Our Core Values - Grow

One of the fundamental truths of our faith that I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt is that God loves us just the way we are! God doesn’t call us to change our hearts or clean up our lives before he will reach out to us in love, he simply loves us. The Bible shows us that wherever we are – God loves us and whatever we have done – God loves us. It is the foundation on which everything else in our faith is built, God loves us just the way we are… but there is another fundamental truth that I also believe beyond a shadow of a doubt and that is that God doesn’t want to leave us where and how he finds us. God wants us to experience all the fullness and power of life and that means we often need to change our hearts and lives and work to strengthen and deepen our faith. God wants us to grow in our relationship with him and so one of the core values of our faith and therefore a core value of the church is that we need to GROW.


Take a moment and think about the ministry of Jesus, did he ever meet someone and not ask them to change or grow? I thought through many of the encounters Jesus had with people and I have to tell you that I could not think of one meeting where Jesus didn’t call someone to live a new life. Jesus was constantly calling people to change their hearts, live different lives, grow in their faith and learn how to really trust in God. Let’s look a couple of these encounters.

John 8:1-11. Maybe more than any other story about Jesus, this one shows us these two truths at work. While everyone else was ready to stone this woman because of her sin, Jesus loved her just the way she was. He didn’t tell her to go change your ways and then I’ll forgive you. He didn’t make her confess and repent before he offered her grace – he loved her just the way she was and that love was seen by Jesus not passing judgment on her in front of the crowds and treating her with respect and a measure of dignity, but Jesus didn’t leave her where she was – he called her to live a new life. Go and leave your life of sin is a call to change and live a more faithful, God honoring life. Jesus wants more for her and so invites her to grow in her life and faith.

Luke 19:1-10. Again, we see here the unconditional love of Jesus. Zacchaeus is considered a sinner. He is a tax collector and because he is a wealthy tax collector, we can assume that he cheated many of his fellow Jews. He is hated by the people around him and yet when Jesus sees him he doesn’t tell him to give up his job or clean up his heart or confess his crimes before they eat together – he simply says I am going to your house today. Jesus loves him just the way he is, but then notice that after lunch – Zacchaeus is a changed man. Jesus has obviously said something to him to make him change his heart and that call to live a new life is not only heard, it is embraced by Zacchaeus. Jesus loves him just the way he was, but he doesn’t leave him in that state – he calls him to something better – no pun intended here but he calls Zacchaeus (a short man) to grow – not in height but in heart.

And now look at Luke 5:3-11. While we don’t often hear this version of Jesus calling the disciples, it is one of my favorites because I think I would have responded much like Peter who believes that he is just too sinful to be in the presence of Jesus let alone to be a disciple, and yet look at Jesus response. Jesus doesn’t say to Peter, yeah, you’re right – you are too sinful so I’m going to go find someone else. Jesus stays right there and in love continues to call him to be a disciple. Jesus loves Peter for who he is in that moment – but again calls him to a new life.

Over and over again we see that Jesus loves people for who they are in all their sinfulness and brokenness and with all of their pain and problems – but then he calls them to grow - to change their hearts and their lives by growing in their faith and learning to trust God. Now this is not a new work of God started in Jesus, God has been doing this from the very beginning. God has always called people to grow in their faith and go deeper in their relationship with Him. The 10 Commandments and all of the law and the teaching of the prophets were given to help the people learn to trust God more and walk with God more faithfully. Abraham and Moses were called by God just as they were, but then God called them to grow in their relationship with Him and learn to trust him more, so a core value of God’s kingdom has always been to grow and strengthen our faith and we need to keep this call to grow at the core of who we are and who we are as a church.

Now 2 ways that we can grow in our faith are to return to the first 2 core values we have already consider and make sure that we are connected and serving. Our faith will grow when we connect to God and to one another – it will just happen – that’s what Jesus tells us in John 15:5. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches and if we make sure that we are connected to God then we will bear fruit – or we will grow. Think about it, the only way grapes can grow and mature and ripen is if the branches that the fruit grows on stays connected to the vine. The only we will grow is if we stay connected to Jesus and so we need to commit ourselves to that core value of being connected to God through worship, prayer and study.

30 years ago this month I was a freshman at MSU and started attending IVCF. I didn’t get connected to God right away, but I did get connected to the people of God. I joined a Bible study and during the next 6 months as I studied the bible with a group of guys and I grew more in my faith than at any other time in my life before or since and it all happened because I got connected to the people of God and then to God. I got connected to the Body of Christ (a small group Bible study) and then I got connected to God through his Word and because of that connection - I grew. Growth happens when we get connected, but it also happens when we serve.

Fast forward a few months and in the spring semester of my freshman year our little Bible study group had grown to over 20 people and we were losing some of the power that comes when everyone has the chance to share so I suggested that maybe we needed to break into 2 groups. Everyone liked the idea but no one wanted to lead the other group so they asked me. Now you have to understand that at this point in my life I believed in God and I was learning to understood who Jesus was, but I had not surrendered my life to Christ and I had never led a Bible study before, but a friend said he would help me so I stepped out and was willing to serve and during the next few months I continued to grow in my faith and trust in God. In fact, I think it was that time of service which eventually led me to surrender my life to Jesus and then late on hear the call of God to serve him full time in the life of the church.

