July 26, 2009 - Grace Church Waterford

Paul Ikonen
Values Vital to Our Future:
Called to Love
Introduction:

This morning we are continuing in our study on “Values Vital to our

Future”, specifically today I would like to challenge you (and me) with
our calling to love our neighbor. When Dan started this series last
month he began by reminding us that “Good enough is never an
acceptable title for Christians” and he encouraged us to not fall into this
category. To be real honest there are too many “good enough”
Christians in the world and they are doing boundless harm to the
effectiveness of God’s kingdom. You may end up feeling uncomfortable
at the end of this message; if this is the case it may just mean that you
have begun to accept your “good enoughness.” Craig Gross calls this
“Born-Again Lazy”. It’s the kind of Christian who has done little to
nothing of worth or value since they came under the reign of God. It’s
when you want nothing more of Christ than his blood and not to join
Him in His mission to redeem and to love. So how do we keep ourselves
from being Christian Vampires, Born-Again Lazy or simply “Good
enough”? To me it’s all about how I view myself and how I view God’s
plan for the future.

There are two ways these points can be viewed, either you feel that
God is all about you and only you and that in the end everything will be
ok because Jesus is on your side or you can take the view that God is
indeed for you but also for your neighbor and that his plan involves
letting you join with Him to reach out to the world. Now both views
have the potential to have very negative outcomes. The first though is
just lazy, let’s throw that out right now and let’s focus on the second
because I believe that is where we need to live and wrestle as a
community. But before we do that I would like to spend the next 15
minutes or so worshipping God through scripture. I have one portion to
read for you and I would invite any of you who have a section that they
have been learning this week or have made their life verse, to come on
up and form a line behind me and we will take turns reading. I would
very much like to have different voices from the different generations
represented here today. I do have back up portions if you would like or
if no one comes up I will keep reading but I do have a whole message
later this morning so please, come on up.

Called to Love:

Recently while I was driving I saw this bumper sticker on a truck in

front of me:

At first I laughed and tried to think if I could get away with having one
on my car…than it sank in a little and left be pretty upset. It got me to
think “what exactly was it that this guy experienced that had left him
feeling that this was what he thought when thinking of the church.”
What is it about the church today that has failed its mission to bring the
love and beauty of God’s path into his life? Is the Church joining in
God’s mission or not? A few weeks back Dan gave us a sheet of paper
with some quotes from Dwight Smith’s book “Invading Secular Pace”. I
found one quote to be worth recalling if we want to find an answer to
why people see the church as an annoyance rather than the place of
rest and hope and love that it was created to be, it reads:

“If the body of Christ is God’s chosen incarnation into the world for
this time and place, then how people live their interpersonal
relationships among each other cannot be relegated to secondary
consideration.”

For me it boils down to this:

“God has put you here for a reason. Start living like it matters to
you.”

All of us here believe (or should believe) that God has given His
people a mission; we saw it at the foot of Mt. Sinai, we saw it at the
outpouring of Pentecost. What we have in a large part failed to do is
link those events together along with the stories that trace a path down
through to our actions in the church today, and by “church” here I mean
Grace Church, I mean you and I mean me. We have taken the power of
Jesus resurrection and made it into a holiday rather than a life
transforming vehicle to renew and redeem our families, neighborhoods
and our culture. We have taken the work of the Holy Spirit and shrunk it
down to something manageable, something we can designate and sort.
The Holy Spirit was vital to the early church; it is what sent them out to
love their neighbor and what moved them to sell their possessions for
those in need. We have designated the Holy Spirit into a box labeled
safe and I’m afraid the Holy Spirit is anything but safe. He ruins lives
for the sake of the gospel, He spends our money for us, He talks to
uncomfortable people through us and He signs us up for things that get
in the way of our schedules.

