How to Love Like Jesus | Love Languages: Acts of Service | Josiah Guajardo

Come on, church, can we celebrate all that God did at Camp Empower? An incredible few days with Camp Empower, and church, let me just tell you this. What I love most about our church is that we have a mission statement, but we don't just have a mission statement. We live out the mission statement, right? Helping all people of all ages, all the time, advance in their journey with Christ. And Camp Empower is a picture of that. You know, our Haven Ministry, which they honor and value every need, every single week. So church, I just wanna say, before we do anything today, thank you for being the church. Thank you for loving people so well. If I haven't had the chance to meet you, my name is Josiah Guajardo, and I have the privilege of serving as our online pastor as well. I get to lead our communications and creative teams here at Battle Creek Church. We get to make videos just like the one that you just saw. And before we jump into our message today, I'd like to take a moment just to honor our pastor. I'm so thankful to be here today to speak to you. And can you just let Pastor Alex and Meredith know how much we love them today? Can we thank them for their heart and the way they love us as a church?

You know, one of the privileges of my role is getting to be with Pastor behind the scenes and getting to see him in the day-to-day. And one thing that I've learned is that he doesn't just pray for us as a whole, our church as a whole, but he gets to pray for people specifically. He prays for families and over specific situations and people by name. And so before we open God's word today, I would love to just take a minute and to pray for him as you heard he's recovering and just that the Lord would continue to help the recovery and will continue to bless him and their family. Would you pray with me this morning? Would you bow your heads? Father, we thank you for the gift of pastor. And we thank you for Pastor Alex and the gift he is to our church. We thank you for his faithful leadership and the love that he has for your people and the way he continues to point to Jesus. God, today we ask that you would strengthen his body, restore his health and give him the rest that he needs. God, encourage him and Meredith to remind them how deeply loved they are by their church family. Continue to give them wisdom as they lead us. God, we love you and we thank you and in Jesus' name. And everybody says, amen. Well, today before,

today we get to kick off a brand new series called Love Languages and I couldn't be more excited for that. But before we jump into that, I would love to introduce you to my family. This is my wife, Delmie, and our two beautiful kids, Josiah and Isabella. And I know what you're thinking, those kids are so adorable, they look like their dad. But no, we've been a part of Battle Creek Church for just under 10 years now and it has truly been one of the greatest blessings of my life and I got into the archives and this is us in one of our first years here at Battle Creek Church. And I know what you're thinking, Delmie hasn't aged one single day and I found every good restaurant in Tulsa to eat at, right? But you know, what people don't know, or some people don't know, is Delmie actually works here at the church with us and she leads our outreach team. And whenever I say I work with my wife, usually the next question is, how is that? How do you do that? Because if it was us, it would not go well. Well, normally I say something, but today I just wanna show you what is it like to work with your wife. This is what it's like to work with your wife.

It's okay, you can be truthful. Like, look at her, look how excited she is into wearing this costume in this day. Look how excited I am to be married to her, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's how it goes. But over the years, we've learned a lot about relationships and we've had a grown in our marriage. And in fact, one of the biggest lessons that I learned was the year before we got married. You see, Delmie and I went to O. Roberts University, any O.R.U. people in the house, praise God. We had just got engaged and we're at school and O.R.U., most of the classes are in one single building. And so when you walk in, you can choose to go to your left or you can choose to go to your right. Now, they all lead to the same place, but you can choose. And if you go to your left, you walk by a coffee shop. If you go to your right, you walk by the bookstore. Now, normally we always walk to the left. That's just what the flow of the building was. Why, I don't know. But that semester specifically, I was in grad school and she thought it was like, we just did it. But I specifically chose to go to the right. And you're like, well, why did you do that? Well, I couldn't afford coffee every day. So I was like, I can't buy you coffee every day. I need to go to the right. Well, that backfired on me and you'll see in just a minute.

