LOVE: ADVENT WEEK 2 Ryan Internicola BethelROC 12.06.15 page 1 of 6 Yes, these are my new glasses. Yes, they are tinted yellow. No, I didn t get them just so I can look like Bono. I got them so I can look like Bono AND filter out blue light! Oh, it s all so clear now! See, I was experiencing eye strain and fatigue, so I began doing some reading and I learned that excessive amounts of blue light can cause this and other problems like anxiety, irritability and even disrupt our circadian rhythm: the biological clock that regulates sleep and the production of serotonin and melatonin. Blue light is emitted from computer screens and phone screens and TV screens and artificial light: things I stare at for hours every day. I read that simply wearing yellow-tinted lenses can help relieve these problems and even help improve mood. Isn t that amazing? The lens we look through can affect our emotions and even our physical health! ADVENT is about the great light of God s love bursting forth into the darkness of our world [bringing us into COMMUNITY with God and with one another]. It didn t only happen 2000 years ago at the birth of Christ. It doesn t only happen once a year when we celebrate Christmas. God is always showing Himself to us, but the wrong lenses can block the light of His love from penetrating our hearts. I have been going through a really trying season in which God is doing deep work in my heart. He is bringing to light areas of darkness, wounding, weakness that I never knew were there. It has been really hard for me to see the light of God s love. I m reading a book called Killing Lions by John Eldredge and his son Sam. The authors encourage the reader to ask God to tell you who you are, to validate you, to communicate His love to you, personally, and then pay attention to how He does so. So, I prayed that prayer, God, tell me who I am, validate me, show me Your love. I put on my new glasses and headed out into the woods by my house for a walk. I was walking through the middle of the woods, no houses, no people, nothing around me but autumn trees, a gently flowing stream and crisp, clean air. I stopped and looked around me, taking it all in, and then walked on. Suddenly I heard a rustling behind me. I turned to look and gave up a surprised shout: a little dog ran right up to me! I have no idea where she came from, or how I didn t see her a moment before, but there she was, Happy as could be to see me. She plopped her little self right beside me. If I moved, she followed. She wasn t afraid of me; she just wanted to be with me, as if to say, Hi! Hi! I love you! It felt somehow, intentional, like an answer to the prayer I had just prayed. Why does God use dogs to communicate His love to so many of us? Is it because God spelled backwards is dog? I don t know, but He does! And He used this little dog to speak to me. She just seemed to be a living, breathing, ball of love that was gonna love me no matter what. That s so like God! He is the Living, breathing embodiment of Love 1 John 4:16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love...
LOVE: ADVENT WEEK 2 Ryan Internicola BethelROC 12.06.15 page 2 of 6 God is love. That s Who He is. Everything He has ever done and will do is in love. Yes, everything: the flood, the fights, the free will of man to do ungodly things. The death of His only Son, the resurrection, His promised return [the Final Advent], the earth shaking events preceding His return, the air we re breathing, the people we are surrounded by, the words you are hearing right now: it s all love, but only those with eyes to see can see it. God IS love. And He is constantly saying, I LOVE YOU! I ME YOU! I GOD YOU! He says it through everything! Even through little dogs! It was so striking that she wasn t afraid of me. This simple experience speaks to a deep place of my broken heart: God is not afraid. 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear... God is not afraid of me. He s not afraid of what i ve been through. He s not afraid of my deepest, darkest secret thoughts. He s not afraid of my pain. He s not afraid of my broken, unfinished state. And, Beloved, He s not afraid of you either. We think God is so easily frightened away, like a deer who hears one little crackle of a leaf and bolts. Pffff! None of that stuff stops Him from wanting to be with us. Romans 8:35, 37-39 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... 37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can make God stop wanting to be with you! And this little dog just wanted to be with me, despite all I was going through in my heart. She followed me home and the excitement of this love exploded in my house. My kids immediate fell in love with this dog and our home seemed to glow with a special presence. The only way I can describe it is that we all shared this holy sense of community. We began a reluctant search for her owners, hoping she had none and we could be her family. We called shelters and vets and posted ads. Then, we took it to the streets: Susanna, myself, our 5 children and this little dog paraded the neighborhood, going door to door looking for leads on where this pup might belong. I loved watching the look on my neighbors faces change as they saw this traveling circus roll up to their doorstep. When they saw that sweet little dog, they would smile brightly and exclaim Oh, isn t she the sweetest! I got so many replies to my ads She s not ours, but if the owners don t respond, we d love to take her! Everyone wanted to experience this love. And as much as we wanted to keep her to ourselves, love compelled us to share her with others. And that s what love does: it compels us to go out and give it to others: 1 John 4:19 We love, because He first loved us.
