cThe Christian Life Week 2
(A) The Foundation of Love Luke 10:25-37
1 Cor. 13:1f
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN LOVE?
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
“A man from Samaria then came traveling along that road. When he saw the man (Who had been beaten and robbed and not helped by two church people) he felt sorry for him (Caring and wanting what was best for the man) and went over to him. He treated his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put him on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next morning he gave the innkeeper two silver coins and said, ‘Please take care of the man. If you spend more than this on him, I will pay you when I return.’” (Luke 10:33-35, CEV)
After Jesus told the Bible teacher God wanted us to love, He gave him a picture of what Christian love is in The Parable of the Good Samaritan.
1) This love means we care about our fellow man and want what is best for him.
2) We are willing to take action to help him and to pay the price to help.
3) We do all this because God wants us to and because it is right and we do it with no expectation of reward.
1. Christian Love is the Fountain of all
Christian Virtues.
“The only obligation you have is to love one another. Whoever does this has obeyed the Law. The commandments- ‘Do not commit murder, do not steal, do not desire what belongs to someone else’ –all these, and many others are summed up in the one command, ’Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” (Rom. 13:8-9,TEV)
“If anyone loves me he will obey my teachings/ My command is this, love each other as I have loved you.” (Jn. 14:23)
“Love is patient. Love is kind, etc.” (1 Cor. 13)
The entire Christian life is the product of love. If I love you I will not steal from you or be jealous of what you have. In other words I will obey all the teachings of God and Jesus Christ. This is why Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 defines love by its actions-patience, kindness, forgivenss, etc. In section two of this work we will look at the primary Christian virtues listed in 5 places in the NT. -
1) Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians 13
2) The clothing of a Christian (Col. 3)
3) The Fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5)
4) The Character of a Christian (Matt. 5)
5) The “One Another” Verses (Gal. 6:2, etc.)
See Section (B) The Fruit of Love
2. Christian Love is Caring
The New Birth causes us to care about our fellow man. Christian Love cares about and wants what is best for every person. This is the “good will” part of Agape. Every person is God’s creation and someone for whom Jesus died. They are people like us who are fighting difficult battles within, inner demons others know nothing about. Having the mind of Christ, we want what is best for them. If they are un-Christian we want them to follow Christ. If they are our loved one, we want them to be good and to be happy. If they are our enemies we want them to stop treating us and others badly and know the joy of having good relationships.
3. Christian Love is Acting, Doing, Serving,
Helping
“A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” (2 Jn. 5)
God commands us to love therefore it is something we can choose to do or not do. It is an act of the will. It may not be something we particularly want to do but we do it for the Lord. (Who want to be nice to people who are not nice to them? Who wants to go to someone who doesn’t like him? Most of us would rather eat nails than to apologize. Who wants to witness to someone about Christ?)
Love is not necessarily a matter of feeling- Ninety percent of true Christianity resides in our wills. We cannot make ourselves “like” somebody or “feel like” being nice to them. If a man insults your wife, all hell will break loose in your soul. Your first victory will be to refrain from taking revenge. When time passes God will say to you if you meet him and he sticks out his hand, shake it. You will say, “God I don’t want to! I don’t feel like it.” God will say, “I know that Bob. Only I can make you want to do it or feel like it. But you can make yourself shake his hand so do it for Me.” Perhaps the feeling may come, but if it doesn’t, we should still do what God wants. We don’t have to pretend “friendship” or act like we like this person, but we do have to show kindness, courtesy and any other action that will lead this person to repentance. Remember this: . “We can never feel our way into acting but we can act our way into feeling.”
Love Moves Out to Help- Christian moves out to help and pays the price to help a person find God’s best for their lives. There is always the element of action and sacrifice in love. If a man is hungry, love feeds him. If a man is lonely love takes time with him. If a man is lost love tells him about the Lord. If a man is unkind to you love will be kind to him.
Abrasive Helping (Tough Love) Sometimes what we do may not be comforting or bring the person we love pleasure. An example is parenting. Loving parents often say, “I love my children so much, I can’t spank them.” The Bible says the opposite, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son (or child). But whoever loves him will be careful to discipline him.” (Prov. 13:24) To prepare our children for life we must teach them choices have consequences everywhere. If we really care about them and want what is best we will take appropriate action, and that action might be a good, hard smack on the place God has provided.
4. Christian Love is All Inclusive
“Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you; pray for those who maliciously abuse you; and if someone slaps one side of your face turn (and let him) slap the other side.”
(Luke 6: 27-29)
We are to show love to all people, including those who hate and hurt us. The back handed slap with the right hand Jesus referred to points to insults. We are not to allow people to beat us in normal circumstances. But even so, if you can take ridicule and insults like this you are a exceptional person. And not one person in a thousand who does it will have a warm affectionate feeling. But the time may come when you will if you practice being good and kind to them. Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend.”
5. Christian Love Is Unconditional (Day 6)
We care and try to help because it is right and best, not because it brings us pleasure or any kind of reward in return. It has nothing to do with what people deserve but what people need. People who hate and hurt us certainly do not deserve to be treated kindly or forgiven by us. Jesus said if we love only those who love us we are no better than bad people in the world who love those who love them (Matthew 6: 45-46)
“We cannot do enough evil things to make God love us one bit less. We cannot do enough good things to make God love us one bit more. The reason is because God is love.”- Steve Brown
This is unconditional love and is our goal in life as children of God.
