OurWay

Our Way!

Love is Key to Churches Staying Open…  “our way” is frequently the key to closing of churches…

“Our Way” is a prominent push in today’s society and has been for a goodly period of time.  In reality to have our way comes out of pride; one can say it started at the fall of man.  Some 6,000 years later it is no surprise that we, the human family, have developed pride into a philosophy of life. 

To go back in time can we recall on the playground where we wanted the rules (procedures, how too) to be the ones we pushed for?  When playing with a friend were we eager to follow their way.  Yes, we’d compromise frequently to a combination but then look for another friend that would do it ‘our way’.  As adults we now mask it under guises of the Christian clichés.

John 17:21 (NASB95) …   that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

John 13:34–35 (NASB95)   “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.   35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The means of showing love in the midst of our differences, may they be great or small, is tantamount to being in the grace of God and His Holy Spirit.  It means loving our brothers & sisters when it costs us something.  That cost could be relenting of ‘our way’. Recognizing that in the scheme of things, the paint on the walls of the banquet room is of little importance compared to following God’s command to ‘love one another’. 

It can mean loving them under times of tremendous emotional tension.  The emotional tension may be again properly traced to wanting things ‘our way’ and ‘pride’.   An example of this might be a hidden agenda on our part.  Say we want a specific friend to get an assignment in the church and another person speaks up against such occurring by questioning the situation, not throwing stones.  We don’t have a specific charge against that person as they were acting within their assigned role, however, we now have a hard time running into them between church services.  We would look the other way to avoid having to make contact. 

When doing the above behavior are we being pleasing to God and in line with the work of the Holy Spirit?  The Holy Spirit wants Christian Love amongst the flock.   Could one say that the Holy Spirit is now grieved? 

How Ephesians 4:30 to be understood as one compares it to John 13:35?

Ephesians 4:30 (NASB95)  Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

John 13:35 (NASB95)  “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Can we say that “Grieve” is a love word?

First notice below that “Grieve” is an “imperative” – meaning a command, requiring action.

“Present Active” – Definition, Imperative:  extremely important and urgent…an imperative voice or way of speaking is confident and determined and shows that you expect to be obeyed…s omething that is very important and urgent…

As a noun the definition is:  something that is very important and urgent …  the form of a verb that expresses orders. The imperative is also called the imperative mood.

Strongs#3076λυπέω[lupeo /loo·peh·o/] v. … 1to make sorrowful. 2to affect with sadness, cause grief, to throw into sorrow. 3to grieve, offend. 4to make one uneasy, cause him a scruple.

Can we say Grief is a word for Love? 

Quote:  (F. A. Schaeffer)  –  What then shall we conclude but that as the Samaritan loved the wounded man, we as Christians are called upon to love all men as neighbors, loving them as ourselves. Second, that we are to love all true Christian brothers in a way that the world may observe. This means showing love to our brothers in the midst of our differences—great or small—loving our brothers when it costs us something, loving them even under times of tremendous emotional tension, loving them in a way the world can see. In short, we are to practice and exhibit the holiness of God and the love of God, for without this we grieve the Holy Spirit.

Love—and the unity it attests to—is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.^[1]

Quoting C. H. Spurgeon:  What must it be to grieve the Lord of love! Yet we also have vexed the Holy Spirit, and he would long ago have withdrawn himself from us, were it not that he is God and not man. We are in the desert where we need our God, let us not make it a wilderness of sin by grieving him.^[2]

Grieve is a LOVE word – Quoit:  L. W. Drummond

What About Believers?

A Christian can in some sense sin against the Holy Spirit, Graham tells us. Although Graham believes in the eternal security of the believer and thus that a Christian cannot commit the “unpardonable sin,” he or she can grieve the Holy Spirit. To grieve the Holy Spirit means to offend His loving work in the heart. Grieve is a “love” word. The Holy Spirit loves, as do the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus Paul wrote, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). What grieves God’s blessed Spirit centers in resisting His loving entreaties and acting in an un-Christlike, unloving manner in conduct, speech, or disposition. The Bible presents the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth (John 14:17) and grace (Heb. 10:29). He generates faith (2 Cor. 4:13) and holiness of life (Rom. 1:14). Therefore, anything false, doubting, bitter, ungracious, or unclean defiles the believer and grieves the Holy Spirit, curtailing His work in one’s life. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the Holy Spirit will never leave the genuine believer. To resist His gracious inner work is deplorable in the light of His loving presence, but He will never forsake those who are truly born again.^[3]

The church family is God’s gift to us.  We are there as a ‘body of Christians’ (church) to be a witness to the world.  (No different than the nation of Israel was to be a witness to the nations around them.)  Yet, when we fail to show love, there is tension and if that tension is not diminished the congregation will suffer.  If continued then people leave the church and its doors are closed.  Sadly many churches in the U.S. has closed and frequently the reason is a lack of love (vitality) in the congregation. 

Our church’s Pastor Odle has been giving sermons on the way the church is to look today by looking at the church at Acts chapter 2.  One key thought was that we needed to have a ‘vitality’ in worship. 

Go to the church site to download these messages….
http://www.firstbaptistelyria.org/Sermonitems.aspx
Title: Priorities Of a Thriving Church   (#2)
Speaker:  Patrick Odle, Senior Pastor 
DateTime:  5/18/2014  10:15 AM 
Summary:  God wants our church to be a thriving New Testament church 
Bible Reference:  Acts 2:40-47

AND

Title: Priorities Of a Thriving Church   (#1)

Speaker:  Patrick Odle, Senior Pastor 

DateTime: 5/4/2014  10:15 AM 

Summary:  God wants our church to be a thriving church! 

Bible Reference:  Acts 2:40-47