You know in thousands of churches around the world today the last three verses of the Book of Romans is read as an epistle lesson. In the high churches you know there is an Old Testament lesson, there is an epistle lesson and then there is the gospel lesson, and my guess is that in thousands of churches today, this epistle lesson, this last three verses from the Book of Romans will be read and just zipped through. We are not going to do that. We are going to look at this because we have been talking about being a Community of Light and each week we have taken our cues from the advent candles, hope and peace and joy and now love. We are talking about being a community of love and we have spoken of the Jesse tree; how people who have loved God and who long for God are all a part of our salvation history all through. And in this fourth Sunday of Advent these three verses show up at the end of Romans and you might think well, you know what - the word love doesn't even appear in these verses, but this text concludes an epistle of Romans, that's the crown of Paul's theology. I think he probably wrote it later in his life. He had reflected on how he had shared the gospel with people and he was finally sitting down and putting it all to paper and we come out with this beautiful letters to the Romans about God's love and Jesus Christ.
And here he is expressing this in community and encouraging them to be people who love and these last three verses are an exclamation point to that. Well even though the word love does not appear in this text, which we are going to get to in a second, I did look at an exhaustive concordance, I didn't look in any old concordance, I looked in an exhaustive concordance, and I looked for the word love in the Book of Romans and it appears, the word love that's translated from " agape", agape is God's kind of love, God's unconditional steadfast love for us even while we were sinners, Christ died for us, that unconditional, giving, sacrificial love is mentioned 12 times in the Book of Romans. The first five times that it is mentioned it talks about God's love toward us. One time it talks about our love towards God. "To those who love God are called according to his purpose" in Romans 8:28. And then six times the word love in the Book of Romans is used to speak of our love towards each other and if you take for example Romans 12:9, this is a real key one as he starts to exhort his friends, he says, "Love must be sincere." Those are the first few words. That means that love must be without hypocrisy. It must be genuine. It must be real. It must not be counterfeit. For example, if you were to talk to somebody in church or in passing or anytime for that matter, in the store or whatever, and then you were to go and speak to somebody else about that person you were just smiling at, that would be counterfeit love. That would not be genuine, okay. And so Paul says love must be sincere.
It must be real and it acknowledges the importance of the other. If you look at the rest of Romans 16, which is at the end, he greets all kinds of people. He mentions dozens of names. It acknowledges the reality that love comes to our relationships with each other and we experience love in community because we acknowledge one another. I remember a time when I didn't do this and I didn't know I didn't do it, but I was pastoring in Sunberry and an older man, his name was Charlie, he had joined the church and we had played golf together and everything. He was always encouraging and all of a sudden he disappeared. I never saw him for like weeks on end. And so I finally called him and I said, "Charlie, what's going on? I was hoping you are okay. Is everything alright?" And he seemed distant over the phone and I could not figure out what happened. And I said, "Charlie, really let me push you a little bit here. Is everything okay?" And he said, "Well, not really." He said, "It was about six weeks ago and we were in the hallway and I said hi to you and you just grunted or just said nothing or didn't even pay attention to me." I said, "Really, I did that? I am so sorry that I did that. I didn't realize it." Now was he being too sensitive? Was I being insensitive? I don't know, but what I know is that love comes through acknowledging each other's presence. We don't always get it right. Sometimes we are busy. We can't connect with 700 people on a Sunday, but it has to do with connecting with a person that God brings into our path.
I was out to lunch with Norm and Mary B. this past week. They are going to another congregation because they moved up to Forest Hill. They were so involved here and they just couldn't make all those trips back and forth, and so they decided to connect with another church and I said, "Well, let's have an exit interview. Let's just share how we can do ministry better at Central. What are your reflections in all that?" So we went out to lunch and we were talking about some different things and the conversation turned to grandparenting and I just want you to know that in about three weeks I will be a grandparent for the first time. Ellen and I can't wait for that moment. It's going to be a toss up to see which one of us is the bigger baby hog in our home. But anyway, we got to be talking about grandparents and Norm just went like this, he just kind of slapped the table like this and he turned his head and said, "It is the greatest thing in the world. Grandparenting is the most wonderful thing in the world." And I said, "Well I really can't wait now" and he said, "Yeah, my little 3-year-old granddaughter, we had her overnight and she came down the steps and she came in to the kitchen where I was sitting and she goes, Grandpa, I here", like I'm here, like not like I am the center of the universe, but like Grandpa I want you to know I am here. I want you to do your grandpa thing with me. I want you to love me. I am here. And that's what community of love is; it's like we see each other. You're here, oh I am so glad that you are here and we welcome one another.
