A Love For One Another

Good morning.

Our scripture reading for today is Philippians chapter two, verses one through eleven.

My name is Scott Braun, and I serve in harbor kids, and I have the privilege of reading God's word in our gathering this morning.

Again, the scripture reading is Philippians chapter two, starting with verse one.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

This is the word of the Lord.

And thank you, Scott.

Well, authentic Christians love like Jesus because they have been loved by Jesus.

That's our big idea for this morning, and we'll come back to that.

But before I do, let me take just a quick minute to get us situated.

My name is Trevor.

I'm one of the pastors here, and uh so glad to have you with us this morning.

Uh, we have a couple of students who have graduated high school and are heading off to college here this week, and we won't embarrass them by name or anything, but uh just want to acknowledge for those who are going off to college and uh heading into that next season of life.

We're grateful for the time you spent at Harbor and uh excited for what the Lord is going to continue doing in your life here in that next season.

So uh also if you're new, welcome.

Would love to have you be a part of our church community.

We're on mission to make disciples in Sarpee County and uh excited to have you be a part of that this morning.

But we are on week three of a four-part sermon series called Authentic Christianity.

And the goal of this sermon series is to help us combat nominalism, the tendency to profess faith without actually practicing faith.

And we're focusing this sermon series on four particular marks of authentic Christianity.

There are more, but the four that we are focusing on are a Godward orientation, a life of holiness, a love for one another, and a burden for the lost.

We've covered those first two already, and today we're talking about a love for one another.

Now, at first glance, that might not really seem like that big of a challenge.

After all, if you look out in our culture, our culture is obsessed with the idea of love.

From the slogan love is love to the pop culture obsession with Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift and the romantic romance and uh therapeutic mantra, love yourself, and just the age-old longing to find your one true love.

We simply have to acknowledge that love is something that is important to us at a societal level.

Now, on the one hand, that should not surprise us at all, because 1 John chapter 4 tells us that God is love.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

And as relational beings who are made in the image of God, we are made to love and to be loved.

On the other hand, however, we shouldn't let cultural assumptions cloud our view of what love is.

Because hidden behind each one of these popular slogans and perspectives is actually a superficial view of love that reduces love down to something less than what God intended for it to be.

There are at least four prominent superficial views of love.

The first one is love as affirmation.

This is the view of the LGBTQ movement, which assumes that true love will always respect and affirm a person's preferred identity and pronouns.

The second one is love as romance.

This is the view of Swifties Everywhere who would say that true love is about physical attraction.

Another is love as self-care, the view of self-help influencers who would say that your biggest problem in life is low self-esteem and a lack of respect for yourself.

And the fourth is love as personal fulfillment.

This is the view of life coaches everywhere who would tell you that the most important thing for you is to reach your full potential.

Because when you reach your full potential and you love yourself, then the world will ultimately be better.

And like so many other things in life, there's something about each one of these views that is partially true in a way.

And so the problem isn't necessarily that they're wrong, the problem is that they're incomplete.

You see, love does actually affirm what is right and good.

However, love also rejects what is wrong and harmful.

Love is also not necessarily less than physical attraction, but love is so much more than physical attraction.

Love does include taking care of yourself and enjoying the things that are important to you, but love also demands that we make sacrifices for other people because we're committed to them and find them important as well.

So uh there's more to love than meets the eye.

And if we're gonna be the kind of people who love well, we need to be the kind of people who understand what love is biblically so that we can love one another faithfully.

Now, to do that, I want to take us to a passage this morning that isn't usually used to describe or explain what love is, but that I think actually captures the doctrine of biblical love probably better than just about any other passage in the Bible.

And that passage is Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11.

Philippians 2:1–11

Now, the book of Philippians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church at Philippi.

And Philippi was a Roman colony that was known for having a lot of retired and military officers, and it had a lot of patriotic nationalism.

Now, what's interesting about the ancient Roman culture is that the ancient Romans they actually believed that pride was a virtue and that humility was a vice.

Now, it was considered noble to pursue your own interests, to brag about your particular achievements, or to defend your reputation in public before other people.

In some sense, self-love was primary and love for others was secondary.

It was considered valuable to love others, but only in so much as you actually love yourself.