LOVE: ADVENT WEEK 2 Ryan Internicola BethelROC 12.06.15 page 3 of 6 We can t help it. We ve been loved so well, and this love just won t stay still, it leaps from within us, desperate to go outside and explore the wide world. Even when it involves sacrifice, inconvenience, dare I say, pain. No one knew where this little dog came from. We were beginning to think we might have a new member of our family. There was one more house someone told me to check. So, on black Friday, I took a walk down the street, looking for this house. I really couldn t figure out which one I was supposed to check so I asked a little boy who was playing outside, Hey buddy! Is anyone around here missing a dog? He nodded his head yes and pointed to a house, At my house! he said. I went and knocked on the door, the boy s mother came and said yes they were missing a dog. I got a lump in my throat. I asked for a description, she gave a pretty good one. I really wanted to be sure... actually, i really wanted it to not be her dog... I asked for a picture. She showed me one. It was unmistakable. She told me her name is Bella which means beautiful. I wish I could say I was happy to return this family s beloved pet, but I wasn t. I went home and broke the news to my family. We cried and had a prayer of thanks and blessing together, and got Bella ready to go. And I brought that beautiful little love back to the family that needed her so much. It s gut-wrenching, isn t it? God can speak so powerfully through a little dog. The truth is, He is always speaking to us, through everything! But do we have lenses to see it? Are we interpreting the events of our lives as constant expressions of His love? Advent, the coming of Christ into our world, is the ultimate expression of God s love. Returning a lost dog is nothing compared to sending Your only begotten Son to live, love, die, rise and return for a lost and broken world! God is Love. Jesus is God communicated to us perfectly. Let s look at the Advent account in the gospel of John. But, Ryan, there IS no Advent Account in the gospel of John! Oh, yes there is! You just have to have eyes to see it! John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word... Now, SLOW DOWN! We read the Bible way too fast! If you re not careful, God will try to throw a fast one past you: a life giving curve-ball and you ll miss it! In the beginning was... So, whatever we re about to talk about WAS ALREADY there in the beginning. It existed before the world began; before we started marking time, it was already there......the Word... Oh, something spoken. Something communicated. Okay...and the Word was with God... Ah, it shared intimate community with God. It s on His team. It s part of His family. It is WITH Him....and the Word was God. Whoa! Wait. What? Circuits are overloading! Does not compute! This something spoken was not only with God, but it was God? How is that possible? These two must be so together WITH each other that they are inseparable,
LOVE: ADVENT WEEK 2 Ryan Internicola BethelROC 12.06.15 page 4 of 6 like that married couple whom you never refer to individually, it s always Randy and Kate. Keith & Trish. Jenn & Joel. Mike & Mandie Truly, they are one. vs.2 He was in the beginning with God. He. It s a boy! It s not an it! He s a Person. He s personal. I m not going to read everything slowly today, but I want to encourage you to! Catch those life giving curve balls! vs.3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it... vs.9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. They didn t have eyes to see. They didn t have love lenses on. v.12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God... He gathered them together into His own community, His family v.14a And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us... See how He is not afraid of us? See how He just wants to be with us? To the point that He joined OUR community, OUR family! v.14b...and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth... v.16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. God is Love. Jesus is Love explained. God spoken. If I were a perfect speaker, I could describe an apple to you with such vivid words that you could smell it, you could feel it s firmness in your hand, you could hear the bite of the crisp fruit, you could taste the sweetness on your tongue. If I were a perfect speaker, I could say apple and there, right there before you, would be an apple. Perfectly expressed. Fully experiential. God is the perfect speaker. He opens His mouth and whatever He speaks comes into being. He doesn t just describe light to you. He says light and there. is. LIGHT!