There are other places in Romans where Paul talks about love. I mean there are tons of them. Romans 13:8 he says, "Owe no one anything except love." There is a debt that none of us will ever finish paying. "Owe no one anything except for love". Always you owe that. And in 13:9, "Love your neighbor as yourself." And 13:10, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor." Love does not wrong to a neighbor sounds like a country western song, they done me wrong. Okay, love does not do others wrong. And then St. John Chrysostom writing in the 4th century spoke, actually he was preaching a sermon and he talked about a truceless war; a truceless war between and among brethren in the church. The 4th century he was writing about that, and he went on to say in the sermon it makes Christians trust Pagans quicker than they will trust other Christians. He was talking about that experience. In 13:10, "Love fulfills the law." So Paul was truly seeking to encourage a community of love; Jews and Greeks that come together to form this community in Rome centered in Jesus Christ. And so we come to Romans 16, the last three verses with this context. Let's pray.
Lord, open our eyes so that we might see in your word something that speaks to each of us and moves us to action and transformation and we ask this in Christ name. Amen.
Now here it is. Here is his exclamation point to all this talk about love.
Everything that led up to that point where Jesus became flesh, God became flesh in Jesus, and everything that happens since that point began. It says, " But now it's revealed". But now when people entrust themselves to Jesus Christ that prompts the obedience of faith. If you want to obey God in the clearest way possible, it is to believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. If you want to obey God moment by moment, it is to believe whatever God is telling you to do at the moment. That's the obedience of faith, but it's rooted in a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's always been God's plan. It was expressed in the Old Testament scriptures. It was veiled, but now it's become clear and that's what we ... center stage at this time of year in the church is about God taking on human flesh so that we might come back to God and be united with him forever.
So a community of love is a community that believes that Jesus is Lord and follows him in loving one another. Now the word love is so misused. It is so stretched thin that I came up with another couple of words that I think expresses what agape love is about, and I like to think of the word as active commitment, a true love like God's love for us is active commitment. Let me give you a few definitions. Being actively committed to the best interest of another; actively committed to the best interest of someone else is loving them. Refusing to withdraw love even when you are tempted to do so is active commitment. Allowing other people to fail and still being there for them, not cutting them off, is active commitment. Not giving up on people because we see that they are valuable to God; that the love that God challenges us toward is always with the idea that the person we are seeking to love is Jesus. Mother Teresa would always say this, "that she saw Jesus in all those whom she sought to touch and love" and so Christ comes to us through each other. Love is active commitment and refuses to be bitter at least for a long time and refuses to say, I don't have any need of you.
In eight other places in Romans, even though he does not use the word love, Paul uses a word one another and he talks about relationships with one another, which speaks of this kind of love. He says for instance in Romans 12:5 that we are members, we are one body and each member belongs to all the others. I think that was one of our 40 Days of Purpose memory verses. We are all members of one another. Romans 12:16 "Be of the same mind. Live in harmony with one another." That's the idea, being of the same mind, directed to the same desire for unity. And in 14:13 "Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another." Don't pass judgment on one another. And then 14:9 "Build up one another". Build up one another in Jesus Christ. And then 15:7 "Accept one another as Christ has accepted you." You know that word accept, this is so strange, but it actually means digest. I don't know how you digest one another, but it's trying to get at what it means to really welcome each other. And then 15:14 "Admonish one another" you know coach one another; exhort one another and then 16:6 "Greet one another with a holy kiss." Show affection to one another.
Now do you want to hear something really encouraging? I mean really really encouraging about Central Presbyterian Church? You have to raise your hands. Okay. Alright, I just wanted to make sure you were awake, okay. This love that I have been talking about is who you are. It's who you are. This church expresses that kind of love. Let me tell you why I know this, because we are involved in the natural church development process. We are using those tools. We have created a church help team. We gave 30 people a survey, a 160 question survey or something like that and the scores on this poor sampling and if another 30 people took it, even if a different 30 took it, through scientific evidence that it has gone through ten of thousands of churches, it still would have probably come out very close to the same scores. And eight different quality characteristics of growing churches are measured and Central came out with a good score, but the best or the highest score that puts us probably like in the 5% of all churches, the quality characteristic, number one for us -loving relationships. I think that that is the best news that I have heard in a long time. Loving relationships.
