. I wrote her only because I need to work on loving my sisters in Christ better. But it applies to the way I love guys, too, as brothers. How can you love someone better this week?

Leap of Faith

While home for Thanksgiving, which was quite wonderful, I came across something I had thought about before, but had never put into words. It had to do with trusting God when you don't know what to do. I made the analogy that it is like cliff-jumping. We make a decision, sometimes not sure if it is the right one, and that is when we jump. God is there, and He will either catch us immediately, or He will let us hit the side of the cliff and get brusied and bloodied a bit on the way down. However, He still catches us. It may not be as soon as we want to be caught, but we are caught. God promises to catch us, but He never promises we won't get hurt. He sometimes lets us hit the rock wall that slopes out, but what doesn't kill us only makes us strong. Or so I've heard.

Note: I just had to come up with this analogy for someone else, and I'm not being beat against the rocks, at least not now. Thanks for your concerns and prayers.

Feasting

I enjoy eating. Maybe a little too much here my freshman year. But my eating habits have changed since I moved out of a house where the food was always plentiful.

I was sitting out in the cold for college group Wednesday night, feeling very well fed from my dining hall dinner, when my ears perked up a bit. Kyle Dunn was speaking on God's grace and mercy. We don't have a limit to the number of times we can approach the throne. I began thinking about it in the sense of a feast.

Traditionally, we eat three meals a day. That is all the dining hall serves here, and once you've been there, there is no going back. However, God's throne is open more like my Thanksgiving Day buffet. Once it starts, there is no limit to how many times I can return - only when supply runs out if the buffet over. But God's grace and mercy have no beginning and no end, and the supply is infinite. So let's feast upon grace and mercy, but let us not be gluttons.

My Lullaby

I have recently been having a hard time sleeping. This stems from two things: physical uneasiness and pain from my back, and several nights of nightmares. The back pain I have grown used to, and only occasionally keeps me awake at night. However, the dreams I have no control over. I have to turn these over to my Father, and allow Him to hold me and carry me through. What follows is something that has come out of this time, and it brings me comfort to think that I have no control. The world would say differently, but we are not of this world, are we?


My Lullaby

As I lay me down to sleep
The night is creeping in
The darkness is too deep
I just want this day to end
I close my eyes and say a prayer
Fight off the night for me
I can feel you coming nearer
I can feel you setting me free

When I sleep, I feel your arms around me
Because I know I’m in the palm of Your hand
I feel safe when You’re by my side
Here is where I can be only Yours

When I dream, it’s up to You
There’s nothing more I can do
I can’t be in control
I want You in whole
Every waking hour
I want to give to You
But that’s never easy
Never the easy thing to do

When I sleep, I feel Your arms around me
Because I know I’m in the palm of Your hand
I feel safe when You’re by my side
Here is where I can be only Yours

Though the darkness comes
Though the light is not seen
It’s more than sight
I have seen the unseen

When I sleep, I feel Your arms around me
Because I know I’m in the palm of Your hand
I feel safe when You’re by my side
Here is where I can be only Yours

Creation

"God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." -Pastor Barry Camp, Senior Pastor at Highland Baptist Church in Waco

Loving Through It All

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. -I Corinthians 13:1-8a

I originally taught on this in the spring in my senior high youth group at Christ Community. What began as an experiment I called my "Love Her" experiment became a practical way for the people in our (or as I like to say "my", as the family in which I am a part is "mine") youth group to live out this passage. I had spent months dwelling over this and other passages, eagerly awaiting the week that I would get to share what was on my heart. My outline took many different forms, until the Sunday came. Since then, I have found myself coming back to this passage again and again.

Jesus calls us to first, love God, then love people, and especially love our enemies. In the last couple months, I have delt with having to love the people I know in tough situations. Starting with graduation night, I found myself weeping at the sight of what was going taking place. I originally did not want to go because I knew what I was going to see. However, a few of my friends convinced me to go, and I was deeply saddened by what I knew to be the last time I would see many of my classmates for a long time.

