Life Rules ~ Submit

Today we are finishing up our series on Life Rules where we have been looking at the rules God has given us for the relationships in our lives.  If you haven’t been with us, the idea is that we all have rules that we follow in relationships and these are rules we have picked up from our families, friends or the culture around us and many times we don’t even know what the rules are – but they are there.  In fact, if you haven’t thought about what the rules are that you follow in your relationships with others I would encourage you to do that.  What are the guiding principles that motivate you in relationships and are these principles in line with God’s desire and God’s will for our lives?

The guiding principle that has given shape to all the life rules we have been looking at come from this idea that we don’t treat others they way the deserve to be treated or to get something in return or even as we want to be treated, we are to treat others the way God has treated us.  What I have been calling the God rule is to do unto others as God has done unto us.  We love others because God has loved us.  We forgive others because God has forgiven us.  We accept others, we serve others and we encourage others because God has done all of these things for us.  Today we are going to end with the life rule that probably makes us the most uncomfortable and that is to submit.

The reason this life rule makes us so uncomfortable is because it has been misunderstood and misused in too many situations.  For women especially, this rule is difficult because for generations, too many men have quoted the verse from the Bible that says, wives, submit to your husbands and they have used this verse to tell women they should stay in marriages that are abusive and unhealthy.  Let’s be clear from the beginning and understand that while the Bible does say, wives submit to your husbands, it goes on to say, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.  Now how much did Jesus love the church?  He loved us enough to take on our sin and die in our place.  So the greater call to serve and sacrifice and submit really falls on the men.
What many people also forget is that before the Bible says that wives should submit to their husbands and husbands should love their wives it says this:  Ephesians 5:21 Submit to one another.

So submission isn’t one side or the other.  It’s not women to men or men to women or young to old or old to young - it is everyone submit to one another.  To submit to someone is to put ourselves under someone else’s authority.  It’s to give up our rights for the benefit of someone else.  Let’s define submit this way: I will put you first.  I will put your needs first, your interests and rights before my own.  Submitting to one another, therefore, means: I put you first and you put me first.

The truth is that we don’t usually do this.  In fact, the life rule many of us follow is to put ourselves first.  In relationships we often look for what we want and what we need and what we can get out of it.  At work we often try to figure out how to make ourselves look good so that we can move up the ladder and get that promotion.  In school we have to figure out how to make ourselves look the best we can in order to win friends, make it onto the right teams and into the right social circles and even into the right college.  When so much of our world is about self promotion and looking out for #1, this idea of submission seems very strange.

For many people submitting to others also makes no sense because if I am constantly submitting myself I will constantly be taken advantage of.  I had a roommate in college who was a Christian; in fact we were both leaders of the Christian Fellowship we belonged to.  In my effort to serve him, when the bills came I would tell him what he owed me and then I would pay the bill.  The problem is that he would never give me his share of the money.  I would go to the store and buy food and when I cooked dinner I always offered him some and he would graciously accept – but he never repaid the gesture.  That year I ended up paying a lot of his bills and feeding him a lot of meals.

By putting him first and serving him and submitting to him, I was taken advantage of and my guess is that some if not all of you could tell a very similar story.  When we have been willing to put others first we have gotten burned and so this life rule doesn’t really make any sense.  Now sometimes we are willing to go through this and to submit to someone for a period of time because we believe that the other person will someday see what we are doing and change their ways.  I was convinced that in time my roommate would see all that I was doing for him and suddenly change his heart and thank me and then change his ways and begin to serve and submit to me – or at least pay his way.  Well, guess what?  That never happened.

Marriages fall apart because one person constantly submits to the other hoping it will change their spouse and when it doesn’t there has been so much damage done that the relationship is over.  People leave jobs because they feel like others are taking advantage of them.  People drop out of groups and lose friends because they have submitted for so long with no return and no results that they burn out and give up.  Many of you may have experienced this or maybe you are there today and so this life rule of submit is not something you are interested in even hearing about.

Please, before you tune me out, let me ask us all this hard question.  If we are submitting to someone in order to get something in return or to bring about a change in someone else’s life that will in turn improve our lives, what’s our real motivation for submitting in the first place?  When we submit and don’t get what WE want and don’t see the change WE want to see – what’s our motivation?  It’s US.  For a while we may be able to focus on the needs of others, but in time the focus shifts back to ourselves and as long as we submit to get something in return – as long as WE are the motivation, submitting to others will fail, which is why Paul says from the very beginning that our motivation in submitting can’t be us.

Let’s go back and look at Ephesians 5:21.  Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Paul doesn’t say we submit so that others will notice us or in order to change someone else’s heart and life, we submit out of reverence to Christ.  We don’t put others first because they deserve it or because it will motivate them to change their lives or because in time we will get recognized and rewarded for what we do, we do it in reverence to Jesus Christ who submitted himself for us.  We submit to one another in honor of Jesus and in thanks and praise to Jesus who was willing to submit himself for us.  So let’s look at what it means to submit.  

In another letter that Paul wrote he talks about submission in more detail and shows us what it looks like.  Look at Philippians 2:3-4.  So this is what it means to submit.  We consider others better than ourselves.  Now let me be clear and say that other people aren’t better than we are, that is not what Paul is saying.  This is not a call to demean ourselves, put ourselves down or deny our own self value and self worth.  Other people aren’t better than we are, but Paul says we need to consider them that way so that we will put them first.  I want you to think about someone that you truly admire.  Maybe it’s a sports hero, movie star, politician or world leader. Now think about that person coming to your home for the weekend.  How would you treat them?  How would you prepare for them?