And so we would go to the right and we walked by the bookstore. Well, when we were walking by the bookstore, they had these two mannequins out and they had these two shirts and she really liked one of them. It was when the spirit shirt came out. You know, all the females know what I'm talking about. Like they have big lettering on the back. So I was like, well, I'm gonna go see if I can buy it for her, right? We're getting married, I wanna give her a gift. Well, I went in, it cost $85. Like I asked the lady at the bookstore, like, does this come with a degree? Like what, 85. Dollars like what's going on here like this is ridiculous like it should come with all the books ever it created at or Roberts University Well, I said, I love her, but I just couldn't do it. I'm a grad assistant making like $7 an hour That's like three days of work And so I was like I can't do it and so we continued on with the semester and finally we got to November And I'm like you know what I'm gonna buy it for her for Christmas like I'm gonna go all out I'm gonna do it. We're gonna. We're gonna set the precedent that we're I'm gonna. I'm gonna do it so in November I go I buy it and and I wrap it and that Christmas we were going to San Salvador She was born and raised in San Salvador, and so we're going there So I like listen I wrapped that thing and I put it in my suitcase in November like talk about planning and getting ahead I Did it I won that and so now I'm like great, so I'm super excited She keeps talking about how she wants this shirt. She wants this shirt, so we finally get to El Salvador and and and Hispanics You're gonna learn some things about Hispanics. I'm gonna teach you first of all we celebrate Christmas on December 24th We have a party on the 24th everybody's there, so it's a 24th. We're there We just ate and now it's time to open gifts in the back of my mind

I'm like this is gonna be a great day like Six months of her desires I bought it for her and so we get to that moment and everyone's open and finally she gets to it and she opens it And she has no emotion. There's no reaction My nervousness for sure is I bought the wrong size or I bought the wrong shirt remember There's only two shirts, so if I bought the wrong shirt, just that's not good And so I'm trying to figure out like what did I do and finally she said she turns to me and she says Thank you, but I really didn't want this for Christmas What do you mean you don't want it for Christmas? You want it for five months you said you've been wanting this specific shirt And so I'm trying to go through my mind like what I this is I don't understand. I don't get it. I was so Confused you see but what I learned in that moment is that we had different love languages You see love languages are how we express and how we receive love and so there's five of them And so for the next five weeks we'll be covering one each week And we're talking about love in a relationship, and that's any relationship And so we're not just talking about marriage and so if you're not married don't check out This is for you and me why because every one of us are in relationships of all kinds Each relationship has a language to it and so we need to recognize our own love language And we need to learn the other four think about someone who speaks a completely different language from you You can be standing just a few feet apart both trying to communicate it and still find it difficult at times Impossible to communicate to each other you know the same thing happens in our relationships sometimes We're trying to communicate it We just find ourselves out of sync and why well because we're speaking different love languages And some of you already know your love language, and how helpful this can be and that's great But others you may be hearing this for the very first time today What I hope is this wherever you are over the next five weeks You'll discover how God has uniquely wired you and to give and to receive love But even more than that listen my prayers that you'll become fluent in loving others that way that they receive Love and you may be thinking why why is my church covering this right well listen? God made love and he also made language

He made us to love and to receive love and he made us different And there are different ways that we do that and when we learn those differences what happens is we love Better so this isn't about a book or some random theory this series is about love and God is love First John 4 tells us that in fact turn to your Bibles to their real quick First John 4 It says this dear friends. Let us continue to love one another for love comes from God Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, but anyone who does not love does not know God for God is Love you see it says Child of God that means you belong to him you see a child is known by their parents, right? You might have heard someone say that you look like your dad or you look like your mom Or maybe your spouse has said this you're acting like your mom or your dad That's right in some situations. Those are fighting words right I get an amen in here But we can never really shake the truth that we look like our parents or that we act Like our parents and part of that is our genetics the other part is our upbringing It's nature and nurture working together to produce us now nature being how God made us and nurture being a combination of our upbringing and experiences but John says there's a choice that we can make where we shake off the negatives of our nature and upbringing and put on the Positives of godly love John wants us to be children of God by acting like him in other words What love is an expression of God? so God is love, then the love languages are his idea. They're in the language of God and he is fluent in all of them. So let's start talking about the language of God. And what do I mean by the language of God? Well, let's start with the definition of love languages. Love languages are the five basic ways that we speak and understand emotional love. So let me explain the parts of this definition. First of all, there's five of them.

