Glorify God and Love One Another. John 13: 31 35; Matt. As I was sitting with our Malawi Mission co worker Jim McGill

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1 Glorify God and Love One Another John 13: 31 35; Matt As I was sitting with our Malawi Mission co worker Jim McGill I asked him what separates your work in clean water from The work of the NGO s who are doing the same projects. He said that the NGOs are there for a season or for a short time And they are transactional to get the project done. But the PCUSA mission co workers like he and his wife Jody And their six kids are there for the long term (25years) they build lifetime relationships, they are part of a community in Christ, they walk with their partners in mission, the mission work is integrated into the life and faith that they share. Everything they do is an act of love and worship of the God who calls them. In other words, Jim was telling me that as they love one another They are glorifying God and as they glorify God they can t help But to love one another for we are in the image of God. Perhaps that s what Jesus is talking about in his prayer for the disciples. The beginning is doxology or glorifying God.

2 Now the Son of Man has been glorified and God has been glorified in him. Now glory has several meanings. Adoration and praise and thanksgiving in worship great honor praise or distinction so what we re doing right here is glorifying God. Whenever we introduce ourselves and telling what we do in church And someone says I only worship then I cringe because Worship is the first and best thing we do in our faith. And yet glory for Jesus also means something different It refers to Jesus giving up his life for the life of the world. When the resurrected Christ is speaking to the disciples On the road to Emmaus he says: Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? So part of what Jesus is talking about when he talks about glory Is his death on the cross for the salvation of humankind. That is the kind of glory that we see on the battle field Or the kind of glory that is willing to give one s life for another. So for Jesus glory is both worship and sacrifice. But Jesus makes it clear to his disciples that death on a cross Is his faith journey and not yet theirs when he says:

3 Little Children, I am with you only a little while longer where I am going, you cannot come. Our job is not to be Jesus, but our job is to glorify God as well. And so Jesus gives the disciples a commandment. Now it s good to know that this is a bonafide commandment. The Greek word for commandment is entole and it is the word That Jesus uses hear and it means that it is not something we do If we have the time and inclination and if it doesn t interfere With anything else we have planned. It really is a commandment of God: A new commandment I give you that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. Not only is it a commandment of God but it is also one of the top two. Our first Gospel reading reminds us that this is not just a New Testament idea but in the Old Testament Deut 6 says: You shall love the lord your God with all your heart And with all your soul and with all your mind. And without drawing a breath Jesus goes on to quote Leviticus 19: And the second is like it You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On thse commandments hang all the law and prophets.

4 You see scripture has always linked these two actions of glorifying God and Loving one another together. It is like breathing in and breathing out. We can t do one without doing the other: The do gooder will burn out in his good deeds without The agape selfless love of Christ underneath. As scripture says We love because God first loved us. 1 Jn. 4:10) We will never receive enough thank you s from those we help, we will seldom see life changes in the short term from help we offer and yet we offer it anyway because God in Christ first loved us and commands us to love one another! And our worship is never independent or unrelated to God s mission in world. AS we sing songs of praise, as we offer prayers of the people, As we interpret and preach God s word anew and afresh, We are not just proclaiming the written word to hear But we are putting flesh and bones on that word. We remember that the first chapter of this Gospel of John that we read today Starts with the words: And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father s only son, Full of grace and truth. (John 1: 14)

5 That s why send countless mission trips out into the world and commission Them right here in our worship service because we are participating In the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us; That s why we invite our world missionaries like Jim McGill from Malawi, And Pal and Gabriella from Hungary and Pastor Mahendra from Nepal, Our Presbyterian Peacemaker, Rev. Kassouni an Armenian Christian. They connect us incarnationally with our brothers and sisters In Christ around the world so we might remember our Armenian brothers and sisters in faith on this Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. We love each other by remembering each others sacrifices. And that s why we have sent a significant number of our congregation out To do mission work right here in Jefferson City so that The community at large might see the Christian Community Acting as one Body and living out the words of Jesus To love one another, to love our neighbors. After all Jesus said: By this all will know you are my disciples, If you have love for one another. Jesus didn t say that people will know we are his disciples if we say the right version of the Lord s Prayer, or take the right stand on every hot button issue.

6 What he did say is that the indicator of our discipleship is sharing God s love. So today we are doing just that we are worshipping as the people of God To share God s love and to glorify God AND we are going out Into the community to share God love and glorify God. As we look at our bulletin cover today we are tempted to say: This big picture is worship, this classroom and kitchen are mission. The African children are part of our mission and the Easter communion is our worship and yet Jesus doesn t let us divide the world into compartments. We are to love God with our whole hearts and soul and mind. We worship and serve God in everything we do. We live into and share God s love in everything we do. We glorify God is every word we speak, and every act we do Let us join with the Psalmist and declare: Let everything that breathes, praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Amen