Last summer the Bishop of Sierra Leone stayed with me.  I’ll be honest and say I didn’t know that much about him before he came so I did a google search and learned about all he had done and how well respected he is around the world.  He wasn’t just a church leader, this man was a world leader and I suddenly wanted to make sure everything was in order and he had everything he could want or need.  I made sure he had his own little suite – which was the downstairs of the parsonage.  I made sure he had snacks at all times of the day and night and breakfast in the morning.  I laid out towels and toiletries like in a fancy hotel and when he needed an iron I made some quick phone calls and had an iron and ironing board delivered to my house, because I don’t own either one.  I went out of my way to take care of the Bishop.  I tried to consider him better than me and put his interests and needs before my own.  This is a picture of what it’s like to submit to someone.  It’s considering them better than we are so that we will do all we can to care for them.
When I was in Seminary I wrote out this verse and placed it above my desk because once again in the apartment that I shared with two other seminary students, I was often the one who cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and shared my meals with others and unlike college when I just became bitter and angry for being used – I wanted to keep the right attitude in submitting to and serving my roommates.
 
So Paul teaches us a bit here about what it means to submit, it means we humble ourselves, set aside what we want and what we think we deserve so that we can look to the needs and interests of others.  We consider them better than ourselves.  Then Paul goes on and tells us why we do this.  We don’t do this to get something in return; we do this because this is what God has done for us in Christ Jesus.  As we keep reading in Philippians, Paul paints for us a picture of just what it looked like for God to submit himself to us.

This next section of Philippians is one of the oldest writings of the New Testament and is called the Christ Hymn and it dates back to the very early church.  It was probably written before the gospels were put together so it helped people see who Jesus was.  It painted a picture of his life and showed people how he lived and how he humbled himself and submitted himself for us.  Philippians 2:5-11.

So Jesus had everything.  He was God himself which means Jesus had all the power and authority of God and yet he didn’t use that power and authority for himself.  Jesus let it go to enter into this world.  And once he got here Jesus could have still used his position and power for himself.  Jesus could have leveraged or used his right as the son of God or his power as God in the flesh to get for himself the best homes, the finest food, all the servants and all the wealth, power and glory the world had to offer.  It all belonged to him, but he didn’t use what was his for his own benefit, he let it go.  Jesus put others first.  He put us first and became a servant.  Jesus didn’t leverage his position as God to gain power in this world.  He made himself nothing and was willing to serve.

To submit means that we don’t leverage the power and position we have for our own benefit but that we do use it for the benefit of others.  We use what we have and all we have to put others first.  What power do we have that we can use for others.  What power do we have as a parent, a teacher, a manager at work, a leader in the community, what power do we have that we can use to help others.  In some way, we all have power and we all have the choice of using it to promote ourselves or to promote others.  Now left on our own, many of us will use that power and position for ourselves but Jesus shows us that all power and authority and position need to be used for the well being of others.  We need to put others first.

Now the question that always comes up when we talk about submission and putting others first is how far do we go?   How far do we take this word submit because it can quickly and easily lead to us being taken advantage of and even being abused.  So how far do we go?  I can’t answer that for you – I have a hard time thinking about it my own life.  And the thing is that Jesus didn’t answer this question directly, instead he gave us a picture, an example, of how far He was willing to go.  Philippians 2:8b – Jesus became obedient to death – even death on a cross!

That’s how far Jesus was willing to go.  Jesus was willing to go to the cross and die.  Does this mean we should be willing to submit ourselves to the point of death?  Well, let me answer that by saying that #1 – we aren’t God, so maybe not.  #2 – let’s also remember that there were many times leading up to this moment where Jesus chose not to die.  There were times earlier in his life when Jesus could have submitted himself to religious leaders or the angry crowds or the political leaders in a way that would have lead to his death, but he didn’t do it.  There were times Jesus walked away, so submitting ourselves to the point of death can’t be a one size fits all rule.  Instead what Jesus gives us here is a picture to guide our hearts and minds in making that decision.  He says, this is how far I was willing to go for you.

The other thing this picture of Jesus on the cross does for us is remind us of our motivation.  We submit to others out of reverence for Christ who was will to go this far for us.  We submit to others because Jesus was willing to go to the cross in order to place us first.  The cross is not only a guiding principle which helps us reflect on how we are to submit to others but it reminds us that our motivation isn’t us or even others, it is Jesus.  The cross also reminds us that we can’t submit ourselves to others in any relationship in a healthy way until we are first willing to submit to Jesus.

It’s making Jesus our own, it’s accepting what he was willing to do for us and trusting in his power and love that gives us the strength and wisdom to submit to others.  The power to submit doesn’t come from inside us.  If left on our own we would promote ourselves and put ourselves first, so the only way to really submit to others in a healthy way is to first submit to Jesus and accept what he has done for us on the cross.  When we surrender ourselves to the grace and love of God who loved us so much that he sent his son to submit himself and die for us, the Holy Spirit is then able to fill us up so we can follow this life rule.