Now, you know why I think that is that we scored in that percentile, because of what Romans 14:1 says, because we welcome and we accept one another without passing judgments on disputable matters. Every church has opinions. Everybody has opinions, right? You know that some churches split over certain opinions. You know, we have all heard jokes about the color of the carpet and what color the choir robes are and all that stuff. Do you know that what I believe the reason we scored so high in loving relationships is because our opinions do not form the center of our life together. Jesus forms the center of our life together and we differ to one another in love. I believe that we have come to recognize that we can't stand alone and so we need each other and we know we need forgiveness, so we forgive each other. We need each other strength so we cooperate with each other. I believe that is why we scored so high. Now I am not bragging. I am just bragging in the Lord on you.
You know this whole thing of needing each other, I just heard the most beautiful story about two women and I heard about this years ago, and it was in the Morning Herald in Durham, North Carolina newspaper and it's a true story. Two women, one black and one white, both wonderful pianists. They played some beautiful music in their own right and a bizarre, about the same time they didn't know each other, they both had a terrible accident and in one accident the one person lost their right hand and the other person lost their left hand. And they both were so despairing over the fact that they would never be able to play again like they once had. Now, you know what's coming. Another woman connected those two; they introduce those two to one another, because she had heard about both of them individually. And so they got together and kind of saw the possibilities of what was going on there and they titled their act Ebony and Ivory. And so every time they perform one black hand is on the keyboard and one white hand is on the keyboard and they play now better than either one could play before, which is such a beautiful illustration of how God wants to do something among us together that we can't do quite the same as when we are on our own.
Now listen carefully. Just like that woman who connected those two, was a catalyst for something new; when we are a community of love and the power of the Holy Spirit toward one another, forgiving each other, encouraging each other, building each other up, admonishing each other, accepting each other as Christ has accepted us. When we do all of that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are the connectors between a hurting world that does not know Jesus and the possibility of somebody coming to know him. We become that bridge because the Bible says when the outsiders looked at the church, they said behold how they love one another. They care for each other. They share with each other and that became the vehicle of evangelism. Nothing could be more clear in the entire Bible than the command to love each other. Jesus said it to his disciples before he died. "Love one another as I have loved you." Nothing could be more clear and yet probably nothing sometimes is where the church in this area has failed.
Now let's say that the Holy Spirit just zapped on us right now and said so that we could audibly hear it "Now here this, I interrupt this service to bring you a command and here it is; love one another. Deal...", and I will tell you why we don't love one another because of our own emotional hurts. So if the Holy Spirit said "Deal with your emotional hurts. If someone has hurt you, go to them and talk to them. If you have hurt someone else, go to them and talk to them and reconcile." If the Holy Spirit did that right now, what would you have to do to respond in obedience and in faith? What would you have to do? Who would you have to go see? Hopefully, the answer is nobody, but if somebody comes to mind, the Holy Spirit is saying to each of us, we want this to be a community of love where our accounts are short with one another, where our hearts are open to one another, where nothing stands in the way to give the enemy a foothold so that we stop being that connecting force so that others might come to know God.
Let me share with you in conclusion, its kind of a long conclusion, but it's a story. It's a story by Leo Tolstoy. I love his writing. He writes so much about the importance of love in all of his writings and he told a story called "The Three Questions." Christmas is for stories, so I am going to tell you this story.
Lord, we thank you for loving us with an everlasting love that it cost you your life; it cost you everything so that we might be brought back to you. Lord, help us to see that love fulfills the law. It's the answer to who you are because you are love and because you are love, you have put within our breast and poured within our breast the Holy Spirit who helps us to love. We ask your forgiveness for those times that we have been unloving, when we have spoken poorly about one another, when we have ignored one another, when we have not reconciled when your spirit has prompted us, and yet we also rejoice and celebrate how you are making that a reality among us. So help us Lord by your spirit to accel still more, to keep short accounts, and to be the people of love that you want us to be with each other and with those in need. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.
