One Another Week 1: Love One Another

Welcome to the Generations Church podcast. We're so glad you've chosen to join us today.

Whether you're listening on your way to work, at home, or wherever you are,

our prayer is that this message would encourage your heart, strengthen your

faith, and help you take your next step with Jesus.

At Generations Church, we exist to help people know God, grow in Christ, and live on mission.

As you listen today, we invite you to open your heart, lean into what God may be doing.

Have you ever noticed? I know it's not just me, but this has happened to me,

but sometimes you can be seated in a crowded restaurant.

You can walk through a busy mall back in the day or a busy store, Walmart, whatever.

You can go to an Iowa Hawkeye game, preferably not one like yesterday,

but you can go and you can be surrounded with 70,000 screaming fans,

all dressed in God's colors, black and gold.

And you can absolutely feel alone.

You can even attend a large church and feel alone.

You can even attend a church plant like ours, who's just a baby,

just a few years old, and we're trying to grow.

And we want you to invite people. We have this invite station by the doors,

grab them by the hands full and invite invite, invite,

invite, because we want people to discover that God wants to be in relationship

with them, that he's got a great plan for their lives, that he offers so much

more for them when we do life with him.

But even in a room this size with just a few people, 30 or 40 people,

you can end up coming in here and leaving and feeling absolutely alone.

What I'm going to say over the next 30 minutes is out of love because I love you guys.

And what the Lord has put on our hearts, what he has put on my heart this morning,

the scripture passage, I hope you know, I want to say this beforehand.

It's like, before I step on any toes, I need you to know this is from the word of God.

And it's coming from a heart that absolutely loves you dearly and wants God's

best for you in your life. Can we agree upon that at least?

Amen? All right.

It's one of the strange things about our time, loneliness. We're like the most

connected group of people in society ever.

You can sit and literally on your phone can text someone on the other side of

the world and they'll get it almost instantaneously.

You can be on a video call. We have friends in Sioux City and their son is a

missionary and they can FaceTime with him in Papua New Guinea in a hut. It's incredible.

We've never been more connected in a time in the world's history.

And yet I think most people feel more alone and disconnected than ever before.

There's a distance that's crept into the church and into our culture.

I hesitated on whether or not I was going to share this with you,

but I think it needs to be used. And I think you need to know the spiritual

temperature, if you will, sometimes of where we're at.

Thank you, by the way, for all your prayers last week. I ran a half marathon and didn't die.

Someone posted on social media, missed you today. We thought you died. No, I just was running.

Running is, you know, all in, well, I was not walking.

I was running, but I did my half marathon and I finished it and I got a medal

and, you know, it was incredible, a great experience, but I was dealing with

some back pain when I was running.

And then all week I was kind of dealing with some back pain.

And then there was a bunch of things that were going on this week where I was

battling some discouragement, honestly, just being real. I wouldn't want to

be anything else with you.

I was discouraged. And I came into the church one day this week,

and there was an envelope taped to the door.

And usually when there's an envelope taped to the door...

Chances are it's 50-50. It's either a card of encouragement or a check.

So I grabbed it off the door and I was like, Lord, you know, I'm discouraged.

I'm going to thank you ahead of time for this letter or this check or whatever

it is. And I just, God, I really did.

I said, Lord, would you just encourage me in this moment that I'm down?

I opened the envelope and inside is this piece of paper.

And as I read the first sentence, it struck me like a dagger to my heart.

I'm not going to read it all, but here's what it says.

Jeff, I'm leaving generations.

The sermons are good, but I have no friends, all capital heist. I have no friends.

I have no fellowship. I have no support. Rarely does anybody speak to me.

Occasionally, a HIGH. And then they said, this is, again, all caps,

this is not the way a church should be according to the Bible.

I agree. They went on, you've talked about the importance of small groups. Where are they?

I hope the church grows and even survives.

How is it possible in a church our size, again, among friends today,

how is it possible that someone can come every week and feel that way?

We failed them. And guess what? We failed others.

Why is it that church is everywhere? This is not just a generations church problem.

This is a local church body of Christ problem.

Them. If you talk to any pastor, you're going to talk to them and you're going

to find out that we all fail in areas and we fail in loving people.