We will grow when we step out to serve and the reason is because when we step out to serve we are usually stepping outside of our comfort zones and so have to trust God more. As long as we only do those things we know we have the strength, power and ability to do, we will never really learn what it means to become dependent upon God and therefore we will never grow, but when we step out in faith and attempt to do those things that we know will only be accomplished through the power of God, when we become dependent upon God – really dependent upon God – we will grow.

Think about Peter again. Jesus said that he was going to be a fisher of men and women, but let’s face it; Peter didn’t have the strength or ability to do that. He wasn’t a public speaker – he was a fisherman, and Peter usually failed to grasp what Jesus was saying and at one point when he was asked if he knew who Jesus was – he said he no. Trusting in his own ability Peter wasn’t going to get anywhere, but somewhere along the line Peter surrenders himself to God and becomes dependent upon the Holy Spirit and when he steps out in faith to preach, his first sermon catches 3,000 men and women. He was doing the impossible because he wasn’t trusting in himself. Growth happens when we stop trusting in ourselves and step out to serve God. Growth happens when we connect and serve and when we connect and serve - we grow. While they are all interconnected, we have to be willing to commit ourselves to all three and while it seems easy to commit ourselves to connecting to God and the church and serving those around us, are we willing to commit ourselves to growth. Are we hungry for growth? Do we want more of Jesus?

I have recently finished a book called Radical and the author David Platt shares several stories about the persecuted church around the world. In one story the author is asked to speak at a Bible study in an Asian country where it is illegal to study the Bible. They tell him to hide him in the back seat of a car as they drive all over the city and finally out into the country. When they get out of the car they tell him to pull the hood over his head, keep his head down and just follow the feet of the person in front of him. They walk quite a distance to get to a house where a group of believers are eagerly waiting him to come and teach. When he arrives he teaches for an hour – but they want more. So he goes for two hours and then three and then four and they still want more. He teaches them for 8 hours and then they make plans to study the next day because they wanted to know more of God. After 9 days they had finished the Old Testament and David only had one day left so he was going to just teach them about some random subject when one of the men came up to him and said, “we have a problem. You have taught us the entire Old Testament, but you have not taught us the New Testament.” David thought the man was joking, but he was serious, and so for 12 hours that last day David taught this group the entire New Testament.

When I read that I have to say that I was both excited and humbled. Excited that the Holy Spirit still moves like this today and humbled and almost ashamed because I’m not sure it is moving in me this way. Would I be willing to give a whole day to reading God’s word? Would we be willing to give up the comforts of our church to gather in secret and under the threat of danger for 10 days straight to learn more about God and how he wants us to live? Are we that hungry and committed to growing in our faith? Is growth a core value of our lives and of our church?

If we aren’t hungry and if this kind of growth just seems foreign to us, then maybe the place we need to start is to ask God to make us hungry to grow? Can we ask God to ignite a flame within us that will cause us to hunger for God’s word and presence and power? It’s a dangerous prayer, but it might be the prayer that we need to pray today and it might the prayer our church and the church around the world needs right now as well.

Now as we talk about growth as a core value I want us to go back to the story of Peter because there is another side of growth that we need to consider, look at Luke 5:10.

Jesus wasn’t just calling Peter to grow in his faith – he was calling Peter to help grow this movement and spread the news of Jesus. God wants everyone to be saved. 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. God wants everyone to know the life saving message of Jesus which means that God wants the church to grow. The great commission, one of Jesus’ final instructions to us is to go and make disciples of all nations – all people - and to baptize them, which means we bring them into the community of faith, the church. We need to be committed to not only growing our faith but growing the church as well.

Now many times when we hear about this kind of growth we begin to get uncomfortable because we think that it means we have to go out and knock on doors or stand on the street corners and talk about Jesus, but that is not the model for church growth given to us by Jesus. If we want to grow the church then what we need to do is commit ourselves to growing our faith. Let me say it again, the best way to grow the church is to simply grow our own faith because as we grow in our faith and as we live out our faith step by step, day be day, God will grow the church – it will simply happen.

Look at Acts 2:42-47a. What we see here is a picture of the early followers of Jesus growing in their faith. They are connecting themselves to God and to one another through prayer and teaching and worship and they are serving one another as they make sure no one has any needs, and so what we see is that they have committed themselves to growing their faith. Now look at the result of their commitment to these core values, Acts 4:27b. Growth of the church! The church grew. It just happened and this is the best model for growing the church we have. When we get serious about growing our own faith - God will get serious and send the power of his Holy Spirit which will bring people into the life of the church.

Committing ourselves to growing the church and growing our own faith will require change and sacrifice and while growth often involves pain, but it also brings the joy of knowing the power of God and a more abundant life. If you want to take a step forward and commit to this core value of growth, there are several suggested next steps you can take today.

• Connect with others in a Small Group or Sunday School class
• For the next month give God 5 hours a week
• Try the 90 day experiment
• Go big and commit to reading the Bible in the next 365 days.
• Tithe and learn to become dependent financially upon God.

