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Andy Stanley - The Way in a Manger Part 3 The Way of Love · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Now at Christmas, we we do our best, all of us who are
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parents, grandparents, we are uncles, and to anybody who's got kids you
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know involved in their life, we all do our best hearing the Christmas season
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to engage the imagination of our children again, whether there are you know,
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our nieces or nephews, our grandchildren, our kids, or maybe even the
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friends of of of children and friends of ours. You know, this is
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really all about engaging the imagination of children. And we all remember as children
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having our imaginations lit up specifically during the season of Christmas. But the interesting
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thing is for for us adults, for us grown ups, I think it's
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easy for us to forget. In fact, I think we're quick to forget
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that everything surrounding the First Christmas, everything surrounding the birth of Jesus, was
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literally unimaginationable, which is not a word, but I think it should be.
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It's unimaginationable. In other words, it's it's really it's it's unimaginable.
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No one imagined, no one was looking forward to, no one was thinking
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it was going to happen, no one was praying for, nobody was wishing
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for a virgin Galileean peasant girl, to give birth to a son. I
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mean, this was completely one hundred percent unexpected. It was, it was
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unimaginable. And then once it happened, no one, no one imagined that
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her baby son would grow up to be the most famous rabbi who ever lived,
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not necessarily the most popular one, but certainly the most remembered one,
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the most famous one. And no one, no one would have imagined the
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storyline of his life, that he would grow up and gather a small following
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right there in the heart of Israel during a time of Roman occupation, that
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he would start a new movement, a new gathering, and then that he
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would have the audacity. And again this we read this in the New Testament.
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It just goes right by us because we don't live in that culture.
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But he would, he would. Nobody would imagine that any rabbi, much
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less this one, would claim to be greater than Moses, to be greater
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than the Temple, to be greater than or is his term, the Lord
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of the Sabbath. All these things were so offensive, and no one would
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imagine that her son would become such a threat to the Temple and ultimately a
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threat to the Roman Empire. At least regionally, that he'd be arrested,
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crucified, and buried. And seriously, no one, not even his closest
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followers, not even his mother, imagined that he would be raised from the
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dead, or that his movement would actually outlast the temple in the empire,
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and that the empire that crucified him again, this is just you know,
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we're so accustomed to this, it just we yawned. But this was unimaginable.
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That the empire that crucified him would eventually turn around and embrace the son
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of this Nazarene peasant girl, would embrace her son as a god. And
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no one could imagine that the icon for her son, this Rabbi Jesus,
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that the icon would be a Roman cross, and that it would be recognized
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all over the world for generations to follow. The entire story, the entire
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narrative, was impossible. It was unimaginationable. It was definitely unimaginable. But
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here's the thing, and here's the thing I don't want us to miss.
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We don't have to imagine any of that because here we are. We are
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here because of all of that, and regardless of what you believe about the
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different parts of the story. What's undeniable is here we are and the churches
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all over the world, small and large, different languages and different traditions and
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different customs, but during this season, men and women all over the world
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since that time have worked and recognize Jesus as the Son of God, a
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God who came to earth to live among us, to show us the way
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forward. It's unimaginable that it happened, but it happened, and here we
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are, and here's what we're going to talk about for the next few minutes.
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There is something we should imagine, and Christmas is the perfect time to
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do so because the story of Christmas reminds us that sometimes sometimes the unimaginable is
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in fact possible. And if you're a Christian, in the next few minutes,
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I'm going to ask you to loan me your imagination as we imagine something
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together. If you're not a Christian, or maybe you used to be a
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Christian, if what we're about to imagine together actually came to pass, you
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might consider joining us, or maybe rejoining us, because what we're about to
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imagine that is not a reality is part of the reason you have refused to
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join us. Today we're wrapping up our series The Way in a Manger,
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as we said, for the last couple of times we've been together. One
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of Jesus' most controversial and offensive statements is also one of his most quoted statements.