When we accept the work of Jesus on the cross where He paid the price for our sin and died our death we find the power to live a life that is characterized by humble submission, encouragement, service, acceptance, forgiveness and love.  We can treat others the way God has treated us but only if we are first willing to accept what God has done for us in Christ Jesus.  We all can and need to submit more of our hearts and lives to God in order to follow this life rule and all the life rules God has given us.  Will we submit to him today?


Next Steps
Life Rules ~ Submit


1. Identify the positive and negative images that the word “submit” brings to your mind.  

2. What personal experiences of submitting to others can you identify?  How did these situation turn out?

3. Submitting to others means putting others first and leveraging our power for others.  Read Philippians 2:5-11.
• Name all the ways that Jesus submitted himself for us?
• How did these situations help us?
• What power do you have that could be leveraged or used to help others?

4. Identify one relationship where God is calling you to submit and put this person first?  Identify one specific action that will help you submit to them this week?

5. If you are in a relationship where your submitting to someone is hurting you, talk about it with someone this week.  (Remember, we submit to lift others up - not to put ourselves down.)

6.  The life rule that guides all others is: do unto others as God has done unto us.  Reflect on the following specific life rules and identify ways to keep them as part of your life.
• Love
• Forgive
• Accept
• Serve
• Encourage
• Submit

Life Rules ~ Encourage

We are in a series called Life Rules where we are looking at the rules God has given us for the relationships that make up our lives.  We all have a set of rules that we live by that we have picked up from a variety of places like family, friends, school, work, TV, movies and the culture around us.  Many times we may not even know we are following these rules, but they are there and one of the difficulties this series has presented us is that the life rules God gives often directly challenges the life rules we tend to follow.  For example, one of the life rules we often follow is to do unto others as they deserve to be treated, or do unto others as our mood tells us or do unto others to try to get something in return.  None of these are the golden rule which Jesus gave us which says do unto others as we would have them do unto us, but the new life rule God gives goes beyond even the golden rule and has become what I am calling the God rule which is to do unto others as God has done unto us.

This rule directly challenges many of the rules we have previously followed.  We don’t forgive because people deserve it; we forgive because we have been forgiven by God.  We don’t accept people because we find them acceptable; we accept them because we have been accepted by God.  So the life rules God gives often directly challenge the life rules we have picked up and are currently following and today’s rule is no exception.  In fact, today’s life rule directly challenges two life rules many of us follow and the first one is this: Mind your own business.  

I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that from my mom.  With two older sisters, I loved to watch what they did looking for anything that I could “share” with my mom.  I think it is the job of all little brothers to try and get their older sisters in trouble so I was great at being a tattle tale which means I heard this rule many times – mind your own business.  It is a life rule we follow and while there is some good to take away from it, we are going to see that in certain situations God challenges this rule.

The second life rule God is going to challenge today is this: When you see a friend about to make a bad decision, talk about them not to them.  How many of us have seen a friend start dating someone we think is absolutely the wrong person for them and we know they are headed for all kinds of pain and heartache and yet the first thing we do is go and talk about them to someone else instead of talking directly to them.  Or it might be a financial situation we see, or a bad habit that is taking over their life, or a job decision they have shared with us that we think is going to be a disaster and yet instead of talking to them we find the closest person around and start talking about them.  Now if we are really concerned we might talk to our friends and then say something like this, you know we should really pray for them, which is all well and good, but then the rule we follow is this: When you see a friend about to make a bad decision, pray for them not with them.   Too often we will pray about people and the concerns we have but aren’t will to pray with them and the reason often is that we have been told that it is none of our business.

These two life rules go hand in hand and they are often the rules that guide our relationships.  There have been and today probably are people in our lives that are on the verge of making some bad decisions or maybe are just in a bad place emotionally, spiritually, physically, relationally or financially and we see them heading into all kinds of trouble and needing help but we aren’t about to talk to them or pray with them but we will be quick to talk about them.  If someone has come to your mind this morning, I want you to keep thinking about them because we have the potential to save these people from heartache, pain and disaster if we will decide to make their business our business and pray with them and not just for them, but this won’t happen without following a new life rule.

The life rule we are looking at today comes from Hebrews 3 but for us to understand this rule we need to understand one fundamental truth about our faith, God does not see us as a group of individual believers, God sees us as a body.  God calls us to be part of a family and in a family we are responsible for one another.  In a family we  look out for each other, care for one another and are to be accountable to each other and God shows us that in Hebrews 3:12.
In this verse there is a call for us to be watching out for one another.  It was written to a group of people, not individuals, and we are to see to it that no one has a sinful heart that leads them to turn away from God.  In other words your spiritual life is my business and my spiritual life is your business. We are being called here to mind each other’s business and to look out for one another and the reason we are to do this isn’t because we are better than others but because we all have the potential to drift away or even run away from God.  We are all prone to making bad decisions that not only have a devastating impact on our relationships, finances and future but can pull us away from God.

Sometimes it is the small decisions about who our friends are or how we spend our time and money that begin to erode our spiritual life.  Andy Stanley says that we quit behaving before we quit believing.  Our poor choices in seemingly simple areas of our life over time can poisoned our heart and set us on a path that leads us away from God.  Unfortunately I have seen this all too often.  Someone in the church will start dating someone who doesn’t attend church at all and they say it’s true love and so they get more involved in the relationship and over time their actions and behavior pull them away from worship and Bible Study and serving in the community and pretty soon they don’t feel the need to be in church at all and in time they might even question whether or not God is really there.  They didn’t start out to drift away from God and it was not their intent to question or even deny their faith, they believed they could have it all, but they quit behaving and then before long they quit believing.