Now, his goal is to help the Philippians kind of combat this superficial, self-focused love of the world to help them experience a much more substantive, self-sacrificing love of Christ.

And the reality is that in our day, we face similar temptations and pressures in our life as well.

And so if we want to avoid compromise, we need to be the kind of people who get our understanding of love from Jesus and not from culture.

And that brings us back to our big idea that authentic Christians love like Jesus because we have been loved by Jesus.

And we're gonna see in this text this morning three ways in which Christian love is distinct.

We're gonna see that Christian love prefers others, Christian love denies self, and Christian love exalts Jesus.

Now, as I was preparing this sermon, I walked away both convicted and encouraged.

On the one hand, I was convicted by the things that I studied this week because I look at what I just shared for an outline, and I cannot honestly say that that is reflected very well in my own life.

I have a lot of room to grow in this area, and I find myself to be embarrassingly weak when it comes to being a model of Christian love.

And so as I preach this sermon, I just want you to hear, I need to grow in this right alongside all of you.

This is not something that I have perfected, and this is something that I have a lot of progress that needs to be made in.

But at the same time, as I was preparing this sermon, I found myself incredibly encouraged.

Because when I was thinking about what this love looks like in practice, the first thing that came to my mind is all of you.

I thought about the way that you guys are modeling this and living this out and being an example of Christian love, not only to one another, but towards your non-Christian friends and your coworkers and your neighbors and your classmates and your teammates.

I thought about the way that you guys are putting this kind of love on display for those who visit Harbor on a Sunday morning.

And I just want you to know before I even start this sermon how grateful I am to be one of your pastors, how encouraged I am by the way that you are already living out this example of Christian love, and how excited I am for us to continue growing in this together.

So, um, with that said, let's begin by considering how Christian love prefers others.

If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 and 2, and we'll start there.

Philippians 2:1

Paul says, So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind.

So Paul begins this section of his letter by encouraging the Philippians to be unified in love.

He says, being of the same mind, having the same love, and being in full accord.

And then he immediately equates love with humility.

In verse 3, he says that they are to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility to count others as more significant than yourselves.

So true love, according to Paul, requires humility.

And humility means considering others as more important than yourselves.

Practically speaking, we might say that humility, which is a sign of love, is preferring others.

It's choosing to recognize and honor the merit of other people rather than seeking to be honored or recognized for your own.

It's also prioritizing the needs and interests of other people, not just prioritizing your own needs and interests as well.

And that's exactly what Paul says in the next verse, verse 4.

He says, Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Now, the word for interest there does not merely mean somebody's preferences and likes.

The word for interest there means uh holistic well-being.

To look to the interests of other people means that you are doing what's best for them spiritually, psychologically, uh, physically, and practically in their everyday lives.

You are prioritizing and committing yourself to their overall well-being.

And this is why the four superficial views of love ultimately fall flat.

All right, because sometimes the thing that you want me to affirm isn't actually in your best interest.

Sometimes that romantic relationship isn't what's best for you.

And sometimes the things that you think are going to gratify you now ultimately are only gonna disappoint you later.

And in those cases, the best thing that I can do for you, the best way that I can love you is to be honest with you, to seek what is in your best interest, not just to affirm or to celebrate the thing that you are most interested in.

For example, if I were to walk out of this building today after our gathering and I were to see a kid playing in the street, it would not be loving for me to affirm them for playing in the street.

The most loving thing that I could do is correct them because it's not in their best interest to get hit by a car.

And so love ultimately and always does what is in the best interest of another person.

We prefer them and do what's best for them.

And that ultimately is the difference between worldly love and Christian loves.

Christian or worldly love says, I'll do what's best for you as long as it's not too costly or inconvenient for me.

Christian love does the exact opposite.

Christian love says, I'll do what is best for you, even if it's not what's easiest for me.

Because worldly love prefers self, and Christian love prefers other people.

Now, a really simple example of this is our member commitments here at Harbor.

Uh we have a very intentional membership process that takes about a year to complete.

Uh, those of you who recently completed that or are in the middle of that, you're like, we know, right?

And that's intentional because we're not just trying to have gatherings on a Sunday.

We're trying to be a people, a spiritual family on mission for Jesus Christ in Sarpee County.