And if we aren’t hungry or passionate for any of this – then I want to invite you to pray. Ask God for a hunger to grow and allow God to ignite that passion within. God wants us to grow, God loves us just the way we are – but he doesn’t want to leave us where and how he finds us; he wants us to grow so that we will experience the fullness of life and the power and love of His kingdom and he wants us to grow so that others will be saved.

Our Core Values - Serve

As we saw last week, a time of crisis always takes us back our core values. On Sept. 11th and the days that followed we all had a strong need to be connected, which is why we contacted our families and gathered in prayer services and candle-light vigils across the nation, so we know that connection to God and one another is a core value, but there was another value that emerged 10 years ago and that was the call to serve. Serving and helping one another was highlighted and celebrated in the days after 9/11. We celebrated the service of all the first responders, we came together to serve families and businesses not only in NYC but around the country and even today, many people recognize September 11th not only as a day of remembrance but a day of service. What we need to remember is that service is nothing new; in fact from the very beginning we have been called by God to serve – and the call was first and foremost to serve God. The first general call for us to serve God comes in Deuteronomy 6:13 where we are called to serve the Lord but then a few chapters later we have a kind of summation of the entire law given by God at Mt. Sinai where God says that at the very center of his will, what God wants from us to serve. Deuteronomy 10:12.


So the first call is to serve God, but what exactly does that mean? If we look through the Old Testament, many of the calls to serve God come in the context of serving God in the Temple, or in and through the worship life of Israel. Priests were to serve God by offering the sacrifice. Stone cutters, weavers, goldsmiths and other workers were to serve God by building the Temple and making the items needed for worship. Singers were to serve God by singing and leading the people. So throughout the Old Testament serving God meant being involved in the worship of God and I think it still means the same thing today.

When we talk about serving God the first thing we are talking about is worshipping God, in fact Jesus said we are to worship the Lord our God and serve him only. So serving God begins with worship which is why one of the foundations of the church is corporate worship and we need to commit ourselves to this kind worship. Worship not only connects us to one another it is the beginning of serving God and so it is a priority of what we do as God’s people and just like in the Old Testament where people served God by giving their gifts and talents to worship, the same is true today. Worship needs everyone sharing their gifts and talents. We need people willing to lead in music, we need people willing to pray and work with our children and support the audio and video and we need everyone’s gifts to help support the Temple – of the physical building and grounds where we are able to gather together each week. So we serve God by being committed to the corporate worship life of the church, but we also serve God when we worship in private each and every day. Worship, and therefore serving God, also takes place when we spend time in prayer giving thanks to God and acknowledging his goodness in our lives. It happens when we set aside time to read and reflect on God’s word. Worship and service to God takes place when we stop trusting in ourselves and start trusting in God not just in what we believe but in how we live and how we are willing to give of ourselves.

So service to God is a core value of the church which is expressed in the worship life of the church, but from the very beginning service has not just been directed toward God, we have also been called to serve one another. Let’s go back and look at Deuteronomy 10:12-19. From the very beginning God has called us to love and serve Him by loving and serving those around us by helping them in times of need. It says here that God helps the widows, orphans and strangers by providing food, clothing and justice to those who are in need and God calls us to do the same thing. We are to love those in need the same way God does which means we are to physically and practically serve and help all those who are in need.

Jesus, however, takes this call of God to serve and makes it not just a core value, but a non-negotiable priority for his followers. Look at Matthew 20:26-28. The first thing we see here is that Jesus didn’t come to be served, but to serve and so if we are going to follow Jesus - service has to be at the core of our hearts and lives. We simply can not say we are followers of Jesus and not have service be at the center or our hearts and lives. We are to serve like Jesus, so let’s think for just a moment about how Jesus served. Jesus fed people, he healed people, he forgave people. Jesus offered hospitality to people not by welcoming them into his home because he didn’t have a home, but by welcoming people into his presence and including people as part of his team and family. Jesus served people by offering them hope in the midst of despair many times by calling for justice in the midst of unjust situations. Jesus also served people by saving them, literally rescuing us from sin and death and opening the door to eternal life. As he said, Jesus didn’t come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many and his life has ransomed us.

If we are to follow Jesus then we need to think about serving in all the ways that Jesus served. Jesus set an example of service that needs to be at the very core of our lives and our life together as a church, and Jesus outlines for us some of what that service is to look like. In Matthew 25 Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats and in this parable it he says that we will be judged by how well serve others. Look at Matt. 25:34-41. So we are to feed the hungry, give water to thirsty, welcome and care for strangers, and those who are sick and oppressed, but this is not an exhaustive list – this is just the beginning. I think what Jesus is saying here is that practical and intentional service to others needs to be a core value of his people.

What is interesting is that in the last 20 years or so, serving people has become one of the core values and priorities of our culture. For example, many high schools and colleges now require some kind of community service for graduation. The world is catching up to what the church has known for centuries – service needs to be not just a part of our lives but a guiding principle or a core value of our lives. Serving people needs flow from who we are as people created in the image of God because we worship a God who serves, loves and cares for his people and we follow a savior who came not be served but to serve. So to say it simply – we need to serve God and we need to serve others.

