Journal-Review
October 19, 2011
By Pastor Gary Lewis
First United Methodist Church of Crawfordsville
I have been leading our church in a study about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It’s a question many folks will want to answer quickly. For some, it means saying the right words, praying the right prayer or following all the right rules. Yet, when you study the Bible, Jesus pulls no punches.
Being a follower of Jesus means you have to get comfortable with the narrow road. It is not the easy-to-navigate avenue. It means making the shift from being a container of God’s blessing to being a conduit of God’s blessing.
It means instead of being a reservoir of God’s grace, a follower of Jesus becomes a river of grace. We move beyond not just your personal response to God’s love to our responsibility to share God’s love. Once you have tasted the sweet, liberating, joy of God’s love you cannot help but begin to share it.
Take a look at 1 John 4:8: “Anyone who does not love does not know God for God is love.” The reverse is also true. If a person does know God then the obvious result is they will become a more loving person. The natural by-product of a person entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is that they become a more loving person.
According to this passage, if your life is devoid of love – you have little or no compassion for people – the conclusion is your faith isn’t what you think it is. Your faith is fiction. St. Augustine once wrote, “Love slays what we have been that we may be what we are not.” As a Christ-follower, we begin to look at life differently and through the lens of God’s love.
When you grasp God’s undeserved grace, you cannot help but become a different person. When God’s love invades your life, you begin to see other people differently as well.
One day when Jesus was asked, “What’s the greatest commandment of all?” He said the greatest commandment has two components to it. Number one: we are to love God completely with all our heart. Number two: we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In fact, the implied truth is that you cannot love God without loving people.
So to get a picture of how God wants us to love other people we will go straight to Jesus. What Rembrandt is to painting Jesus is to love. In Luke 13:10-13 is a short healing story that is a masterpiece portrait of what love is all about.
“On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues. A woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and couldn’t straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her he called her forward and said to her, ‘Woman, you are set free from you infirmity.’ Then he put his hands on her and immediately she straightened up and praised God.”
I want to share with you two challenges from the brief but powerful encounter that will change how you live this week. It could change how you live the rest of your days on planet earth.
1. Look around.
Many people were attracted to Jesus’ teaching. Crowds showed up each day, the Bible says, because people were drawn to him because he taught differently. So one day in the synagogue this woman appears from the crowd. The Bible says she had been crippled and bent over and unable to stand up straight for 18 years.
As Jesus is teaching somehow his eyes locked on hers and the Bible says Jesus saw her. He saw her! He noticed her. His eyes locked with hers and he was moved with compassion.
How many people do we notice? How many hurting people do we pass over each day without even noticing them? While we may not be able to physically heal them, we can certainly reach out to them. We can take the time to hear their stories and pray for them.
2. Take a risk.
In this passage the Bible says Jesus saw her and then he took a risk to speak to her. He called her forward. This was very risky socially. This was not proper protocol. This was not in the order of service. This would have been very unconventional.
Think about how embarrassing it must have been for her – crippled over for the last 18 years. It was probably tough enough just for her to be in public. Now this rabbi teacher calls her to the front.
When you choose to demonstrate the bold, reckless, radical love of Christ sometimes it will be risky. It is worth the risk. Generally, our temptation is to want to play it safe. Who do you need to love that is in your world and that it is not easy for you to love? Let your heart dream for a minute.
What would it look like to take the risk to say loving things to the people around us? Imagine if we unleashed an army to cover this community with loving deeds?
Our church’s mission is to make disciples for Jesus Christ. We seek to relate people to Christ, connect people to the body of Christ, and reach out in love and concern to the world. I invite you to our two worship service each Sunday. At 9 a.m. we offer a traditional worship service in the Sanctuary. At 11:10 a.m. we have a contemporary worship service in our Fellowship Hall, located in the lower level. Sunday school classes for all ages begin right after our 9 a.m. worship service at about 10 a.m.
Our 9 a.m. worship service is broadcast on TV each Sunday morning live at 9 a.m. and then on tape-delay at 10:15 a.m. on Comcast cable channel 3 and Accelplus cable channel 2.
