Let me give you the answer to what our purpose and vision at Kineo are first, then I’ll give you the reasons why we believe this way and how we believe our purpose and vision plays out in our daily lives:
Purpose: To display the beauty of Jesus to the world and find our joy and comfort in God alone.
Isaiah 61:1-3: 1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. (the Hebrew literally says, “that he may display His beauty.”) God wants to display His beauty through us!
Vision: To be a people who, driven by our purpose in life, love God with ALL of who we are and with ALL of what we have; and with the same intensity, we love people so that the world will know that we are Jesus’ people.
From the beginning of our church, we had 2 things that God’s Word caused us to put out in the fore front of who we are, what we do, how we live, how we preach, etc:
Mark 12:28-31: 28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" 29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
The 2 most important things in the universe are God and people. Jesus was only about loving God the Father, and loving people. So, by default, we are purposed to love God and love people. The whole scroll, the whole Law and the Prophets, the whole history of redemption and all of God’s plans and acts hang on these two great sovereign purposes of God—that he be loved by his people, and that his people love each other.
Why? Why is it that these are the 2 great purposes (commandments) that Jesus gives us and that sum up all that God wants to say to us in a nutshell? Let me give you a few passages of Scripture that I think tell us why (not the only “why”, but the central “why”):
Psalm 89:6-7: 6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord, 7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?….Psalm 145:20: The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
John 13:35: By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another....John 15:8: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
No one can compare to the Lord. He rules over everything. He is awesome!! And oh by the way, He preserves all who love Him, and He destroys those who do not. That’s a big reason in and of itself for us to be convinced to love God. Then Jesus says to His disciples the night before He gives Himself up to be crucified something like this:
“The world will know that you are my passionate followers by the way you love each other...so love each other. This is what glorifies the Father and to glorify Him is your highest purpose. I came to obey the Father, thus glorifying Him, and you should be about the same things.”
With this thought, we believe at Kineo, that our main purpose in life is to display the beauty of Jesus to the world because He is our savior, the radiance of God's glory, the exact imprint of His nature (Hebrews 1:3); therefore, our vision is to love God and to love people just as Jesus did. We believe that Jesus is made to look magnificent in the most glorious way when His people are madly in love with God and who pursue Him with everything they are, and with everything they have. And the implications of loving God in this radical way is that we love people so that they may experience the goodness of this awesome God that we treasure above everything else.
What does this look like? Well, to begin to paint a picture for us, let’s turn to a Psalm of David and see what it looked like for Him to love God with everything He was and had:
Psalm 63:1-8: 1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, 6 when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; 7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
- Earnestly seek Him (v. 1)
- With a heart that is utterly unsatisfied without Him
- With the desperation of your body failing out without Him
- Meet with Him in your prayer closet and with other believers (v. 2)
- Find ALL your satisfaction and joy in Him and no other (v. 5)
- Praise Him with your lips and with your hands lifted up to Him (vv.4-5, 7)
- Praise Him because He has utterly satisfied you (v. 5)
- Sing for joy because He is has helped you (v. 7)
- With lips because you are not ashamed of Him or of proclaiming Him (v. 5, 7)
- With your hands lifted to Him because you receive from Him alone (v. 4)
- Remember all He has done for you...do not forget His provisions/grace (v. 6a)
- Meditate on Him in the word and in prayer (v. 6b)
- Cling to Him everyday because He alone upholds you (v. 7)
To love God with everything you are and with everything you have means to find Him as your supreme treasure in your life and to seek after Him daily, to meet with Him daily, to be satisfied with Him daily, to praise Him daily, to remember His deeds towards you daily, to meditate on His word daily, to desperately cling to Him daily! This should seem impossible to you as you sit here and listen to me list off what it looks like to love God with ALL your heart, soul, mind, strength! This is the point.
Not only does God want you to love Him in this way, He is the one who will enable you to love Him in this way even though we fail at it daily. Luke 18:27: "What is impossible with men is possible with God." You see, God not only saves you, He also sustains you, but He asks that you play your part in this process and earnestly seek Him with ALL you have. This devotion to Him is generated through the Holy Spirit and is kept and added to by the Holy Spirit as well. He preserves His people (1 Peter 1:3-5), and His people will love Him more and more as they journey with Him. Not only that, but it is this very pursuit of loving God in this way that is essential if we are indeed, going to love people as He desires us to.
The 1st commandment is the grounds for fulfilling the 2nd. To go about the other way is to short change the people that you are trying to love. The greatest love you can offer others is the love of God, and one cannot know the love of God if one does not know and love God (1 John 4:7-8).
Loving God is the very thing that the Spirit uses to sustain us to love people. What can motivate us to love people who are enemies of God and who abuse us and persecute us, etc...? Only the heart that finds its joy and hope and safety and love and meaning and identity in God, can truly love people in a way that brings glory to God and not man.
Loving God with all of who we are and have sustains us through all the pain and trials and confusion and rejection and heartbreak and hopelessness that loving people brings upon us.
To love people means that we are placing ourselves in the middle of people’s mess and becoming vulnerable to being hurt by people. To love people means that we are sacrificing much. No lover is a good lover if he/she doesn’t sacrifice much for their lover. Love is costly. When loving people begins to kill our spirits, we fall back on God’s grace being sufficient for us, which is the basis of our love for God (1 John 4:9-10).
When we are loving God with ALL of who we are, we don’t run from loving "much" out of fear of pain. We run towards loving much because we have been loved much and because we are secure in our position before God; what can man do to me? If God is for us (and if we really believe it!!), then we can lose our lives for His people, for His glory, and for our good! As we close, my prayer is that we may we be able to agree with David in Psalm 16 and say with him:
Psalm 16:5-11: 5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. 6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. 7 I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. 8 I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. 10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. 11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Amen.
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