You’ll find in the bulletin some next steps about serving and I hope we will use these ideas to either enter into the world of service or expand the ways in which we already serve. I have to say that one of the blessings of this church is that many of you have worked hard to make service a core value of who we are. We actively serve our community through work at the FaithCentre and food bank. We provide leadership for events like the CropWalk and offer our support for community projects like the day of caring. We also respond in service when we hear God calling –like today, we are providing a picnic for our new neighbors at Beaver Heights and Beaver Farms because we simply heard God calling us to reach out to our neighbors. Like the call of God to his people in the Old Testament, we are reaching out to welcome those who are strangers. We support disaster relief and mission work around the world and when we saw tornados in Alabama or flooding right here in PA, people immediately started talking about ways to help. This is all great - now we just have to keep going and follow through. The Mission trip to Alabama is coming up in October and we need to hear this call of God to serve and set aside some time to do this – or support those who are going to serve

More than all the big events we support like mission trips and the crop walk, I know that many of you serve in quiet ways all the time. We have people serve at the food bank each and every week. And you probably don’t know this because we never really talk about it, but once a month we serve a lunch at the soup kitchen in Bellefonte – teams of people just quietly make it happen. Every week there are teams of people who go to the FaithCentre to sort the mountain of clothes that never seems to go away. We have people who serve in the community through the Red Cross and PAWS and many other community service agencies and we have people who visit those in the nursing home, provide meals for people in need and serve our youth through the 5th Quarter.

What I’d like to ask us all to do is seriously pray about where God may be calling us to serve and then I want to invite you step up and commit yourself to this core value. If God is calling you today to serve in some way that is listed on this sheet, either serving God or serving others, then I want to invite you to check that off, sign your name at the bottom and during the last hymn or after worship come forward and offer that service to God by placing your sheet in the basket. If you check off one of the service opportunities through the church, then we will contact you later this week and help work out the details of getting you involved.

If you hear God calling you to serve in the community in some way and need help getting connected, we have people here who serve at many of these agencies and I know they would love to help you get connected and start serving, so all you need to do is write a note at the bottom saying you want more information about PAWS or the Red Cross or CentreCrest or CVIM and someone will call you.

It’s not enough for us to say that service is important if we don’t go out and serve both God and others, we need to make it a core value of our lives and keep it at the center of our life together as Faith Church. So now, Faith Church, what does the Lord require of us? Only to fear the Lord our God, walk in all his ways, love him and serve the Lord with all our heart and soul and to love and serve others.

Our Core Values ~ Connect

This past week I spent some time reading about different people’s reflections on 9/11 and the lessons learned on that day and I came across this from the Christian author Erwin McManus. On September 12, Erwin sat down with is children who were 9 and 11 at the time and they talked about what had happened the day before and while he wanted to reassure his children that things like this would never happen to them, he knew that just wasn’t the truth, so what he told his children that day was this: what we learned yesterday is that we have no control over when we die, or even how we die, but what we do have control over is how we live.


One of the few things we do have control over in our lives is how we choose to live. We can control the priorities we set and the decision we make. We can control the values we embrace and the character we develop. So let me ask, how have we been living these past 10 years? Do our lives today embrace the values that were so clear to us ten years ago today? One of the things we honored and celebrated in the days after 9/11 were the men and women who were willing to run into burning buildings when everyone else was running out. We honored police officers, firefighters and all kinds of Emergency Medical people for their selflessness as they ran into the WTC and the Pentagon in an effort to rescue as many people as possible. Have our lives reflected that same selflessness during these past 10 years? Is that a value we have embraced and made a priority? Has it become a part of who we are?

What about the courageous example of Todd Beamer and the passengers of flight 93? Here was a group of people who were willing to take their plane down in a quiet PA field instead of seeing it destroy the lives of others. Over these past 10 years have our lives reflected that kind of sacrificial courage? Is this how we choose to live?

How have we been living our lives these past ten years? What priorities and values have been seen in all the big and little decisions we have made? In simple ways have we been willing to place the needs of others before our own like Ron Fazio did on September 11th? If you have never heard about Ron Fazio, he was a corporate Vice President with an office on the 99th floor of Tower Two. When the first plane slammed into Tower One, Ron Fazio made one of the best decisions of his life. He ordered all of his employees to evacuate the building. Even though the south tower where their offices were had not yet been hit, he insisted that all of his employees get away from the windows, leave their desks, and get out of the building. After making that decision, Ron didn’t lead the people down the stairs; he stood and held the door open for others to leave first. Ron yelled for everyone to hurry up and get out and he held the door open until everyone from his company started down stairs.

All of Ron’s employees made it out of the building that day and so did Ron, but instead of running to safety, Ron remained outside Tower Two, doing what he could. He wasn’t a firefighter or an EMT, but Ron did what he could - he held the door for others and the last anyone saw of Ron Fazio, he was holding the door open and handing his cell phone to someone for them to use. The last any one knew, Ron was holding the door open when Tower Two came crashing down. Have we been holding the door for people during these past 10 years? Are we committed to a life of sacrifice, courage and service? Are we committed to living out the values that we know are the most important ones for us to embrace?