Torah, Mitzvot, Teshuvah

Our mission is to help our neighbor respond to the covenant God has
offered humanity. Three Hebrew words that God has used throughout
the scriptures to describe this is: Torah, Mitzvot, and Teshuvah. In the
Old Testament the Torah was God’s “teaching” and it was God’s way of
leading humanity back onto the path of overflowing, abundant life.
Mitzvot or “commands” were given to help keep you on God’s path and
if you were to veer from the path you would use the word teshuvah
which meant to “turn around and return to the path”. Unfortunately
these words have changed over time becoming harsh and burdensome.
Let me give you some examples, Torah is now called “The Books of the
Law”, the mitzvot are now “Laws that we have to obey” and teshuvah is
what we do “when we break the Law”. On the one hand a call to live in
peace with God and with fellow man, on the other hand is a call to live
in fear of judgment. Listen to how God speaks of the path and ask
yourself: do I hear a God of judgment or a God who wants to lead me to
a path of abundant, eternal, life?

Deuteronomy 30:9-20

And the LORD your God will grant you abounding prosperity in all your undertakings, in the
issue of your womb, the offspring of your cattle, and the produce of your soil. For the LORD
will again delight in your well-being, as He did in that of your fathers, since you will be
heeding the LORD your God and keeping His commandments and laws that are recorded in
this book of the Teaching-once you return to the LORD your God with all your heart and
soul. Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not to baffling for you, nor
is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up
to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” Neither is it
beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea
and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” No, the thing is very close to
you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.

See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity. For I command you
this day, to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments,
His laws, and His rules, that you may thrive and increase, and that the LORD your God may
bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess. But if your heart turns away
and you give no heed, and are lured into the worship and service of other gods, I declare to
you this day that you shall certainly perish; you shall not long endure on the soil that you
are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you
this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you and
your offspring would live—by loving the LORD your God, heeding His commands, and
holding fast to Him. For thereby you shall have life and shall endure upon the soil that the
LORD swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them.

A couple key phrases:

The LORD will again take delight in your well-being

Once you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul

This Instruction…is not beyond reach

No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart

Love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His
commandments

I set before you this day Life and Death

I command you this day to keep His commandments…that you may

thieve

But if your heart turns away…you shall certainly perish

I have put before you life and death – Choose Life

 Love the Lord your God, Heed His Commands, Hold Fast to Him

Chesed

In the Bible, God uses the word "hesed" nearly two hundred times in
relation to His people, and although the English translation uses words
such as love, loving-kindness, mercy and loyalty, there is a deeper
meaning worth exploring. Hesed is the product or work that comes out
of a relationship, like trust comes out of a friendship or love comes out
of a Mother. It is used primarily in cases where there is some recognized
tie between two parties and describes the action that comes out of that
tie.
In the case of God, His people, and hesed, we have two parties that
are tied together by a covenant. The action that comes out of that
covenant relationship is the word hesed. For the Israelites, it was the
action of loving God with all their hearts, minds and strength, for God it
was keeping His promise to protect and keep them. But God also called
His people to be a holy priesthood designed to offer humanity a way
toward restoration. These redemptive actions performed by the
priesthood were a natural product that was worked by the people. We
see that when there is no love, God refuses to accept their sacrifice,
Israel's actions are supposed to be worked out of their hesed (love,
loyalty) of God. You could use the word love or loyalty but you would
miss the point of its direct relation to the tie of the covenant. The
theological importance of the word hesed is that, more than any other
word, it stands for the attitude which brings both parties to a covenant
and describes the attitude that ought to be than maintained toward
each other, mainly on the part of the people, that would be a love of
God and love toward man.
 Through the work of Jesus' death and resurrection God has now
extended to all men the covenant which than extends further into a
calling into His holy priesthood. We are called to live out our response to
the Covenant, which is hesed. It is a word that, I believe, can be given
as a job description for the holy priesthood; it is a word that describes
our responsibility to love God and our responsibility to join with Him in
His reach to fallen creation offering redemption.
Joining with God in His redemptive work should not be confused as a
generic love of everyone, it is not generic but very intentional. Hesed
creates in us our ability to offer forgiveness and encourages in us a
desire to see past what is fallen and toward what God can do to redeem
any situation. Hesed does not allow us to look past injustice, it births in
us a response to attempt to repair and restore.
Hesed is in the title of this resource page because it provides a
purpose beyond what you find here. This site should act both as a place
to learn how God is working in the broken places as well as a
springboard into the work He is doing (or going to do with your help) in
our community. Remember, if we are called to be priests in God's
kingdom than we have been invited to work with God to restore broken
humanity. God has been calling men and women since the beginning to
take part in His mission of redemption; you have been placed here at
this time to continue this mission.

