Loving God by necessity includes taking action

Loving God is not primarily a spiritual thing, though God is a spirit. He does not have flesh and blood, but we do. Amazingly, to express His love for us, God the Son became flesh and blood. In the same way, for us to express our love, we must take physical action.

In particular, as we saw Sunday (“Truly Living” in the story of the Good Samaritan), our action must include meeting the needs of people we encounter in our paths of daily life. People have all sorts of needs, including:

• the basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter


• safety from threat and actual harm


• love and friendship


• a sense of the value of oneself

Part of our love for God is a love for those we encounter in life who have these needs. We should treat them as if they were us, as if we were the ones in that position. That’s exactly what the Good Samaritan did: he performed kind acts for the man’s sake, as if the Samaritan were the injured one.

We should go and do likewise, go and perform acts of mercy and kindness, meeting needs of people we encounter using what God has given to us.

So what are some examples of this? How have you seen people, in small or large ways, brought refreshment and encouragement, or perhaps met very deep and pressing needs? How can we do this more effectively?

For those who don’t deserve mercy…

It can be hard to be merciful when people don’t deserve it. Perhaps they have hurt you or someone you love, and they deserve to pay in some way. Sometimes it is just the superiority we feel in comparison to them, and we want them to realize it. So when you show mercy, you risk losing that. It’s something that your “inner accountant” doesn’t want to give up … that accountant warns you that being merciful will make you the loser.

Jesus, however, said something quite different. “Blessed are the merciful.” That is the right place to be, He said. Somehow, rather than being worse off when you forgive, you are better off. To see the benefits of being merciful, there are two key things we need to see, as Pastor Tim said yesterday.

1) Mercy is never deserved. It can only be given to people who deserve something worse. So it always involves risk because we have to give away something that seems like it is ours.

2) We need mercy from God more than people need it from us. (Okay, so that’s an understatement! We cannot calculate how much more we need it!) We don’t deserve His forgiveness but rather His punishment.

Jesus said that those who want and receive God’s mercy are the same people who must learn to show mercy to others. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." (Matthew 5:7)

So where can you show mercy? When have you received mercy? What makes it hard? What makes it rewarding?

Pursuing Behavioral Righteousness

There are two ways to think about our righteousness: legal and behavioral. An illustration should make it clear. If you break the law, such as parking illegally, you deserve a ticket since you are guilty. But it might be that an authority will take pity on you. Once I got a parking ticket in Topeka, Kansas. But they noticed that we had an out-of-state license plate, and so the note on our car said that they would forgive this parking ticket. I was guilty, but an authority said that, from a legal perspective, I would be considered innocent. I was forgiven. That is legal righteousness.

Behavioral righteousness, in contrast, is when you actually park only where it is legal. You don’t need forgiveness because you didn’t violate the law.

The clear teaching of Christianity is that our right standing with God is based only and entirely on the first type of righteousness. That is, we are unquestionably guilty of putting ourselves before God, acting as though we are more important and wiser and better than He is. So our only hope is that somehow we would be forgiven. Amazingly, through the death of Jesus, the perfect Son of God, in our place, God the Father is willing, even pleased, to declare us not guilty as we trust in Him! What great news!

But that isn’t the end of the story. As we looked at yesterday (listen), in 2 Timothy 2, Paul says that we are now to pursue behavioral righteousness. In fact, he commands us to. And, he says, if we want to be useful tools for God, we have no choice.

He then says that this behavioral righteousness includes two things. We are to flee ‘youthful passions’ and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with others who are doing the same.

So what might that look like in life? In particular, what would it look like to pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace? And how can we help each other do it? Your thoughts?

Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness

As Pastor Tim taught yesterday (listen), Christianity is a faith for the unrighteous, not for the righteous. Jesus proclaimed blessing on those who know their own emptiness. It is so easy for us to be self-deceived, to think that we are better than most people. And when we think that way, we are outside of Jesus' favor. We convince ourselves that we are basically good people who are led astray by forces outside ourselves, like the people who annoy us and make us angry, or the temptations that cause us to stray.

Jesus promised a righteousness that comes from outside us as a gift from Him. And it is a gift for those who realize they need it and don't have it.

So how do you see yourself? Do you think of yourself as basically good, as being "more good" than the next person? If so, Jesus said that you are outside of God's blessing. His blessing is for those who realize their own need for a righteousness that they don't possess.

Or do you think of yourself as dirty beyond self-recovery? If so, Jesus declared blessing on you, for in Him, you will be satisfied. That dissatisfaction with self is great news if it is replaced with satisfaction in Christ!

Do you hunger for righteousness, for something that you don't have? Then give thanks to God for helping you see yourself more clearly, and ask Him for the blessing He promised you with being satisfied with His righteousness!