So here's the five, acts of service, receiving love, gifts, receiving gifts, physical touch, words of affirmation, and quality time. Next it says we speak and understand. In other words, it's not only about how we receive, but also how we give. We need to understand our own love language because it helps us understand how God has uniquely wired us. But we have to learn the other languages too so that we can be fluent in showing love to others. Because at the end of the day, that's what Jesus called us to do, right? Love one another. The common error is this, that we give love in the same way that we receive it. Why? Because we think that since we receive love this way, then everybody else wants to receive love that way too. But and finally, it involves emotional love. Listen, emotions are not bad. But being controlled only by your emotions, that's where it gets bad. You see, love is an emotion. And it's not just only an emotion. But when we understand our emotions, we can put them in motion. So this is primary about how we feed our soul through our feelings. Now, when we say there are five love languages,

some of you might say, well, those are just suggestions. And you might even think, I know more than five love languages. And some of you, it's because maybe you have this shirt or you've seen this shirt. Chocolate is my love language. Well, if that was one, let me just educate you today. Mine is probably one Xs, tieless golf balls. That would be my love language. But no, it's not that. Because how are you expressing that? Here's the deal. Chocolate is not a love language. And for some of you, that's a disappointment. But if somebody gives you some chocolate, you see, that's a gift. And that's one of the five love languages. But if somebody makes you chocolate, well, that's an act of service, another one of the languages. In fact, chocolate could be considered a dialect. And so let me spread this out for you. There's five love languages and at least 22 dialects underneath those five. Well, how does that work? What's a dialect? A dialect is the same language, but with different words, right? We have different nuances. The best way for me to explain,

let me just tell you a personal story to explain this. So I told you, Delmi's from San Salvador. And so we made it through our t-shirt debacle. We got married, praise God. So that year we were in El Salvador. This year we're going to Albuquerque, New Mexico. That's where I was born and raised. And so Delmi's from San Salvador, speaks Spanish. I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico. We speak English, but my parents speak Spanish. So we speak Spanish in our home. And so we're there for Christmas. And like I said, we celebrate on the 24th. It's a whole party, we ate. Well, that year we were playing a board game. Well, we were playing this game called Ticket to Ride. Some of you have played it. If not, let me just tell you. The whole point of the game is to get from one place to another. There's different routes and different cities that you're trying to connect. Now, there's only a certain limit of ways that you can go. So somebody might put a train down and you can no longer use that road. Well, I'll just be honest with you. We're playing to win. Kindness comes after the game. So we're winning. Like this is the whole point of the game.

So in that moment, I'm excited. I got these cards. I put down these trains. And in that moment, Delmi says, blank Josiah. Well, the word she uses in El Salvador is translated to cheap or lousy. Well, in Mexico, it's not that. So let me paint this picture. She says this and the entire room goes dead silent. And some of you are laughing because you're Latino because you know, if the room goes silent with a bunch of Latinos, it ain't a good thing. Like, you can laugh. Like, we loud, we know it. And on the 24th, it's a party. So when the house goes dead silent, eee, it's not good. It's not good. In that moment, Delmi's starting to figure out what, what did I, what's happening? Well, you see, in that moment, my mom tells her, what did you say to my Jito? For those who don't understand what I just said, this is what it translates to. What did you say to my baby boy? I'm 25 years old. Just let me just explain that to you. But I'm the firstborn in a Hispanic family, which is the God's gift to the world. Let me just tell you.

