For Every[ONE] - Love like Jesus | Sunday Message

Welcome to the Do Life Different podcast by 1128 Community.

Today you're listening to our most recent message.

We are a church community in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, led by co-pastors Mike and Colleen Francisco.

1128 is about helping people do life different by setting rhythms and values with Jesus at the center.

If you want to connect with us, text the word podcast to 414-441-1128.

We hope today's message helps you in your faith journey.

Everybody get a breath mint on their way in?

Everybody got one?

Hey, who did not get a breath mint here this morning?

You didn't get one?

Who's got you got it?

Okay.

I knew I could count on my kid decked out in his bear's gear this morning.

Anybody else need a breath mint?

I just want to make sure we all got breath mints.

You know, we've got a a new kind of desire around here.

We want to make sure that everybody has fresh breath for Sunday morning service.

We want to see and smell everyone's fresh breath.

That's kind of our new mission, at least for today.

But honestly, we we're rolling out a new kind of mission as a church.

For the last several years, we've said we want to help people do life different.

And we're always then asked, hey, what does that mean?

Do life different?

And ultimately, what it means is we want to see people know God, live like Jesus, and love like Jesus.

And so we've clarified that a little bit, and you've probably seen that the last couple weeks.

And this series is called For Everyone, because we want to see everyone know God, live like Jesus, and love like Jesus.

Now, here's the thing: like if you're looking at these breath mints, there's a uh a one side for me, and there's a many side for everyone.

And so this morning, let's think about what it might look like if we were to open up the many side in our lives, not just with breath mints, but with life in general, and to share this with everyone.

Because the reality is the gospel is not just for me.

The gospel's not just for you, the gospel is for everyone.

All right, so so this is yep, yep, week number three of the series, and every week I've done the same thing.

So, like, give me like we've done it before, all right?

So the gospel's not just for me, gospel's not just for you, the gospel is for thank you.

There we go.

Like, I knew we could do it.

Now, do you believe that?

I heard one absolutely.

I saw a couple head shakes, and then I heard and and and felt a lot of like, oh, I can see where this is going already here this morning.

You see, when it comes to uh to the gospel, a lot of times we treat it like breath mints.

We're uh we're really good at first and excited about handing them out and saying, like, hey, you get a mint and you get a mint and you get them in.

But at some point, then we're like, oh, there's only a few left in here.

I'm just gonna keep these to myself.

We hoard our breath mints, we we put them in our purse or our satchel or our fanny pack or our cross carry.

What is this thing called?

The cross carry bag, you know, whatever it is.

You we we keep them to ourselves at some point because we're like, ah, this is just really better if it's for me, because I don't know when I might need this.

I don't know when I'm gonna have coffee breath real bad and I'm gonna need to pop a mint.

And so I don't know that I really want to be given this away.

And sometimes we do that with our faith.

We're like, man, I I'd love to be able to give this away, but I also don't know like when am I gonna need this?

When am I gonna need to rely on this?

And I can't be giving it away.

I need to be building myself up and and taking care of my own thing.

And so we get to this point where like it's easy to say that the gospel is for everyone.

Everyone, but the reality is a lot of times we don't live like that's actually true.

We don't believe it in our minds uh fully, and we get stuck in this place of just kind of living our lives as individuals, having our own personal relationship with Jesus and feeling good about that.

But that's not what the gospel asks of us.

The gospel asks us to love people because we have become loved people.

The gospel requires us to love others because God first loved us.

And so that's the tension that we face here this morning.

It's the tension that Jesus didn't just come to tell us God loves us.

He didn't come to just say, like, hey, God loves you, and God loves you.

No, he came to teach us how to love, to show us what love is when it's lived out.

And so then as we dig into the scriptures and we start to understand, well, what does this love lived out look like?

Paul gives us a great kind of starting point in Ephesians chapter 4 when he's talking about this transformation that we're experiencing.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And he and he says here, throw off your old sinful nature, your former way of life, and instead let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.

In other words, take off, like rip it off, get it away, put it off.

The NIV, I believe, says, put it off, put off who you once were, and put on this new covering, this new Jesus that's loved you, forgiven you, and accepted you.

Put off who you once were and put on this new nature.

Let go of your sinful old self and put on this self that's being transformed, changed, and made to be holy and righteous by the one who's loved you.