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Even if you're not a church person, you have heard this before.
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And if you've heard this before, perhaps it was offensive to you, and
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that's understandable. At one point in jesus ministry he made this audacious claim.
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I mean, who would even say this? He said, I speaking of
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himself, He said, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.
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And nobody, no one of any generation, No one comes to the
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Father speaking of God the Father. No one comes to the Father except through
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me. Who would say such a thing. And of course there are many
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things that Jesus said that when you read it, you're like, who would
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say such a thing. In fact, it's one of the reasons of his
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followers eventually abandoned him. It was just it was just too much. That
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wasn't that what Jesus taught was offensive. It was what he said about himself
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that was so offensive. And ultimately God am crucified. And this is one
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of those statements, and it is on the surface offensive. I am the
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way, the truth in the life. No one comes to the Father through
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me. But the problem is, while this statement is usually interpreted as an
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attempt to exclude people, when you follow Jesus through the gospels, clearly that
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was not his intent. He wasn't drawing a smaller circle. He wasn't trying
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to be so exclusive that it left more and more people out. He was
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being inclusive. He was expanding the circle. I mean the most famous verse
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in the entire Bible, for God so loved the entire world. And that
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was Jesus's point, that God has always loved the entire world, all the
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people in the world, not just the sons and daughters of Abraham. But
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he shows the sons and daughters of Abraham through which to bring himself into the
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world, so the entire world could know how much God loved them. And
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then Jesus claimed to be the way to God, first by explaining God because
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it was a mystery, and then by demonstrating what God was like and who
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God liked, and how God acted and how God reacted, and then ultimately
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he literally became the way to God by removing the primary obstacle between you and
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your heavenly Father, between me and my heavenly Father, specifically my sin and
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your sin. But as we discovered last time, there is something else embedded
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in this claim. There's something else baked into the idea of him being the
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way that Jesus came to actually model and call us to, not simply believing
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something, but modeling and calling us to a way of life, a way
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to live the way of Jesus. And if you're a Christian, it's to
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this way of life that I want us to try to wrap our imaginations around
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for just a moment. So here we go. Imagine a world, Imagine
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your world. Imagine our world where people are skeptical of what we believe,
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that a man was raised from the dead, who was sent from God to
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illustrate God, to be God, to be worshiped as a God. Imagine
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a world, our world, your world, where people rightly so, are
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skeptical to some of the things we believe, but are amazed at how well
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we treat, talk about, care for support, and show up for one
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another. A world where Christians don't worship the same way, where Christians don't
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interpret the Bible the same way, where Christians don't approach worship and communion and
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baptism the same way. A world where Christians don't vote the same way,
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but that those differences never ever ever divide us from one another. Imagine a
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world. Imagine your world, Imagine your community. Imagine our community where people
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outside of our faith tradition, who were part of another faith tradition, or
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no faith tradition at all, are moved by, impressed by, amazed by,
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taken aback by, astounded by, are no strings attached, concerned care
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and love for people who are nothing like us and who may not even like
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us. Imagine a world were people outside of our faith tradition who are skeptical
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of what we believe, are anxious to hire us, work for us,
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live next door to us, marry their sons and daughters off to us because
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we're Christians, because of our predictable and our extraordinary character, because of our
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work ethic, because of our self control, because of our reliability, because
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of our honesty. Imagine a world where those traits define the reputation of Christians,
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both individually and corporately and collectively. A world where people drove by churches
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and thought to themselves, I'm glad they are in our community. They drive
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by churches and they think, you know what, Our community is better off
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because they're here. Our community is safer because they're here. Our children are
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better off because the Christians are here. When they hear there's going to be
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a new church that even those outside our faith tradition are relieved there are more
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Christians moving into their community because of our reputation. Imagine a world where we
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were known for protecting the rights of others rather than protecting our own rights.
