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. <\/p>\n
Two sentences from our Bible readings really sum up what we\u2019re looking at this morning:<\/p>\n
In Psalm 37 v 3 we read \u201cTrust in the Lord and do good.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Luke 6:46 we read, \u201cWhy do you call me \u201cLord, Lord\u201d and do not do what I say?\u201d<\/p>\n
What we do matters. What we do reveals a lot about what we think, believe, and feel about God.<\/p>\n
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.
\nEllie 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\u2019d like to suggest that what we our choices about what we do, our actions, have a similar impact. <\/p>\n
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\u2019re 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\u2019t 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\u2019s all kinds of ways in which our actions can communicate and deepen our love for the people around us. You\u2019ll be able to think of other examples. It is the same with our relationship with God.<\/p>\n
Before we explore this much further, I do want to put a couple of health warnings in place. The first is this:<\/p>\n
We cannot earn God\u2019s 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\u2019s children. We don\u2019t have to earn God\u2019s favour, in fact we can\u2019t. Similarly, we can\u2019t build up a credit score with God.
\nWe don\u2019t 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\u2019s grace is freely given. When we come to celebrate communion later, we will remember Jesus\u2019 death and resurrection. It is that perfect expression of God\u2019s love for us, love in action, that brings us into God\u2019s family. Nothing we can do will make God love us more, and nothing we can do will make God love us less.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s love for us, and particularly when we\u2019re talking about expressing our love for God in what we do, those of us who aren\u2019t 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\u2019re having a whole series on different ways that we can express our love for God, and deepen our intimacy with God. <\/p>\n
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\u2019t 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\u2019s word\u2019s over you, that you are God\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
So, with those health warnings in place, let\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
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\u2019t 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\u2019t have a big project, like a foodbank that we\u2019re responsible for, that lots of people in the church are involved in running. And that\u2019s true. We don\u2019t. What we do have is lots of things, many outside of church, that different people are involved with.
\nThis can be more difficult to point to and say \u201cThat is what All Saints are doing\u201d, but actually, I think, it can have more positive impact across the community. I\u2019m going to mention a few things now but I know that I\u2019m going to miss some, because there are so many things.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
There are those who do the practical things \u2013 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\u2019t done, and then only eventually, but they are done \u2013 week by week, faithfully.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s all the pastoral visiting and home communion teams, going to see people who can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s CAP and the Orbit, Oasis and Toddlers, Midsummer Fayre and Musical Memories events, Pathfinder Club and Children\u2019s Groups \u2013 I could go on and on.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not all about doing \u201cextra\u201d things, it\u2019s also about how we do what we\u2019re doing anyway. Bear with me a moment. <\/p>\n
In his letter to the Christians in Corinth, Paul wrote \u201cwhatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.\u201d and to those in Colossae he wrote, \u201cWhatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
This destroys the false barrier we can have in our minds between the \u201cspecial things we do for God\u201d and the \u201cordinary things we do in our normal life.\u201d <\/p>\n
In his 17th Century book \u201cThe practice of the presence of God\u201d 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, \u201cBarefoot in the kitchen\u201d by Alie Stibbe. <\/p>\n
In his first letter John writes, \u201cThis is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us.\u201d All our love for God, and the ways in which we can express it are reciprocal \u2013 we love God back in the way that God loves us. Earlier on we thought about the way in which we see God\u2019s love for us in the actions of Jesus on the cross, which we remember in Communion and at Easter particularly. But we\u2019ve just had Christmas, when we celebrated the incarnation. Jesus came too live among us, as one of us. <\/p>\n
Before his public ministry began, Jesus\u2019 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\u2019s presence in them. That\u2019s one of the aspects of what it means to take the living water out of here and into our daily lives. It\u2019s not all about doing \u201cextra\u201d things for God. It\u2019s also about doing the things we already do for God. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s love flowing through us to others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[1321,1322],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wellington","tag-luke-643-49","tag-psalm-371-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1003,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}