But it’s not just relationships, all kinds of behavior can be unhealthy and destructive and slowly pull us away from God and we don’t start off thinking we will drift away – in fact most of the time we think we will be just fine.  We tell ourselves that we can handle it, but in time it begins to handle us.  Sin is most often a path that goes from action to faith.  It starts with bad choices and questionable actions and then over time leads us to a place where we are disconnected from God and the people of God.  Sin is deceitful this way because it tells us that we can handle what we are doing and it tells us our actions and decisions won’t affect our relationship with God, but it does.  God has a solution, a new life rule to help us.  Look at  Hebrews 3:13.

So what pulls us back from the path of sin and the deceitfulness of sin is the encouragement of others, so life rule # 5: encourage one another.  But let’s be clear about what it means to encourage.  It does not mean we stand on the sidelines of people’s lives saying, “way to go” and “good job”.  The word in Greek means to appeal, beg, urge, exhort. It means we call out to people when we see them going in the wrong direction or making a bad decisions that can lead to the deceitfulness of sin and the hardening of people’s hearts.  It is in those moments that we can’t talk about them and mind our own business because God has called us to be actively engaged in one another’s lives.  See to it, God says, that none of you turns away from the living God.  We have to appeal to them and be willing to approach them and speak to the situation we see.

We have to beg and urge them to consider what they are doing and ask them to reconsider their decisions and actions.  This what exhort means, to urge them to pursue a different course of action.  We need to speak to them about making different choices and getting help if needed.  We have to be willing to take the risk and engage people even though it will be messy, uncomfortable and awkward to say something.  That’s often what we say to ourselves to justify not getting involved.  We say it would just be way too awkward to say something and that’s right - it is awkward, but if we really care for others we should be willing to face those awkward moments and move beyond them.

When I had just started out in ministry I had a roommate who watched me become completely burned out.  I never took a day off and had convinced myself I couldn’t.  He had that awkward conversation with me one day and said I really needed to readjust my schedule and take a day off.  I said I couldn’t but that was just my pride speaking.  He insisted and I said something like, it’s really not your decision, mind your own business.  Then one morning he told me if I was going to leave the house I would have to drive over him because he would go out in the driveway and lay down behind my car.  It was awkward to say the least and I didn’t push the issue.  I stayed home and I didn’t work and from that on I have made days off – a Sabbath day of rest – a regular part of my life.  He saw me headed in a bad direction and was willing to exhort me.

While we often tell ourselves that these situations just aren’t our business, God makes clear that they are.  Remember, God doesn’t see us as individual believers but a family who is responsible for one another.  God also uses the analogy of the body and says we are all part of the same body which means if my hand is in pain it is the rest of the body which needs to come and help.  We have to be willing to step in and help when we see others in need.

We also justify not encouraging others because we believe that since we don’t have our act together, we aren’t worthy enough to say something to someone else.  Well, that’s true, we aren’t worthy.  None of us will ever be worthy enough to speak into someone else’s life.  None of us will ever be good enough on our own to appeal, beg, urge and exhort others but it doesn’t matter because that isn’t God’s rule.  God’s rule isn’t - those who are perfect are to encourage others, and it’s not - encourage others in areas where you have it all together.

God’s plan is that broken men and women who are struggling to get it right in our own lives call out and reach out to those who are struggling in their lives.  Maybe the reason God calls us to mind each other’s business and encourage one another in our own weakness is because as people prone to sin ourselves we will understand what they are going through.  We can speak with confidence about how hard it is to overcome and how much help we need to live faithful lives because we know how hard it is in our own lives and how much help we need.  Maybe the reason God calls the imperfect to encourage those who are imperfect is because we can do it with humility and understanding.
So let me go back and ask us to think again about the person God has been laying on our heart and mind this morning.  Who is it that we have been talking about and not to?  Who have we been praying for but not with?  Who comes to mind?  Is there a way we can take a bold step forward and talk to them and pray with them this week?  Their future might be hanging in the balance and God just might want to use us to help them.  Remember, we don’t speak to them with judgment and arrogance but with humility, grace and a gentleness which clearly says, I am not any better than you, in fact I have my own struggles but I love you and care for you and I want to see you succeed in life and faith.

The person on your mind today just might be asking God right now to bring someone into their life who will help them.  They may be struggling with the decisions they are making and are just waiting for someone to care enough to say something to them.  We might be the only person willing to risk it all – or we might be the straw that breaks their back so they finally hear the truth and see what they are doing and finally ask for help.  God may be asking us to be the one to bear their burden and mind their business and help.  Will we?

Now let me ask this, who is there for us?  Who in our lives can take the risk and speak to us?  Who is it that will appeal, beg, urge and exhort us when we need it?  Can you name someone?  If we can’t think of anyone who might do this in our lives then we need to get to work and invite people to speak into our lives because we all need this.  We are all imperfect.  We are all prone to the deceitfulness of sin and the hardening of our hearts and we are all prone to quit behaving which can lead us to a place where we quit believing, so who will encourage us?  We don’t have to just sit back and ask God to bring these people to us, we can go out and develop those relationships.  This is why we encourage small groups, Bible Studies and Sunday School classes because these are places where we can share with one another what is going on in our lives and it opens the door for people to step into our hearts and lives and help.  We need to develop these relationships because we all need help.

