Title: “B H A G”
Text: John 13:31-35
Thesis: The first thing we must be is the people God calls us to be – a people who love one another as Christ loves us.
Introduction
This is our Mission Statement here at Heritage:
We exist to glorify God in all things by:
• Celebrating God’s presence through worship;
• Encouraging Christian fellowship and spiritual growth;
• Sharing the love of God with others in our community and the world.
A Mission Statement should clearly express the purpose for an enterprise’s existence. A mission statement should be the defining criteria for evaluating every decision and activity of that enterprise.
• 3M Corporation states that it exists “to solve unsolved problems innovatively.”
• Mary Kay Products states that it exists “to give unlimited opportunity to women.”
• Wal-Mart states it exists “to give ordinary folks the chance to buy the same thing as rich people.”
• Walt Disney states it exists “to make people happy.”
• Microsoft exists “to put a computer on every desk and in every home, all running Microsoft software.”
• Amazon’s mission statement for its new Kindle reader is to “have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.”
In his book “Built to Last,” Jim Collins says a mission statement should be a BHAG and as such be “clear and compelling and serve as a unifying focal point of effort, often creating immense team spirit.” A BHAG is an acronym for “Big Hairy Audacious Goal.”
In an episode of popular sitcom, “The Office,” Michael Scott, who is the manager of the Scranton branch of the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company, announced his “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” as only the Michael Scott character can announce, “My mission statement is stated as follows: I will not be beat. I will never give up. I am on a mission. That is the Michael Scott guarantee.” (The Office, Dream Team, Season 5, Episode 6)
Collins says mission statements need to be stretching and compelling. They should be “Big Hairy Audacious Goals.”
What we find in our text today is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal… and it comes to us from the lips of Jesus and takes the form of a living legacy.
I. A Living Legacy Left to Us
“A new command I give to you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34
A will is a statement a person makes prior to his death that outlines the disposition of his estate after his death. It is a statement about what a person wants done with his stuff after his death
Around the turn of the twentieth century, Walter and Evan Jones inherited a farm in Coffey County Kansas from their Welsh immigrant parents. The Jones brothers were successful farmers and cattlemen. Both brothers died in 1953 and both left identical wills. The proceeds from their estates were to be used to establish a foundation. In 1974 the Walter S. and Evan C. Jones Foundation was established with the motto, “Because We Care.” The BHAG of the Jones Foundation is to serve the medical and educational needs of the children of Coffey, Lyons and Osage Counties Kansas.
The families of hundreds of children and youth have received grants from their foundation since that time. Today and in the years to come, children and youth will continue to receive financial assistance from the foundation for medical needs families could otherwise not afford. Theirs’ is an ongoing, living legacy of kindness and love for the children of generations of the future.
In our text today, Jesus is about to make his last will and testament, so to speak. He wanted to leave something with his followers that would glorify God, bless his followers and others in the centuries to follow.
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
A. Love is action.
In the context of John 13, Jesus had just finished washing the feet of his followers after which he said, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example that you should do as I have done for you.” John 13:14-15
It is also in that context that Jesus said, “Greater love has no one that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13
In the first epistle of John the bible says, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love in words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” I John 3:16-18
So it is apparent that when Jesus spoke of love it was a love that acts… Jesus intends that love be something we do.
An elementary school student defined love like this: “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis, too.”
Another kiddo said, “Love is when you go out to eat and give someone most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
B. Love is not just action, it is sacrificial action.
In his book “Dad the Family Coach," David Simmons told of a sacrificial love as demonstrated by his 8 year old daughter, Helen. In the parking lot of the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg, North Carolina where he had gone to pick something up at the hardware store, was a petting zoo. Both Helen and her little brother, Brandon, wanted to go through the petting zoo. So he gave them each some money and went to do his errand.
He soon noticed that Helen was following him and a little alarmed asked her where Brandon was and she said, “He’s in the petting zoo.” He asked, “Why aren’t you in the petting zoo?” And said, “It cost more so I gave Brandon my 50 cents so he could go.”