And that's something that takes time to grow into and to commit to and to be connected to.

But each one of our members uh covenants to be committed to three basic practices: to belong to a harbor group, to serve in one area of ministry one Sunday a month, and to give financially to the church's ministries and mission.

And to some degree, all three of those commitments, those are functional.

They're what allow us to actually be a church together.

We can't grow as disciples without belonging to one another in community.

We can't have things like kids or a Sunday gathering without people serving in security or setup or kids' ministry or tech team.

And uh, we aren't gonna be able to gather in this facility or pursue our mission of making disciples if we don't actually have money in the budget to pay the bills, right?

But in a more important sense, all three of those membership commitments are ultimately formative.

They're meant to shape and form us into a certain kind of people.

The kind of people who prefer others in love.

You see, showing up to group every week teaches us to value the members of our group more than we value our own comfort or convenience.

Showing up to set up for a gathering or missing a service to disciple kids, and it teaches us to value children and guests more than we value sitting in the gathering on a Sunday morning.

Giving 10% or so of your income teaches us to value contentment and generosity over luxury or ease.

Yet every single week we have members in this church who prefer one another in this exact kind of way.

Because the heart of church membership is ultimately love.

It's a commitment to do what is best for the congregation, even if it's not what's easiest or most convenient for me.

And when every member does that, the entire church grows and the entire church thrives.

Because that's what it looks like for us to prefer one another at a congregational level.

And we unapologetically invite every person in our church to take steps in that direction because we think that that's what's in your best interest, and that that's what's in the best interest of our church community, and that that's what's in the best interest ultimately of Sarpee County.

But I want us to think a little bit about what this also looks like at an individual level.

If someone were to audit your life for a day, where would they see signs of worldly love?

Those subtle, distinct little ways in which you prefer yourself instead of others.

Would it be the ways in which you try to snag the easiest assignments at work when you know that maybe a colleague would be really relieved by a little bit of a break?

Or maybe it's taking the dog out, but only when it's your turn.

Perhaps it's in the way that you make commitments, but then you wait until the last minute to follow through, or you follow through with less than your best.

And where do you sense the Holy Spirit inviting you to cultivate a deeper Christian kind of love?

Simple steps that you can take to prefer other people in your daily life.

Maybe it's letting your siblings sit in the good seat instead of fighting over it for yourself, even though it's your turn.

Perhaps it's focusing a conversation on the other person, showing an interest in them and asking questions about them instead of trying to dominate the conversation with the things that you particularly are interested in.

Or maybe it's letting somebody cut in front of you at line at the grocery store because they have 10 items and you have 2,000, right?

Giving somebody else the opportunity because you know that it would make their day.

Now, for me personally, one of the ways that I sense the Holy Spirit inviting me to grow is to get excited about the things that other people are excited about, even if it's not my personal interest.

To care about the things other people care about, to be concerned about the things that other people are concerned about, and not to downplay or dismiss them because it's not my thing.

I also sense an invitation from the Holy Spirit in my own life to create space for other people to participate in conversation.

I can be so quick to ask questions, or I can be so quick to tell a story, or I can be so quick to jump in that sometimes I crowd out space for other people to be a part of that conversation as well, subtly telling them that my thoughts and opinions and stories are more valuable than theirs.

So there's an invitation.

There's an invitation for all of us at a congregational level to prefer one another, and there's an invitation for each one of us to prefer others in our daily lives as well.

Because Christian love prefers others.

The second thing that Christian love does is that Christian love denies self.

Look with me at verse five.

Paul says, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

Now that's Paul's way of saying this is a counter-cultural way of thinking.

You're not going to see too many examples of this in social media and advertising and music and movies.

The way that the world actually got this distinct way of thinking about love is ultimately Jesus Christ.

There is a historian who wrote a book called Humilitas, who actually went back and historically studied the idea of relationship between love and humility.

And when those two things switched from being selfish and self-centered to being others-focused and sacrificial.

And the only thing he could find that is it ultimately came from the cross.

It came from the person and work of Jesus Christ.

If you were to live historically before the death and resurrection of Jesus, you would not think that self-sacrificial love is a virtue.

