Pittsburgh New Church » Be the Church, Part 2: Love ...

Last week, in part one of our series, we reviewed our individual responsibilities to the Lord as citizens of his kingdom on earth, the Church. They are to live a life of piety (praying, reading the Word, and worshiping the Lord) and a life of charity (repenting, shunning evils, and serving other people) so that we may be born again.

This week, we are talking about how we can be the church to one another. In The Gospel of John, the Lord tells us, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” A very powerful and important way we can keep this commandment is by supporting each other in one another’s personal spiritual journeys. True Christian Religion teaches that the Church as a person’s neighbor provides true teachings and good deeds by which that person enters the Lord’s kingdom. If each of us is to be the church, then each of us is responsible for supporting our spiritual brothers and sisters as they try to understand truths and to do good deeds.

It is because the church—which is made up of each one of us—helps us in this way that we are to love and honor our spiritual mother the church as one of the highest forms of neighbor. And when we are the church to one another and are loving the church in one another, we form a spiritual community of individuals striving to help one another to become better people. This community the Writings for the New Church call the “communion of saints”.

But the communion of saints also includes people you have never met. And so next week we will look at ways we as a church can be a good neighbor to the rest of the world in “Be the Church, Part 3: Serve Humanity”.

To see the truth of this message and to learn how to apply it to your life, read John 13:31-24 and True Christian Religion 145-146, and then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (where it was preached), TheoBlog, the New Church, and for free at the Apple iTunes Store.

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John 13:31-34

So, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

True Christian Religion 145-146

Chapter V

The neighbor who is to be loved in a higher degree is the church, and in the highest degree the Lord’s kingdom.

Since man is born destined for everlasting life, and it is the church which brings him to this, the church ought to be loved as neighbor in a higher degree. For the church’s teaching is the means leading to and giving entry to everlasting life. It is the truths of its teaching which lead and the good deeds performed which give entry to it. This does not mean that the priesthood is to be loved in a higher degree, and the church because of the priesthood. It is the good and truth of the church which ought to be loved, and the priesthood for their sake. The priesthood only serves as a means, and should be honored to the extent that it so serves.

Another reason why the church is the neighbor to be loved in a higher degree, and so more than one’s country, is that one’s country introduces one to secular life, but the church introduces one to spiritual life, the life which distinguishes man from living purely as an animal. Moreover, secular life is temporary, having an end, and is then as if it had never been. But spiritual life, having no end, is everlasting, so that the term ‘being’ may be used of it, but ‘not-being’ of the other form of life. The difference is like that between the finite and the infinite, which are incommensurable; for what is everlasting is infinite in respect of time.

The reason why the Lord’s kingdom is the neighbor to be loved in the highest degree is that the Lord’s kingdom means the church throughout the whole world, what is called the communion of saints, and it also means heaven. If therefore a person loves the Lord’s kingdom, he loves everyone in the whole world who acknowledges the Lord and has faith in Him and charity towards the neighbor, as well as all in heaven. Those who love the Lord’s kingdom love the Lord above all else, and consequently have greater love to God than all others. For the church in the heavens and upon earth is the Lord’s body, since its members are in the Lord and the Lord in them.

Love for the Lord’s kingdom then is love towards the neighbor in the fullest sense. For those who love the Lord’s kingdom not only love the Lord above all else, but also love the neighbor as themselves. Love to the Lord is universal love, thus pervading every detail of spiritual life and also every detail of natural life. For that love dwells at the highest level in a person, and what is highest flows into what is lower, bringing it to life, just as the will does into every intention and thus every action, and as the understanding into every thought and thus every utterance. This is why the Lord says:

“Seek first the kingdom of the heavens and its righteousness, then everything will be given to you in addition.” (Mat. 6:33)

The kingdom of the heavens is the Lord’s kingdom, as is established by this passage in Daniel:

“Behold, one like the Son of Man was coming with the clouds of the heavens. And to him was given dominion, glory and the kingdom, and all peoples, nations and tongues will worship him. His dominion will be a dominion for ever, which will not pass away and his kingdom one which will not perish.” (Dan. 7:13-14)