This term we are exploring together ways in which we can put our value of Loving God into practice through exploring ways of deepening our intimacy with God. Last week Ellie began the series by helping us think about how we spend our time, and how spending time with God can grow our love for God. This week we are thinking about loving God with our actions, with what we do.
Two sentences from our Bible readings really sum up what we’re looking at this morning:
In Psalm 37 v 3 we read “Trust in the Lord and do good.”
In Luke 6:46 we read, “Why do you call me “Lord, Lord” and do not do what I say?”
What we do matters. What we do reveals a lot about what we think, believe, and feel about God.
It seems to me that that is pretty self evident when we think about our relationships with other people. Last week Ellie used the example of a pen friend she had written to as a teenager, and how the time she had given to that had led to the strengthening of that relationship, and then as she grew older and other things took priority, how the relationship had faded as the time she devoted to it reduced.
Ellie was encouraging us to think about how we choose to spend time with and on those that we love, so that we can grow closer. I’d like to suggest that what we our choices about what we do, our actions, have a similar impact.
We do things around the house to show our love for those we live with. We might choose to do something with someone we love, even if we’re not that keen, because we love them. I was talking to a friend this week who spent a couple of hours freezing one evening watching her son at football practice. She doesn’t love standing in the cold, but she does love her son. Sometimes we do things with someone we love because we love doing them together. There’s all kinds of ways in which our actions can communicate and deepen our love for the people around us. You’ll be able to think of other examples. It is the same with our relationship with God.
Before we explore this much further, I do want to put a couple of health warnings in place. The first is this:
We cannot earn God’s love or affection or positive regard with what we do. God already loves us, looks at us with joy, and rejoices over us because we are God’s children. We don’t have to earn God’s favour, in fact we can’t. Similarly, we can’t build up a credit score with God.
We don’t do lots of good things, either to try and balance out the bad things, or to give us a buffer in case we do bad things in the future. Karma is not a Christian concept, it has no place in a Christian world view. God’s grace is freely given. When we come to celebrate communion later, we will remember Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is that perfect expression of God’s love for us, love in action, that brings us into God’s family. Nothing we can do will make God love us more, and nothing we can do will make God love us less.
The second health warning is do with usefulness. God does not love us because we are useful. God does not use us. God loves us. Sometimes, when we talk about our active response to God’s love for us, and particularly when we’re talking about expressing our love for God in what we do, those of us who aren’t able to do things can end up feeling condemned or guilty. I want to be really clear about this. What we do is an expression of our love for God, but it is not the only one. This is why we’re having a whole series on different ways that we can express our love for God, and deepen our intimacy with God.
It may be that as a result of what we explore this morning you feel challenged or convicted by the Holy Spirit to do things differently. You may feel sad or grieve that you can’t do the things that you used to do, or would like to do with or for God, and that might be something you want to pray or talk about with someone. There is no place, though, for condemnation or feelings of worthlessness or uselessness, these feelings are not from God. If they do start coming, then bring them to God, and hear God’s word’s over you, that you are God’s beloved child. Sometimes it can be hard to hold on to that truth on our own, and it might be helpful to talk to someone, or pray with someone about it.
So, with those health warnings in place, let’s have an explore of this idea of loving God in our actions. The first thing I want to do as we begin this exploration is to put into practice another of our values, that of celebrating.
One of the things I love about All Saints is the way practical way in which people show love for each other, and in acts of service show love for God. Occasionally people will say to me that they don’t think that All Saints does much for the community, or that we could do more. When we have a conversation about this, what they often mean is that we don’t have a big project, like a foodbank that we’re responsible for, that lots of people in the church are involved in running. And that’s true. We don’t. What we do have is lots of things, many outside of church, that different people are involved with.
This can be more difficult to point to and say “That is what All Saints are doing”, but actually, I think, it can have more positive impact across the community. I’m going to mention a few things now but I know that I’m going to miss some, because there are so many things.
There are folk from this church who serve as school Governors and Charity trustees and treasurers, using their experience and wisdom to help lead and serve organisations that work for the flourishing of all in our community.
There are those who do the practical things – the gardening, decorating, and cleaning teams that keep this building and the parish centre in good nick. Most of us would only really notice if these things weren’t done, and then only eventually, but they are done – week by week, faithfully.
There’s all the pastoral visiting and home communion teams, going to see people who can’t get to church any more. The folk who check on their neighbours, do a bit of shopping for them, take them Sunday lunches. Those who volunteer at the Hospice and the hospital.
There’s CAP and the Orbit, Oasis and Toddlers, Midsummer Fayre and Musical Memories events, Pathfinder Club and Children’s Groups – I could go on and on.
As a community it feels to me like we do put into practice that element from our vision image from Bethany of Martha, faithfully serving. As we do this, then the water of the Holy Spirit flows in and through us to others. There really is so much to celebrate.
But it’s not all about doing “extra” things, it’s also about how we do what we’re doing anyway. Bear with me a moment.
In his letter to the Christians in Corinth, Paul wrote “whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” and to those in Colossae he wrote, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.”
This destroys the false barrier we can have in our minds between the “special things we do for God” and the “ordinary things we do in our normal life.”
In his 17th Century book “The practice of the presence of God” Brother Lawrence wrote about the way in which God can be encountered in the ordinary actions of life, if we are deliberate and intentional about offering them to God and looking to see God in them. A more recent reworking of these ideas, particularly as they might apply to the challenges of being a mother to small children is found in the book, “Barefoot in the kitchen” by Alie Stibbe.
In his first letter John writes, “This is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us.” All our love for God, and the ways in which we can express it are reciprocal – we love God back in the way that God loves us. Earlier on we thought about the way in which we see God’s love for us in the actions of Jesus on the cross, which we remember in Communion and at Easter particularly. But we’ve just had Christmas, when we celebrated the incarnation. Jesus came too live among us, as one of us.
Before his public ministry began, Jesus’ daily life as a carpenter was offered in love. Whatever our normal days are, we can offer the tasks of each day to God in love, and deepen our awareness of God’s presence in them. That’s one of the aspects of what it means to take the living water out of here and into our daily lives. It’s not all about doing “extra” things for God. It’s also about doing the things we already do for God.
Our love for God must go beyond our words and our thoughts, we are to put it into action. Expressing our love for God is the driving force behind our acts of service and our every day actions of life, and as we do them, we can experience God’s love flowing through us to others.
No Comments