This Sunday we begin to look at Six Simple Actions that Jesus’ love caused Him to take and the challenge that each of them gives to us. These six aren’t an exhaustive list, for Jesus certainly acted out of His love in many other ways. However, these six are key when it comes to being a church community that loves like Jesus. Jesus had an amazing way of genuinely and personally connecting with others. That didn’t happen by accident; instead, it developed out of His love and how He chose to act based on His love.
The first Simple Action we will look at this week is that Jesus’ love caused Him to take the first step toward others. You can see this in so many ways during His earthly ministry – just think of some of your favorite Bible stories about Jesus (the Woman at the Well, Zacchaeus, etc.). Over and over, you see Jesus taking the first step toward making a connection with others. His love didn’t leave Him sitting with warm aspirations, it moved him toward humble action, even from the very start. We see it best exemplified in His attitude when it came to becoming human, so He could become the sacrifice – our Savior – for our sin (Philippians 2). He didn’t have to make that move. He would have been totally right not to. But that’s not Who He is, because God is love. And that’s where the challenge comes for us. Jesus’ love caused Him to take the first step toward others, so, loving like Jesus will move us to create connections with others.
We will be looking at Philippians 2:1-11 and Jesus’ attitude this Sunday. Let me encourage you to read Philippians 1:27-2:17 beforehand, in order to get the “big picture” of why God and Paul were using Jesus as the example here. And let me challenge you, the purpose isn’t to give us a theological “primer” on the Incarnation (2:5-11). It is something much bigger, and much more foundational to being believers and a church community that will create connections with others and love like Jesus.