And here he is expressing this in community and encouraging them to be people who love and these last three verses are an exclamation point to that. Well even though the word love does not appear in this text, which we are going to get to in a second, I did look at an exhaustive concordance, I didn't look in any old concordance, I looked in an exhaustive concordance, and I looked for the word love in the Book of Romans and it appears, the word love that's translated from " agape", agape is God's kind of love, God's unconditional steadfast love for us even while we were sinners, Christ died for us, that unconditional, giving, sacrificial love is mentioned 12 times in the Book of Romans. The first five times that it is mentioned it talks about God's love toward us. One time it talks about our love towards God. "To those who love God are called according to his purpose" in Romans 8:28. And then six times the word love in the Book of Romans is used to speak of our love towards each other and if you take for example Romans 12:9, this is a real key one as he starts to exhort his friends, he says, "Love must be sincere." Those are the first few words. That means that love must be without hypocrisy. It must be genuine. It must be real. It must not be counterfeit. For example, if you were to talk to somebody in church or in passing or anytime for that matter, in the store or whatever, and then you were to go and speak to somebody else about that person you were just smiling at, that would be counterfeit love. That would not be genuine, okay. And so Paul says love must be sincere.
It must be real and it acknowledges the importance of the other. If you look at the rest of Romans 16, which is at the end, he greets all kinds of people. He mentions dozens of names. It acknowledges the reality that love comes to our relationships with each other and we experience love in community because we acknowledge one another. I remember a time when I didn't do this and I didn't know I didn't do it, but I was pastoring in Sunberry and an older man, his name was Charlie, he had joined the church and we had played golf together and everything. He was always encouraging and all of a sudden he disappeared. I never saw him for like weeks on end. And so I finally called him and I said, "Charlie, what's going on? I was hoping you are okay. Is everything alright?" And he seemed distant over the phone and I could not figure out what happened. And I said, "Charlie, really let me push you a little bit here. Is everything okay?" And he said, "Well, not really." He said, "It was about six weeks ago and we were in the hallway and I said hi to you and you just grunted or just said nothing or didn't even pay attention to me." I said, "Really, I did that? I am so sorry that I did that. I didn't realize it." Now was he being too sensitive? Was I being insensitive? I don't know, but what I know is that love comes through acknowledging each other's presence. We don't always get it right. Sometimes we are busy. We can't connect with 700 people on a Sunday, but it has to do with connecting with a person that God brings into our path.
I was out to lunch with Norm and Mary B. this past week. They are going to another congregation because they moved up to Forest Hill. They were so involved here and they just couldn't make all those trips back and forth, and so they decided to connect with another church and I said, "Well, let's have an exit interview. Let's just share how we can do ministry better at Central. What are your reflections in all that?" So we went out to lunch and we were talking about some different things and the conversation turned to grandparenting and I just want you to know that in about three weeks I will be a grandparent for the first time. Ellen and I can't wait for that moment. It's going to be a toss up to see which one of us is the bigger baby hog in our home. But anyway, we got to be talking about grandparents and Norm just went like this, he just kind of slapped the table like this and he turned his head and said, "It is the greatest thing in the world. Grandparenting is the most wonderful thing in the world." And I said, "Well I really can't wait now" and he said, "Yeah, my little 3-year-old granddaughter, we had her overnight and she came down the steps and she came in to the kitchen where I was sitting and she goes, Grandpa, I here", like I'm here, like not like I am the center of the universe, but like Grandpa I want you to know I am here. I want you to do your grandpa thing with me. I want you to love me. I am here. And that's what community of love is; it's like we see each other. You're here, oh I am so glad that you are here and we welcome one another.
There are other places in Romans where Paul talks about love. I mean there are tons of them. Romans 13:8 he says, "Owe no one anything except love." There is a debt that none of us will ever finish paying. "Owe no one anything except for love". Always you owe that. And in 13:9, "Love your neighbor as yourself." And 13:10, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor." Love does not wrong to a neighbor sounds like a country western song, they done me wrong. Okay, love does not do others wrong. And then St. John Chrysostom writing in the 4th century spoke, actually he was preaching a sermon and he talked about a truceless war; a truceless war between and among brethren in the church. The 4th century he was writing about that, and he went on to say in the sermon it makes Christians trust Pagans quicker than they will trust other Christians. He was talking about that experience. In 13:10, "Love fulfills the law." So Paul was truly seeking to encourage a community of love; Jews and Greeks that come together to form this community in Rome centered in Jesus Christ. And so we come to Romans 16, the last three verses with this context. Let's pray.
