Reverend Ray Osborne, Senior Minister
Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

Mother’s Day is one of those holidays that is either a wonderful experience or a not so good one. I always approach the “Mother’s Day Sermon” very gingerly allowing much time for prayer and preparation. There are so many issues that have to be considered. Some have very recently, even within the past year lost their Mothers; others know that they will lose their Mother in the not so distant future. There are those present who are experiencing their first “Mothers Day,” and to you we all say congratulations, and yet there are others who may be here that have never given birth nor ever will. So one must be very careful about what is said in a gathering such as this on this very special day.

If I can take some liberties with poet Wilhelm Busch’s words, I’d have to say: “Werden ist nitch schwer; sein dagegen sehr.” (To become a (mother) is not so difficult; on the other hand, be-ing a (mother) is very much so!)

There is but one thing that I know. We all either have or have had a Mother. Even that must be approached with gentleness for as we learned in the service that we held memorializing those children in North Carolina and Stanly county who lost their lives as a result of child abuse, not every child in this world has a wonderful Mother.

Allow me to simply preface this sermon by saying to all Mothers here, congratulations and Happy Mother’s Day!

Last Sunday somewhere in the midst of the message I spoke about worship. I asked the question “Do we really worship?” I spoke about “Dead worship vs. Alive worship.” I also said that if we really want to ever see our World change, the change must first take place in our church and even more specifically, in our very own hearts.

As I prepared this message I thought about even turning this into a series of “Questions.” You see there are a lot of questions I have and I think there are a lot of questions you have that are not being answered, or at least we find no evidence of an affirmative answer to our questions.

Take the one last Sunday “Do we really worship?” If we did we wouldn’t need to ask the question would we? The answer would be so obvious it would be like a big hole in the road that we stumble into. I have received many wonderful and affirming comments about last Sunday’s message. Several of you came up to me and relayed to me how desperately we needed that message. I hope that now we take the first step and learn how to worship and how to make our worship take on life and meaning.

Today let me pose to you a series of questions that leap from the pages of Scripture to us Do we truly know the power of love? Are you experiencing the power of love in your life? In this, our community of faith, are we experiencing the power of love individually or corporately? When people engage us in conversation do they witness the presence of the power of love in our lives or do they run into coldness, bitterness, a lack of concern and a loss of caring. When they walk through the doors of our church do they experience an inviting and welcoming spirit grounded in the power of love for all people, or do they feel like intruders into a private “family chapel?”

You see the text this morning is all about love and the power of that love. In the 23rd Psalm we find a beautiful picture of the love of God for His children. How often have you heard a minister read this Psalm at a funeral? The words of Psalm 23 have been used over and over throughout the ages to minister to broken lives and hearts because it speaks of the loving care of our Heavenly Father; it speaks to the power of the love of God.

Psalm 100:3 reads:

In our Gospel reading this morning John allows us to listen in as Jesus is speaks to a group of Pharisees. Whenever we speak of the Pharisees we have almost always without exception spoke about them in the negative sense of the word and this morning is going to be no exception. I will, however, give this to their credit, the Pharisees knew the Torah, the Law of God far better than you or I ever will. They took the writings of Moses and committed those writings verbatim to memory. Can you imagine that?

This past week was a week that I will NEVER forget as long as I live! It was the week of finals at seminary. I had only one exam that I was really dreading – the haunting oral Hebrew exam. A time to sit in my professor’s office; just Dr. Keown, my copy of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, more easily referred to as The Hebrew Bible, in fact the one I have in my hands this morning, and me. It was from that Bible that I was expected to read and translate.

Hebrew for me involved a lot of memorization. For example I memorized the first three chapters of the book of Exodus where the exam was going to come from. I knew it by heart, still do. But I found out something very interesting; even though I fully memorized three chapters of the book of Exodus, it made absolutely no spiritual impact on my life.

I found that not only troubling, but confusing. In the past I have committed to memory a lot of Scriptures that have made a great impact on my life. I came to this conclusion. The only reason that the memorization of the Exodus passages did not spiritually impact my life is because I learned them to impress man rather than to affect my life.

So it was with much of the Pharisaical community. It was their belief that the more Scripture they learned, the more they could impress men.

Jesus had a whole new paradigm for them as he says, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:8-9 NRSV)

Paul put it this way, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:9 NRSV)

Jesus was telling the Pharisees that day “Alright guys listen up! I know you have thought for a long time that your good works and all this righteous living is going to get you to Heaven but guess what? Wrong answer. There is only one way for men, women, and young people to be reconciled with God and that is through my life, death, and resurrection. I will lay down my life in order that you may have life and have it more abundantly.”

The same is true for us today. There is only one way that you and I will ever be reconciled to God and that is through His Son, Jesus. You see there is nothing in this life strong enough to save us outside of the power of the love of God.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NRSV)

As the history of the New Testament Church unfolds in the Bible, we read in the Acts of the Apostles that as they, meaning the Apostles went about doing ministry, people began to think that they were agents of salvation, that the Apostles had the ability to save. So they began to worship men. Peter was wise enough to redirect their attentions where they needed to go. This is what he said in Acts 4, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 NRSV)

Basically he says, “What you see, what you witness is not anything that we, common men are doing. What you are witnessing, what you are seeing, is the power of the love of God at work in us and through us, touching the lives of those to whom we are sent. It is Jesus who is doing these things, not us. It is His love in action!”

Beloved, our world today needs to experience the Power of the Love of God! The Power of the Love of Jesus! You and I are to be vessels of that love, taking that love to those to whom He sends us.

The first Epistle of John does not really identify who he is addressing, however this morning he is addressing you and I, those who are gathered at First Baptist Church, Stanfield. Listen as I read his words to you:

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.” (1 John 3:16-24 NRSV)

I began this message with some questions; let me end it with some more. Are you a vessel of the power of the Love of God? Of the love of Jesus? Is His love flowing INTO you and THROUGH you spilling out in such a way that impacts the lives of those you meet everyday?

I firmly reject the idea of “consequence.” I believe that every human life we come in contact with has happened in one of two ways. Either it is a life that God has sent TO us, or it is a life God has sent US to. Either way there is a reason you and I come into contact with people and one of those reasons is that they might experience the Power of His love in and through us.

What about it church? Do you really think people leave this place having witnessed the power of the love of God? I would like to hope so but I’ve been told differently. Let’s change that today, right now. It’s time that things change in order for that to happen. It’s time that we change in order for that to happen.

The Power of the Love of God is a power unequaled by any. You may be here this morning and you feel unloved and unaccepted. Let me assure you that God loves you. Let me assure you that Jesus loves you. He laid down His life for you. Let’s you and I commit right now to love one another. Would you be willing to die for each and every person here? Would you lay down your life for the person beside you? In front of you? Behind you? Would I? The Bible tells us that we ought to love one another that much that we’d be willing to lay our lives down for one another. That’s authentic love not superficial love. Let’s pray together this morning that we learn how to love that much. Let’s pray together that we experience Jesus love and all its power!

Click Here To Receive FREE Notification When
New Sermons Are Posted

This Site is a Member of the Kerusso Sermon Web Ring.
[Skip Prev] [Prev] [Next] [Skip Next] [Random] [Next 5] [List Sites] [Join]

People Have Reviewed This Sermon