One of the things that happened in the days after September 11th is that as individuals, families, churches and communities we returned to our core values and we spent a lot of time thinking and talking about how to live out those values in our every day lives. As I look back today, the value that seemed the most important to me on that day, and a value that I think lies at the very heart of who we are as both children of God and as a church is our need to be connected. On September 11th, first lady Laura Bush, said that the first thing she did that day was to call her daughters to reassure them and then she called her mother to be comforted by her. Her first thought was to reach out to her family and get connected and I have to confess that once the events of that day started to become clear to me that was the first thing I wanted to do as well. I spent a large part of the afternoon trying to call my parents - not because they were in any danger - I just wanted to be connected to my family.

We all wanted or needed to be connected. As the stories of September 11th began to be shared in the weeks and months that followed, the most powerful and painful things we heard were all the phone calls that people made from the WTC, Pentagon and flight 93. When danger and even certain death were so close people didn’t call their stock brokers or doctors, they reached out to their wives and husbands and children. People called to either reassure their family that they were ok, or they called in what they knew would be their final moments to simply say, I love you. In the midst of a crisis we learn what is ultimately important and what we learned on September 11th is that at our core we have a strong need to be connected and there is a reason for that – we were created to be connected.

In Genesis 1 it says that God created man in his own image, in the image of God create him, male and female he created them. So we reflect not just the image but the character of God and just as God is relational – so are we. We know God wants to be connected to his people because it says in John 3:16 that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life. The first thing we see here is that God loves us. God created us in love and so has a desire to be connected to us. But the depth of God’s desire for connection with us isn’t just seen in his love for us, it is seen in God giving Jesus for us. God sent Jesus to die for us so that we might live with God forever. That is how much God wants to be connected to us, not just for a moment but for eternity.

So we see that God is relational and wants to be connected to his children and because we are created in the image of God we are also relational beings who have within us not only a need to be connected to God but a need to be connected to one another. Let’s go back to the creation story. After God created the world and placed Adam in the middle of garden surrounded by all the animals, God realized that Adam was still alone and God said, it is not good for man to be alone, God knew that we needed to be connected, so he created Eve, a helper and a partner. God created someone for Adam to be connected to and what this tells us is that at the core of every single one of us is a need to be connected not only to God and to one another, and while we are all different in how we will seek to be connected and the level of connection that will satisfy and fulfill us, none of us can ignore the deep need we all have to be connected. For us to experience the fullness and the joy and the deep satisfaction that can be ours in life and in faith – we need to be connected to God and to one another.

We see evidence of our need for connection all through the Bible. God didn’t just call Noah to be saved through the flood, God called Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives (Genesis 6:18). God called a family because he knew that when the world was going to start over again people were going to need to be connected. When God called Abram to follow him, Abram didn’t go alone; he took his wife and his nephew Lot. And God didn’t make a covenant with just Abraham; it was a promise to his offspring, his family which would become a nation. God led the people of Israel out of Egypt not just Moses, and when Jesus entered into public ministry the very first thing he did was call people to work with him. Even Jesus had this need to be connected to others and so he calls Peter, Andrew, James and John to walk with him and work with him. All through the Bible we see the value God places on community and being connected and yet where it really becomes clear is during a time of crisis. Just like all of us on September 11th when our need to be connected became clear, so it did with Jesus during his time of crisis.

On the night that Jesus was arrested, within hours of when he knew that the cross and his own death were coming, Jesus goes off to pray, but he doesn’t go alone, he takes all of his disciples with him. When they get to the garden of Gethsemane it says Jesus withdrew deeper into the garden but again he doesn’t go alone, he takes with him his closest friends. In his own moment of crisis and trial, Jesus didn’t want to be alone, in a time of need he wanted and needed to be connected. Jesus wanted to be connected to God, which is why he goes off to pray, but he also wanted to be connected to others which is why he took his friends with him.

The next day as Jesus is on the cross literally just moments away from death, we continue to see the value he placed on connection. Jesus looks out from the cross and sees his mother and he knows that she is going to need some help and so he asks his friend John to care for his mother, but Jesus also looks into the eyes of his friend John and knows he is going to need help so he calls his mother, Mary, to love and help care for him. What an amazing moment, from the cross and just moment away from death Jesus is still focused on one of the core values of his ministry and one of the core value of God’s kingdom which is to be connected to one another.

This core value of being connected is later outlined for the church by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12-20. By using the image of the body, Paul is calling us to be connected to one another. Just as all the parts of our body are connected and dependant upon each others, so are we connected and dependant upon one another. We were made to be connected to one another and our faith will not be strong and the church will not be strong until we work to be connected as the body of Christ.

We are not complete on our own. One of the underlying truths in life is that we need each other and the events of September 11th reminded us of that. One of the reason so many people did survive on that day was because people came together to help each others. Rescue workers ran into building to help people get out. Strangers lifted each other up out of the rubble and the dust and helped move them to safety. Ron Fazio held the door and people encouraged each other, cried with each other and helped each other all along the way. Even in communities far away from NYC, Washington DC and Shanksville, PA., people wanted and needed to come together. Prayer services and candlelight vigils were held all over the country because people just needed to feel connected and the reason was because being connected is at the core of who we are.