When we planted three years ago, we said we did not want to be a church of cliques

where we're all huddled together and someone walks in and all they see is a bunch of butts.

We want to be friendly. We want people to feel welcomed. We want them to feel

like they're part of the family.

The number one frustration of pastors, including me, is the lack of love between the sheep,

the infighting, the complaints, the texts, the calls, people not wanting to

be in groups together. Well, I don't like that person.

Get over it. They may not like you.

That person's weird. Have you looked in the mirror lately?

We're all different. We're all unique. We're all created in God's image.

We're all different, but we also all bring something unique to the table.

We all bring a different perspective, and we need each other.

We're imperfect as a family, no doubt, but we're a family all with different backgrounds,

different preferences, different stories, different testimonies,

different upbringings with different types of church.

Some grew up Catholic. Some grew up RCA.

Some grew up Lutheran. Some grew up Presbyterian or Assembly of God or Holiness

or Pentecostal, Baptist.

But we're all coming together for the big things that we believe about so that

we can rescue people and we can be ambassadors for Jesus Christ and build his kingdom. Amen?

So why is it that we struggle so often? And today we're beginning just a four-week

series on the one another's.

Someone texted me back this week and said, what is that? I said,

you should come find out.

There are some commands in scripture, commandments in scripture that talk about

the one another's. And so today we're starting off with love one another.

If you have your Bible with you this morning, and I really want to encourage

you to always bring your Bible with you.

If you don't have one, we have some in the back you can grab for free.

We'll also have it on the screen behind you, but let's read this together.

Jesus is talking in John 13.

We're only going to walk through two verses today. Two verses, that's it.

But I promise you, there is a lot to eat from in this word and this bread.

Jesus said this, I give you a new command. We're going to talk about that.

How is this a new command?

Isn't love everywhere in the Bible? He said, love one another just as I have

loved you. You are also to love one another.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Let's pray.

Father, speak through your word. Holy Spirit, illuminate our eyes so that we

can see, touch our ears so that we can hear you.

We want to be obedient to you and to your word this morning.

We ask it in your name. Amen. So over the next few minutes, we're simply going

to pull out some points, three points, three teaching points from these two verses.

And before we walk through these verses, I want to just give you the big idea, if you will.

The big idea of this short passage, here it is, is that Jesus gives his followers

a new command to love one another with the same sacrificial,

humble, self-giving love he has shown,

them. Oh, is that all?

You mean just be like Jesus? And that love becomes the clear mark of true discipleship.

When I was in Bible college, I took an upper-class level on inductive Bible study. Very fun.

One of my assignments was to sentence diagram.

You remember sentence diagramming from middle school, maybe high school,

where you had to write on the paper and the subject, noun, verb,

and the objects, and then you'd do little lines with preparational phrases,

and then you'd have to do little dotted lines.

I had to do that for the whole book of 3rd John in college.

Talk about good times.

And so if I were giving you some free advice, if that taught me anything, it was this.

When you're reading scripture, slow down.

Slow down. I'd rather you read one verse and meditate on it and just try to

get a grasp on it than try to, hey, I read five chapters.

Awesome. What'd you get out of it? I don't know. I remember Jesus was in it.

So our passage today starts out with this sentence.

It says, I give you a new command. And as simple as this is,

who is the I that's talking here?

Jesus, God. So when we read this command that we are to love one another,

this isn't just Pastor Jeff saying, we're supposed to love one another and get

along. No, this is the creator of the universe.

The very one who spoke everything into existence, God Almighty,

who holds everything together, is saying,

I am giving you and you and you and you, I'm giving you this new commandment.

It sounds so simple, one letter, right?

But it changes everything. It changes, it puts the authority of Almighty God

on the command, rather than this is not just a simple thing that churches are

supposed to say, you know, love one another.

No, this is God saying to you, love one another.

Number one, the command comes with Christ's authority.

This command that we're reading comes with the authority of Almighty God.

And that matters because commands only carry as much weight as the authority

of the one who is giving them.

If a stranger tells you to do something, you might ignore him.

