The church's job is love

We have all heard the saying, the grass is always greener on the other side. Well, I want you to realize today that if you didn't pay any attention to the grass in other places you would be happy and content with your grass, and you would water it and nurture it more. One of my first jobs I worked with a bunch of men who seemed to get along great. I would see them pranking each other, play jokes on one another and just all around getting along well. Then one day one of the guys found out some stuff that he shouldn't have. He found out what several of his co workers made, and this caused a huge rift. Several of them made more than he did, and he didn't think that was right, so then he shared that info with some of the others. Next thing you know, they were all a lot less happy at work, and there was friction where there shoudl be none. They let themselves get wrapped up in what others had instead of what they had. In all honesty, we need to love, nurture and tend to our own "lawns" because that is where God put us and where He wants to use us. John 15:12-17 my command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. Remember last week I said on the human, personal side that: Love isn’t just this big fuzzy feeling, emotions and hugs and kisses. Its sacrifice and selflessness. Some ways that we can show sacrificial love is through: - Listening - Helping - Encouraging - Giving Think about this, all of us know at least one person (most of us know many) who need someone to meet these needs in some way. I have learned through life, my days working with the homeless, to my days as a youth pastor and now pastor, to my jail ministry and everywhere in between. There is no one on the face of this earth who doesn’t want their feelings validated. Not one. They need someone to listen. They need someone to help them. They need someone to encourage them. They need someone to give towards their needs. Now if the church isn’t doing these things, then who is? Jeremiah 29:4-7 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Jeremiah writing to the Israelites good perspective and greater instructions. Wherever you are God put you there, they were carried into exile by God, not the bad guys, not the Babylonians but by God. You are in St Augustine, Florida not because of your marriage, your family, your job or schooling. Not because you were born here, but because God wants you to embrace where you are and be ever present where you are for His glory. Stop thinking the grass is greener somewhere else; start watering the lawn where God placed you. Seek the peace and the prosperity of the peace of where I sent you. The Israelites were in the most immoral place they could be in, and God is asking them to pray for the peace and prosperity of them. God wants you to pray for the peace and the prosperity of your city, St Augustine Florida. That is what love really is, loving where you are because God put you there. You are not anywhere by accident. Pray for your city. Love your city. Churches fail this all the time and here are some ways: Churches like to condemn cities; churches become better known for what they hate and are against than what they love and what they are for. Darkness is the Isolation - churches just hunker down in their buildings, waiting for the world to either end or get better. Looks at the needs of its members and tells the world that anyone that isn't there is going to hell and hopeless. Imitation - we can't change the world if we are of it. We need to be in the world not of it. We should serve differently, interact differently, and love differently. Transformation - seeking the peace and the prosperity of the city. Jesus' only command in the book of John is to love, to love as He loved. I admit, when I get done with my reading, and praying and studying in the mornings I log onto the internet and it starts with my MSN feed. That is my home page, and I can tell you if there is an article about a church, or about Christians 9 times out of 10 it is more about what the church is against than what it is for. How sad, do we set up our homes like that? Do we want our kids to grow up thinking home is a place where they aren’t allowed to do certain things, like run inside, eat junk food, stay up all night, play loud music, throw their dirty clothes on the floor and so on. Or do we want our homes to be the place where our children feel loved, cared for, nurtured, and have their physical and emotional needs met. So we need to decide are we going to be a church that condemns people, isolates itself from people, and imitates the world or a place where God’s love flows through to transform the hearts of this town. I work by day for a non-profit, I meet with non-profits all the time in different settings and the resounding thing I hear all the time is that the church doesn't do enough. In reality they are right; the church should be the greatest non-profit industry in the world. Freedom should not be a better place because of St. Augustine; the city of St. Augustine should be a better place because Freedom Church is here.