Being connected to one another needs to be a core value of our church. One of the reasons we encourage people to worship together each week is because coming together in worship is not just a way to connect to God, it is a way for us to be connected with one another as well. There is something powerful about connecting with one another in worship that we can’t get by just experiencing God alone in the woods or at the beach in our backyards. That is why Paul tells us to not stop meeting together, look at Hebrews 10:24-25. But it’s not just worship. We need to pray together, study together, learn together, serve together, eat together, play together and honestly learn how to live life together. David mentioned a few weeks ago how powerful it is when the youth group go away to Impact and how the students share and learn and grow together while they are away and while this often happens when any of us go away for retreats and mission trips, we need to build these relationships right here and now.

We can get connected with one another in Sunday School classes and small groups. We can get connected by serving together at a football dinner or the 5th quarter. We can get connected by walking together in the crop walk, making music together in a choir or just making some friends in the church. As the church year in many ways begins a new this fall, this is a great time to recommit ourselves to this core value in the church. As we learned from September 11th, we have control over how we live our lives so we can make the decision today to get connected with one another and not only grow in our relationships with one another, but through the body of Christ grow in our relationship with God.

What I have found through my life, and I’m sure many of you would agree with this, is that when we connect with one another in the church, when we come together in different ways as the body of Christ we grow in our connection with God. The more we work to build relationships with one another – the more we grow in our relationship with God, so if you want to reconnect with God – connect with the people of God.

September 11th every year needs to remind us that we do have control over how we live and the priorities we make in life. So today let’s return to our core values and find the joy and the life that comes when we are connected to God and one another.

Love One Another

As I drove to CT to visit my parents last week I took along with me copies of the sermon series we just finished on the 10 Commandments and as I listened to several of the messages back to back I found something kind of interesting, more than once I said something like this, we need to get this commandment right because it is the foundation on which all the rest are built. In fact, that is exactly what I said for the 10th commandment about not coveting, I said, if we can get this last commandment right and desire the things of God – maybe all the rest of them will begin to fall into place. In other words, the last commandment is maybe the most important one of the all.


But here’s the problem, I said this on the first week of the series when we were talking about the first commandment which says we are to have only one God. If God is at the center of our lives we can move on to the other commandments and other relationships, but if God is not at the center, then none of the rest of these commandments really matter. In other words, the first commandment is the most important because we need to have God at the center of our lives or nothing else will work, but I said this about the 2nd commandment, we become what we worship and so if we want to experience real life we need smash all idols and worship God alone. So the most important thing is to have no idol in our lives and worship God alone. But about the 5th commandment I said this, God created us to live in community with one another and we will only experience the blessing of those relationships if we start with honoring our father and mother, so may be the most important commandment is to honor our parents because we learn how to honor all others, even God, by getting right our primary relationship with our parents.

Are you beginning to see the problem here? You could make a case for any one of the 10 Commandments being the most important and that is exactly what the people of Israel did for centuries. From the time the 10 Commandments were brought down from Sinai, the teachers of the law argued about which commandment was the most important and on any given day – or in my case any given week – you could argue that any one of the ten is the most important one to follow, and argue the people did, for hundreds of years they argued, not about which of these 10 were the greatest, but which one of the 616 laws was the greatest and the argument made it all the way to Jesus. Look at Matthew 22:34-36. Jesus had been discussing the finer points of the law with the religious leaders of his day and when they realized that he was a teacher who had good insight they asked him the question that the people had been arguing about since the days of Moses, which commandment was the greatest. And here is Jesus’ answer – Matthew 22:37-40.

So the greatest commandment isn’t one of the 10 – and it’s not one of the 616 other laws that were given, the command that holds them all together and it is the foundation on which they are all built can be summed up in just one command, just one word - Love. Love God and love one another. It is love that makes following the 10 Commandments possible – let’s look at it.

• you shall have no other gods before me
     o why? Because we love God

• you shall not make… bow down to... or serve any idol
     o why? Because we love God

• you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God
     o why? Because we love God

• remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
     o why? Because we love God and we love ourselves

• honor your father and mother
     o why? Because we love others

• you shall not murder
     o why? Because we love others

• you shall not commit adultery
     o why? Because we love others

• you shall not steal
     o why? Because we love others

• you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
     o why? Because we love others

• you shall not covet
     o why? Because we love others

So love is the foundation on which these commandments are built and if we can get that right – if we can love God and love one another then we not only follow the 10 commandments but we will fulfill all of the law, which is why Paul says in Romans 13:8, owe no one anything except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Now the reason Paul uses the language of owing people love is because he has just been talking about the importance of making sure we give people what we owe them. If we owe taxes – we need to pay them, if we owe honor we need to give it, if it is respect we are to show it; we are to give to everyone what is due them and work to make sure that we have no outstanding debts - except for one – we are to love. This means we are to love day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. We never stop showing love, we never stop giving love, love has to be the foundation and the cornerstone and the capstone of our lives, but let’s be clear about 2 things love is not easy and the kind of love we are talking about is not an emotion or a feeling.