And specifically to my mother. So what did this girl just say that, that's what's going through my mom's mind. Well, what Delmi didn't know, later found out, is the word that she was using in our culture stands for blank. Josiah you can use your imagination So in that moment She learned that's not what she was trying to say so you can see how this can be pretty difficult, right? Like the dialects can get Confusing but we see we all have one primary love language and we use it to receive and to give love and we all have One or two secondary love languages, but we also have at least one foreign love language That's just a language that we just don't understand But we actually need to become fluent in all five so that we can give and receive love in any language, especially From those we love the most and for those we're trying to reach now Let's look at how Jesus explained this because as God in the flesh He was fluent in all five love languages turn to John 13 This is the last night with his disciples before the cross and he's got some things to say and some things to do That will show that will show them that he loves them so John 13 if you have your Bible we'll be there And this is what it says. I am giving you a new commandment Love each other just as I have loved you You should love each other your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples Now, let me show you the simple outline of these two verses first off. But what is a love is? Commanded by Jesus Church, it's not a suggestion. It's something that he calls us to do We're called to do that and the type of love is not a romantic love. It's a selfless love it's a type of love that he modeled to us and for us and that's the second part of the outline that love is modeled by Jesus what did he model? He gave up his own life for us Romans 5 says that he showed the greatest love by dying for us

and then finally this Love points to Jesus and this is why we're talking about love languages Because how you love others is a part of your calling and a part of your ministry It's how we you and I share Jesus with the world More than even apologetics the love commanded by Jesus proves to the world that Jesus is who he says he is You see love is the primary motivation for evangelism. So this is our basic outline for the next several weeks Because love is commanded by Jesus We need to know them and understand them to love others and because love is modeled by Jesus We need to learn all the different ways that he showed love We need to get in touch with all of those dialects and then finally it points to Jesus We need to learn the right way and avoid the wrong way to demonstrate our love language by loving each other You got that so it's basically going to be this for the next several weeks each one We're gonna talk about the definition go through the dialects and then talk about the demonstration You see love languages can be spoken in different ways from different motives and with different outcomes But at our best we give and receive love fluently, but at our worst We use our love language or the love language of others as a way to manipulate or attack So we want to give you the definition the different dialects and then explain the demonstration of that Language in other words how it builds up in the spirit and how it breaks down in the flesh So let me say the rest of our time today going over our first love language. And so it is acts of service So that's what we're gonna be covering today acts of service. So let's start with the definition, right? Receiving love through someone else's time and effort to make your life easier So you might read this definition and automatically think okay Josiah you're talking about the spiritual gift of service. No, that's not it See, this is how you like to be treated and how you like to be cared for for some of us Where this is a foreign love language We may say I don't want I don't want others to do something for me if that's you hey, it's okay But but this isn't your love language, but you still need to be fluent in it. In fact, this is what scripture says in Galatians In Galatians, it says for you have been called to live in freedom my brothers and sisters But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature instead use your freedom to serve one another in Love and Jesus models us through his whole life, right?

In fact in Mark it says for even the Son of Man came not to be served come on not to be but to Others come on 1130 you gotta wake up on me and to give his life as a ransom for many Well when we talk about ransom pastors taught us this many times before right ransom is a price paid to release someone from bondage in other words what Jesus is love to us and for us resulted in our freedom and then Galatians says that don't use that freedom for sin instead We need to give to others what Jesus first gave us. So now what about the dialects? And this is where it'll start to make sense. Remember, Delmi and I spoke Spanish. We were speaking the same language, but she said something completely different than what she thought she said. You see, dialects are important because if we don't understand them and use them, the other person won't receive it like you think they should. And what happens is you get frustrated and you throw your hands up and you get ready to quit. You see, my wife's love language is receiving gifts. And if you wanna be honest with you, I think all five of them are gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, all five. But what I learned is she's not looking for expensive gifts and she would rather have 10 small gifts than one expensive gift. What I learned, like, she wants 10 things from the dollar store, not a rib eye steak. I learned it.