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Where we were known for protecting and safeguarding the rights of others rather than demanding
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our own. In short, imagine a world where Christians embraced the way of
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Christ, the way of Jesus, the ways of Jesus, the posture and
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the tone and the humility of Jesus. A world where it was evident that
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we were as committed to behaving correctly as we are believing correctly. Maybe it's
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just me. Is that too much for us to imagine? Especially at Christmas
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when we celebrate God became one of us to show us the way forward,
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the way to live, the way to be better people, to create a
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better world, to create a safer world, to create a culture where everyone
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feels the dignity of being made in the image of God? Should that be
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hard for us to imagine? With as many Christians as there are in our
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communities, for as many Christians as there are in our nation? Is it
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too much to imagine Christians reminding people of Christ? Isn't it strange that I
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would even have to say that? Now? If you're not a Christian,
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this is why, right, I mean, if you're not a Christian,
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this is why you push back. It's not that you don't believe what we
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believe. It's worse than that. You're not convinced we believe what we say
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we believe, and you have every right not to. We're so divided.
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If we can't come on, if we can't get along with ourselves, why
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in the world would you want to be a part of that. You're not
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convinced we believe it, and honestly, at times I'm not convinced that we
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really do either. But what if we did? What if our behavior,
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what if we wrapped our behavior and our priorities. It's so simple, it's
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so out there. We have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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We have the apostle who comes along the apostles who come along after Jesus.
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Paul in particular says, this is what it looks like, this is what
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it acts like, this is what it reacts like. But this is what
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makes it even stranger than that, is that this unimaginable world that I've described,
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it shouldn't be unimaginable because it happened. And as I've reminded you over
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and over, and as I will continue to remind you, once upon a
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time, once upon a time, not the beginning of a fairy tale,
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the beginning of history. Once upon a time, the other's first culture of
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the Church stood in sharp contrast to the me first, bite and devour culture
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that the Church was birthed in. Were might determine what was right, where
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women were considered property, where children were disposable and had no value and no
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honor. They didn't even name children, sometimes until later, to make sure
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they were the children that they ultimately wanted to have. We're compassion. This
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is hard for us to imagine because we still have the leftovers the shadow of
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Christianity and our culture where compassion and generosity were actually considered character flaws. And
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along comes a group of people that says no they're not character flaws, they're
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virtues. And somehow that took hold. Once upon a time there were communities
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of Jesus followers who literally, and this is our problem, because we look
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at it, it's too much, it demands too much. There's some way
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to kind of navigate it away from that or exeget that away. Surely we
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can't take that literally. Surely Jesus didn't mean that. Surely if we actually
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did this stuff, you know that just the world wouldn't work, our lives
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wouldn't work. But once upon on time there were communities of Jesus followers who
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literally embraced the inconvenient, counter cultural, can't possibly work way of Jesus.
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And this Nazarene cult, that's what it was called a Nazarene cult because it
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was a knockoff religion of Judaism. These were Jewish people who had abandoned,
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you know, traditional Judaism and had decided to kind of do their own thing.
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That's how it was perceived a Nazarene sect or a Nazarene cult. And
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these members of this Nazarene cult were initially viewed with suspicion, what's the catch,
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what are they up to what are they doing behind closed doors? What
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do they want? And over time suspicion turned to curiosity, and then eventually
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the peace makers were outnumbered by the peace keepers who came to worship and follow
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the Prince of Peace. And this is the other part we can't imagine because
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we're so segment in our society, and that's just the way it is.
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That's not a problem to solve, that's just an is. But in that
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culture where people live close together, people from every segment, every echelon of
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society came and began to gather in these small groups early on the first day
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of the week, which was a workday before the sun rose. Slaves and
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slave owners and freedmen and citizens, and men and women and children, these
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little ecclcs, these gatherings of Jesus followers, and it grew and it grew,
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and it grew and it grew, not primarily because of what Christians believed.