Lord, open our eyes so that we might see in your word something that speaks to each of us and moves us to action and transformation and we ask this in Christ name. Amen.
Now here it is. Here is his exclamation point to all this talk about love.
"Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him- to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen."Those three verses are a nutshell explanation of human history. They are a nutshell explanation of the entire Bible. Verse 25 says, "Now to him who is able to establish you in the teachings of my gospel"; in the teachings of the gospel that's proclaimed. Only God can establish us in the love of community that expresses his agape love. Only God can do that. Love is not a human possibility; agape love is not a human possibility, it's only that Jesus Christ lives in union with us and through us. I mean there might be sentimentalism and there might be romanticism and there might be all these other things, but true agape love, sacrificial giving love like love is long-suffering and love is kind, that's the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And this love that God wanted to manifest fully in Jesus Christ was hidden for a long time, in verse 26, "but now" don't miss those two words, because those two words are a dividing line, they are like a watershed of everything that has come up to the point of God becoming flesh, just like our beautiful banner says up here, the word became flesh and dwells among us and we beheld his glory full of grace and truth.
Everything that led up to that point where Jesus became flesh, God became flesh in Jesus, and everything that happens since that point began. It says, " But now it's revealed". But now when people entrust themselves to Jesus Christ that prompts the obedience of faith. If you want to obey God in the clearest way possible, it is to believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. If you want to obey God moment by moment, it is to believe whatever God is telling you to do at the moment. That's the obedience of faith, but it's rooted in a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's always been God's plan. It was expressed in the Old Testament scriptures. It was veiled, but now it's become clear and that's what we ... center stage at this time of year in the church is about God taking on human flesh so that we might come back to God and be united with him forever.
So a community of love is a community that believes that Jesus is Lord and follows him in loving one another. Now the word love is so misused. It is so stretched thin that I came up with another couple of words that I think expresses what agape love is about, and I like to think of the word as active commitment, a true love like God's love for us is active commitment. Let me give you a few definitions. Being actively committed to the best interest of another; actively committed to the best interest of someone else is loving them. Refusing to withdraw love even when you are tempted to do so is active commitment. Allowing other people to fail and still being there for them, not cutting them off, is active commitment. Not giving up on people because we see that they are valuable to God; that the love that God challenges us toward is always with the idea that the person we are seeking to love is Jesus. Mother Teresa would always say this, "that she saw Jesus in all those whom she sought to touch and love" and so Christ comes to us through each other. Love is active commitment and refuses to be bitter at least for a long time and refuses to say, I don't have any need of you.
In eight other places in Romans, even though he does not use the word love, Paul uses a word one another and he talks about relationships with one another, which speaks of this kind of love. He says for instance in Romans 12:5 that we are members, we are one body and each member belongs to all the others. I think that was one of our 40 Days of Purpose memory verses. We are all members of one another. Romans 12:16 "Be of the same mind. Live in harmony with one another." That's the idea, being of the same mind, directed to the same desire for unity. And in 14:13 "Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another." Don't pass judgment on one another. And then 14:9 "Build up one another". Build up one another in Jesus Christ. And then 15:7 "Accept one another as Christ has accepted you." You know that word accept, this is so strange, but it actually means digest. I don't know how you digest one another, but it's trying to get at what it means to really welcome each other. And then 15:14 "Admonish one another" you know coach one another; exhort one another and then 16:6 "Greet one another with a holy kiss." Show affection to one another.
Now do you want to hear something really encouraging? I mean really really encouraging about Central Presbyterian Church? You have to raise your hands. Okay. Alright, I just wanted to make sure you were awake, okay. This love that I have been talking about is who you are. It's who you are. This church expresses that kind of love. Let me tell you why I know this, because we are involved in the natural church development process. We are using those tools. We have created a church help team. We gave 30 people a survey, a 160 question survey or something like that and the scores on this poor sampling and if another 30 people took it, even if a different 30 took it, through scientific evidence that it has gone through ten of thousands of churches, it still would have probably come out very close to the same scores. And eight different quality characteristics of growing churches are measured and Central came out with a good score, but the best or the highest score that puts us probably like in the 5% of all churches, the quality characteristic, number one for us -loving relationships. I think that that is the best news that I have heard in a long time. Loving relationships.
