Journey of Worship

How do you know you’re a Christian?

That’s certainly a loaded question, but one we looked at this past week in our ongoing journey through the book of 1 John in the Love: Up & Out series. In 1 John 3:11-24, John actually gives one of the answers to that question.

One of the ways we can know is by how we feel and respond toward our brothers and sisters. Do we love or do we hate? Cain hated his brother Abel, and the love of God was not in him. Hate is a powerful emotion, but love is stronger, especially when it comes to the love of God at work in and through us.

So, one of the ways we know is by love – and not just walking around saying “I love you, man” but by the actuality of love lived out in action in relationship. This is the truth and this is the command John would have us to embrace.

How are you doing?

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Understanding just how much God loves us is a huge part of being able to live a life characterized by love lived up and out. We don’t work at living a life of purity and righteousness so that God will love us. He already does, and Christ has already declared us righteous when we placed our faith in Him. Instead we work out righteousness and do not continue sinning because of God’s love.

That was our focus this past Sunday as we continued the Love: Up & Out series through 1 John. It has been a great journey so far unpackaging these timeless truths. 1 John 2:28-3:10 not only reminds us of who we are in God’s sight, but how we are to live as a result of that identity. So often we get confused and forget who we are.

It was a full Sunday, and a joy to be together celebrating Christ, the cross, and the living out of that.

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As I was sitting down to write this, I was struck by two thoughts. First, worship is an amazing thing. Second, I’m still at times amazed that I get to do what I do on a weekly basis. So thankful.

We are continued our journey through the book of 1 John and the Love: Up & Out series with 1 John 2:7-14 this week. While connected, we explored two distinct themes in this passage. As a result, we chose to approach the service flow with a split sermon approach. The first part dealt with the idea of “if we claim” as in, if we claim to live in the light, but don’t live that way, then we need to be asking some serious questions. The second part dealt with what the reality of victory in Christ means for us.

The common thread was that until we deal with the reality of our relationships both vertically (with God) and horizontally (with others) we cannot share in the victorious life available through Christ. A hard word, but one that is significant.

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Lots of time, we mistakenly think we have to “do” before we get to experience the blessings of Jesus. However, the opposite it true. We live and do and abide because of who Jesus is and what He has done.

In on ongoing journey through the book of 1 John and our series Love: Up & Out we looked at 1 John 2:1-6 this weekend. In these few verses, there are some deep truths and concepts.

• Jesus is our Advocate before God – not because of what we’ve done or not done, but because of what He has done.
• Jesus is our propitiation – a big word that means Jesus has turned away the wrath of God from us because He became an offering.

And because of these truths, our response is to abide in Him and to walk as He walked. To live as Jesus lived. To be the image of Christ in this world. Great promises, great truths, and great reasons to worship together.

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The Gospel is about relationship. That’s the premise we’re looking at as we start a new series called Love: Up & Out. This will be a journey through the book of 1 John as we look at what John writes about our relationship with God, with others, and how those two things are deeply intertwined. And that understanding these truths is part of the secret of a fulfilled life.

We began with 1 John 1:1-4 this week to kick things off. We looked at how Jesus had a priority of relationships, that we need (and were created for) relationships, and how when our relationships are right, we find joy, especially the joy of the Lord. It’s not easy having right relationships, though. When we’re not right with God, we can’t be right with each other – but that’s a topic for another day…

It was a good beginning to the series, and we’re excited to be moving through this short, but challenging book.

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On its surface, the story of Palm Sunday seems to be a story about worship and celebration. But it’s actually not. The story of Palm Sunday is actually the first part of a larger story of broken affections, broken relationships, and broken loyalty.

We continued our Easter season mini-series Broken this Sunday as we not only focused on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem but the subsequent actions of betrayal, denial, and the ultimate call of death for Jesus by the very people who welcomed Him into the city a week earlier. Perhaps there is no story with a quicker turn of people’s loyalty. The key to the story is realizing that the people weren’t welcoming Jesus for who He actually was, but for who they wanted Him to be.

But, before we start chastising the Jews to harshly, we have to admit that we can view Jesus in the same way. Not as who He actually is, but as who we want Him to be…for us. And we must answer the question too: Are we loyal to what we want Christ to be, or to who He is? How deep does our loyalty lie in following Christ?

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