But if a police officer comes and tells you to do something,

He carries the authority of the government And so you're going to listen to

him a lot more than you would just Joe Schmo off the street You know,

you're going to listen to him Why?

Because he has the authority over us,

And so the very creator is speaking this to us.

That means that the church doesn't get to edit it or soften it or ignore it either.

Number two, the command has a new standard. We're going to see that in just

a minute, what that new standard is. But let me ask you a question.

Is Jesus introducing a new thing in love? Like, God.

Is that just, I've heard people say, well, the New Testament is loving,

but God in the Old Testament killed people and God did this and God did this.

My Bible says that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The character of God is not more loving today than he was in the garden.

The command to love is not new. The Old Testament clearly teaches us that we

are to love God, that we're to love families, that we're to even love our enemies.

Leviticus 19, 18.

There's a chunk of passage you can enjoy for a year or two. It says this,

do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community,

but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

That's a command, right? And that's got God's authority. He's saying, I am the Lord.

I'm God. This is God. The Father is saying, you know, you're supposed to love

one another as yourself.

It's actually where the golden rule, you ever heard of the golden rule?

Treat somebody as you'd want to be treated. That's the golden rule.

It comes from that verse, Leviticus 19, 18.

And all throughout the Old Testament, we see that we are to love our enemies,

to do good to those who offend us, that we're to pursue love with everyone at all costs.

So how in the world does Jesus come in here today in this passage and give us a new commandment?

The command is new because Jesus gives something greater than the old standard.

The old standard was a real command from God, and it still matters.

But Jesus says something here, and he takes it to a whole nother level.

He says, now you're loving, not because you'd want to be treated that way based on yourself.

He's saying you're loving because I have loved you.

There's a whole nother standard to the way we love now.

It's not a small adjustment. The difference is, you know, the old commandment

is love your neighbor as yourself. The new commandment is love one another as I have loved you.

The Old Testament was based on loving your neighbor as you wanted to be loved.

The old standard is rooted in self-awareness and self-preservation.

It really said you already care about your own needs, your own comfort, your own safety.

So now extend those things that you desire in your life to everyone else.

If you wouldn't want to be cheated, don't cheat. If you wouldn't want to be

ignored, don't ignore others. If you don't want to be hurt, then you shouldn't hurt people.

And that's good. And that's all true. And it's all biblical.

But now Jesus says, you know what? I've got a higher standard than just your

own selfish desire that you want to be treated a certain way.

The new commandment is love as Jesus has loved you.

And so Jesus changes the measuring stick. He says, love just as I've loved you.

So the standard is not self-love. The standard is now Christ's love.

So if we want to know how we're supposed to love one another,

then we have to look at his standard on how he loved his disciples, how he loves us.

If he's the standard, he loved them humbly, right?

By washing their feet. He loved them patiently, despite their slow understanding.

Jesus has so much patience with us.

God, I don't understand why you're doing this in my life.

Yet he loves us and he's patient with us. He loved them sacrificially.

He loves us sacrificially, knowing he was headed to the cross.

He loved them faithfully, even though one would betray him and another would completely deny him.

That's why the command is new. Jesus is not simply telling his disciples to treat people well.

He calls them into the kind of love That's going to mirror his own love that

he has For the world And for his people And that's a challenge for us.

It's a challenge. Imagine two people helping a neighbor move.

So under the old standard, one might say, I want to help you.

So I'll give you a few hours. I've got two or three hours. I could help you.

That's neighborly love, right? Like I'd appreciate some help for a couple hours.

But the love of Christ says, I'll stay until the work's done.

Even if I'm tired, even if my schedule's busy, even if no one thanks me,

even if it costs me my Saturday,

even if it costs me a Wednesday night or a Thursday or a Sunday morning,

that's the kind of sacrificial love that we're called to have.

And it's not just treating people the way we want to be treated.

It's showing them the way Jesus has loved us.

Number three, the command results in evidence of discipleship.

In other words, when we live in obedience to his command, it results in evidence

that we are his, that we are his disciples, that we are his children,

that we're his kids, that we're his family.

Jesus said, by this, by you loving one another in the way that I have loved

you, that's going to show the world that you're different.