LOVE: ADVENT WEEK 2 Ryan Internicola BethelROC 12.06.15 page 5 of 6 God is love. And when He opened His mouth to describe Himself to us, to say, I love you! there. was. Jesus. See, God s words are not an empty package with pretty wrapping on the outside but no presence inside! God s word s are loaded with substance! Packed with Love Incarnate! Imagine if we decorated these beautiful gift bags with paper and bows and handed them out on Christmas morning but there was nothing inside? Imagine if we wrapped these boxes with festive paper and bows and the children opened them to find no gift card. That s like saying Merry Christmas! But there s nothing in it. It s like saying God bless you! But there is no love inside. God s words are bursting with life and action and He invites us to partner in speaking His love into a dark and desperate world. Listen to the proclamation of the heavenly host when the birth of Christ was announced to shepherds keeping their watch... Luke 2:8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 14 Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men! Jesus is the projection of God s Goodwill toward all humanity. In his book Living in Christ s Presence [a book i have not read, but have read about on the internet] Dallas Willard said, Blessing is the projection of good into the life of another. It isn't just words. It's the actual putting forth of your will for the good of another person. It always involves God, because when you will the good of another person, you realize only God is capable of bringing that. Now we need to deepen that just a little bit, because it isn't just a verbal performance. It isn't "bless you" said through gritted teeth. It's a generous outpouring of our whole being into blessing the other person. Just as God has packed His Word full of Himself, we can pack our words full of God. A simple, Thank you! Have a great day! or dare I say to Christians, Happy Holidays! can be a power-packed projection of goodwill if you will it to be. Yes, you can say, God bless you! and Merry Christmas! but, you know, sometimes Christians say these things to exert themselves over others rather than to lift others up above themselves. It all depends on what your heart is flowing with. Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Two people can say the exact same words, God bless you! and one can be cursing and the other truly blessing. You have the power to pack
LOVE: ADVENT WEEK 2 Ryan Internicola BethelROC 12.06.15 page 6 of 6 your own words. What will you pack them with? I say, pack them with God. Pack them with love. Pack them with Goodwill, intentionally. Try this out on the next purchase you make. As you go through the checkout, pack your words with the goodwill of God and then let it rip on the cashier with a simple Thank you! See what happens. Not only can our simplest words communicate the very substance of God s love, but so can our look, our eyes, our gaze. When Jesus spoke with the rich young ruler, Mark 10:21 says Jesus looked at him and loved him. Mark 10:21 (NIV) That s powerful. This had to be intentional in order for Mark to notice it and record it in his gospel. Jesus intentionally packed His gaze with the Love of God and projected it towards this young man. You and I can do the same. Really! I tried it out the other day. I was at Spot Coffee grabbing a cup of tea with Pastor Jesse when a woman came in off the street and sat near us. She seemed somehow lost, tormented, confused. I didn t know what to do for her, but because I was preparing for this message, I tried looking on her and loving her. And you know what? God took it seriously. I offered Him a bridge to cross over from me to that woman by looking on her and loving her with God s love. Nothing happened in the natural, but I knew in the Spirit, that Love Himself had crossed over from me to her. That s what we do when we pack our words and the gaze of our eyes with God s love: we offer Him a bridge to cross over into someone s life. And we can do the same with our acts of service. Listen, if you decide to sign up and pack gift bags for our community members, or to hand out gifts bags to families in Rochester on Christmas morning, make sure you are packing those actions with the Love of God. Be intentional. Decide that this action is going to be a bridge for God to cross over into someone s life. Decide that YOU are going to be LOVE spoken. Not empty words, but Love made flesh. Now, we want to pray for one another. Some of us need new lenses to see the Love of God that He is constantly displaying. You want to believe it, but you just can t see it right now. It s ok: God wants to give you new lenses. Some of us need our words, our gaze, our actions re-packaged with Love. Our words have become empty, our gaze has become cold, our actions have become obligations. It s ok: God is going to repack you with His Love, His goodwill to project toward others. If you would like special prayer ministry from our team for healing for your heart, healing for your body or any other need, you are invited to come to the altar and we will pray with you.