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They had no literature. There's no Bible. There's fragments and there's a
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little bit of this, and somebody had a copy of a copy of the
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Gospel of Matthew. There's no literature, there's no Bible study. What brought
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these people together wasn't what they believed at first. It was the way the
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Christians behaved. They were the best citizens. When Roman governors were told to
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round up Christians and test them and execute them if they wouldn't make, you
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know, make peace with Caesar and sacrifice to Caesar, some of the governors
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are like, but wait a minute, Okay, they're not lawbreakers. In
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fact, they're more faithful to their wives than the other people. They're the
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best citizens. They paid their taxes, they submit to our authority. What
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there was such there was such a difference because they took the teaching of Jesus
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literally and they lived it. And consequently they stood out, and the church
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grew and grew and grew, and what became started off as suspicious became curious.
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That it was like an avalanche. People from every segment of life flowed
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to the Eclasia of Jesus again, not primarily because of what Christians believed,
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but because of the way that they lived their lives. Now they had a
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little bit of an advantage. They had mostly disadvantages. In fact, it
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was almost it is ninety nine percent disadvantage. They had one small advantage something
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that eludes Us. And again, just because we live in a different world.
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They understood the world of kings and kingdoms. And once they acknowledged that
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Jesus was a literal, physical king, they submitted to his rule. They
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submitted to his authority. They understood, if you're devoted to a king,
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you obey the laws of the king. If you recognize someone as your king,
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you're devoted to the rules of the king, and so they submitted.
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They also understood that if you disregard the rules of the king, you're a
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traitor. To disregard the rules of the king is to betray the ruler.
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And this is why we've talked about it before. This is why the early
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followers of Jesus were eventually dubbed or called or branded Christian. It was a
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slur, wasn't. It wasn't a word that the Jesus followers adopted for themselves.
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This is what they were called by the outside world. And it was
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one hundred percent a political term. It was not a religious term. Christian
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was actually Latin political terminology. A follower of Caesar was a CESARIANI. That
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was what it meant to be a follower of Caesar, and the Gentiles and
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Antioch looked at this strange group of people who lived a different kind of life,
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and clearly when they were tested, it was because they were devoted to
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a different kind of king, an invisible king who had actually come to earth
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and left this earth, crucified by Rome, resurrected from the dead, but
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they believed he reigned in a different realm, and they were to be as
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devoted to him in their behavior as they would be a caesar or a governor,
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or any kind of ruler placed over them. So they were dedicated,
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and they were called Christiani. This was Latin political language. But this was
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a problem. It was a problem for the Roman Empire. It was a
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problem for the Roman Empire because Rome didn't care which gods people worship. Every
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time Rome conquered a region, they didn't make people worship the Roman gods,
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and they didn't take away the local gods. You can worship any god you
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want, to do anything you want for your local gods. Rome's concern was
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one hundred percent political. They allowed for many gods, but they only had
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one one king, one Caesar. Rome's mandate was this, worship your Christ.
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We don't care, but you obey Caesar. Worship your Christ. We
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don't care. We don't care what your religious traditions are. You can do
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any You can burn incense, you can burn animals, we don't care.
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You worship your Christ any way you want to. You have freedom of worship.
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But at the end of the day, your ultimate allegiance is to Caesar.
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And this was a problem for the early Christians because Jesus wasn't like the
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pagan gods. The pagan gods did not demand obedience. The pagan gods didn't
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have any rules. The pagan god simply wanted to sacrifice, and most of
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the sacrifice was a good luck charm. We want the blessing of the gods,
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and no one knows how many gods there are. For the Christians,
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this was different because their God had come to earth and he was a king,
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and he ruled in the Kingdom of Heaven. But he had left his
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kingdom on earth, and his kingdom required submission and obedience. So in the
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first century, no one ever asked a Christian if they were a Christian.