It's only because you live after the death and resurrection of Jesus that you would naturally nod your head and say, Well, yeah, duh, that's obvious.

The reason that's obvious is because the death and resurrection of Jesus turned our understanding of love and humility completely upside down.

And what Paul is saying is that this kind of love can be traced all the way back to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

He then goes on to say in verse 6 why that's the case.

And he says, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Okay, to understand this passage properly, we've got a little bit.

The theological work to do.

So I want you to hang with me for a brief minute.

The kind of theology that we're talking about here is called Christology.

Christology refers to a biblical understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ, who he is, and what he's accomplished for us.

And Paul here is laying a foundation for Christology for us in understanding the person and work of Christ.

So the first thing that he says is that Jesus was in the form of God.

The scriptures clearly teach that there is one God who eternally exists in the three persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And before he became a man, Jesus eternally existed as the second member of the Trinity.

And so when Paul says that he was in the form of God, what he's saying is that Jesus Christ has always been God the Son.

Before he became Jesus the man, he existed as God the Son.

The second thing that Paul says is that Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.

Now, some theologians would argue that Jesus, when he became a man, set aside his divinity, like he ceased being God or he pressed pause on his divinity, and he didn't use that at all during his humanity.

But that's actually not what Paul is saying here at all.

To be full of yourself is to be proud, conceited, and to have an ego.

To empty yourself by contrast doesn't mean you stop being what you are.

To empty yourself means that you're humble, you're selfless, and you're altruistic.

And so what Paul is saying is that even though Jesus was God, he wasn't full of himself.

He wasn't entitled, he didn't have an ego, he wasn't unnecessarily drawing attention to himself or using his divinity for his own interests.

To put that in context, what Paul is saying, if you remember our backdrop of the Roman culture at the time, he's saying that unlike Roman centurions, who use their status to exploit and take advantage of people, Jesus, by contrast, set aside his status to serve and save people.

And so Jesus leveraged his divinity for the sake of humanity.

That's what Paul is saying when he says that Jesus emptied himself.

He didn't cease to be God.

He didn't use his divinity for his own interests.

He used it for the interests of humanity.

And then finally, Paul says that Jesus was born in the likeness of men.

And that simply means he became a man, not losing any of his divinity, but simply adding to it his humanity.

In other words, Jesus does not equal God minus divinity, he equals God plus humanity.

So Jesus isn't a God who pretended to be a man like Zeus or a Superman type figure, and he isn't a man who became a God like Heracles or a Captain Marvel type figure.

And he isn't even a demigod who is part man and part God like Hercules or Thor.

Paul is saying that Jesus is fully God and fully man.

Now, that is incredibly important because it's only in Christianity that we see that being the case.

This is what makes Christianity unique among all the world religions.

You see, historically, people have always had an understanding of a God appearing to be a man.

They've always had a story of men becoming gods, and they've always had a version of hybrids that are half men, half God.

But it's only in Christianity that you see God actually taking on humanity and becoming a man.

And so Paul is saying that Jesus is God in the flesh.

That's the argument that he's making.

And that gives us half of our Christology.

That gives us a Christology of the person of Jesus Christ, who he is.

But our Christology at that point is still incomplete.

Because we have to ask, what about a Christology of the work of Jesus Christ?

What he has actually done.

And Paul gives us that in verse 8, where he says, this and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

So that is to say, having become a human, Jesus Christ died on the cross in our place and for our sins.

As God, Jesus had every right to demand honor and recognition for himself.

But he didn't.

Instead, he denied himself, went to the cross, and died for sinners.

And when he did, something unthinkable happened.

He traded his status for ours.

You see, at the cross, Jesus took the guilt, the shame, and the condemnation that we deserve as sinners so that we could receive the honor, the recognition, and the acceptance that he deserves as God's Son.

He was rejected for our sin so that we could be accepted for his righteousness.

He was brought low for us so that we could be raised up for him.

And to quote the early church fathers, they said it this way that the Son of God became the Son of Man, so that the sons of men could become sons of God.

That's why we love movies and stories where the hero sacrifices him or herself for the sake of other people.

Because self-denial for the good of others is the ultimate expression of love.

And we see that at the cross.