Why? I didn't buy the T-shirt again. That's how I learned it. But so under acts of service, there are four main dialects. And these are what I want us to know today. And these are the four. Instill security, alleviate stress, convey care, and save you time. So let's say that your primary love language is acts of service. I'm gonna play this out. But your dialect is this, that it conveys care. But I speak to you in the dialect of saving time. So maybe I say, let me get your keys and go put gas and bring it back. And you're saying, hey, thank you so much. That's nice of you. But it doesn't really register with you because it doesn't convey care. But if your dialect is saving time, then running that errand is super helpful. Why? Because I just gave you 30 minutes back. And so that's a huge act of love for you. So can you see how we can speak the same language but miss the dialect? Now, I want you to look at the demonstration. And remember, every language is both spoken and heard. And so what does that mean? It's how we receive and how we give love.

So I'm gonna camp out here for just a minute. And if you're taking notes, I tell our online family every week, hey, don't just take notes, intentionally listen. Take notes, grab your Bible, follow along with us. And so we're gonna be in this chart over the next five weeks of how do we give and receive in the spirit and in the flesh. And so if the acts of service is your love language and you are receiving it by someone else, when you are in the spirit, you receive it this way. You understand each act of service as a genuine effort. What does that mean? You see the motivation behind the act. Let me just play this out for you. A child, right, he goes and he's making breakfast for their mom in bed. They go, they make the toast, they make the eggs. But the problem is, is the toast is burnt. The eggs have shells in them. But he still takes it to his mom. And what does mom do? Thank you so much. This is amazing. Why? Because it's the thought that counts, right? It's the motivation. But you see, when we're in the flesh, this is what happens. You slip into victimhood or resentment.

Same scenario. Kid's going to make breakfast for mom. Has the eggs, has the toast. The toast is burnt and the eggs got shell in it. Same thing. But instead, this is how they respond when they're in the flesh. Man, I always do so much for everyone else and nobody ever does anything for me. Some of you, you're relating to that, that you can relate to that right now. You see, and the key to understanding when it goes from the spirit to the flesh is to find those never and always statements, right? Because that usually signals that something's off. And so that's how to receive this love language at its best. So let's look at how to speak this love language as the giver. So when you are in the spirit and you are giving love through acts of service, you perform practical and tangible acts of love that convey genuine care for them. And those acts will give other person a sense of belonging. They get stronger. They get more secure in who they are. And sometimes it even makes them be able to do more. But when you're in the flesh, this is what happens. You only do something to get something in return. What happens? We put conditions on our love.

We say, hey, I will do this for you as long as I get this from you, or as long as you do that for me. And because God love is unconditional, what happens is we begin to twist what true love is. We begin to twist his love. So you can see that every love language can be spoken in a spiritual tone and in a fleshly tone. But we need to learn the difference. Because when we are in our flesh, this is what happens. Relationships suffer. If you are receiving an act of service as genuine love, but the other person is actually manipulating you, that's bad. It gets bad. Or maybe if you are showing this by intentional acts of love, but the person. Even it says, no one does anything for me. You get frustrated because they can see your acts of service. They can't see your acts of service. They can't see what you're trying to do for them. But our obligation, whether we are receiving or giving, is to remain in the Spirit. It's to continue in our walk. It's the renewing of our mind every single day so that we can walk and remain in the Spirit. You see, Jesus even modeled this for us. Earlier, we read from John 13, and on that same night, He spent teaching His disciples.

He actually, He sat down for a meal, or actually, He laid down. In those days, they would sit around a U-shaped table close to the ground, and they would lay on their left so they could eat with their right hand. Their feet would be sticking out behind them, and they would take off their sandals if they wore any. I don't know about you, it probably was a little stinky in there. But what did Jesus do? He got up from the table, He got up from dinner, and decided, I'm going to express some love with an act of service. Look at this with me, John 13. It says, He got up from the table, and He took off His robe, wrapped a towel around His waist, and He poured water into a basin. Then He began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that He had around them. Now, I want us to take a look at a couple of things this morning. Notice that He took off His robe. In other words, He took off His outer garment before wrapping the towel around it. In Philippians 2, it talks about how Jesus took off His divine nature, and He laid it aside. It doesn't mean that He stopped being God. It means He didn't consider His divine nature as something to hold onto. While He lived His life, remember,