It is time we all step up and develop relationships where we can mind each other’s business, carry each other’s burdens, speak to people not about them and pray with them and not just for them.  We need to encourage one another daily because while our relationship with Jesus is personal it was never designed to be private.  We are part of a body and today and every day we need the help, support and encouragement of each other.



Next Steps
Life Rules ~ Encourage

Because we have been taught to mind our own business, when we see a friend stepping into trouble we tend to:
• Talk about them not to them
• Pray for them not with them

Because we are part of the body of Christ when we see a friend stepping into trouble we are to encourage which means:
• Talk to them not about them
• Pray with them not just for them


1. What friends come to mind when you think of those who might be stepping into trouble?  In other words:
• Who have you been talking about not to?
• Who have you been praying for not with?

2.  Ask God for the courage to speak with clarity and humility to those you named in Question 1.

3.  Who can speak with clarity and boldness to the situations in your life?


4. If you can’t name a person in Question 3, identify one person you would like to have speak into your life and seek to develop that kind of friendship.

Life Rules ~ Serve

We are in the middle of a series called Life Rules where we are looking at some of the rules God gives us for relationships.  While these rules can be helpful to all people, they are really non-negotiable for those of us who follow Jesus.  When we enter into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we are being invited to live a new life which means following a new set of rules.  One of these new life rules is to treat others the way God has treated us.  It’s no longer the golden rule of do unto others as you would have them to unto you, it is God’s rule of do unto others as GOD has done unto you.  During the past three weeks we have seen that God says;
• Love one another just as I have loved you.
• Forgive one another just as in Christ I forgave you.
• Accept one another just as I have accepted you.
So we have a new set of rules to follow and when we follow them our relationships become stronger and we experience more of the peace and freedom that God wants for us.

Today’s life rule comes from the book of Galatians which is really a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a new group of believers in Galatia, which today is part of Turkey.  Paul is writing to a group of people that are struggling with a new set of rules because Jesus has changed everything for them.  For many people in Galatia, the way they experienced a relationship with God was by following a very strict set of rules found in the Old Testament.  For the Jewish people, their connection to God came by following all the rules God gave them.  There were rules that governed everything from eating to working to cleaning and even covered personal hygiene.  Many of these rules can be found in the book of Leviticus and while it makes for some interesting reading today, imagine trying to follow every one of these rules to the letter.  It was not easy, but many tried.

But Jesus changed all that and Paul said that our relationship with God was now going to be based on faith and trust in Jesus as our Savior and Lord.  It is by grace alone that we are connected to God which means that people are now free from following the law. As you might imagine, when people first heard that they were now free from the law some felt they could now live any way they wanted to.  No longer bound by the law, people could do what they wanted to do; when they wanted to do it and they could treat people anyway they wanted to without fear of being cut off from God.  But there were others in Galatia who not only followed Jesus but they still clung to the old ways and said that how we treated people did matter and that the laws God gave still needed to be followed.  They went on to say that when Gentiles accepted Jesus they also needed to follow the laws that God had already given.  It is into this debate that Paul writes to the church.  Do people have to follow the law or are we really free from the law when we follow Jesus?

Galatians 5:13a  You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.  You can almost hear the people on one side of the debate start to cheer saying, yes, we are free so we can do whatever we want and we can live anyway we want to.  But Paul doesn’t end there…

Galatians 5:13b  But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.  So we can’t do whatever we want and whatever makes us feel good.  We can’t use our freedom to live a life that is centered on getting what we want and doing what we want without any regard of those around us or the God who created us.  Instead, Paul says there is a new rule…

Galatians 5:13c  rather, serve one another in love.  What Paul is saying is that we are free which means that we are now free to choose to do the right thing and live the right way.  Instead of following rules that tell us to treat others well we can now choose to do it.  Instead of rules that tell us to love and forgive and accept others we are now free to choose to do it because we know it is the right thing to do and it honors God and it builds everyone up.  So instead of rules that tell us how we are to care for others, we are given a new rule, choose to serve others.  Because you are free, Paul says, when you see a need, meet it and when something needs to be done, do it.  That’s what it means to serve;
• See a need ~ meet it.
• When something needs to be done ~ do it.  

Now this is not always the rule that guides our lives.  Many times we stop and think about whether or not we should serve someone.  We ask ourselves: What’s in it for me?  Is it in my best interest to serve this person?  Do they deserve it?  What will I get out of it?  When we ask these questions we are still focused on ourselves and our own self-interest, but when we genuinely serve others, we break the power of selfishness and the sin of self-centeredness and my guess is that have already experienced this kind of freedom and didn’t even know it.

Have you ever been asked to do something and even though it might be a chore you always did, just being asked to do it set you on edge?  Maybe it was someone reminding you to take out the trash or empty the dishwasher or in my case cleaning up dog poop.  Even though I knew it was my job, every time I was reminded to do it, it set me off and got me angry.  But what happens when we just see that these things need to be done and we do them without being asked.  That can feel good.  True service feels good.  Seeing what needs to be done and just doing it brings freedom which tells us that serving others helps us overcome selfishness.  Service shifts our focus from what is good for us onto what is good for others and that helps break the power of self-centeredness.  Choosing to serve can set us free.

