What the World Needs Now Is…Solidarity

This week, we begin a new sermon series, “What the World Needs Now Is….”  You may or may not be able to finish this title, but probably a good number of people would say, “love, sweet love!”  This was a 1965 song performed by Jackie DeShannon, but it is also stuck in our consciousness. We are drawn to it because it contains an enduring truth, that in our world more love and greater love would be a good thing. How would the last two years have been different if there had been a greater sense of love in our society? How would the coming year be different if we were able to find a greater sense of love in our world? How would our lives be different if we felt a greater love in our hearts? When we feel we are loved, we are more likely to love others, but this is a problem, isn’t it? We struggle to give what we do not have, or we are afraid to love another because it means annoyance, frustration, and hurt. Our first sermon is Solidarity. We hear this word a lot in our world when people try to express a unity with a cause of a movement, yet we wonder about their sincerity. How does anyone prove a solidarity with another person? In this series, we will be looking at 1 John and we will begin with 1 John 2:1-11. The Apostle John is the writer of this letter and he is very clear with all believers, when we have a solidarity with God, we will find a greater and more complete love in our hearts. Unfortunately, hatred, anger, conflict, and frustration seem to overwhelm our fragile ability to love one another. How do we find a greater power of love in our lives? In these verses this Apostle points us to a foundational strength that enables us to love each other despite our problems and imperfections and it gives us a fuller sense of being loved! As you read these words, it is our prayer that you will sense how much you are loved and that God’s power is at work in you in those moments you’re struggling to love someone else. 1 John 2:1-11: My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father– Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. 7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. 9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. 11 But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them. (NIV)