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They were accused of it. It was evident the way they live their lives
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was testimony to who they followed. Their king had modeled the way, and
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in modeling the way, at the end he left them with a single overarching
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command, their governing ethic, a governing ethic that was the standard against which
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all of their behavior, all of their actions, and all of their reactions
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would be measured and evaluated. And then after Jesus left, the apostles went
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into the gentile world, our world, and said, this is what it
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looks like to live out this one overarching command as husbands and wives, and
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as children and as citizens. This is how, this is how you live
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out this overarching command under the authority of earthly rulers, and even how you
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respond to your enemies. And as we all know, but so easily forget
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the way of Jesus. This way, this overarching command that was to instruct
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the followers of Jesus as we know it was characterized, defined and summarized by
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a single term that appeared in that culture and in our culture at times,
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is weak and passive, effeminate, virtue less, agape love, so naive,
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so simplistic. It's it's not how the game is played. It's not
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how the game was played. Then, it's not how the game is played
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now right, it's it's not how the world works, it's not how progress
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is made. Right. Love, Come on, love. Love is not
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a winning strategy. In fact, love isn't even a strategy. If it
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is, If it's a strategy, it's a strategy for losing. And if
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this sounds impractical, I understand the pushback. If this sounds impractical to us,
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if this sounds inconsequential to us, imagine how it sounded to Jesus twelve
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disciples. Tonight he gathers with them at the end of his earthly ministry for
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their final passover, the night he is going to be arrested, and he
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basically says, everything I've taught you, everything you've seen, all of my
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actions, all of my reactions, all of my messages, all of my
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sermons, all of the you've heard. But I say, all of that
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comes down to this one new command. I'm giving you one new rule.
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And it's this new rule that should rule over you. When you're not sure
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what to do, you just come back to this one simple idea. And
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they're in the lion's den, they're in the city of Jerusalem that pass over.
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The religious leaders in Rome hold all the cards and control the crowd and
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the best Jesus could do, the only thing he had. His final marching
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orders, as I've loved you, You're to love one another. Seriously,
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Jesus, that's it, That's all you got love. Come on. If
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this subversive, empire threatening idea reaches Rome, Tiberius Caesar won't sleep for weeks.
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If the high priests down the street catch us wind of this, he'll
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probably pack up and flee the city. We're doomed. We're doomed. Escape
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while you can't. They're gonna love one another. What kind of rule is
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that? What kind of king is that? What kind of kingdom is that?
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The reason this should not be hard for us to imagine is because the
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Roman Forum is a tourist attraction. Herod's magnificent Temple, the epicenter of power
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in that region. You can visit it today. The Temple the leftover,
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the remains are scattered around the base of the walls, and Herod, Tiberia
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Caesar. You only know their names because they are footnotes and the story of
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the sun of a peasant girl who became a king, the king to whom
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the modern Church has never fully submitted, to the king to whom perhaps you've
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never submitted your life because you think he demands too much, because you think
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he allows too little. And yet he came to show you and to show
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me the way to live, the ways of the Father, the way you
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were created to live. And when we live against the grain, we pay.
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And when we do marriage against the grain, we suffer. And when
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we approach life against the grain instead of with the grain of how we were
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created to live, it creates. We create. We create our own regret.
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And this is why he's a king, and not a counselor, and
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not an advisor, and not simply a rabbi. But come on, he
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is the king and whose name you pray when your child is sick. Right,
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he is the king in whose name you pray when your marriage is in
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jeopardy. Right, he is the king in whose name you pray when your
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heart is broken. The King is kingdom you claim to be a part of.
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When tragedy strikes, and come on, in those moments, right,
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And those moments, your king has your undivided attention. He has your unwavering
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loyalty until the danger passes. But imagine, imagine a world where believers chose
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to live as followers every single day, followers of the Way, the Way
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and the ways of Jesus who came not to be served, but deserve give
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his life for you, for me, a ransom for many. The apostle
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Paul, who thought all of this was nonsense, are you kidding me?
