Learning From and With Our God of Unconditional Love (Together, in a Variety of Ways)
“Breaking Out of Routine Love” – Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 5:1-11
You can live your life out of a place of love, yes, even unconditional love. Jesus has given us the grace we need to keep putting one foot in front of the other. In Christ, we can do what needs to be done.
To experience love and to love, we need a personal encounter with God and one that is ongoing. Believing is important, but unless beliefs transform us, and are put into action, beliefs are useless. In Jesus Christ, we are a new creation. A personal encounter with God leads us to participate with God in God’s mission. Mark Abbott, Director of Hispanic Distributed Learning, Asbury Theological Seminary writes, “In both Isaiah and Luke, personal encounter with God leads to missional engagement and is not an end in itself.”[1] A personal relationship with God is the means to break out of routine love.
William Carey had an ongoing personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. Early on in his ministry, as an ordained Baptist minister in the late 18th century, Carey was at a gathering of ministers for a theological forum on a variety of issues. One of the senior ministers asked Carey for a theme to discuss to which Carey replied, “May we consider whether the command given to the apostles to teach all nations was not obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent.” Dr. Ryland promptly denounced Carey, “Sit down young man! When God chooses to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine!”
Simon Peter, like William Carey, had an ongoing personal encounter with Jesus. The story in Luke is set in the early days of Jesus’ ministry. After a day’s activity, Jesus paused at the lake of Gennesaret. Simon Peter, James, John and other fishermen had just returned from fishing all-night having caught no fish. The text intimates that Jesus was some distance away and a crowd had gathered around him to hear him teach. Jesus seized the moment to use a real-life situation to teach the disciples and crowd about his true identity. Shortly after Jesus and the crowd meandered over to Simon Peter and his partners, Jesus got into the boat and told Simon Peter to go out a way from the shore into deep water and cast his nets for a catch. Simon Peter did as Jesus asked and the text tells us that they caught so many fish their nets began to break. Simon Peter called to shore for his partners to come out and fill their boats. He had been a fisherman for years. Simon Peter knew his trade. But now, with his boats full to overflowing, he had a crisis of faith. Simon Peter didn’t believe that Jesus could get a catch of fish any more than he could. Simon Peter’s sin was his disbelief.[2]
William Carey did not “sit down.” William Carey “stood up and stepped out” and founded the Missionary Society to India. Transformation occurs in everyday, real-life situations through believing. Obeying Jesus and his Word moves us out of routine love to love that is self-giving, authentic, and transformational. As Gradye Parsons reminds us in Our Connectional Church, showing up is more than half the battle for experiencing transformation when he writes,
The few members of Spring City Presbyterian Church showed up. Showing up may not seem like a large accomplishment, but it is. As the saying goes, 90% of life is showing up. The people of the church didn’t just show up at church, they showed up outside the four walls of the building where many people have negative views of a church they see as too judgmental. So, we have to overcome that perception by revealing a different picture of the church.[3]
It is living your life in authenticity that speaks the loudest to the skeptical.
Jesus has a call on your life. Listen to this 19th century illustration of a life changing experience for a group of young men:
Awakenings started the foreign missions movement in America, and American missionary work started in a haystack, during a thunderstorm! In 1806, during an awakening at Williams College in Western Massachusetts, Samuel Mills and four other students hid themselves in a haystack to avoid a summer thunderstorm. While there they united in prayer, and pledged themselves to go as missionaries wherever God might lead them. Out of this group went the first American missionaries. Some of the best impulses for social reform in America’s history have come from awakenings. The anti-slavery movement in America was mainly a part of the reform movement generated by the Second Great Awakening, as were movements for prison reform, child labor laws, women’s rights, inner-city missions, and many more.[4]
Yes, following Jesus often has the frustration of working hard with little if any results. Do not forget that God’s grace and blessings are often more than you expect. The church is full of religious people with whom you cannot relate. The church, however, is either a hospital for imperfect sinners, or it is “the champagne toast of the spiritually proud.”
Jesus meets you in your sense of inadequacy. Stephen Mattson writes, “Following Christ implores us to pledge allegiance to Jesus above any earthly king, leader, political party, or government. Our loyalty is to Jesus and our duty is to love our neighbors. This should be prioritized above anything else.”[5] May your response to Jesus’s call be one of loyalty. Follow him whenever and wherever he goes. Break out of routine love by believing that showing up changes things. Amen.
This sermon was preached on the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, 09 February 2025
by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary
at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas
Copyright Ó 2025
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]Mark Abbott in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery and Cynthia L. Rigby, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 1 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 233.
[2]In preparation of this sermon, I have benefited from the thinking of Brent A. Strawn, Stacey Simpson Duke, Rhodora E. Beaton, Mark Abbott, Beth Felker Jones, Warren Carter, and Blair R. Monie in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 1 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 223-225, 225-227, 228-230, 231-233, 233-234, 235-237, and 237-238.
[3]Gradye Parsons, Our Connectional Church (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 32.
[4]Taken from “Spiritual Awakenings in North America,” Christian History, no. 23.
[5]Taken from John D’Elia’s FB post, Saturday, February 8, 2025.
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