ALCF Weekly Teaching Podcast

Previously, part 5 of the sermon series focused on moving towards love-inspired service as we embrace God’s love and our identity as His gift. In this final week of our series, Part 6 highlights the impact when we actively show (and not just tell about) Christ’s love to others around us. We learn that real faith produces real fruit. By way of application, we are encouraged to notice those around us who we may have been passing by (i.e. ignoring) and to find a way to practically show Christ’s love to them.

The sermon makes four specific points:

1) In the person of God, word and deed are linked.

2) Our Christian witness is damaged when our words and deeds regularly do not match.

3) Mature disciples reach and replicate Christ in the lives of others.

4) We reach and replicate Christ by living lives of show and tell.

Last week, the sermon focused on the struggle found in the process of being increasingly transformed into the likeness of Christ. This week, Part 5 of our series highlights our service to others and God. We learn that if we base our service out of obligation or guilt, serving will seem more like a chore. However, if the motivation of our service stems from love, as it should according to the Scripture, then serving will bring about joy and connectedness to God and others.

In fact, love and service are meant to be inseparable. We see the levels of enthusiasm a fan can demonstrate for a football team because of his or her love for it; so how much more should we wholeheartedly serve others because of our love for Christ? Sometimes we may not feel like persevering in love-based service. Thus, we may need a heart check as an intentional act of allowing God to help us remember His goodness, faithfulness and love towards us. This helps us to recall why we first loved and rekindles our heart towards serving.

We are able to move towards a love-inspired service when we realize that we have been claimed and captured by the love of God (Psalm 68:18). Likewise, He has made us to be a gift to others (Numbers 8:18-19). As we lovingly serve those around us, the fullness of God’s presence in Christ Jesus is manifest more and more on earth (Ephesians 4:11-13).

Last week, the sermon focused on the necessity of being active in a local fellowship if we are to grow as Christ’s disciples. This week, Part 3 of our series builds on the theme of fellowship. We learn that engaging in the diversity God has brought about at ALCF is essential for us to experience the fullness of God mentioned three times in Ephesians. By diversity, we mean that ALCF is comprised of people from different ages, religious backgrounds, education levels, socio- economic classes, political convictions, ethnicities, and races. Out of these many and varied backgrounds, God has made us one body. Together, we are God’s masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10).

The sermon makes three specific points:

1) The gift of diversity is a gift from God that needs to be unwrapped and used;

2) The challenge of diversity recognizes that before we were in Christ, our identity came

from other sources fragmented by sin, e.g. our class or ethnicity, etc. Consequently, we learned to fear and have negative feelings towards others who are different than us. However, if we can see our differences with the other members of the body like a church potluck, i.e. to be explored, enjoyed, and intended for mutual blessing, then we can overcome our fears and feelings and experience more of God’s fullness;

3) The power of diversity in Christ speaks to the way God uses our participation in a diverse body of believers to break the bonds of fear and negative feelings. Thus transforming us more into the image of His Son, Jesus.