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This is nonsense. This is a cult, it's a sect. It's deluding
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Judaism, it's deluding the ways of our forefathers. It must be stamped out.
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And he gets himself deputized. It's a fascinating story. He's a pharisee,
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well, a great pharisee. He says, he's the best pharisee he's
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ever met. And he decides to single handedly stamp out the Way because it's
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in the way and it's causing the disruption. And Rome is wondering whether or
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not they can still give the temple leaders the permission that they have to do
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things a little bit different than every other conquered nation. And so the Saul
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of Tarsus decides, I'm gonna do away with this, gets himself deputized right
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and has the Damascus to arrest members of the Way, and then he runs
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into the Way God in his and he meets the resurrected Jesus, and he
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doesn't just change what he believes, he changes his entire way of living.
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And then he travels around the Mediterranean basin his job was impossible. His job
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was completely unimaginable, impossible to walk into pagan cultures and not just say hey,
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I've got a different kind of religious belief. He's like, no,
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you have to jettison your entire worldview. There are no gods. You're wrong,
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your parents were wrong, your grandparents were wrong. But God has been
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patient, because he's been waiting for this day to reveal himself to you for
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your sake and your benefit. And this message began to take root and efficence
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in Corinth and Thessalonika and Colossie and all these port cities, these major cities,
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and back in home, he decides to write of these churches, the
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Church at Ephesus, and here's what he says to them, and here's what
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he says to me, here's what he says to you, And what just
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imagine what if we did this? He says, I want you to follow
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God's example. What, yes, I want you to follow God's example.
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Why, well, this is not new news. You're made in the image
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of God. And when we think about being made in the image of God,
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that means I have dignity, and you have dignity, and you have
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word. And it doesn't matter what language a person speaks or what they look
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like, if they're male or female. Everybody's born as worth. We're made
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in the image of God. And Paul's like, Okay, that's not what
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I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact you you should follow God's example
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because being made in the image of God means you are a picture of God.
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You are a reflection of God. What God values, your to value
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and how God responds, you're to respond. And you know what God is
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like and what God likes and what God values because He sent his son to
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live it out in front of you. So follow God's example. As dearly
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loved children, You're to be like your heavenly Father. But then listen to
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how he summarizes this and walk or live and walk in the way of love
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when you're not sure what to do. You just asked the question, what
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does love require of you when you're not sure what to say or doing?
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Is okay? Back to the starting point, back to the one command,
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back to the thing that is to characterize me and characterize us. What does
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love require of me? That idea change to civilization once it can't be improved
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upon. And I know it sounds soft, but consider this the way of
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love culminated in a king surrender bring himself to his enemies to be crucified for
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their sin. And the only reason we know the names of some of his
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enemies is because they too are footnotes in the story of our king. But
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imagine imagine a world where the Christians followed God's example as Jesus as illustrated what
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God's example looks like. And imagine a world. Imagine a community, Imagine
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our community. Imagine your community where the Christians, regardless of their brand,
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regardless of when they worship, how they worship, for the music they listen
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to or don't miss listen to, regardless, imagine if the Christians in our
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community decided, we are going to walk in the way of love because that
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is the way of God, and that is God's example for us, and
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it's why he sent the way, the way in a manger. Why is
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this hard to imagine? Why not let's do that? And it starts with
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somebody, It starts with some somebodies. That's how this whole thing started.
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A handful of people who decided, we are going to take seriously the way
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and the ways of Jesus, the way of God, our Father, the
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way of love. So while they were still there marrying Joseph, the time
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came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first
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born, a son, and she wrapped him in cloths, and she placed
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him in a manger. Imagine that the way that once upon a time changed
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the world h the way and a manger, the way that has the potential
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to change the world again. If I choose, and if you choose,
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and if we choose the way of love, the way of Jesus, the
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way of Jesus the Christ, our King, maybe someday we will do more.
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Then. Just imagine