Second Presbyterian Church

"3 Simple Steps For Becoming Effective Christians"
November 2, 2003

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Sermons Homepage » Sermons for 2003 » Sermons for November 2003

31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
by The Rev. Daniel E. Hale, D. Min.

• Ruth 1: 1-18
• Hebrews 9: 11-14
• Mark 12: 28-34

1. KNOW THAT GOD FIRST LOVED US!
2. LOVE GOD WITH HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH.
3. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.

1. KNOW THAT GOD FIRST LOVED US!

Before we can take seriously this message; to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves; we have to come to grips with the fact THAT GOD FIRST LOVED US!

The Letter, First John, puts it quite succinctly:

"In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. (4: 10-11)"

Sometimes the hardest part about starting something new is taking the first step. It is also true here.

1. This first step, to KNOW THAT GOD FIRST LOVED US can be the hardest of these three simple steps. This is true for two reasons. One is that too many of us don't believe that we deserve to be loved by God; therefore we cannot believe that He does love us even when we read it in the Scriptures!
2. The other reason is that we sometimes wrongly believe that we have to become good enough first, THEN God will love us; it just doesn't seem possible for it to be the other way around: THAT GOD FIRST LOVED US!

2. The second point is: LOVE GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND AND STRENGTH!

Whew! Now that doesn't leave very much out in terms of the totality of our being, does it? In other words, we are to love God with all who we are and with all that we have! There is not one iota of ourselves, or our possessions that we are to withhold from God when it comes to prioritizing our lives and placing God in absolute, no holds barred, first place! God first, God alone! (Hear O Israel, the Lord God our God, the Lord is one!)

If that sounds a little risky to you, you are correct. Jesus put it this way, a few chapters earlier in Mark,

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (8:27)"

It is just another way of stating that when it comes to committing one's life to God, we are never to do it in a half-baked manner. God demands all or nothing! There is no sitting on the fence when it comes to discipleship. We can relegate church to one day a week, but God demands our total loyalty and love.

The Israelites have been reciting this creed for centuries, centuries before Jesus quoted it in our lesson. He is only quoting the Shema Israel, Deuteronomy 6: 4ff. Jews have learned this creedal statement since childhood. In the Islamic wars the Jews were executed with these words on their lips,

"Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is One God, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength."

Hundreds of Israelites have gone to their deaths while reciting this creedal statement.

3. The third Step to becoming an effective Christian is: YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF!

How do you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? Well, at least in part, YOU LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. You just cannot sincerely love God so much without loving those whom God loves, people! Those who manage to go about loving their neighbor as themselves; those who manage to do that ARE EXPRESSING HOW MUCH THEY LOVE GOD!

In Luke's version of this story a story that puts a different twist into it, the Scribe asks Jesus, "Just who is my neighbor?" And Jesus answers with the story of the Good Samaritan who is the one who stopped along the roadside and assisted the man who had been beaten and robbed. Nice story, yet for the Jewish audience, a Samaritan was considered despicable, a person to be loathed. It gives us pause to wonder who Jesus wants us to learn how to love. Let's face it, most of us are put off by some group of people, be they rich, or poor, Caucasian, African, Asian, redheaded, whatever. People whose customs and habits are strange to us, we tend to treat with suspicion and disdain. Rest assured that when this Third Simple Step for being an Effective Christian is being employed it means we are to love those whom we would humanly avoid at all costs. We are commanded to love the unlovable. This is one of the main scriptural passages that speaks directly to prejudices: the commandment to LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF!

Finally, we have been throwing the word, LOVE, around quite freely today. And it is a word that has been sorely abused. What I mean by love is that we are willing to care for our neighbor as if that person were just as important to God as we are important to God. His/Her ego has every right to exist as mine. It means being attentive to other people's needs and letting go of our own selfishness, a bit. That's what God did, God was willing to come to earth as a human being and suffer and die upon the cross so that we can live in fellowship with God and with one another. That is the ultimate example of letting go of Self and focusing upon the needs of another, US! It is the ultimate definition of love.

CONCLUSION: Believe me, if we renewed our perseverance to follow these three simple steps: Accept God's love, Love God without reservation and Love our neighbor as ourselves. We would then become very effective Christians. If fact it would be amazing just how incidental some of the other peripheral detail that Christians quibble over would become. Amen.

The Rev. Daniel E. Hale, D. Min.