A couple weeks ago Pastor Willy asked each one of us to have a sermon prepared just in case. He told us to ask the Lord to put something on each of our hearts to talk about. When he told us, I immediately said, no, that’s not for me. I’m not preaching, I don’t like talking in front of groups so the Lord would not ask me to preach because He knows me better than I know myself. But this year is all about being uncomfortable, so of course he gave me a sermon.
During one of my quiet times I was reading 1 John 4 and as I was reading the Lord started to ask me questions, “Jenny do you love people well?”; “Jenny do you love everyone, or just the easy people to love?” and “how do you define love and how is that different than the way I define Love?” He spoke sweetly and told me all the ways he was coming after my heart. He was asking me these questions to help lovingly correct me and place me on his path again. These questions at first were easy to answer, but the more I started pulling them apart the more the Lord started showing me more and more of my own brokenness and how I often write off the people who give me the squirmeys inside. In 1 John 4:19-21 it says,
“We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother or sister.”
Then he asked, “do you hate anyone?”; “How do you define hate?” Almost immediately, He convicted me about the word hate and told me that hate is not a word with a single meaning. It encompasses many different emotions like hurt, pain, rejection, dislike, and fear. The word says you are a LIAR if you claim to love God but hate a brother or sister. Wow, it also made me ask the question of who my brothers and sisters are? Are they only believers or are they all the people of the world. God calls every person who accepts his son as savior, his child. So are only fellow believers the ones I shouldn’t hate? But what if someone lives a life full of sin but in the last years before death accepts christ, are they now my brother or were they always my brother? All of these questions made gave me a very convicting sermon.
As the Lord was asking me these questions and telling me to write them down like I was speaking them He reminded me to picture his table. To see all the details of what it would be like to sit at the table, understanding every person from every nation. Nothing hindering perfect relationship with each person at the table. He then asked me to picture the person who is the hardest for me to love sitting across the table from me. He asked me, “what do you feel?” Honestly I was not happy, I was actually angry. But then the Lord said, “If my grace is sufficient for you, then why would it not be the same for them? WOW, ok Lord you are right. How can I claim to love a perfect and Holy God but not love someone who is just as broken as me?
Then, He told me to be bold and to have them move through this exercise of picturing the Lord’s perfect table. Infinitely long, adorned with the most beautiful place settings, set perfectly for each person, and every nation represented there with no language barriers. To see the hard people for them to love sitting at the table with them, and asking for the Lord’s eyes for those people? Asking the Lord to give them the strength to ask for patience, grace, and love for those people.
I thought it was comical that the Lord would ask me to share something so hard to hear with people I hardly know. But something the Lord is pushing me to do is to just say yes when He invites me in. He gave me this sermon and asked me to proclaim it boldly. I was hoping that the Lord would give me some time to mentally wrap my mind around preaching, but as is the story of my life with God, He threw me into the fire right away. Gave me the sermon on Thursday morning and asked me to preach on Sunday. The morning He gave me this message, Pastor Willy asked our team at breakfast who would preach on Sunday. The funny thing is, I would have not volunteered except I had shared with Suze what the Lord gave me. So as soon as Pastor asked the question, Suze was staring me down. It’s a funny thing living in community, especially when we have asked to keep each other accountable and to push each other to step into what the Lord is calling us to. So Sunday rolled around, and I preached. On our hour long bus ride back to the house, I continued to hear the Lord say, keep saying yes so I can use you. Keep saying yes. It is not going to be comfortable. But it is going to be GOOD.