Now, this is the moment where I usually try to tell a really inspiring story to convince you that you should be living in this particular way or that you should be responding to Jesus in worship and obedience.

But this week, I'm gonna take a little bit of a different approach.

Instead of telling a compelling story to try to inspire or persuade you, I actually just want to name a few ways that I'm seeing this kind of self-denying love lived out in our church congregation right now.

And the reason I want to do that is because in a lot of ways, I actually think it's easier to kind of have a moment of heroic self-defense denying love.

And it's actually a lot harder to practice self-denying love in the day-to-day activities of everyday life.

I'm actually convinced that if push came to shove, if there was an emergency or something serious happening, that every single one of you would have what it takes to have one heroic moment of self-denying love.

But I think when I look at my own life and I just pastor people in our congregation, it's the small little acts of self-denying love on a daily basis that are actually a lot harder.

And so I just want to point out a couple of ways that I'm seeing that in the hopes of encouraging you, uh, but also making this a little bit more practical as well.

So here's a couple.

Uh I see it in the successful business owner who gives up six hours of his weekend once a month to serve on security.

I see it in the young adult couple who agreed to co-lead a harbor group with a family of seven, even though they're more comfortable discipling teenagers and 20-somethings.

I see it in the couple who uh is living a very modest life with a very modest income, who's still giving 10% as if they made six figures.

I see it in a handful of empty nesters who drive 20 minutes every week to be in group with young families in Bellevue, even though they live in the heart of Papillion.

I see it in church members who take time off work to visit a brother in the hospital who hasn't been able to gather with us on Sunday mornings in quite some time.

I see it in countless people who serve in an area of ministry that's not their first choice, because that's where this church needs them most.

All of these are examples of self-denying love lived out in the day-to-day of everyday life.

I could give you dozens more examples.

I look around the room and I see your face and I think, yeah, there's an example, there's an example, there's an example, there's an example, and I could go on.

But I think you get the point.

If you look around, you'll see examples of this kind of self-denying love all over our church.

I think that's one of the reasons why Harbor has been growing.

I think that's one of the reasons why we frequently get comments about like your church is so welcoming.

I couldn't sit there for more than a minute without somebody coming to say hello to me.

And the reality is that when we started our core team training in September, we were a church of about 100.

We're now a church of about 200.

And uh since our public launch, we have grown a ton.

We've nearly doubled in size from our Sunday gathering.

We've got, I think, almost three times as many small groups as we had uh the summer before.

And uh we're continuing to see new faces every week.

And that's God's kindness to us.

We should celebrate what God is doing to build this church community.

But I also want us to recognize that the call to self-denying love is actually gonna be greater in the next season of our church than it was in the last season of our church.

In order to accommodate for the growth that God is giving us, in order to be a part of what God is doing in Sarpee County, we're gonna have to double down on the self-denying love that got us to where we are right now.

We're gonna need group members who are going to have to embrace the uncertainty and the discomfort of multiplication for the sake of making room for more people to be in community.

We're gonna need introverted people to move towards new people and to say hi and introduce themselves to those who are visiting our church community.

We're gonna need people who maybe casually attend or participate in a harbor group who are willing to start serving, who are willing to maybe host a group, who are willing to maybe lead a group in order to continue moving the mission forward of making disciples and multiplying churches.

There'll be other needs as well, of course, but the point is that for our church to continue growing in a way that's healthy and strong, is that we have to be the kind of church that prioritizes the Christian life.

The kind of church that is willing to deny ourselves for the sake of other people.

But there's something crucial that I don't want us to overlook, and that's this.

In order to give this kind of love to one another, we must first receive this kind of love from Jesus Christ.

We started this church because we love Sarpie County.

We want to see people encounter Christ and have their lives changed.

We want to see this area of our community thrive in the gospel.

But if you've been around since the beginning, you've probably realized it doesn't take very long for the excitement to wear off.

The work sets in and it's a daily commitment to choose other people over yourself.

And the solution, when we begin to lose sight of that, which we will, because we all have a tendency to drift, but the solution isn't to beat ourselves up or to try harder or to double down on our commitments.

The solution is to remember what God has done for us in Christ.

To look at the cross and to see the self-denying love of Jesus poured out for us and to love that, let that love wash over us until it seeps down into our soul.