God has asked His people all throughout the OT to join with Him in
His mission to redeem the broken places. That is why He called His
people into covenant with Him, to redeem them. And now He has given
us the privilege to extend this covenant to all people and next I would
like to show you one of those specific Old Testament places where God
calls an individual but it did not turn out as God would have hoped. I
want to use this story because if you let it, it will start to sound real
familiar, because it’s our story. Watch the heart of God and watch the
heart of Jonah. We’ll look into the story a little deeper at the end.

This is a story about our heart represented by a man who walked the
streets of his enemies in the year 760 bc. He walked the streets
speaking on behalf of his God to a people known for cruelty and
wickedness. In his heart he did not want to be there, he would rather
stand to the side and watch as God wrought judgment and
condemnation. But God taught him a lesson he would not soon forget.

Some time earlier God spoke to Jonah and said “Go to Nineveh, that
great city and cry out against it because its wickedness has grieved
me.” Jonah however decided that what God wanted was a bad idea and
he fled from God’s service to Tarshish. To get there Jonah was forced to
sail across the Great Sea, while on the boat God decided to make a
point and had Jonah thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish. While
in the heart of the sea in the belly of the fish Jonah prayed:

From the belly of Sheol I cried! And you heard.

You cast me into the depths, into the heart of the Sea!

I thought I was driven away, Out of your sight!

Would I ever behold your glory again?

The waters closed in on me!

The deep engulfed me!

Yet you brought my life up from the pit

My life was ebbing away but I called to the Lord

 I, with loud thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You

What I have vowed I will make good

Deliverance is from God!

And than God called the fish to spew Jonah back onto dry ground and
He said to Jonah again, “Go to Nineveh and proclaim to it what I tell
you.” Jonah went at once.

Jonah walked the streets of his enemies speaking on behalf of his God
to a people known for cruelty and for wickedness. In his heart he did
not want to be there, he would rather stand to the side and watch as
God wrought judgment and condemnation. But the lesson God taught
him was still with him and he walked for one day into the center of the
city and proclaimed:

“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown!”

The people and their king heard Jonah and believed God; they
proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth. The king called for everyone to
turn back from his evil ways and from injustice, for “who knows” the
king said, “God may turn and relent.” God saw that the people were
turning from their evil ways and he renounced the punishment that was
approaching the city.

Jonah was angry. “See! This is why I fled! This is why I wanted no
part of it. I knew you to be a God of mercy, a God slow to anger, a God
who renounces punishment! These people abuse and ravage your
people; they mock you by their very existence! Please, take my life; I’d
rather die than watch this. God replied, “Are you really that deeply
grieved?” and left him alone. Jonah made a spot to sit and watch the
city, to see what God would do but God wasn’t over there so to speak,
He was orchestrating another lesson for Jonah. God caused a plant to
grow and provide shade from the hot sun; this made Jonah happy. God
than provided a worm, which attacked the plant and it withered and
Jonah was miserable and wanted to die. God asked Jonah, “Are you so
deeply grieved about the plant?” So deeply that I want to die!” Jonah
replied. God said, “You cared about the plant even though you did
nothing to make it grow? It appeared overnight and perished overnight.
Should I not care about Nineveh? Where there are more than 120,000
people who do not yet know their right from their left?”