But living this way isn’t always our natural instinct, sometimes we have to learn how to serve and sometimes we have to keep serving until it becomes a learned trait or our second nature.  One of my first jobs was as a dishwasher in a very small family run Italian restaurant.  Each member of the Fatone family had their own strong opinions and they liked to share them with one another in very loud ways.  In other words there was a lot of yelling at each other in Italian and when they all started to shout I wanted to disappear.  I would literally try to make myself as small as I could and wash the same plate or dish over and over again so they wouldn’t notice me.

Since there always seemed to be a lot of emotion in the kitchen I figured out it was better to always be busy, so I would find work that needed to be done and do it.  As long as I was cleaning something they couldn’t yell at me.  So I would wash all the pots and pans on the rack over and over again.  I would sweep the floor endlessly.  I learned how to clean the copper on the bottom of the pans until it shined.   If I saw anything that needed to be done, I did it and through the summer, something happened in me.  I started feeling good about what I was doing.  I know it helped the family.  Mr. Fatone, the father, said no one could get his pots and pans to shine like I could.  It felt good to serve.  While there was some self preservation in my serving at first because it was better to be busy than to be yelled at, I learned in one of my first jobs that service had its own rewards and its own freedom.  It was my choice to serve and serving felt good.

I also learned that serving others could strengthen relationships.  Mr. and Mrs. Fatone never shouted at me in Italian, all of that was saved up for their sons, so I learned that serving others really can strengthen relationships.  Serving others can also heal relationships.  As a pastor in Altoona there was a man who didn’t come to church but heard enough things about me and the changes we were making to form a very strong opinion about me and he was quick to share it.  He sent me a letter telling me that I was doing the work of the devil and included in the letter a check with a large black ZERO on it.  A year or so later this same man was sick and the man who took communion to his home asked if I would come with him.  I said of course I will.  When that morning came, I sat across the table from this man who at one point said I was doing the work of the devil and I served him communion and in that moment we both experienced some healing in the relationship.  My being willing to serve him softened his heart but you know what, it also softened mine and while no words were needed, we both knew that our relationship was healed and strengthened.

Serving others not only sets us free from selfishness and self-centeredness but it works to heal and strengthen relationships and Paul affirms this in his letter to the Galatians.  Look at Galatians 5: 15.  If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
The opposite of serving one another is serving ourselves and looking out for our own self interests and when that is our focus we end up having to tear others down, or as Paul says, biting and devouring each other.  When we serve ourselves we are destroying others and in the process we destroy ourselves.  So while serving sets us free and brings us healing and strength, choosing not to serve destroys us.  The author Andy Stanley puts it this way, if we serve only ourselves we will end up all by ourselves.  If we do all things for our own self-interest we will end up all alone and that is where many people are today – all alone.

Whether it is at work, at home or even in ministry and the life of the church, when we only think about what is good for us we end up biting and devouring others which leads us to a place of isolation.  Focusing on ourselves alone leads us to being alone physically, emotionally and spiritually and one way to break the power of selfishness is to serve.  One way to overcome the sin of self-centeredness is to serve.  One way to not end up alone in life is to serve.  Serve someone.  Serve anyone and in any way.  Start small but do something this week to begin breaking the power of selfishness which breaks the power of sin.

Serving others breaks the power of sin in our lives and it broke the power of temptation and sin in Jesus’ life.  I want to close by looking at a moment from the end of Jesus’ life.  Jesus has gathered with his disciples on the night before his death.  He knows that every one of the disciples is only looking out for themselves.  Judas has already agreed to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and while Peter professes his faithfulness to Jesus, Jesus knows he actually is only faithful to himself.  In a few short hours Peter will end up denying that he even knows Jesus to save his own skin.  And when the going gets tough, all the rest of the disciples who thought they were tough will actually get going – literally, they will all run away.  So Jesus has them all together knowing full well what is about to come and this is what it says… John 13:2-3.

What would you do in this situation?  You know that God has given you all power and all authority and in your moment of greatest need all your friends are just looking out for their own self-interest.  What would you do?  I would be tempted to let them have it.  I would be tempted to look out for my own self-interest and tell them all off, but instead Jesus takes off his robe, kneels down and washes their feet.   Jesus serves them.  John 13:4-5

I wonder if Jesus serves them to break the power of selfishness and self-centeredness that must have been tempting him in that moment.  Jesus was fully human and didn’t want to die on a cross, so was there a moment when Jesus heard from God that all power and authority are his and he could do whatever he wanted and while what he wanted to do is tell his friends off, he chooses in that moment to serve them because he knew that serving would break the power of temptation and sin.  By serving the disciples and washing their feet Jesus destroys the final temptation to live for himself.

When we choose to serve we break the power of sin and selfishness which is constantly working in our lives.  When we choose to serve we destroy the temptation we all face to live for ourselves.  So serving others is not a sign of weakness but strength and serving others sets us free from sin, it strengthens and heals relationships and it leads us to a fuller and complete life that God wants for us.