Now, you know why I think that is that we scored in that percentile, because of what Romans 14:1 says, because we welcome and we accept one another without passing judgments on disputable matters. Every church has opinions. Everybody has opinions, right? You know that some churches split over certain opinions. You know, we have all heard jokes about the color of the carpet and what color the choir robes are and all that stuff. Do you know that what I believe the reason we scored so high in loving relationships is because our opinions do not form the center of our life together. Jesus forms the center of our life together and we differ to one another in love. I believe that we have come to recognize that we can't stand alone and so we need each other and we know we need forgiveness, so we forgive each other. We need each other strength so we cooperate with each other. I believe that is why we scored so high. Now I am not bragging. I am just bragging in the Lord on you.
You know this whole thing of needing each other, I just heard the most beautiful story about two women and I heard about this years ago, and it was in the Morning Herald in Durham, North Carolina newspaper and it's a true story. Two women, one black and one white, both wonderful pianists. They played some beautiful music in their own right and a bizarre, about the same time they didn't know each other, they both had a terrible accident and in one accident the one person lost their right hand and the other person lost their left hand. And they both were so despairing over the fact that they would never be able to play again like they once had. Now, you know what's coming. Another woman connected those two; they introduce those two to one another, because she had heard about both of them individually. And so they got together and kind of saw the possibilities of what was going on there and they titled their act Ebony and Ivory. And so every time they perform one black hand is on the keyboard and one white hand is on the keyboard and they play now better than either one could play before, which is such a beautiful illustration of how God wants to do something among us together that we can't do quite the same as when we are on our own.
Now listen carefully. Just like that woman who connected those two, was a catalyst for something new; when we are a community of love and the power of the Holy Spirit toward one another, forgiving each other, encouraging each other, building each other up, admonishing each other, accepting each other as Christ has accepted us. When we do all of that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are the connectors between a hurting world that does not know Jesus and the possibility of somebody coming to know him. We become that bridge because the Bible says when the outsiders looked at the church, they said behold how they love one another. They care for each other. They share with each other and that became the vehicle of evangelism. Nothing could be more clear in the entire Bible than the command to love each other. Jesus said it to his disciples before he died. "Love one another as I have loved you." Nothing could be more clear and yet probably nothing sometimes is where the church in this area has failed.
Now let's say that the Holy Spirit just zapped on us right now and said so that we could audibly hear it "Now here this, I interrupt this service to bring you a command and here it is; love one another. Deal...", and I will tell you why we don't love one another because of our own emotional hurts. So if the Holy Spirit said "Deal with your emotional hurts. If someone has hurt you, go to them and talk to them. If you have hurt someone else, go to them and talk to them and reconcile." If the Holy Spirit did that right now, what would you have to do to respond in obedience and in faith? What would you have to do? Who would you have to go see? Hopefully, the answer is nobody, but if somebody comes to mind, the Holy Spirit is saying to each of us, we want this to be a community of love where our accounts are short with one another, where our hearts are open to one another, where nothing stands in the way to give the enemy a foothold so that we stop being that connecting force so that others might come to know God.
Let me share with you in conclusion, its kind of a long conclusion, but it's a story. It's a story by Leo Tolstoy. I love his writing. He writes so much about the importance of love in all of his writings and he told a story called "The Three Questions." Christmas is for stories, so I am going to tell you this story.
It's about a king who had three questions and he felt that if he could get the answer to these three questions he would be successful in whatever he undertook. And the questions were these: What's the right time to begin everything? In other words, when should I start an action? What's the right time to do something? Secondly, who are the right people to engage, to listen to, those to avoid? And third, how might he know the most important thing to do at any given time? What's the most important priority for his time?The apostle Paul said that there are three things that abide; faith, hope and love. When we were in eternity worshipping the Lord, faith will be gone, hope will be gone, because we will see him as he is. But love, will contain you forever. Love one another as Jesus has loved us so that the world might know that He has been sent to this earth. Let's pray.