Put off who you were and put on who God wants you to become.

And that's what we talked about last week.

When we said, okay, like what does it actually mean to live like Jesus?

It means that we're going to put off our old selves and we're going to put on this new nature that God has for us.

And that's what it means to live like Jesus.

We're going to surrender, we're going to become obedient to God in our life, and we're going to make him the leader of our lives.

But remember, Jesus doesn't want to just teach you how to live, he wants to show you how to live, he wants to transform you and change you.

And here's what I've discovered.

I can't live like Jesus.

If we're thinking back to what we talked about last week, I can't live like Jesus without allowing myself to be changed by him.

If I'm unopened to being changed by Jesus, I'm not going to be able to live like Jesus.

You can't consistently love like Jesus without allowing Jesus to change you as well.

So the theme is this idea of like living like Jesus and now loving like Jesus this week is that we need to be changed.

We need to be transformed.

And if we're unwilling and maybe even a little bit uncomfortable with saying, Jesus, I surrender, it's going to be hard to live like Jesus and love like Jesus.

Paul gives us four pictures, I'll say, practical pictures of what this love looks like and how we can start to be changed and transformed and how we can start to love like Jesus.

The first one, he says, uh put off put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor.

That's from Ephesians 4.25.

Basically, what he's saying is, love tells the truth.

Everyone who loves like Jesus tells the truth.

They're not pretending, they're not gossiping behind someone's back, they're not using honesty as an excuse to be cruel.

Anybody ever experienced that?

The person's like, I just want to be completely honest with you, and then they they do it in just such a way that's so mean and hurtful and harmful.

If you've had that experience, like that's not loving like Jesus.

Loving like Jesus is being honest, but it's not doing it in a way that's cruel or harmful.

Loving like Jesus is telling people the truth.

Love tells the truth because we want, and love wants the best for our friends, our families, our neighbors, our coworkers, the people that are in our lives.

And sometimes I think it's so easy to go up to a person that we don't know and just be like, hey, I'm gonna be completely honest with you and tell you all the things you're doing wrong that I've witnessed in this little time together.

And like, that's not how we tell the truth.

Love and truth telling happens in relationship, it happens through getting to know each other, having close proximity, developing a rapport with one another, and allowing God to use that to be able to speak truth into somebody's life in a loving, humble, Christ-centered way.

The first thing is that we put off falsehood and we speak truthfully to our neighbors.

The second thing Paul kind of gives us a picture of is that if we're gonna love differently, if we're gonna love like Jesus, then we have to deal with anger differently.

He says this He says, Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.

Any married couples ever heard this verse before?

Right?

Like that's like the verse.

It's like, hey, if you and your spouse are having a fight and and you're getting close to bedtime, uh, like resolve it before you go to bed.

Like, don't go to bed angry.

That's a lot of people say that.

And it's good advice.

Uh and I I don't take anything away from it, but this is it applies more to more than just couples.

It applies anywhere.

And Paul doesn't say, like, you're not going to be angry, you're not going to ever get angry.

Like, if you know Jesus, you're not going to get angry.

No, he doesn't say that.

He he says maybe you might even get angry.

But anger and it doesn't have to become your identity.

Anger doesn't have to become what you're known for.

We don't have to be known as the angry guy that's just always pointing out what's wrong with the world, with people, with those around us.

We don't have to be the angry guy that's just upset all the time.

You can just tell when when we walk into a space, like, man, there's something going on there, like something in their heart.

Like what happens is as we know Jesus more and as we start to live like Jesus and are transformed by Jesus, the anger within us starts to melt away.

It doesn't mean we won't get angry, but we deal with it differently.

Now here's the thing, and maybe this speaks to you this morning.

Some of us here today are struggling with anger because we are carrying something that somebody did to us.

We've been carrying it for a long, long time.

Or maybe we've experienced something.

Maybe nobody even did anything.

Maybe it was just something that we experienced that hurt really, really bad, and we're angry at somebody else.

We're angry at God, we're we're angry at the world.

You don't have to minimize the hurt.

You don't have to say, like, I'm just not going to be angry about it anymore.

You don't have to pretend it didn't happen, but you can refuse in dealing with anger differently because you're learning to love like Jesus.

You can refuse to let the bitterness control who you are and how you interact with others.

You can say, I'm not going to allow this bitterness, this anger to control how I live and how I love others.

