The language of bonding is important. The reason such language is important is because the life of faith is one of perpetual binding or weaving together: we are woven into a covenant community where true love (unselfish and sacrificial love) is what binds us or ties together. It is the kind of love Christ gave us, the kind of love that we find in true friendship, true community, true relationship.

Indeed, that’s how a popular praise song goes: “Bind us together with chords that cannot be broken.” Of course, there is also the old hymn “Blest Be the Tie that Binds, our hearts in Christian love…” Such language of bonding may resonate with us.

I say this because over the last few years I have observed how the bonds that have kept us together – at least as a society – are unraveling. So many things seem to be coming apart. I don’t think I am the only one saying this. More and more, we see the bonds of love and trust broken in government, in the church, in corporate life, even in family life. The ties that bind us together seem to be coming apart, especially when we see that the highest rate of suicide in the Western hemisphere is now in the United States, a symptom if there ever was one of a lack of understanding and compassion, or of broken bonds in our common life together. We also see it in the opioid epidemic. Such breakdowns remind that God created us for relationships, but that such relationships always need to be cultivated.

And so, when we read in First John that God is love we can hopefully realize again that our relationship with God and with each other is about holy and sacrificial love – trusting, believing, “abiding” love. That’s the word John uses – abiding.

“Abiding love” is about a “hanging together” kind of love, or a “learning how to go down the same road together” kind of love, even when the road is difficult. We learn to abide with each other or stay with each other. It is not easy to do, but it is something we are called to do.

How may we continue to abide with each other? If God is love, how may we show such love to others?
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

In John’s First Letter we find an apostle who is seeking to guide his church back to the basics of the Christian faith, or to what is inside the box. Apparently, there were persons in John’s congregation who did not believe in Jesus as God’s Son, as well as the notion of Jesus’ death on the cross as an act of atonement for sin. Apparently, there were persons who were having a difficult time believing and acting accordingly, not to mention the fact they were having a tough time loving one another! 

In other words, we find an apostle who is trying to assist the church with being clear about what the church’s mission is to be about, or what is in the box. When the church – that is, when we – lose sight of what is in the box, or of how Jesus laid down his life for us, we are also in the process of losing sight of the knowledge of how we are to lay down our lives for one another (1 John 3:16). We begin to lose sight of what Jesus’ sacrificial love truly entails, that it is not only an act of forgiveness, but it is also a pattern of behavior among those who believe (1 John 3:23). We begin to lose sight of the mission.

Jesus himself said it this way: “Greater love has no one than this; than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (15:13). And John puts it another way: “Little children, let us love, not simply in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:18). How can we say we abide in God, if we are not showing loving by our actions? Or, if we see someone in need, and do not respond, how can we say God is in us? (1 John 3:17). We can’t.

Rather, what pleases God is to believe in his Son on the one hand and to love one another on the other (1 John 3:22-23). The two go hand in hand and failing those two things, we miss what’s in the box.

How may we continue to abide with God by loving one another and helping those in need? How may we continue to fulfill God’s mission?

​Pastor Andy Kinsey

In John’s First Letter, we read how we all are God’s children. John tells us that the reason we all are part of God’s family is because of God’s great love in Christ: Jesus atoned for us, and not simply for us, but for the whole world. 

That’s the whole point of the Gospel: that God so loved the world that God gave his only Son that whosoever believes will have everlasting life.

It is this kind of love that makes the mission possible in the first place: God first loving us and giving to us so that we may in turn love God and love others (1 Jn. 4:19). The mission is possible because of what God has done for us and what God continues to do in us!  It is the reason why we are in mission: Jesus became like us that we might become like him. 

That’s the very Mo-Jo that keeps us going! Take that away and there is no mission! No hope! No Gospel!

Perhaps another way to think about this is how we as church do not necessarily have a mission so much as a mission has us! Yes, our mission is to care and grow as disciples. But equally true is how God’s mission of caring and growing involves us. And to the extent that we can envision God’s mission for us, we can extend that mission to others – by our giving, by our witnessing, by our praying.       

It is why there is really no limit we can place on God’s mission, or on God’s love, or to the number of children we can help, or to how many people may come into God’s presence. As children created in the image of God, we understand ourselves to be in a mission to bless that image in all people, in all children – whether in Africa or Central America, or in Franklin or the state of Indiana, God’s mission is always a mission of love large enough to care for everyone. That’s how big God’s love is!

How may we extend that mission of love to others? What may the mission entail for each of us?
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Pastor Andy Kinsey