That is going to be the evidence that you are truly saved, that you are truly my disciples.

If you love one another like I love you, he's telling them how they'll be recognized by the world.

And that should make us pause for a moment because a lot of us have learned,

to measure our spiritual lives by other things.

We measure by how many times we go to church, how many times we give in the

offering plate, how many times we've served, what we've done here.

And we tend to think that if we're doing these things, then we're going to be

evidence to the fact that we are Christians and that we're his kids and that

we really are disciples of Jesus.

But Jesus is saying, those things are good. And James says, we do those things,

those works, not to attain to something. We do them because of something.

We work in our faith and in our life and in our relationships and in serving

and volunteering because of what Jesus has done in us because of the way he's loved us.

I work because of what he did for me on the cross.

Jesus is saying it's by your love for one another that we reflect his glory,

and that will show a lost world that you and I are his.

And the church becomes recognizable as the people of Jesus when us loving people,

loving others in here and loving others outside.

Becomes visible to the world.

It means love isn't just a vague feeling in our heads.

It shapes everything we do in the body of Christ. It shapes why we do it.

If our love is the evidence, then the way we treat one another is part of our witness, guys.

We live in a culture that has absolutely trained us to be consumers.

Everything is marketing, market-driven, and social media ads and posts and get this.

And we learn that we are supposed to, according to the culture,

we're supposed to come to church and we're supposed to consume.

And so we shop for these churches and we look for a church where I can consume

the greatest kids ministry and the greatest men's ministry or greatest women's

ministry or greatest this ministry or they outdo everyone in this.

And man, we're not a consumer driven church.

When you have 40 people that come on a Sunday morning, it's all hands on deck.

And we need all hands on deck right now.

And this has nothing to do with my sermon and I don't know why I'm going there

other than we have to love people.

We have to do this together. We need everyone on board.

It's our goal as a church and as your pastor to be able to have those consumer things.

And one day I believe we will, but we have to grow And it starts right here

with this one another series that we have to love one another because we're

not going to grow if we don't get this core value, right?

We've got to be loving one another. We've got to be okay.

Being vulnerable.

I meet with a group of guys on Thursdays at 4 p.m. and we consume coffee.

And it's wonderful, not just because of the coffee, but what's wonderful about

it is it is complete and utter vulnerability.

I tell stories about Jen and the kids. They're all good. All good.

Man, they think you're perfect.

I tell them that I tried to intervene.

She was having a conversation, loudly, with one of our children,

and I wanted to be the best husband possible, and I wanted to come down and be like, I got you.

Listen here, I'm your father.

It didn't go over so well.

In many ways, but we have this vulnerability. That's the kind of love Jesus is calling us into.

We know, guys, be honest. A lot of us are struggling right now.

I know some of you are unemployed. Some of you are having relational issues.

Some of you are having physical issues.

We can't help each other out if we don't ask for help.

Asking in our society is like, oh, they're the lowly and I'm going to have pity.

No, we need help on this journey of life. We're called to assist,

man. When I'm down, I need a brother helping me up.

When you're down, you need a sister helping you up and taking you to the mall

or going out to eat or doing lady things together and encouragement.

We need one another, but it starts when we love those who are different than

us, who think differently, who look differently, who act differently,

because we love with the love that we received.

I can't love all y'all on my own willpower.

I ain't that good.

I need Jesus to love through me in every area of my life.

Number three, if I didn't say it, the command results in evidence of discipleship.

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

I say this a lot. When we planted, when we planted, when we planted, when we planted.

So I'll go a different route. When we started Generations Church,

we wanted to, we literally said this all the time, we don't want to sit, soak, and sour.

We don't just want butts in a pew. We want to be the hands and the feet of Jesus.

We want to go to where the needs are.

And we started serving people and loving people. And some of you were there,

have been with us since the beginning.

Do you remember how good it felt when you were loving people, right?

I often tell this story. Before we even opened the doors and had our first service,

we had a meal and people would come and we'd tell them, hey,

we're planting a church and this is what we believe God's calling us to do.

And there was a single mom with a baby that came and we took her home and Jen calls me and says, hey,

I just dropped off this lady and I carried the car seat in and they didn't have

any furniture. they sleep on the floor.