Love deals with anger differently.

And so if we're going to love like Jesus, we're going to have to be changed and we're going to have to allow God to work in us so that we can deal with anger differently ourselves.

A third picture that Paul paints for us in Ephesians chapter 4 is he says, love uses words to build people up.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And this is a verse you might have heard before as well.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up.

Every room that you walk into, every space that you show your face in, every online Facebook community group that you have the ability to type a message into, right?

Like we're going beyond just like the physical, we're going into the digital.

With the words and the things that you say and the way that you speak.

At home, you have an opportunity at home to add life or to take away life.

At work, you have an opportunity to add life, to be somebody that brings energy and excitement, or you can be the guy that kills it all, or gal, I guess, guys and girls, we can both bring life or take life.

Online, you have the ability, and it's a lot easier, I find, from watching interactions of those that are online to take away life.

It's interesting.

This week I posted in the Oak Creek community page and some others a picture of the traffic signal outside here because it's kind of a safety hazard.

It's a crosswalk, it's a double red light.

You're not supposed to go through when kids are in the crosswalk.

And so I just I posted like a safety notification and said, like, hey, uh pay extra close attention.

School's getting back to starting, and just be aware.

Don't be the person that hits a kid in the crosswalk.

And you know what happened?

I got a whole bunch of people that were like, yes, thank you for sharing.

That's so safe.

I heard a whole bunch of stories of things that have happened at this crosswalk or others in the area.

And then there were like the five or six trolls that, you know, they just had nothing good to say, and it was just like, man, this is a safety, like public service announcement.

And and you're over here saying like everybody just runs red lights all the time nowadays, and hopefully they see your post and and that they're changed because they see this like real buzzkill.

It's a safety announcement about kids, and instead of like jumping on and being encouraging and saying, Yeah, yeah, let's care about kids crossing the street or just people in general crossing the street, it was a complete opposite.

When we step into any space, we have the opportunity to add life or take life.

Our words, they hold weight.

And so when we start to love like Jesus, our love uses different words, it uses different language, it adds life to the conversation, it adds life to the people we're interacting with.

It doesn't tear them down, it doesn't belittle them.

Paul continues in chapter four of Ephesians, and he says, When you love like Jesus, you learn how to forgive.

You learn how to forgive.

He says, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.

We forgive because we have been forgiven.

When we love like Jesus, we are able to forgive things that at one point in our lives might have felt like I don't know that I can forgive that person for that.

But now because we're loving like Jesus and Jesus has first loved us and Jesus has forgiven us, we can understand that forgiveness it conveys not just that we forgive them, but it conveys that we are forgiven and that they are forgiven as well.

And this is the gospel.

This is the good news.

The good news is like I am forgiven, and I want to convey that.

I want to forgive as well because of that.

God's love for me, it changes me.

And I want God's love to change you as well.

God's love changed me so much that it changes how I forgive you, how I love you.

That's what God wants for everyone.

That's what he wants.

He wants us to be able to love like him.

He wants the good news to be expressed, not just to me, not just to you, but to everyone.

He wants this good news, the forgiveness, the love.

He wants us to be able to use our words to build up.

He wants us to be honest and truthful, not just with ourselves or with those close to us, but with everyone.

That's that's kind of the mission.

And don't miss this.

Like, love isn't like primarily something that you feel.

Love is actually something that you can do.

And here's the hard part, though.

Like, if I only love people that are easy to love, that are comfortable for me to love, that are convenient for me to love, the people that agree with me most are super easy to love.

The the friends, my best friends, it's easy to love them.

Even when they root for different sports teams, I can still root for them.

When I love those people, I'm not really being challenged or changed to love like Jesus.

But when I'm willing to step outside my comfort zone, when I'm willing to love somebody that's got a different way of thinking than me, or different preferences, or whatever.

Maybe they even root for a different NFL team.

When I allow myself to love somebody that's different than me, that's when I start learning what it means to love like Jesus.

Because loving like Jesus is a way of life.

Loving like Jesus is a way of life that moves us towards people.

Loving like Jesus doesn't cause us to pull back and sit in our own little kind of bunker and say, like, I like all those people, but I'm not gonna love them.

No, loving like Jesus means that we're moving towards people.

We're getting in proximity with people.