Jesus gives us one more reason why we should follow this new life rule.  John 13:14-15.  Once again, we serve others because we have been served by God.  Just as we love and forgive and accept others because we have been loved, forgiven and accepted by God, we also serve others because through Jesus, God has served us.  We don’t deserve it and Jesus doesn’t get anything out of it, but in his freedom, Jesus chooses to serve us.  Now in our freedom we are called to serve.  So whether it is because of the example of Jesus, or because it sets us free, or because it helps heal and restore relationships – choose to serve others.  Serve someone.  Serve anyone.  Start small, take one step but serve and allow the power of God to set you free and bring you life.


Next Steps
Life Rules ~ Serve

According to Andy Stanley, to serve means:
• When you see a need, meet it.
• When something needs to be done, do it.

1.  Think back to a time when someone went out of their way to serve you.  How did that make you feel?  What did it do to your relationship?

2. Identify at least one need that you see in each of the following areas:
• At home (in your spouse, children, parents)
• At work
• In the lives of friends
• In the life of the church
• In the community
• In the world

3. Identify at least one way you can meet each of the needs listed above.  What benefit would you experience by following through on these actions?

4. Chose one area and serve someone this week.

We can all help meet the need of those who are hungry both here and around the world by taking part in this year’s CropWalk on October 26.

Life Rules ~ Accept

Today the life rule we want to talk about is acceptance and let me start by saying that what I want us to focus on is learning how to accept the specific people God has placed in our lives that might make decisions or live in ways that we find unacceptable.  While it might prove helpful in all situations, this rule will not cover the people we might find unacceptable around the nation or around the globe, but it is to be considered for those people God has put into our lives.  It is also important for us to understand that God created us in such a way that we are drawn to people who accept us for who we are and we are drawn to environments where we feel accepted.   We are acceptance magnets and because of this our hearts and lives are shaped by how we have been accepted and rejected.

Andy Stanley has said that because we are acceptance magnets we don’t really choose our friends, we simply gravitate toward environments where we will be accepted and find our friends there.  As I thought about that in my life I realized he is right.  I wasn’t any kind of an athlete growing up so feeling rejected in those areas meant I didn’t have any friends in those circles but instead I gravitated to those in band and those I knew through my church.  When they accepted me it shaped my life and gave me a sense of sense of self esteem and self worth.  Understanding how acceptance and rejection shapes us is important because it can explain a lot of things we see in the world and maybe in our own lives.  For example, this might explain why many people, especially men, pour themselves into their work at the expense of their family.  When we feel competent and valued by all those around us at work but at home everyone has their own opinion and we might not feel as accepted, it’s easy to spend more time and energy and invest more of ourselves at work than at home.    

Many people fall in love with someone other than their spouse because when marriage gets hard and feelings aren’t always strong we will gravitate to new relationships where we feel unconditionally accepted.  Instead of working through the difficulties at home, many people will just go where they feel acceptance which can lead to all kinds of unhealthy relationships.
And teens will listen to their friends who accept them over their parents who always seem to be lecturing them.  Peer pressure is really the pressure we feel to be accepted and that is a powerful pull because we are acceptance magnets.  Now this doesn’t mean parents still shouldn’t lecture or teach and share with their children, but how can it be done in a spirit of acceptance and unconditional love.

Acceptance and rejection shapes our self esteem and self worth which can lead to all kinds of behavior – both good and bad.  Have you ever been in a situation where you were constantly trying to win the acceptance of those closest to you, maybe a parent or spouse, but always felt rejected?  Those feelings can lead to all kinds of dysfunction and inappropriate behavior.  One summer I worked at a camp and was the counselor for a cabin for 3rd grade boys.  One week a boy came in and in about two hours had already been in trouble for fighting.  He had picked a fight with a 5th grader.  A few hours later he was in a fight again with the biggest third grade boy in his group.  The next day he was fighting again.  Because of all his fighting, he had lost his time at the pool one afternoon so he and I sat in the cabin and talked.  He told me how his father put the report cards of his brothers and sisters on the refrigerator because they all got A’s but because he got a B, it didn’t go up.  It wasn’t good enough and in his mind – he wasn’t good enough.  This little boy was doing everything he could to earn the acceptance of his father.  He was trying to be the best and the strongest to win acceptance and if that meant fighting the biggest and oldest kids around, he would do it.

So acceptance and rejection are important to who we are because it shapes our lives and if we look around we see that our culture is pretty good at rejection and yet God calls us to accept one another.  Let’s look at Romans 15:5-6.  God is calling us to be unified in heart, body and spirit.  We are to be one and the only way that happens is if we will accept one another – Romans 15:7.  In the Greek this reads, Therefore accept one another just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
What Paul is saying is that the way to keep unity and glorify God is to accept one another and he is also up front with us that it won’t be easy.  Acceptance takes endurance and patience so it’s not going to come instantly and we need to remember that, but it is also difficult which is why it brings praise to God.  We praise people when they complete the hard tasks and when they follow them through  to the end.  I wasn’t praised for watched my favorite TV show to the end, but I did get extra credit in school when during the summer before 5th grade I read the book The Hobbit.  When God says that accepting one another brings Praise to God it is because he knows it’s hard – but it is not easy, but it is necessary.