When Paul talks about love here in Romans, he isn’t talking about having warm feelings for people, he is talking about living our lives in such a way that everyone around us is respected, honored, valued and cared for. Love is an action and throughout the Bible God makes clear to us what love is to look like and it all started with the 10 Commandments.

Love for God looks like worship and devotion, it means honoring and valuing God’s name and resting on the Sabbath. Loving one another means we honor our parents, and don’t commit adultery, murder, steal, lie or covet, but that’s not all. In the New Testament the command to love one another is given about 20 times and in what some people call the “one another” commandments we are told to that our love for one another is to look like this:
• Be at peace with one another
• Be of the same mind as one another
• Do not judge one another
• Build up one another
• Accept one another
• Greet one another
• Serve one another
• Admonish one another
• Bear with one another
• Be kind to one another
• Forgive one another
• Be subject to one another
• Confess to one another
• Encourage one another

This is what love looks like – in every situation, in every relationship, in every decision we make and action we take and word we speak – this is what love is to look like. Now if you are like me, you are probably thinking right now that while this is great and we want to live this way, we just can’t. This kind of love is not easy, the truth is, this kind of love is impossible if we are trying to do it on our own, so we need to stop trying to do it on our own and allow God to begin to love others through us. Look at Romans 5:5

This is the key to loving one another, it is to ask God for his spirit to be poured into us because one of the fruits of God’s Spirit is love so if God’s spirit is alive and flowing in us then we will be able to love others. We will never be able to love one another unless we abide in Christ and allow Christ to dwell in us which is why Paul says later in Romans 13:14 that we need to clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of our sinful nature. We need to clothe ourselves with Christ and allow the power of God’s spirit to work in us. If we want to be people who show love to one another we need to first ask God to pour himself into us.

Sharing in Communion gives us a opportunity to do just that. In communion we see the love of God put into action – Jesus came and lived with us, he showed us how to love throughout his life and then showed us what love for others really looks like when he gave his life for us. While we see the example of love here that we are supposed to follow, we also realize that we will fail to follow the example of Jesus we are trying to do all of this on our own, which is why we are called to come with open hands and hearts to receive the fullness and power of Christ. Communion is the time to once again ask God to pour the power of his spirit into our hearts so that we can love like Jesus. Sharing together in the body and blood of Christ is our opportunity to clothe ourselves in Christ so that we can fulfill all the law and all the teaching of the prophets and Jesus by loving one another.

The Ten Commandments ~ You shall not covet

As we come to the end of our study on the 10 commandments, let’s remember what they are all about. These 10 Commandments are boundaries that God has given to protect the bonds of relationship. The first three commandments:


• you shall have no other gods before me,
• you shall not make… bow down to... or serve any idol
• you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God

all establish clear boundaries that protect our relationship with God. The 4th commandment:

• remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

is a boundary to protect our own physical health and spiritual well-being by calling us to take time to rest, and commandments 5-9:

• honor your father and mother
• you shall not murder
• you shall not commit adultery
• you shall not steal
• you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

are all boundaries to our behavior that help protect the bonds of relationship with our family, friends and neighbors. These five are the particular commandments we need to follow if there is going to be the basic foundation of trust which a society needs to be healthy.

And now we come to the 10th commandment and while this is the last in the list, it is certainly not the least and while some may say that because it comes at the end it is often overlooked and maybe not as important as the other 9, there are others who say that this commandment is actually the most important one of all.

I have to say that I was probably one of those people who thought this commandment was the least important of the 10, but I am now rethinking that idea. I am wondering if this might actually be the most important one because when we break this commandment we are in danger of breaking all the rest. For example, why do people steal? We steal because we want something that someone else has, and if we can’t buy it – we will take it. And why do people commit adultery? It’s because they see someone and desire to have them even though that person may be in a relationship with someone else. And why did Israel worship idols? It was because they saw people all around them worshipping idols and gods and they wanted to have what those people had and they believed those maybe those idols would help them get more of what they wanted in this world. And what was the first murder all about? Cain killed Able because he saw that God accepted his brothers offering and not his own. In some sense, Cain coveted Able’s relationship with God and he coveted the offering is brother gave to God and it was that attitude and desire which led to anger and then to murder. So in many ways, coveting what other people have can lead us to breaking many of God’s commandments, so maybe this last commandment is the most important one of them all. Whether or not it is the most important, it might be the most difficult to keep because while the other nine all talk about our actions, this one speaks directly to our attitude.

Did you notice that? The first 9 commandments all talk about what we are supposed to do and how we are to live, they all focus on actions. We are not to worship other gods, make idols, misuse God’s name, work on the Sabbath and disrespect our parents. We are not to murder, commit adultery, steal or lie. The first 9 commandments all outline behavior but the 10th commandment is unique because it doesn’t talk about action – it talks about feelings and desire and emotions and while we can work to disciple our behavior, disciplining our feelings is much more difficult.