Loving like Jesus causes us to get closer and closer to others to a point where it does maybe feel uncomfortable, awkward, or inconvenient.

And because my love moves me towards people, because the love that God has shown me caused him to move here into our neighborhood and to love us well, it causes me to move closer to others.

And because of that, I have to remember what Paul writes.

In the next chapter in chapter five, he says, make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.

Make the most of every opportunity, the love that you're starting to live out, the love of Jesus that you're starting to live out.

It's causing you to move closer to people, and you've got to make the most of that opportunity.

In other words, he's saying, like, hey, look around.

Look around, look at look at what's going on around you.

Pay attention.

There are people, God's saying, there are people in your life right now that you can love well.

There are people in your life right now that God says, I want you to love them.

You know who they are.

They're the the person that you've been like, hey, I like to know they're there.

I like to see them across the room, but like we're just too different.

I don't know that I could have a meaningful conversation with them.

They're the person that that you work with, and maybe you're the boss, and you're Like I like to keep that relationship like boss and employee.

Maybe they're the neighbor that cuts one swipe too far into your yard.

And you're like, man, I just it's hard for me to love them.

Maybe it's the classmate.

Maybe it's the classmate that's just constantly driving you nuts.

Maybe it's the parent that's just overbearing at times.

Maybe it's the son or the daughter that just won't listen, no matter how many times you say something, you're like, man, I just wish that they would listen.

And it's hard for me to love them right now in this moment.

But the love of Jesus, it compels us to love them differently.

It compels us to love people differently.

These people in your life that you're imagining and you're picturing in your mind right now, that the people that you know, like, man, I could do a better job loving them.

That's your one.

It's not everyone.

Like, you don't necessarily have to love everyone in this sense, right?

Like, but but God's given you a one.

One person in the whole world.

Like He's given you one person to love well.

That's your person.

That's who God is inviting you this morning to love better.

To love like Jesus loved you.

The people you work with, the people you live next to, the people at school, the people in your family, the people on your team, that one person at Pick and Save that you keep randomly seeing every time you go, and it's like, hey, maybe I'm just supposed to love them and befriend them.

God's given you an opportunity with them, whether you realize it or not.

And Paul says, make the most of every opportunity.

Maybe that person, maybe your one, doesn't need you to sit there right now and and to have a Christian conversation with them.

Maybe what they need right now is for you to love them differently, to say, hey, I can tell something's going on in your life.

I just want to listen.

Share with me what's going on.

Hey, I want you to experience forgiveness, and and I've been holding something against you.

Can I can I just let you know I forgive you?

Maybe they need a coffee.

Everybody could use a coffee at some point in life, but but maybe like right now they just need somebody to say, like, hey, let's grab a coffee.

Let's grab a lunch.

Let's go for a walk by the lake.

Let's hang out.

Maybe they need somebody to serve them.

Maybe they need a meal.

Maybe they need some help with chores around the house.

I don't know what it is that this person that you're seeing in your head right now needs from you.

But I know that Paul says, make the most of every opportunity.

And if God's put a person in your mind, a person for you to love, he'll give you the ways to love them as well.

And so my encouragement for you is to start praying, Jesus, help me to love well.

Help me to love Jack well.

Help me to love Sue well.

Tim.

Shannon.

Maybe it's a Bruce or a Karen.

Could you imagine what it would look like for us to love Karen?

Karen needs love too.

And so the real question this morning is like, who is, who's the one?

Who's the person that God is putting in your mind right now here this morning that you're supposed to love differently?

Remember the mints?

Everybody still got fresh breath?

If you got the mints, just give them a little shake.

Here's the thing.

I I gave out like eight of these things to our first impressions team this morning.

Give a round of applause for them.

You know, the the cool thing is they all knew something was up because all morning I had my kids, like when they're getting here at like 9 a.m.

like walking around being like, hey, you want a mint?

You want a mint?

By the time we got to 9 30, they're all like, what's up with the mint?

They were a little bit annoyed by it, but then I told them, like, well, you got a mint, and now you get to share a mint.

And I said, like, you want to make sure that everybody walking through the doors here this morning is offered a mint.

Not just once, not just twice, like, we're gonna bother them eight, nine, ten, fifteen times.

Anybody get a mint offered like 15 times of them?

Sorry, that was probably my kid.

I apologize.

But he said, yeah.

He was like, yeah, that was me.

You know what?