Simmons wrote that their family motto is, “Love is action.” He was pleased that his little girl was living it out. And he was about to reach into his pocket and give Helen a dollar so she could go through the zoo too when he thought better of it… instead he and Helen leaned on the fence rail and watched Brandon petting and feeding the animals because he knew Helen knew the whole family motto was, “Love is sacrificial action!” (Dave Simmons, Dad the Family Coach, Victor Books, 1991, PP. 123-124)
Love costs something… love is sacrificial action!
Helen was learning that love gives, it does not grab. Love does not demand that it break even. Part of what makes loving so meaningful is experiencing personal sacrifice in order that another person be blessed.
Jesus said that love is what defines our relationships within the group and our identity to those outside the group. Our relationships in the life and ministry of the church are characterized by love and that love is what marks us in the eyes of the watching world.
What Jesus was leaving his followers was a legacy to be lived out through their lives in such a way that it defined them.
II. A Legacy Lived Through Us that Defines Us
“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35
Over the centuries people have been adept at finding ways to mark or identify things… livestock branding has been a common practice in western states. We have also found ways to mark ourselves. In our present culture body art and modification is commonplace. We find expression through tattoo art. Gangs may have their own identifying marks or colors. I noticed that when Arok Garung, founder of Seeds of Hope, visited our church, his forehead bore the distinctive scaring of the Sudanese Dinka Tribe in Africa. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic, “The Scarlet Letter,” Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her garments to publicly shame her and mark her as an adulteress. Christians sometimes attach a “Jesus Fish” to the back of their car to mark themselves as Christians. Darwinists have created a parody of the “Jesus Fish” that is known as the “Darwin Fish.” The “Darwin Fish” looks just like the “Jesus Fish” except it has legs. If you are a Boulderite you might stick one of those “COEXIST” symbols on your car that incorporates Islamic, peace, male and female, Judaism, Wicca, Taoism and Christianity symbols onto a single bumper sticker.
But the will of God is that we let an expressed and demonstrated love for one another be the identifying mark that brands us as followers of Jesus Christ in the world. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Arthur Simon, founder of the international organization Bread for the World, believes that all aspects of our lives need to be touched by Christ. His father, who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin taught him: “Even the cows should know that you are a Christian by the way you treat them.” (Arthur Simon, “Simon Says: Vote! Write! Lobby!,” World Vision, April/May 1988, P. 6.)
Lovingly is the way we treat people and living things. Love is the distinguishing mark of the follower of Jesus Christ. Our spouses should know that we are Christians. Our children should know that we are Christians. Our extended families should know that we are Christians. Our employers and the people we work with should know that we are Christians. Our classmates and teammates should know that we are Christians. Our neighbors should know that we are Christians. Our postmen, hair stylists, restaurant servers and paper carriers should all know that we are Christians. And they should know that… not because we tell them, but because we show them. Loving dispositions and loving words and loving deeds are to be the marks that readily identify us as followers of Christ.
It is when we have received the love of Christ and lived out the love of Christ in such a way that it is noticeable and catchable… that the love of Christ continues as a living legacy of God’s will.
Conclusion
The mark of love is essential to our credibility as followers of Christ. It is to be the essential defining mark by which others identify us as followers of Christ.
In his book “Miracle on the River Kwai,” Ernest Gordon describes a very moving incident in which British prisoners of war tended the wounds of injured Japanese soldiers and fed them. Some were encrusted with mud, blood and waste. Their wounds were inflamed and uncared for. The British see them and taking pity on them bathed the wounds and shared their own food with those who had previously abused and starved them.
In the memories of those Japanese soldiers, those who cared for them lived on, not as enemy prisoners of war, but as men who lived out sacrificial love.
Love breaks down all the barriers and defines who and what we really are. Loving one another is the big hairy audacious goal Jesus Christ places before us.
Let us love one another because love is from God. Love defines who we are, wherever we are, in every relationship and every arena of life.