What I saw that night has only continued on campus. When I first met people, I could not tell if they were the drinking type, and it was hard to tell for the first couple weeks. During this time, most of the parties are dry, but that soon changed after two or three weeks. What really drove me back to this passage was seeing these people that I met and had become friends with do the things in which I do not agree. Like Donald Miller says in Blue Like Jazz, we can learn to love the person without supporting what they do. I have learned to live this out, because love is what distinguishes the Christians from the world. If it means that my friends trust me enough to ask about my faith, great. But I am not going to impose it on them. I just hope they will ask me, or someone else who loves them, and I pray that courage will cover each party to ask and answer.

Another reason I keep returning to I Corinthians is that it is the way we prevent rejection. When someone does something against us, we tend to close up and shut that individual out. However, love keeps no record of wrongs and lets the person back in, without guilt, without shame, covered in grace, clothed in mercy. Hopefully, this will lead to the person seeing more of Jesus, and seeing more of their sin. For as we move into the light, the things in the dark are revealed. So what's the best way to get this way? Love every single person you know - whether you like them or not.

The Triangle in the Orchestra

Kyle Dunn, the college minister at Highland Baptist Church in Waco, spoke tonight on grieving with hope – the hope we have in Christ that all believers will be reunited for the most glorious time of worship. He used this example for our lives on earth:

A triangle is a part of an orchestra. (Kyle proceeded to show just how good he is without having ever had a lesson or play the triangle before, for that matter.) Now imagine a wonderful orchestra is playing a set of five songs for a concert. The triangle player waits patiently in the back with the other percussionists for his part to come. Finally, for the first twenty-two measures of the third song, the triangle plays proudly, setting the rhythm for the rest of the orchestra. The listener enjoys the joyful tone and the music made by the triangle, but not until it has finished its part does the listener miss the triangle. He has played his part, and now it is another instrument’s turn to do its part. The triangle does not know or understand why it only played for the time that it did, other than that was the way the composer wrote his part. All the triangle can see is the music set for him; he cannot see the whole score. However, all the instruments trust that they are a part of something bigger and more beautiful than any one of them could produce on their own. We must not try to see the whole score, for we know not how to read it, and we would not understand it. We must play our part, and to the best of our God-given ability, trusting that we are a part of a bigger and better orchestra.

This illustration touched me because, as my previous post portrays, music is a big part of my life. I worship most fully when I am engaged in music. I can glorify my God by playing my part perfectly, and I learn to do that through my instructor, Jesus Christ, who has shown me how to play my instrument. In the words of one of my good friends, he’s a “Rock ‘n Roll Jesus”. This is my solo, where my composer can, and will, shine.

Anywhere and Everywhere

Today the masses again filed into Waco Hall here on the Baylor campus to attend the required chapel service. Many complain and whine about having to attend, but I don't mind sitting through the short service. Every now and then there are interesting speakers or a good band that plays for us, and today was one of those days. The band was the Dutton Band, which leads worship at University Baptist when David Crowder is not there. That is the same church in which the late Kyle Lake spoke from the pulpit. Front man Logan Walter mentioned that Kyle did not see a line between Christian and secular, something that I am beginning to understand - that faith should not be departmentalized. In Psalms 33 it says, "2Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! 3Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts." Logan, in response, said that since they didn't have any harps on stage, they would use their guitars. At this point I got chill bumps. God does not appear to man like He did in the times of the Old Testament, but I sometimes see these reactions as the Holy Spirit descending on me. A sense of peace and joy and fulfillment accompanied the chill. I took it as Someone saying that music is the way I best worship my Father. Over six hours later, I still have an immense joy that began at that moment of recognition.

Going back to the line between Christian and secular, I love seeing people use their talents to their fullest. It does not always happen because they don’t realize that they are God-given and should be used for His glory. However, I can worship God by realizing that these talents are, indeed, sent from above and meant for worship. In U2’s latest studio album, I can see evidence of the supernatural in the abstract and concrete. “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” relates to the accountability we need to live for the Lord and to live in community. Loving thy neighbor as thyself and the giving up of everything is portrayed in “Miracle Drug”. Very clearly, “Yahweh” is a prayer to our Father. There is no symbolism here, but straightforward requests for the Lord. I feel that the Holy Spirit, whether realized by the band or not, had a very big part in the making of this album. When I listen, I hear more than just notes and melodies, but I hear rejoicing and worship. Beautiful worship.