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Listen "Sermon | 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 | "Building Up The Body" by Rev. Joseph Sanford at Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin, Indiana"
Episode Synopsis
Sermon | 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 | "Building Up The Body" by Rev. Joseph Sanford at Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin, Indiana
So how do we live as a church body amid these disagreements with people in this room?
How do we live as United Methodists who don’t agree with other United Methodists…
Or other denominations…
Or other religions…
Or no religion…
It’s simple… (It’s not easy…but it’s simple…)
We are called to always act out of love for one another.
We love and serve one another BECAUSE we have gnosis of God’s love and service shown to us in Jesus Christ.
Being right doesn’t even matter.
Being in right relationship with LOVE (self-giving honoring of the good of another) is our calling.
Paul goes so far as to say that acting in a way that is against the well-being of your sibling in Christ is to act against Christ himself!
Anything we allow to affect our choices and actions is an idol.
When we lose a Gospel-perspective on our lives, we misuse people and things—we turn them into idols.
Food, drink, our bodies, and stuff can influence us in all the wrong ways as idols
Food, drink, bodies, and stuff are not idols unless we MISUSE them.
Our jobs, status, and level of education can be idols.
Again, in and of themselves, they are wonderful parts of our lives, but when they are MISUSED…they become idols.
We must never allow anything to be misused when it comes to our
calling to love and serve our neighbor.
Anything that you lift up as a priority over and against your
neighbors becomes an idol.
- If the way someone looks affects your ability to see them as sacred creations of God, then you are worshiping the way YOU look.
- If a different style of dress, eating, worshiping, or even religious practice negatively affects the way you think about them as sacred creations of God…
Then you are worshiping YOUR OWN culture.
- We MUST see people as beloved—Especially if they don’t have our gnosis.
Me mustn’t misuse our gnosis—or it becomes an idol.
- One theologian went as far as to say, “Even Jesus can become an idol to us when we misuse him.”
When we proclaim Jesus as our Lord, but fail to let him influence the way we love and serve our neighbors, then we are turning Jesus into an object for our own benefit…which is not what he came to be.
If we call upon Jesus, but do not fully commit ourselves to seeing him as the very expression of God’s love toward the entire world—toward everyone and everything in the world—then we don’t really have gnosis of him at all.
We can call upon him, “Lord, Lord!” without knowing him.
Using the title “Lord” has nothing to do with living your life as if he truly is the way, truth, and life you are aligning yourself with.
Let us live our life together with Jesus as our Lord.
Commit yourself to Christ…and he will draw you into to a deeper gnosis of God’s love for you and this world…
Love and serve your siblings in Jesus Christ…that in all you do you may BUILD UP HIS BODY.
—and go even deeper than that
ALSO love and serve your enemies—pray for them, not until they change, but until your heart is changed so that you see they are beloved and sacred images of God every bit as much as you are.
Love and serve the stranger and everyone else knowing that we are ALL growing in our gnosis.
Let the way you love be ONLY and EVER a chance for the world around you to come to a better gnosis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all it offers them.
So how do we live as a church body amid these disagreements with people in this room?
How do we live as United Methodists who don’t agree with other United Methodists…
Or other denominations…
Or other religions…
Or no religion…
It’s simple… (It’s not easy…but it’s simple…)
We are called to always act out of love for one another.
We love and serve one another BECAUSE we have gnosis of God’s love and service shown to us in Jesus Christ.
Being right doesn’t even matter.
Being in right relationship with LOVE (self-giving honoring of the good of another) is our calling.
Paul goes so far as to say that acting in a way that is against the well-being of your sibling in Christ is to act against Christ himself!
Anything we allow to affect our choices and actions is an idol.
When we lose a Gospel-perspective on our lives, we misuse people and things—we turn them into idols.
Food, drink, our bodies, and stuff can influence us in all the wrong ways as idols
Food, drink, bodies, and stuff are not idols unless we MISUSE them.
Our jobs, status, and level of education can be idols.
Again, in and of themselves, they are wonderful parts of our lives, but when they are MISUSED…they become idols.
We must never allow anything to be misused when it comes to our
calling to love and serve our neighbor.
Anything that you lift up as a priority over and against your
neighbors becomes an idol.
- If the way someone looks affects your ability to see them as sacred creations of God, then you are worshiping the way YOU look.
- If a different style of dress, eating, worshiping, or even religious practice negatively affects the way you think about them as sacred creations of God…
Then you are worshiping YOUR OWN culture.
- We MUST see people as beloved—Especially if they don’t have our gnosis.
Me mustn’t misuse our gnosis—or it becomes an idol.
- One theologian went as far as to say, “Even Jesus can become an idol to us when we misuse him.”
When we proclaim Jesus as our Lord, but fail to let him influence the way we love and serve our neighbors, then we are turning Jesus into an object for our own benefit…which is not what he came to be.
If we call upon Jesus, but do not fully commit ourselves to seeing him as the very expression of God’s love toward the entire world—toward everyone and everything in the world—then we don’t really have gnosis of him at all.
We can call upon him, “Lord, Lord!” without knowing him.
Using the title “Lord” has nothing to do with living your life as if he truly is the way, truth, and life you are aligning yourself with.
Let us live our life together with Jesus as our Lord.
Commit yourself to Christ…and he will draw you into to a deeper gnosis of God’s love for you and this world…
Love and serve your siblings in Jesus Christ…that in all you do you may BUILD UP HIS BODY.
—and go even deeper than that
ALSO love and serve your enemies—pray for them, not until they change, but until your heart is changed so that you see they are beloved and sacred images of God every bit as much as you are.
Love and serve the stranger and everyone else knowing that we are ALL growing in our gnosis.
Let the way you love be ONLY and EVER a chance for the world around you to come to a better gnosis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all it offers them.
In God we trust