And so he sent out a proclamation and he let the word be known that he was seeking the answers to these questions. And as you could imagine since there was a reward attached to it, people came with all kinds of answers about the right time to do anything. They said, well you have to plan, you have to do time management, you have to prioritize, you have to have accounts with others, you have to be decisive when the time is right, etc. etc. On the point of the right people, who should he engage with they said, well the doctors of course. And others say, no the priest of course. No, the military and the war heroes that's who you should engage with. And then as far as the right thing to do at any given time they said, well study science, study religion, study this, study that and he was frustrated and he didn't like any of the answers and so he decided to seek out a wise hermit who lived in the woods and so he went incognito and he mounted his horse and he rode in to the woods and a little ways away from the hermits house he dismounted because he didn't want to be known in any way, shape or form as the king and he went and he left his bodyguard where he dismounted and he went to the hut of the hermit.
He sees this hermit, an older guy, he's breathing, he frail and he is digging a garden. He is digging rows for a garden. He was breathing heavily and he's kind of struggling and the king comes up to him and he says, I understand you are a wise man. Here, I want to know the answers to these three questions. He asked the three questions and the hermit looks up from his digging and he doesn't say anything. He just continues to dig. It happens again; he asks him again and nothing happen. Finally the king goes over and says, "You know you look really tired. Let me take your shovel and help you to dig and the hermit says, "Thank you" and sits down and watches him dig. So he digs a little while and it's going late into the afternoon and he keeps digging. Every now and then he asks the questions and the hermits says nothing to the answers. Finally, he says, "Listen, I have dug these garden rows for you, please if you don't know the answer just tell me and I will leave."
The hermit says to him, "Look somebody's coming. They are running up to us, let's see who it is okay?" And this bearded man comes from out of the woods and he's got his hands over his stomach like this and there is blood coming from behind his hands and he faints at the king's feet. And so the king looks down and he starts to see his problem and he is wounded, he bandages him up, he washes it with water and it won't stop, he keeps doing it and finally they get the blood to stop flowing and the man revives just a little bit and asks for a drink of water. They get him a drink of water and then the hermit and the king carry the bearded man in to the hut and put him on the hermit's bed. Well, the king is so exhausted from this whole day that he falls asleep right at the stoop and doesn't wake until morning.
And when he awakes he comes over to the bearded mans bed and he sees that the bearded man is just looking up with his eyes shining intensely and when he sees the king stand over him, he says, "Please forgive me." The king says, "Forgive you, I don't even know who you are. How can I forgive you?" And he says, "Please forgive me." He says, "You don't know who I am, but I know who you are. I am the man who is your sworn enemy. You executed my brother and you seized his property and my intent when I saw you going toward the hermits house was to ambush you on the way back and to kill you, but because you never came back I decided to come out from my spot of hiding, your bodyguard saw me, wounded me and here I am. And if you hadn't taken care of me, I would be dead, and I tried to kill you and you saved me. Please forgive me. I will be your servant for the rest of my days. I will bid all my sons to do the same thing."
Well, the king was very glad to have made such a brutal enemy into to a friend and so he not only took care of his wounds, he had his physicians tend to him and he also restored all of his property. The king left the wounded man and went out to find the hermit who was outside the next morning sowing seeds in the rows that had been dug. He said, "Listen, please I am looking for the answers to these questions. Please tell me and then I will go, but if you don't know then I am going anyway." And the hermit looked at him and he says, "Your questions have already been answered. They have already been answered in full." He says, "What do you mean they have already been answered?"
He says, "Don't you see" replied the hermit, "If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday and had not dug those beds for me, and had gone your way, that man would have attacked you and you would have repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds. And I was the most important man and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards, when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you hadn't bound up his wounds, he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man and what you did for him was your most important business."
So here is the answer he said, remember this, "That there is only one time that's most important and that's now. It is the most important time because it's the only time when we have any power to do good. The most necessary person that you should seek out, or that you should be with, is the person with whom you are for no person knows whether he will have dealings with anybody else and the most important thing for you to do at any time is to do good and to love the person that God brings in to your path, because it's for this purpose alone that men and women were sent in to this life."
Lord, we thank you for loving us with an everlasting love that it cost you your life; it cost you everything so that we might be brought back to you. Lord, help us to see that love fulfills the law. It's the answer to who you are because you are love and because you are love, you have put within our breast and poured within our breast the Holy Spirit who helps us to love. We ask your forgiveness for those times that we have been unloving, when we have spoken poorly about one another, when we have ignored one another, when we have not reconciled when your spirit has prompted us, and yet we also rejoice and celebrate how you are making that a reality among us. So help us Lord by your spirit to accel still more, to keep short accounts, and to be the people of love that you want us to be with each other and with those in need. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.
