“LOVE – something you act upon, not simply feel” – Sermonspice.com
Glenys’ family – wonderful, relaxed wrap up to any conversation – “loves ya!” Not merely sentiment with words but words that are an expression of what is lived out.
It is a sentiment that needs to be lived out in the life of the Church but more than an expression to being an experience.
I must confess though, I find it hard to dispense the gift of love when it comes to dealing with people and situations that will not be easily consoled or cares little about my feelings.
Have you had those experiences or am I alone in this? Do you know what it’s like to intend the best but be thought of in the worse possible way; to give deeply and not get something back; to be intentional in trying to build a bridge in a relationship only to get your legs chopped off at the knees?
If the answer is YES then this sermon is for me and for you, even if there are only two of us in the building!
God has plenty to say to us on this love subject. As we explore what He says, we need to understand that these instructions are necessary if we are to love like God. To love like God is to attain to the highest experience of human interaction and relationship.
LOVE LESSONS 101:
1. Love is commanded
V 34…
• Key words – “command” – “love” – “as I have” – “must love”.
(SLIDE)
Jesus had hung out with these twelve men for three years. They ate, slept, worked and journeyed together for a long time (it’s a long time when you’re always in the same company). Jesus’ death was now at the doorstep of fulfilled prophecy and if ever they needed to get the point of his life and work, it had to be now. So He spelled out the absolute, non-negotiable, if-you-want-to-be-great-in-God’s-Kingdom message which is, YOU MUST LOVE EACH OTHER JUST THE WAY I HAVE LOVED YOU.
Of course they understood the message from the incomplete perspective of all that Jesus meant to them up to this point. The cross had not happened just yet and it would be years later before John grasped the full strength of that instruction that led him to write in chapter 15, verse 13, “the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.”
Jesus takes the love language even further when he speaks about how we should love our enemies. He says “If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5) What is that perfection? It is perfect love – love that reaches out even to the people we don’t like.
God is telling us IT IS NOT AN OPTION TO NOT LOVE. We MUST love. To ignore it is to disobey His instruction and to put ourselves out of relationship with God – 1 John 4:8, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (SLIDE) This commanded love is a reference to our relationship to other believers, other Christians, other people who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ – to one another in this church today.
To love each other is to use the most powerful tool we have to demonstrate to other people what it means to know Jesus and to have a relationship with God.
Love is not only commanded / required / expected with no excuse, LOVE LESSON 101 also teaches:
2. Love is costly
I can read your thoughts because I’m having some of the same thoughts – “it’s one thing to talk about loving each other. You don’t know what I’ve been through or how people have treated me. That’s just too much to ask.”
Opening statement - “LOVE – something you act upon, not simply feel” – Sermonspice.com
• If Jesus decided to make excuses about why he had the right not to love us and go to the cross – responding to what he felt instead of acting on what he knew to be right, where would we be? E.g. Jesus FELT absolutely cold to the concept of the cross. However he responded – ACTED – on the knowledge of what God wanted of Him for this time.
• Love is not simply an emotion felt as much as it is a choice to make.
• People of God, we have a choice to make and the time is now – will you love or not love, in respond to the instruction of God in today’s verses?
Jesus paid a high price for us to be made right with God
• Relationships to family (His family tried to take him home from one of his ministry events, thinking he was out of his mind and told people so – Mark 3:21)
• Career options
• Philippians 2 – His claim to “The Throne” – “When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.” (Message)
Dr. William Barclay: “Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that love is meant to give us happiness. So in the end it does, but love may well bring pain and demand a cross.”
Case in point - An interview with a Canadian soldier on television a couple of weeks ago, led him to speak of how much he loved his family and his being in Afghanistan was his contribution to make sure his family didn’t face similar realities at home.
Love is costly and often demands a cross.
Love is not only costly – LOVE LESSONS 101 further tells us:
3. Love is critical
Mother Theresa once spoke of us here in the west. “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair and hoplessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty – it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
The truth of her words touches close to home even in the lives of spiritual leaders and followers of Jesus. The written prayer of then-Captain Joyce O’Kelley captures the true feelings of our hearts at times when she prayed, “There is pain in loneliness. It’s a terrible feeling to be alone. And Lord, often it doesn’t even help to know you are there.”
Could those times of feeling that even having God near doesn’t help, be the result of our failure to love?
It is important for us to understand what was going on with Jesus in John 13:31-35. He was soon to be removed from his followers. All they would have left for physical comfort and support would be each other. They needed to hold on to that.
Prior to this scene, Jesus had washed the disciple’s feet, which emphasized the same lesson as this one. One writer put it this way – “It was a lesson on Christian humility and love. In the days following, the disciples would need to remember this great weapon against dissention, this powerful adhesive for Christian fellowship.” What was the great weapon or adhesive – servant leadership; love for one another.
• 9-11, 2001, in all its horrific realities and aftermath of pain, rage and sense of being violated and abused, brought one good thing out of the mess – community. We are never more desperately in need of family and of being loved and valued then when we are faced with crisis, pain and fear.
There is another important lesson in this account of Jesus’ instructions to his followers about how they need to love one another. It is this. It has been suggested that Jesus’ keeping company with His followers was “the first step towards the formation of the church” (The Speaker’s Bible) but all love was directed toward Him. His removal however from the world required that his follower’s love be directed toward one another to ensure unity. It also served to preserve “the society” (Speaker’s) or as we call it, the Church. It is to speak of loving one another “in a social devotion” (Speaker’s)
Do you grasp the full force of this message? Apart from the message of the cross and the work of Jesus Christ on it, our existence and merit of value hangs on one thing – our love for each other in the church. Our behaviour and treatment of each other is the thing that determines our track record for the world. The one thing that gives us value or credibility; the one thing that makes people sit up and pay attention or avoid us like a plague, is the presence or absence of true love. (SLIDE)
I remember a news story last year of a Social Agency placing a child in the custody of extended family members because of a parental dispute and fear for the child’s safety. Sometime after the placement it was discovered that the child was being abused. I cannot remember the details enough to remember if the child was actually killed. An investigation found that the custodial family guardian had been charged and found guilty of other previous crimes against children in the past. I remember thinking, “How could the system designed to protect children allow something like that to happen?”
The Church needs to be awake to the possibility that if we are not careful, people may come to the Church for sanctuary only to end up being abused and mistreated. If people come to the church for acceptance and love only to be judged and criticized we will have committed a crime as drastic and horrific as the story I just told.
Love is the critical factor that speaks of our place with God and our credible place in the lives of the people of the world.
WRAP Next time you face something that is bigger than your capacity to love, ask yourself these questions:
• What would Jesus do?
• What would God have me do (feelings aside, what are my choices?)
• How will this situation bear out if I respond this way versus another way – with love?