6. Christian Love is Christ like
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us and we should lay down our lives for our brothers.” (1 Jn. 3:16)
Christian Love is repeating in the lives of others what God has done in our lives. It is as our text pictures it, treating others the way God treats us.
The supreme example of love is Jesus Christ. He cared about us when we were lost in sin and were like the enemies who crucified Him. He wanted what was best for us- to be saved from the guilt, power and presence of sin. And He did what was necessary. He died on the cross to make us His friends. The Bible says, “There is no greater love than when a man lays down his life for his friends.” (Jn. 15:13) Jesus did better than this. He laid down His life for His enemies. While our hands were raised against Him he forgave us on Calvary (Lk. 23). It is ours if we receive it by faith.
7. Christian Love is a Process of Growth
“I pray that you who are rooted and grounded in love, may have power with all of God’s people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is; and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” (Ephesians 3: 17-19)
Love is always something we are learning to do and to do better. Illustration: A call once came to me in the middle of the night. The girl on the other end would not give her name, but something (Someone) in me told me to listen to her story. She was considering suicide because she felt she could not be forgiven and go to heaven. She had talked with a Pastor about becoming a Christian and being baptized. He told her she could not become a Christian until she forgave and loved her step father who had sexually abused her as a child. (That is like telling an elephant to fly, or telling a child he cannot enter first grade until he knew algebra). I told her God did want her to forgive and to show Christian love (Not necessarily a warm affectionate feeling.) for this man. But I also told her this would be a long journey that would begin when she gave her heart and life to Jesus. I told her if she could not ask God to give her this love, ask Him to give her the desire to one day ask Him to help her forgive. (Folks, we sing, Just as I am, do we mean it?). When she hesitated, I asked her several questions, “Are you sick? Are you depressed? Are you really serious about suicide?” Every answer was yes. Then I said, “Pray this prayer for yourself. If you don’t you are still letting this man hurt you and you don’t deserve to be hurt any longer by this person.” I can only hope and pray she listened and the little seed of love begin to set her free.
8. Christian Love is a Joy
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy..” (Gal. 5:22)
“Blessed are those who show mercy” (Mt.5)
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
(Acts 20:35)
What We All Want- If we are honest about it, we all want the same thing. Some get money to find it and some give money away to find it. Some get divorced to find it and some get married to find it. Some get drunk to find it and some go to AA to find it. What is it? It is happiness. We want joy. We want peace.
Looking in the Wrong Place Did you hear about the drunk was looking for his keys on a street corner under the light. A man asked him how he dropped his door keys so far from his front door. He said he didn’t. He dropped them by his door but there was no light over there. Most people are about as foolish as that drunk in the search for lasting happiness. They try to find it in “things”, in getting, in materialism. Jesus looked at people with little of this world’s goods and said blessedness, happiness, you comes from things like humility (poverty of Spirit); purity; and showing mercy like the good Samaritan. In fact the Bible sees materialism as the way to lose happiness. 1 Timothy says, “Those who want to get rich fall into the trap.” (6:9) Billy Graham in his fine book on the Beatitudes of Matt. 5, The Secret of Happiness, told of a salesman going to a home. He walked up the tree lined walk; was let in by the butler; walked through a beautiful room; went out on a marble patio; and saw the lady of the house sitting by the pool. She was reading a book, “How to Find Happiness”. Billy said the more we have the more bored we are with what we have. It has been well said that the way to spell joy is: Jesus first-Others second & Yourself last. The truly happy people in life are those who love and serve.
The Miracle Mile- Matt. 5:41-42)
Take the example of the Hebrew boy right here in Matthew 5. He is compelled by a Roman soldier to carry his pack and bed roll one mile. That was Roman Law. He did it because he had to and his day was ruined. He stayed mad at Romans and at God for creating Romans all day. Now here comes Jesus and tells him to carry it two miles. The guy comes, the boy picks it up, he doesn’t say a word and he goes past the mile marker. (Every Jewish boy, it was said, had the mile markers marked, so they wouldn’t make one more step than necessary.) Now he walks the second mile because he has become a Christian and he ought to. He’s got that marked too, so at two miles he throws it down and heads home. His day is still ruined. But what if he is motivated by love for Jesus, who walked the second mile, to the cross for him? What if he is motivated by love for this fellow human being and wants to share Christianity with him? He talks, he laughs, he learns this man’s personality, his fears, his dreams. He talks to him about Christ, and forgets all about markers. The journey ends, they say their good-bys, and he goes home. He is whistling. He tells the family, some Roman soldiers aren’t so bad. I met one today and got the opportunity to share our faith with him. This boy has just traveled the miracle mile of love. Why a miracle? For one thing, he has been in control, not his circumstances. He has taken something “bad” and made it purposeful and meaningful by his sharing his faith. He goes to be that night feeling good about him self. He was walked the miracle mile. That same night, a hardened Roman Soldier may go to sleep thinking, not all Jews are bad, that was a fine young man I met today. Joy was in both homes. Amen!