You know what?

The excitement they had about being able to open up an icebreaker's, which apparently comes in eight packs on Amazon.

They they had so much excitement about opening this up and sharing it with you all.

Rose was standing there just like giggling.

She was so excited to be able to offer mints.

Sean, she was just like, Yeah, this is, I don't know what's going on, but this is fun.

Casey was like, I'm just gonna give somebody my whole wand.

I think she gave it to Julia, right?

Isn't that Niji?

You got it?

Yeah.

Everybody was so happy to share their mints.

To love you well this morning.

This is how we should treat the gospel.

We shouldn't hoard it with the one one at a time.

We should have it open to the many.

We should be excited to share what we have.

The love of God, the forgiveness of God.

We should be excited to share that and to just be always offering people.

Saying, hey, can I offer you this?

I want you to know something.

I want you to do life different.

Man, could you imagine how much different the world would be if those of us that called ourselves Christians treated the world like we were offering them breathments, but we're sharing the gospel that way instead.

Imagine that person in your head here again this morning.

One last time.

Close your eyes.

Imagine that person in your head.

You got a picture of who it is.

Imagine what it would look like for you this afternoon to send them a text message just saying, like, hey, I'm praying for you.

Maybe that feels a little bit risky, and maybe it's just a, hey, hope you're having a great weekend.

Imagine what that might do in their life.

Imagine the conversations that might be sparked because you said, Yes, I'm gonna do this little thing.

Imagine if you do start praying for them day after day, and you're like, hey, I'm just gonna pray for my one, that person that's in my mind, the one person that God has uniquely positioned me to reach.

Jesus, help me love the person the way that you have loved me.

Jesus, help me to love well.

Jesus, give me the ways to love.

Do you want me to forgive them?

Do you want me to take them to a coffee?

Do you want me to listen, to serve?

Do you want me, Jesus, to tell them something really crazy?

Like the good news of the gospel?

Do you want me to invite them to church?

Jesus, what do you want me to do with this person?

And if you keep praying those prayers, asking those questions, eventually, eventually I believe that you will have the opportunity to share with them who Jesus is, how much he loves them.

And that's what it's all about.

Loving like Jesus because he first loved us.

It's about going into the world, taking with us this good news, and helping our one, the person in our mind right now, become a disciple of the one who saves.

That's Matthew 28.

Where it says, Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

It would be so exciting over the next year if those of us in this space here this morning were able to baptize the people in our minds because we have made the most of the opportunities God has given us today, tomorrow, and the days ahead.

The gospel's not just for you.

The gospel's for everyone.

Who's the gospel for?

It's for everyone.

So therefore, the love of Jesus, it means it was never meant to stop with you.

It's meant to flow through you.

The love of Jesus was never meant to stop with you.

So as we leave this place this morning, would we be on mission to help people do life different?

And ultimately what that means is we want to see everyone, the ones that we're imagining and thinking of up here in our heads, we want to see them know God, live like Jesus, and love like Jesus.

And we all play a part in helping that come to fruition.

Would you pray with me?

God, thank you so much for the people you have positioned us to minister to.

And God, some of us don't feel like we're qualified to minister, some of us don't feel like we have the right words to minister, some of us don't feel like we have enough love in us to even love somebody well that might be easy to love.

But God, we know because of you, we can do this.

We do not go on our own, we go with you.

That you give us the grace, you give us the forgiveness, you give us the love, you give us the words, you give us the abilities to serve and to share.

And so, God, would you allow us the freedom this week, the boldness this week to reach out in love to the people you have put on our minds this morning?

Would that begin a conversation?

Would that begin an invitation?

Would that begin them saying yes, maybe to join in at church, or yes to a Bible study at work, or yes to a follow-up conversation?

Would that begin something?

And God, our prayer as a church is that over the next year, those ones, the people that you've put in our minds here today, one after another, might say yes to being baptized, to say yes to confessing like Jesus is the leader and Lord of my life, and I am nothing without him.

But he has saved me.

And for that I'm forever grateful.

Would today, God, be the start of something new and something fresh.

You lead the way, we will follow.

Help us make the most of every opportunity.

We pray this in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to today's message.

We hope you had a meaningful moment with Jesus.

You can join us on Sundays at Oak Creek High School at 10 a.m.

for our in person gatherings.

Hope to see you soon.