Everything depends on love.
The apostle Paul has made the bold claim that the entire world has no choice but to trust in God’s love…in God’s mercy. No one is fit enough to stand toe to toe with God. We all depend on God’s mercy. All of us depend on God’s love. Therefore, that is where the Christian life starts: it starts with love.
That is where most people’s lives start, actually. When we are born, we are immediately put into the arms of our mothers and fathers who snuggle us close in acts of love. When we were infants and cried out in need, someone was right there to pick us up and feed us, change our diapers, and rock us back to sleep. In other words, we continued to learn that we were loved. And, as we got older, all of our scrapes and cuts were kissed better because we were loved.
Most of us do not even stop to consider all of this love that we get at the front end of life.
It is only when you encounter people who have not received this love as infants, and see the struggles they go through to trust anybody or anything, that you begin to see how essential this love at the front-end of things is.
God starts by giving us mercy at the front-end. God loved us into being. God lovingly forgave us through the power of the cross before we even committed an offense; indeed, before we were even a glimmer in our parent’s eyes. Love is at the foundation of our relationship with God.
We do not have faith in God because we are scared of God. We do not put our trust in God because we have accomplished a list of requirements in order to be in God’s presence. We trust God because, as a mother loves her newborn, God loved us first.
That love is where Paul starts in this reading from Romans. “I appeal to you, therefore, by the mercies of God…” Right away Paul reminds us to always keep God’s unending mercies ever before us, to write that down, tie it to our forehead, write it on the door frames of our houses, teach it to our children, talk about it all day long, and ponder it through the night (Deuteronomy 11:1-21).
In other words, do not forget that love is where it all starts, and that love is what it is all about.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and your neighbor as yourself” (Deuteronomy 6:5, 11:1, 13; Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30-1; Luke 10:27).
“Faith, hope, and love abide, and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
“For God so loved the world …” (John 3:16).
“Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God … for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).
Alright, you get the idea. It all starts with love. I explained this point repeatedly to the point of death for a reason. We are about to talk about discipleship. We are going to talk about our actions, and I wanted to be certain that you understood that our actions do not gain us love from God, like some eternal child’s sticker system with a prize at the end. Rather, our actions come out of the love that was shown us in the first place.
That is why Paul wants you to keep God’s mercy at the forefront of your life, that way your life will be shaped by God’s love and not by your own insecurities and desperate need to make yourself acceptable.
Therefore, if you are ready to continue knowing that you are already accepted by God, let us delve into what Paul desires of us as Christian people. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice (or living offering), holy and acceptable to God.”
In the ancient world, people gave offerings to God all the time. Whether it be a dove, or a lamb, or a bundle of wheat, giving offerings to God was a regular occurrence. But, rather than sacrificing a dove, Paul proposes that Christians give our own bodies as an offering to God.
Imagine for a moment a gallery of paintings in which hang images of the moments of your life. The paintings are the body of your life’s work.
In one painting you see the time you gave your extra dollar to a nearby child. In another, you see yourself hugging your friend on a dark night of their life. In yet another, you are ashamed to see yourself walking by as someone cried out for help. It is a gallery of your life. It is the body of all your work.
Paul encourages you to keep God’s mercy ever before you so that you may never forget to show love. Paul hopes that as you walk through your gallery, that the paintings that consist of your body of work show mostly images of love.
Like the time you forgave your brother, even though he did not deserve it.
Or, the time you stood up for your co-worker after they were treated badly, and it cost you your job.
He wants you to be proud of the paintings hung in your gallery because they are paintings that were painted with strokes of love. He wants you to see events of your life that appear to be painted by God’s own hand.
Present yourself as a living offering to God in all that you do.
In order to do this though, you are going to need to be able to see the world beyond God’s community for what it often is: selfish, uncaring, and lacking compassion.
There will surely be paintings of times that you were conformed to this world such as one depicting you wasting money on stuff that you did not need, stuff which you still do not use. A painting could have been hung there instead showing you helping a neighbor with that same cash.
Maybe, a painting is there showing you putting the divisiveness of politics above caring for a friend.
See the outside world for what it is and do not follow it and do not be conformed to it. Instead, create more paintings that show you acting in ways of compassion.
“Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God … for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).
Lastly, do not forget that your gallery of Christian life is but one in a whole museum of galleries. Do not become overwhelmed by the weight of the whole world as if you are the only one to solve the world's problems. Do not create paintings that show you standing by doing nothing because the problems of the world are too much.
Instead, know who you are.
Are you a prophet who sees the world as it is and helps others see the possibilities?
Do you care for others and hope that their needs are ministered to?
Do you have a gift of knowledge to teach, either about things in the world or things above concerning God?
Are you a good speaker…a good persuader?
Are you a generous giver, or a leader, or a compassionate person who lets your cheerfulness and humor lift up others?
Who has God made you to be?
How can you use your gifts to create works of art that display love of God and neighbor?
Listen, if you are not a teacher, no problem. God does not expect those paintings in your gallery in the first place if that is not your gift. Those paintings hang in the galleries next door or across the hall. Someone else has got that covered.
Simply be who God created you to be, and create beautiful works of art throughout your life that demonstrate that particular gift of love given to you by God.
There will be no acts of accounting and wise business management hanging in my gallery. I will not even try to create them because that is not my gift. But, others of you know how to manage money in a Godly and compassionate way. Others of you know how to make money reflect the will of God.
There are as many different gifts as there are people, but put them all together into one place and you will see the love of Jesus Christ everywhere you look.
In the same way that Paul did, I urge you, out of the love that God provides, to present your bodies as a living offering to God. That is your daily, spiritual worship. May those be the images that fill your gallery of life.
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