Can we buy them some stuff?

I'm like, absolutely. I left Pizza Ranch where we were doing the launch meeting at.

I went to Walmart and I got an air mattress and I got pillows and sheets.

And, and the baby was like, I guess it wasn't a baby. It was like a toddler too, maybe.

And I got little matchbox cars and bath toys. And, you know,

we, we just loved on And I'm in Jen was blowing up the mattress and making the

bed and talking with that lady.

And I'm, you know, I bought a matchbox car, you know, Hot Wheels track and I

put it together and I'm laying, I'm just.

Off the mic. I'm just laying there with this little kid. Loops.

Those are the coolest ones.

He's laughing. Mom's crying. And I sense the Lord say this.

You're never more like me than when you're loving on people.

I'll take that part out of the podcast. The groaning.

You're never more like Jesus than when you're loving on people.

So my challenge to you is not, I'm not whacking you over the head.

I'm not your school teacher with the ruler slapping your hand.

Give me your hands. I'm not sending you to the corner.

I'm saying, guys, there have been incredible moments on this journey over the

last three and a half years where you guys, man, I couldn't be prouder of the

way you've loved people.

But we do our free community meal on one Wednesday, the third Wednesday of the month.

Couldn't be prouder. It's incredible.

We've done, how many times have we delivered mattresses to people?

You know, there's snow on the ground and Adam's driving a truck and trailer

and we're hauling mattresses out to people we don't know and asking them,

you know, we'll put it together.

Can we pray for you? dude. We're not doing it so that they'll come to Generations Church.

We're doing it so that when we love them, they see the love of Jesus in us,

because we want to point people to Jesus.

You guys, Rena and John were here before I was this morning.

They were here at like six-something, five-something, I don't know.

And they got tables out here, and Gee and Paulette were here,

and they're cooking and Bob's here early because he just likes to get up before

Jesus. And like, you guys serve well.

You guys love well.

You're especially good at loving outsiders.

We're a team. We're a family. Your brother or sister might stink. Might be cross-eyed.

I don't know Look around Y'all are pretty bunch,

We've got to love one another with the love of Jesus if people are going to

know that we are his disciples. Amen?

Amen. Let's pray.

Lord, we love you. You've called us to be your ambassadors, and you've called us to do this.

And, man, I'm so proud of each person in here. They love so well.

They're so selfless.

They sacrifice early mornings and late nights there's people that are in the

nursery right now there's,

kids program going on and they're doing it like a full service they're doing kids worship they're,

doing crafts and they're doing everything a larger church would do.

They sacrifice all the time because they want kids to know you, to love you.

But yet I know there are those who come in here and although there's people, they still feel alone.

And it breaks your heart.

And it breaks mine.

Lord, I pray that we would be sensitive to your spirit That we would love That

we would leave the 99 And we would go to that one on the other side of the room That,

oh, I've not had good interactions with that person before Get over it There's too much at stake,

Lord, I pray that you would give us An incredible love for one another And the

more that we love one another the more the world will see and the world will

want what you have to offer.

Want to be faithful. We ask it in your name. Amen.

I'm going to ask the ushers to come forward right now. And this is another way

that we are able to worship.

And I wanted to be honest, guys. One of my struggles right now with discouragement

is that we are, we have not yet put our boiler on.

And so get cozy, bring some blankets over the next month because as soon as

we've turned the boiler on, our utilities, and this is just kind of family business,

our utilities go from like $600 a month to like almost $3,000 a month.

And right now, we're, you know, we need you to be absolutely generous,

giving above and beyond what you can do.

If you believe the message of the gospel is worth the sacrifice, we need you all in.

Not just serving, but also in your giving.

And I believe the gospel is absolutely worth it and will return on the investment

in the kingdom a million times more than you ever know.

Lord, take this offering and bless it. We pray that you would just multiply it.

Bless the giver and the gift this morning.

Use it for your kingdom and for your glory. Above all else, we thank you for

your incredible love, God.

You love us so much.

Thank you for the cross. Lord, I pray that we would give the love that we have,

received from you, that we would give it to other people. In Jesus' name, amen.