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"By this will all men know..."

Pastor Jim Harper

10/15/2025

Our Christian faith can seem complicated at times and to be fair, aspects of it are relatively complicated.  However, the fundamental aspects of appear quite straightforward, and I believe purposefully so.  If we had to boil our faith down to several key soundbites, a central one would undoubtedly be: "We (sacrificially) love God because He first (sacrificially) loved us." (1 jn. 4:19)

A central concept of our Christian faith could sound like this: "Keep the whole list of God's righteous commands throughout scripture as perfectly as possible and MAYBE He'll welcome you into His inner circle of righteousness'.  In one way, considering Who God is and who we are, such an expectation may seem quite logical-even gracious that we'd even be considered for inclusion.  We've certainly found this to be the case for several World Religions/Christian Cults during our present sermon series. And it makes some sense when we consider the total and complete OTHERNESS of God.  Truth is, if Yahweh God hadn't condescended (lowered/familiarized) Himself to the level of our humanness - if He hadn't chosen to 'dumb down' His divine communication to the language of humanity through the sacred scriptures - we'd know NOTHING of Him.  But that's one of the beautiful aspects of our Christian faith.  God did all the 'heavy lifting' up front, and thus asks precious little from His very 'finite' human family in return.

There is another important 'sound bite' that we receive in John's gospel know as the Great Commandment.  It's an expansion of sorts on my origianal example above yet seemingly not a lot more demanding:  "By sacrificially loving each other, you'll prove you belong to My divine family."  Again, sounds pretty 'doable'.  Right?  "God, are you sure there's not a whole bunch more 'stuff' I can do to validate my commitment - prove my worthiness - of your grace toward me?"  God's clear answer?  "Nope.  Love me and love other 'believers' sacrificially and that alone will validate you're standingas a true 'child of God'."  Again, that doesn't sound like much of an expectation on the surface.  Are you sure we shouldn't 'do' something in addition?  Interestingly, Jesus actually affirms we WILL 'do something' if truly His children.  We will 'love one another' in Christ's church with the same sacrificial love that our Savior demonstrated for His 'church' on the cross.  Now again, don't underestimate the power of this seemingly modest demand.  It's easy to do.  How so?

Let me keep this as simple as possible.  What would you say if I suggested it's much easier to just 'do' a bunch of stuff than to sacrificially love others?  Would you agree?  Let's take this a step deeper.  Note that there is absolutely NO 'qualifier' in the 13:35 text.  Really allow this to sink in:  "Your sacrificial love and commitment toward me will be proven by your consistent, sacrificial, unconditional love toward ALL other members of the Christian family."  Yes, I added 'all' because it's very much implied in the text.  Can I be brutally honest?  Loving some people in the church family is MUCH more sacrificial than loving others.  I find loving some spiritual brothers and sisters an absolute JOY.  Others in the family...not so much.  For those in the second category, it takes a constant encouragement and empowerment of the Holy Spirit to love as Jesus commanded.  But we're not let off the proverbial 'hook' because some people aren't as easy to love.  In fact, I'd suggest Paul's principle in 1 Corinthians 12:22ff fits quite naturally here.  The better we love spiritual siblings we find most difficult (for whatever reason), the more our sacrificial love (and obedience toward Christ) pleases our heavenly Father's heart.  Let me take it one step further because John does.  The better we love those we consider less lovely, the more our witness intrigues-impresses-eventually draws those from our onlooking pagan would toward Christ.

'By THIS will all man know...'.  So how are you doing, Bayshore brothers and sisters, with this 'simple' command from our Heavenly Father's heart?