It comes bursting back forth into our everyday lives.

Because ultimately, the love that we have to give one another, the love that we have to give to the Sarpee County, it's not our love.

It's Christ's love poured into our hearts and flowing out of our daily lives.

We have to be the kind of people who are renewed and refreshed and strengthened in the love of God for us in Christ, so that we can continue loving one another like Christ.

And let me just say if you're new to harbor or you're new to Christianity and you're exploring this whole church thing, that God loves you.

He wants you to know that he's committed to your welfare.

And he demonstrated that for you by sending Jesus to the cross to die on the cross in your place and for your sins.

And our hope this morning, before you do anything, before you ever take a next step, is that you would receive and believe the love that God has for you in Christ.

Because it's only when we see the way that Jesus denied himself for us that we will ever have the motivation to deny ourselves for one another.

But Christian love denies self.

Here's the last thing that I want you to see this morning that Christian love exalts Jesus.

Look with me at verse 9.

It says, Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Now, since Jesus was willing to humble himself to the point of death for sinners, God the Father was pleased to exalt them to the place of honor and recognition.

For what purpose?

So that people everywhere would see the greatness and the glory of Jesus, and they would come to worship and obey him.

Now let me put that into context for you.

At the beginning of this passage, Paul showed us that love looks not to its own interests, but to the interests of other people.

He then, in the next portion of our text, showed us that Jesus looked to our interests by sacrificing himself on the cross for our sins.

Now he's showing us that all people should worship and obey Jesus because God has exalted him to the highest place.

And so what we can therefore conclude is that it's in a person's best interest to submit to the Lordship and supremacy of Jesus Christ in their lives.

And the logic is actually pretty simple.

If that's what God wants all people to do, then we can conclude that's what's best for all people.

And so we don't have to ask what's in somebody's best interest, because Paul tells us that what's in the person's best interest is to worship and obey Jesus.

That's what God is calling all people everywhere to give their lives to.

But do you know what the best way to convince somebody that they should submit to and obey Jesus is?

It's to exalt Jesus as Lord in your own life.

It's to live in a way that shows people how important, how satisfying, and how precious He is to you.

Because truly loving people means doing whatever it takes to help them see and savor the glory of Jesus Christ.

Why?

Because he's the source of true and lasting joy.

And obedience to him is the only path to holistic well-being.

Now, one of my heroes is a guy named C.T.

Studd, partially because of his story and partially because of his name.

I mean, how could you not like a guy whose last name is Stud?

I would have loved to have that name when I was in like middle school and they were doing roll call at the beginning of the year, right?

Like, Smith, here, stud, that's me.

You know, so much better than my last name.

People are like, uh, Mr.

Could you spell that?

Could you say that for me?

Nashliness, okay, great.

Is that Lithuanian?

I don't know.

Could you please just move on, right?

So stud is an awesome name, but he's also got an awesome story.

And uh the interesting thing about CT Stud is that he was a 19th-century English cricket player turned missionary.

He actually played on the um English national team.

He captained that team and he played in one of the most epic games in all of history.

Um, and he gave that up.

The fortune and the fame of being a cricket player, to be a missionary to China.

He had a radical conversion in his early 20s and decided that the fame and the fortune that came with being a professional athlete did not compare with the glory of Jesus Christ.

So he quit uh cricket and at the height of his career and he joined what was considered the Cambridge Seven.

Seven elite university graduates who left their wealth and their prestige and their status behind to join Hudson Taylor in China.

And to make things even more interesting, when he was 25, Studd inherited a massive fortune that would have been comparable to millions of dollars by today's standards.

And yet he gave all of it away to missions and to mercy ministry.

Now, when he did that, he was publicly criticized for giving up a lucrative career to go overseas to share the gospel with foreigners.

And uh he defended himself in a poem that he wrote called Only One Life, where he captures the driving force behind the decision that he made.

And he says, This only one life, yes, only one.

Now let me say, Thy will be done.

And when at last I hear the call, I know I'll say, 'Twas worth it all.

Only one life, 'twill soon be past.

Only what's done for Christ will last.

Now we look at somebody like C.T.

Studd and we think to ourselves, man, that guy is crazy.

But if we really understand the gospel, we will, like one commentator says, see, that C.T.