So what does it mean to accept one another?  What does acceptance look like?  Think about catching a football, you reach out and once it’s in your grasp you draw it into your body. Or if you prefer, think of a mother with a newborn child who takes it in her hands and then draws it to her body.  This is what acceptance looks like and what makes this so hard is that we need to learn how to accept people before they are acceptable to us.  The truth is that when we find people in our lives doing things that we object to we don’t want to draw them in we want to tell them off.  The first thing we want to do is tell them how wrong they are and how much they need to change.  We want to convince people that their choices are wrong, their lifestyle is destructive and that they really need to change.  When the people God has placed in our lives do things we object to we want to win an argument and prove a point but in these situations God has another life rule he wants us to apply.

Life Rule #3 – win a heart, not an argument.  Instead of trying to win an argument with others, we need to work at winning their heart.  Instead of making a point, we need to build a bridge.  Instead of convicting people to change we need to accept them for who they are and allow God’s love flowing through us to lead them to change.  What all of this means is that we need to draw them close while we still find their actions and lives unacceptable and the reason is because that is how God has accepted us.  Over the last few weeks we have seen that because we have entered into a relationship with Jesus we are to love others as God loves us and we are to forgive others as God forgives us, so now we are accept others just as God has accepted us and the truth is that God accepted us before we got our act together and before we overcame all or any of our sin.  God accepted us while we were still considered unacceptable to Him and He drew us in before we changed.

A few weeks ago we looked a the story of the Prodigal son and the Father drew his son in while he was still unacceptable.  In fact he was literally unclean after feeding the pigs and the father didn’t insist on him getting cleaned up spiritual or physically before he embraced him.  And that’s how it is with God.  He accepts us before He even suggests that we need to be cleaned up.  Think about the life of Jesus.  Jesus did not come to win an argument, make a point, convict everyone of their sin and tell everyone they were wrong.  If Jesus wanted to do that he could have, but for the most part, Jesus didn’t live this way.  Yes, he taught about what actions and attitudes were right and wrong, but Jesus didn’t spend his time simply telling people they were wrong and trying to win arguments, instead Jesus won people’s hearts.

One day a woman was brought to Jesus because she had been caught in adultery.  Now the law was pretty clear about this, her actions were unacceptable and she was to be stoned for her behavior.  Jesus could have convicted her on the spot and told her how wrong she was, but instead of winning an argument Jesus accepted her and won her heart.  He called her a daughter, a term of relationship and love.  He forgave her and then after he accepted her there was the call to go forward and live a new life.  The acceptance came before the change.  That’s how Jesus wants us to live, accepting people and allowing our love for them and God’s love for them to bring about a change of heart.  Sometimes people need to change, but the change won’t come because we lecture them, it comes because we love them and accept them.  God wants us to win a heart and not an argument.

Now let me be clear and say that this does not mean we accept everyone’s behavior and lifestyle and it doesn’t mean we don’t speak the truth, Jesus did.  Jesus knelt down in the sand and wrote down the sins of all the people who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery, but he didn’t bash them with it, he used the truth to point out that they needed to forgive and accept others because was being patient and forgiving and accepting of them.  So we can speak the truth but we need to do it in ways that build bridges or lead to acceptance.

A friend of mine, who is a pastor, has a daughter who is gay and when PA legalized same sex marriage her daughter said she and her partner were going to get married.  My friend and her husband were against the marriage and they believe the lifestyle is not in line with the will of God and so they were trying to decide if they should attend the wedding or reception.  They believed strongly that they shouldn’t attend because they wanted their daughter to know how much they disagreed with it all, but I could see my friend struggled with this.  She knew that by not attending she was putting the final nail in the coffin of the relationship she had with her daughter.  It was already pretty fragile and this rejection would end it forever.  I suggested that instead of trying to prove her point and win an argument that she instead try to win her daughters heart.  It is only by accepting people that relationships can strengthen, truth can be shared and lives can be changed.

It won’t happen quickly and it may not happen at all, which makes this rule a difficult one to follow, but it is how God works in our lives.  God draws us into a relationship and then is able to speak to our hearts and lives and it’s after we hear God’s truth that we are able to act on it and in time begin to experience transformation and change.  This is a long, involved and messy journey.  We know that by looking at our lives.  It’s messy when God accepts us and we don’t change quickly or easily so we should be prepared for this to be a messy process with others.  Again, this is why Paul reminds us that God gives us endurance and patience because those two things are needed if we are going to accept others.
God has been patient with us and God continues to endure much in our lives.  We aren’t perfect and there are times our attitudes, words and actions are unacceptable to God, but because he knows we are acceptance magnets – he draws us in where we can hear his voice and receive his grace which works to change our lives.  God has accepted us and calls us today to accept one another.  God wants us to win a heart not an argument because every time we do we give God the opportunity to be at work in the hearts and lives of those around us.

Next Steps
Life Rules ~ Acceptance

1.  What people or groups have accepted you during your life and how has their acceptance shaped who you are today?

2.  Do you see God as primarily one who accepts or rejects?  What stories from the Bible back up your views?  Is this how you learned of God as a child?

3.  In what ways did God accept you when you were still unacceptable?   How did God’s acceptance lead to change?

4.  How has your acceptance of others shaped their lives and yours?

5.  Are their people in your life that you struggle to accept?  Who are they and what attitudes or actions do you find unacceptable?  What argument in their life do you want to win?

6.  What would it look like for you to win their hearts?  What would you have to let go of to do this?  What might be the result?

7.  What’s step can you take this week to in win their hearts?