How do you win a war? You might think that the answer is found in a superior army, a greater air force and a better navy. Or maybe advanced weapons turn the tide or perhaps its financial resources that win the day? None of your answers are even close to the truth! To discover the secret of successful warfare, you need to embrace the Liechtenstein strategy. In 1866, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia went to war. Liechtenstein allied themselves with Austria and sent 80 soldiers to tilt the war in their favor. The Austrians deployed these soldiers to guard a key highway between Austria and Italy (Italy was a Prussian pawn). One month and eight days later, the war ended (!), and the Liechtenstein army returned home to world applause. Not only was no one wounded or injured during the campaign, but while they left with 80 soldiers, they came home with 81!  Apparently, an Austrian liaison officer found the Liechtenstein people so delightful, he decided to desert the Austrian army and join the Liechtenstein lion. A year and a half later, Liechtenstein disbanded their army and declared perpetual neutrality. So, how do you win a war? You never fire a weapon. No one gets wounded. You return home with more soldiers than you sent out. And you never go to war again. You do that every time a war breaks out, and you will be a world super power in no time! 

How do you make disciples? I think we would all agree it is a battle, but it is one we must win. It is not good enough to make church-goers, and it certainly is not sufficient these days to simply make converts. Our calling is to make disciples. In fact, it is the calling of the church; and if we fail here, we fail everywhere. C.S. Lewis wrote: “If the Church is not making disciples, then all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible, are a waste of time.” It is that important.

So, what is our plan? As you know, last week, we proposed that we use our eight core values as the measure of maturity for our church. If you embodied these eight characteristics perfectly (and had the right heart), you would be well on your way to spiritual maturity. But stating what spiritual maturity looks like is different from being spiritual mature, and so we suggested a three-step plan to move us from where we are toward these eight characteristics. Last week, we looked at what it would mean to be driven by grace. This week, we want to explore what it would look like to be committed to loving the person God’s puts in your path.

Now, I believe this is a good plan, but talking about procedures and methods is boring. And blogs should not be boring. Hopefully, we can get on with the plan starting next week, but this week, I am afraid we are stuck talking about how to work the plan. I apologize in advance.

In any case, here is how we define loving the people God puts in your path (we will talk about what to do with this “definition” below):

  1. My significant relationships are growing and thriving.
  2. As a person, I am growing more and more loving, gracious, kind, patient and compassionate.
  3. I would say my relationships with those who attend our church are deepening, healthy, enjoyable and spiritually meaningful.  
  4. I have forgiven those who have wronged me, rectified situations where I have wronged others and am striving to expunge all resentment, bitterness and ill-will toward others.
  5. I find myself responding to the people God puts in my path in loving and gracious and helpful ways.
  6. I am growing more other-centered: seeking to listen more attentively, seeking to encourage others more frequently and seeking to pray for others more regularly.

So, given that definition, what’s our plan?  It has six steps (organized in three pairs):

First, SURVEY and PRAY

Prayerfully, consider each of these six aspects of “loving others” and then please assess how you are doing today compared to last year. Have you/are you (1) lost ground, (2) stagnated, (3) growing slowly (4), growing or (5) discovering new breakthroughs? Go through each of these six items and assess where you are today compared to last year by giving each a numerical value. 

When I did this, I gave myself one “1,” three “2’s,” one “3,” and one “4,” for a grand total of 14 out of 30 possible points (I obviously have work to do!). How did you do?

Now, obviously this isn’t scientific. I am rating myself based on how I feel I am doing and where I should be. You may be harder or easier on yourself than I am on myself. That’s okay. All we are striving for here is how you feel you are doing. And there is no judgment here. If you score 29, we don’t automatically add you to the Session; and if you score a 6, we don’t kick you out of the church. Plus, no one else will ever know how you scored yourself. This isn’t golf where at the end of the day we pass around our score cards to see how everyone did. This exercise is just between you and God. So, be honest. Be fair and be open to allowing God to work through this process.

After you have assessed where you are, take time to pray. Thank God for any and all signs of his grace where you have seen growth over the course of the last year. Maybe you are growing slowly, but last year you lost ground. That is a significant step of growth. Thank God for his grace. And for those areas where there is work to be done, ask God to help you to grow and to give you endurance so that you will work on those items and not become discouraged and give up. Don’t beat yourself up for low scores! God loves you regardless if you have a 6 or a 26. Our calling is to grow in his love and grace, not to be overcome by our failures. As they say, when you fail, always fail forward. And don’t forget to pray. We can’t grow on our own. We need divine empowerment and we need divine encouragement and we need divine reminders that God is for us, with us and in us to do his work.  

In other words, to grow in love, we need to abide in Jesus. And that means we need to bathe this whole process in prayer.  

Second, SELECT and DETECT

You have surveyed and you have prayed, now it is time to get to the heart of the matter. Look over our six items again, but this time select two that you feel are most critical for your spiritual life right now. Again, this not scientific. You get to choose the two you want to work on, and whatever two you choose are the correct two. You can choose the two you scored lowest on or the two you scored highest on. It is totally up to you (and of course, the Spirit who is always with us in these sorts of things). In any case, choose two of the six to focus on in the upcoming week. You are not making a life-long commitment here, so don’t belabor the process. Select two and write them down somewhere so you can reference them easily.  

There is an old saying that I know you know: “Out of sight, out of mind.” We want you to be able to keep these things close to your heart, and so we are asking you to post them somewhere visible (to you) so you will not lose sight of them throughout the day. Maybe it is on the memo pad of your phone. Maybe you are old school and want to write them on a 3×5 card that you tape to the top of your laptop or slip into your Bible. Write them down and put them somewhere you will see them.     

After selecting your two items, pray over them and ask God to give you opportunities to put them into practice. And then, as you go throughout the day, detect those opportunities that God is sending your way to help you grow in love. I have no doubt that God will give you opportunities to put these things into practice; but, if you are like me, you may be prone to miss said opportunities as if they were not even there. Remember Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” See, God has already prepared opportunities for you to grow in these areas. He has hidden them out in your future. Your job now is to detect those opportunities.

Third, EMBODY and EMBRACE

Once you find those God-given moments, your job is to act and to respond in love to the situation God is giving you. We grow in love as we embody loving responses to difficult situations (loving when it is easy to love is great, but we really grow when we choose to love when it is hard). Make the most of every opportunity to love. Make it a priority: Respond to the person in front of you with love, no matter what the situation.  

But our goal is not just to embody love for a week, but to embrace a godly lifestyle. And here’s the kicker: You don’t become godly by focusing one week on grace and then another or love and then a third on outreach. You need to embrace each one of our eight core values and work on growing in each category. But if we focus on too many items at once, we will get lost in the shuffle.  Instead, here’s what we are going to do. Last week, you chose two characteristics of someone who is driven by God’s grace and you worked on it for seven days. This week, we want you to choose two characteristics of someone who is committed to loving the people God puts in their path and focus on it for the next seven days. But we also want you to choose one of your two grace items to continue working on (looking for opportunities and then responding appropriately). In other words, for the next seven days, you will be working on one of your grace goals and two of your love goals. And we will follow this pattern for the next eight weeks (two new and one old each week).

Let’s face it: If Liechtenstein can win a war, certainly we can make strides to grow in our faith. It may take some thought, some effort and some time, but I think it will be well worth it. I have my plan for what I am going to do this week.  How about you?