Two points form the story

1. The Lessons for Jonah

2. God’s heart for humanity
The Lessons for Jonah

God provided two lessons for Jonah, the first came with the big fish
and the heart of the sea. The Jewish people viewed the heart of the sea
as the gates of Sheol (Hades in Greek), Hell is what we would call it.
They saw the sea as chaos and chaos to the Jew was the opposite of
God. So when God sent Jonah to the heart of the sea he felt that God
had sent him to the bowls of hell. Maybe what God was doing though,
was giving Jonah a picture of what was in Nineveh’s future if they (Jonah
and God) didn’t intervene and provide them with a way off of the path
they were on. It was important for Jonah to understand what was at
stake. The other lesson God provided for Jonah was while Jonah was
waiting to see how God would respond to the city. God provided shade
with a “ricinus” plant (this is an actual picture of the plant by the way)
and after some time he “provided” a worm to destroy the plant. God
wanted to see how Jonah would react, if we graded Jonah’s reaction it
would probably be an F. God was showing Jonah the difference between
their perspectives, to Jonah the people of Nineveh where here today and
gone tomorrow, he had no say in how they were created or how they
would perish, just like the plant. But God did create the people, just like
the plant, and He had a hand in how their future would be decided, He
could either do nothing, letting their path destroy them or He could act
on their behalf and show them how to choose life rather than death, to
allow them a chance at Teshuvah. God asked one of His covenant
people, someone He shared hesed with, to join Him in this mission and
we just saw how that plan unfolded. It didn’t seem very successful but
when it’s all said and done, Jonah becomes one of the most successful
prophets helping to turn the hearts of 120,000 people.

God’s heart for humanity

We learn from the beginning of this story that God was aware of the
wickedness of Nineveh. Although He was aware, His first reaction was
not to destroy the city but to save it. And not only did He want to save
it but He wanted to enlist the help of Jonah to do it. He was giving Jonah
the opportunity to partner with Him to bring redemption, to bring
teshuvah to the people. After convincing Jonah that this was what he
should do, after the deed was done and the people repented, Jonah is
still unhappy about having to do what they did. Kind of like when a
father asks his son to eat his vegetables, the boy may not want to do it
but he will be better and healthier if he starts to get in the habit of
eating vegetables. It is during this “I didn’t want to” fit that God shows
Jonah through picture that He is the creator of the Ninevites and that He
 has the right to care about them. Using the plant that withers, He
teaches Jonah that his priorities are self-centered and if he wants to be
a part of what God is doing in the world, he would have to change, a
teshuvah of his own.

The story of Jonah has a lot to say to us today. It is a story of God’s love
for humanity and it is a story of how God invites us into the game. We
sometimes have to take a look at our priorities and return to the path
God laid out for us to follow. It’s easy to get side tracked by our own
wants, this is (when outside God’s wants) a way of sin and needs to be
abandoned if we are ever to become the people God has called us to be,
if we ever want to follow our calling to love.

The Blessing of Failure- What makes the church ineffective is in how

words are abundant and actions are few. May God Bless you with
failure because is you are failing, at least it means you are doing
something! You may stumble as you learn this new way to live outside
of yourself but God will provide you with the strength to keep trying IF
you are trying, loving, with all you heart and soul. Keep working out this
calling to love, it is what you were meant to do and become.

Called to Love – Bibliography

List Compiled by Paul Ikonen
Where God Serve God Save The Secret The Relevant The Mark
Happens the Planet Message of Jesus Nation Jesus
-Rowin Williams -J. Sleeth -Brian McLaren -Heather Zydek -T.
George
J. Woodbridge

Living Jesus The Kingdom Just Generosity The Gutter Following

-Luke T. Johnson of God is a Party -Ron Sider -Craig Gross -N.T
Wright
-Tony Campolo

The Challenge of The Call to Be A Hero Beyond Charity Starving J

Jesus Conversion -W. Campbell -John Perkins -Cra
Gross
-N.T. Wright -Jim Wallis S. Court

The Irresistible Everything Must Renovation of the This Beautiful Mess

Rich Christians in an
Revolution Change Heart -Rick McKinley Age
Hunger
-Shane Claibourne -Brian McLaren -Dallas Willard -Ron
Sider