Just an aside here, as we have been looking at the 10 commandments all summer we have also heard from Jesus sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 because in that sermon Jesus takes these 10 commandments and expands on them to include our attitudes and feelings. For example, Jesus says that while the commandment says do not murder we are also not to be angry with people. And while the commandment says do not commit adultery Jesus says we are not to look at people with lust and while we are often amazed at how Jesus expanded these commandments to include our feelings and not just our actions, Jesus was only doing what God had done from the very beginning. This 10th commandment shows us that God has always been concerned about our feelings and attitudes and not just our actions. So in many ways the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was nothing new, he was just pointing out in very clear and specific ways how to apply the truth of God.

So this commandment is unique because it deals with our feelings and let’s be clear that it deals with feelings that every single person struggles with at some point in time. It’s not just the poor who covet the riches of their neighbors, we are all susceptible to coveting those things we don’t have but see in others. For example, while the poor might covet the large house, new car and full bank accounts of their neighbors, the rich might covet the health, simplicity or strong family ties they see in their neighbors. The young might covet the stability of those who are older, but those who are older might covet the health, vitality and free spirit of the young. Coveting is not just a desire for more stuff or the money of someone else; it is a strong desire for anything that person has that we may want We can covet the healthy marriages and strong relationships that we see in others, we can covet other people’s jobs that seem more fulfilling and exciting, we can covet health care plans that provide more benefits, neighborhoods that are served by better schools, the good looks of movie stars or the hard bodies of athletes and believe it or not, we can even covet the strong faith we see in others when our own faith seems so filled with doubt.

We are all prone to coveting and God cares deeply about it because God knows that if this is left unchecked it will lead to all kinds of poor decisions and eventually broken relationships with everyone, but how are we to control a feeling? After all, we may not want to feel this way, we may not want to covet the things we see in others, but can we really control how we feel? The easy answer would be to say no we can’t control how we feel, and then just ask God for his forgiveness and mercy and move on, but I don’t think we can take the easy way out, after all, why would God tells us that we should not covet the things of our neighbors if there was not a way to overcome those desires. So how do we train our hearts and lives so that these feelings don’t surface in the first place?

The first thing we can do is not feed our desire to acquire. There will be those moments when we will see something that someone else has and our first thought might be how much we want it, but we don’t have to give in to that first thought. While a desire might enter our mind and heart, we don’t have to dwell on it. We don’t have to take that desire and turn it over and over in our minds and figure out how we can act on it or daydream about how great life would be if we could just get that one thing. We don’t have to imagine ourselves living in that new house or daydream about driving that new car and we don’t need to think about how great life would be if we were in someone else’s shoes. While a thought may enter our head, we don’t have to feed it and keep it growing; we can stop comparing our lives to the lives of others and not give fuel to our wrong desires.

The second thing we can do when a desire to possess something that someone else has enters our hearts and minds is to immediately stop and thank God for all that we have. It is easy to compare ourselves with others and find ourselves lacking and as the old saying goes, the grass always looks greener in someone else’s yard, so when the desire to possess something that someone else has enters our hearts we need to stop and ask God to show us just how blessed we are. God has blessed each and every one of us and we need to identify the unique way that God has created us and gifted us and then thank God for those blessings. But then we need to take a step further and figure out how to use these gifts and our lives for God’s glory. When we start using our lives to bless others, we will experience an abundance in life that will keep us from comparing our lives to others. The more we look at what others have and desire those things, the less satisfied and fulfilled we will be with what God has given us, but the more thankful we are for what God has given us and the more we use those gifts, the more beauty and power and fullness we will see in our own lives and the more content we will be.

The third thing we can do to stop covetousness in its tracks is to ask God to help us desire the right things. Here’s what is important to remember, there is nothing wrong with desire, in fact, God has placed the capacity to desire within us for good. We have strong God given desires that are good. We hunger for food and thirst for water each and every day. We desire relationship and we long to see the world a better place and these are God given desires because they are the desires that God has, God also longs for relationship and desires to the see the world a better place – that’s why he sent Jesus, to open the door so we could be in a relationship with God and to show us how good this world can be. So we were created with desire because we are created in the image of God and God has strong passions and desires, so desire in and of itself is not bad.

Look at Psalm 42:1-2. So we see that desire is not a bad thing, se just need to make sure that we desire the things of God. Do we desire more of God’s presence and power and grace and love. In Proverbs 13:12 it says desire fulfilled is a tree of life, and Psalm 37:4 says delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. So desire in and of itself is not bad, it is making sure we desire the right things. Again from the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says we will be blessed, or happy, if we will hunger and thirst for righteousness. So desire is not a bad thing, we just need to ask God to help us desire the right things. The more we desire God, the more we delight ourselves in the Lord, the more blessed and full we will be and if we are full of God and God’s blessings, there will be no room in our hearts and lives to covet the things of others of the things of this world. So the key isn’t to ask God to help us desire nothing, it is to ask God to help us desire the right things.

So can we command our hearts and minds to not covet? Maybe not completely – but there is a lot we can do to train our hearts to desire the right things and if we can get our hearts right – if we can get this last commandment right and desire the things of God - maybe all the rest of them will begin to fall into place.