He came to serve, not to be served. So He takes off His divine nature, His outer robe, and He puts on a human nature. And from His human nature, He served the disciples. You see this, the application is acts of service cannot be done from a position of superiority, or for the purpose of getting something in return. Right, that's what happens when we're in the flesh. We expect things back. We don't speak our love language in order to get something. That's not the point. We don't do an act of service for our spouse, or a friend, or honestly, for anyone, so that we will get, or they will do something back for us. No, church, it has to be done from a place of humility. Listen to that today. It has to be done from a place of humility. You see, many of us are walking around, and we have these relationships that are half broken. And some of us, we have some completely broken relationships. And the thing is, is it's not that we don't want them to change, it's that we're waiting for you to change. We're waiting for the other person to change. We're in a conversation, and we're just staring at each other. Let me just tell you, I got a four-year-old. We're getting really good at staring at each other until he breaks down. But we're waiting for the other person to blink. But church, I'm just gonna tell you today,

when we're in the Spirit, the bravest thing that we can do is to speak first, to speak the other person's love language first, to put our pride to the side, to put all the things to the side, and say, hey, I'm gonna go first. And then it's not just to go first, but to speak it without the idea of getting anything in in return. And I know what you're thinking, why should we go first? Why? It's simple. He modeled it for us. It's because God made the first move for you and for me. What was that first move? He sent his son to die while we were all sinners. He didn't wait for you to get your life together. He didn't wait for you to fix that relationship or to get financially stable. He didn't wait for you to do all those things in your mind that you think you have to get done. No, he didn't wait for us to clean ourselves up. He came and he did everything for us. We didn't deserve it, but yet he still did it. And church, let me tell you, he expects us to do the same for others. Every love language should be spoken in that same tone, a tone in the spirit. We don't get to choose what our primary love language is. Just like we don't get to choose our own spiritual gift,

our own personality, but what we can do is we can become fluent in them. That's our responsibility. Why? Because remember this, love is the language of God. And right now, if you've ever had a problem with receiving love, it may be because your idea of love has always been with strings attached. You've always thought, in order for me to get the love that I desire, I need to. I need to do this or I need to do that. I need to perform or I need to do a certain thing. And let me just tell you, the best way to get over that is to receive Jesus. You see, as we're talking about love languages and we're specifically talking about acts of service today, what I love about it is the ultimate act of service the world has ever seen, Jesus dying on the cross for you and for me. Dying on the cross for you and for me. This morning, would you bow your head? Would you close your eyes? And I want you just for a moment, and as I probably was speaking today, there was probably a relationship or a person or somebody that came to your mind that God is just talking about, hey, hey, it's time for you to be the first to move.

Let me just encourage you today. Work up that boldness and that courage. Be the love that God was to you. And hey, if you're in here today and you're saying, I've never taken that step to receive Jesus, to receive the ultimate act of service, to repent of my sins and to make Him the Lord and the Savior of my life. Well, hey, I would love to help you do that today. Would you pray this prayer after me and everyone around you will pray this as a way of encouragement, but don't leave today without receiving the greatest act of service ever performed. If that's you today, would you pray this prayer after me? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, but today I ask you to forgive me of my sin. Jesus, come into my life to be my Lord, my Savior and my forgiver. In the best way I know how, I turn my back on my sin and I give my life to you. Thank you for saving me. Now, before we say amen, I would love to pray this prayer over you. Lord, as we go through these five loving languages, help us to give and receive this love language of acts of service in the best way possible, by giving and receiving it in the Spirit, God. We're so thankful for what you're doing in and through our church today.

God, I pray that as we leave this place, we would find the courage and the boldness to speak first and to love others well. God, we're so thankful for what you're doing. We love you and we thank you. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen. Can we thank him for what he did this morning?