Studd isn't crazy.

He's just doing simple math.

See, if Jesus really is as satisfying and supreme as he says he is, then no sacrifice is too great to show people how worthy he is of their love and their affection.

That's not crazy, that's loving.

Why?

Because we love people best when we exalt Jesus most.

Think about that for a moment.

If it's in a person's best interest to live their lives in worship and obedience to Jesus, then the most loving thing that you can possibly do is direct them to Jesus Christ as the source of their true and everlasting joy.

And the best way that you can point a person to Christ is to exalt Jesus as Lord in your own life.

But you don't have to be a missionary to do this.

We actually hope and pray that some of you would become missionaries.

We hope and pray that you would come to love and value Jesus Christ to the point where some of you would say, I'm leaving this life behind and I'm going to take the gospel to unreached peoples.

I'm going to take the gospel overseas.

I'm going to take the gospel to people who have no chance of hearing it apart from me.

But at the same time, you can live your life exalting Jesus wherever you're at and whatever you're doing in your everyday life right now.

See, if you're a kid, you can exalt Jesus by telling the truth and setting a good example for other people, even though it's a lot easier to do what you want to do.

If you're a student, you can exalt Jesus by doing your homework with integrity instead of having AI write your papers for you.

If you're married, you can exalt Jesus by speaking well of your spouse, even though you probably have lots of things that you might not want to speak well about.

You know, if you're single, you can exalt Jesus by honoring God with your body and refusing to date people who are going to lead you away from Christ, even though your options would be wide open if you were just willing to take anyone, regardless of their beliefs or their behavior.

If you're a manager or business owner, you can exalt Jesus by paying your employees well and treating them fairly, even if the industry standard is a lot lower.

If you're an employee, you can exalt Jesus by doing your work with excellence and creating work-life boundaries instead of just doing the bare minimum or becoming a slave on weekends because that's what everybody else in your office is doing.

See, it doesn't matter what situation or season you are in life, there's always an opportunity for us to exalt Jesus by recognizing and honoring Him and the things that we say.

And in the way that we live.

And if we really want to love people well, that's ultimately the kind of people that we need to be.

Because Christian love exalts Jesus.

In John chapter 13, verse 34, Jesus says to his disciples, just as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John 13:34

By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

So according to Jesus, the world will know that we follow him, not by our theology, not by our morality, not by our religiosity, not by the size of our church or the quality of our preaching or the strength of our kids' ministry program.

They'll know that we follow Jesus by our love.

But the question that we have to ask in our day is what kind of love will they know us by?

Will they know us by the self-centered, superficial love of the world?

Or will they know us by the self-sacrificing, Jesus-exalting love of Christ?

Based on what I've seen in our church so far, I'm convinced that it's the latter.

And I want you to be encouraged by that.

At the same time, I want us to take a fresh look at Jesus and see God's love poured out for us on the cross, that it might renew and strengthen our commitment to love one another.

Because as our church grows, we're going to need to be the kind of people who love like Jesus because we've been loved by Jesus.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for our time in Philippians chapter 2 and for this history-altering example of what love looks like.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Lord, we are so grateful for the way that you have demonstrated your love for us in Christ by sending him to the cross, where he preferred us, where he denied himself for us, and where he was ultimately exalted to the heavens for us.

Lord, we confess that we cannot even begin to fathom the depth of your love for us, and that our love for one another is often weak because our experience of your love is often shallow.

And we pray now, Lord, as we respond in communion and singing again, Lord, would you reawaken us to the love that you have for us in Christ?

Would you refresh us?

Would you renew us?

Would you strengthen us by pouring your love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit as we exalt Jesus together in the remainder of our gathering?

Lord, you help us as our church grows to be the kind of people who love like Jesus because we've been loved by Jesus.

Finally, Lord, I pray for my friends in the room this morning who may not yet have received the love of God for them in Christ.

Spirit, would you make the love of God clear to their minds and real to their hearts?

Would you give them an encounter with the exalted and risen Jesus right now that would permanently and completely transform who they are?

So as we worship you, Lord, in communion and song, may Jesus be exalted.

May your love be poured out, and may your spirit move among us again.

In Jesus' name, amen.