For the Love of God
1 John 4:7-21
So, the topic this morning is Love “again.”
Webster’s dictionary, defines love as a strong liking for someone or something, or a passionate affection for another person. Notice that Webster’s definition of love involves objects of the world, using the word “person” or “something.”
The Webster definition seems a little incomplete. Webster’s definition fall sort of how I would attempt to describe my love for Renee and our children. A strong liking…. I guess any human definition might fall short. As a human I know that there are a lot of things that I can not describe properly. Things like a fantastic sunset or the color of the fall leaves, perhaps the yellows and reds in the spring flowers. I just don’t have the vocabulary and if I did, I am not sure that we have words that are descriptive or vivid enough.
The non-Christian, Greek writer Lucian who lived from 120-180 A.D. made an observation about Christians. He said, “It is incredible to see the fervor with which the people of that religion help each other in their wants. They spare nothing. Their first legislator [Jesus] has put it into their heads that they are brothers.”
Lucian said that Christians “spare nothing.” “Sparing nothing” is an indication of unconditional love.
So, where can we find a definition of Love that is valid and real?
First we need to remember that love is from God, therefore a human definition will never be good enough. God is the only completely accurate source for a definition and that is primarily by or observation of his actions.
The love that God demonstrates and defines is even harder to grasp – we call it unconditional love. Unconditional love is the goal that we are to try to achieve as Christians and ultimately as a church.
Many people have their own interpretations of Love and they use their worldly personal view to experience love. Some of the misinterpretations about love are that love is purely physical, or that love is only a temporary state. As we will see though, these interpretations about love are way off track. We want to discover today what truly sets us apart from the rest of the world, a growing unconditional love.
Love must be visible in the way we interact with one another. The picture is much bigger than the relationship between the members of this church. When we love like God Loves, his creation, we will feel a sense of outrage when we see the lack of love in the world causing the innocent to suffer.
• Refugees created by the war torn culture of a third world country.
• Victims devastated by violence and the obvious apathy of our culture.
• Babies aborted by their mothers.
If we live with the love of God as our model we will see the damage caused by hate, discrimination, greed, selfishness and feel hurt or ill from the status of mankind.
If our spiritual life originates with the Father, we must love one another. But if it originates with Satan, we will hate one another.
Perhaps we need to define hate as a contrast to love. Hate originates in evil and will lead a person to ignore goodness and love because it feeds pride and selfishness. All the dark things within our soul try to hide or over come the good because, when they are examined fairly the ugliness of evil is exposed.
Unhappy, angry people lash out because it -- something -- seems unfair and destroy relationships to feel better. Hate always destroys even when it is not necessiary, only love creates.
A lack of love displayed by the church and individual Christians reflect that there is a serious flaw in their relationship with Jesus Christ. A person or church that has no compassion for the people of the world that are suffering or that only focuses on itself and it’s possessions has a problem. Christians … in order to be called Christians need to mirror Christ. That is just a basic qualification or description of what a Christian is.
In our scripture today, John makes some deductions about love.
John tells us that we should love because we are loved by God. The letter mentions our need to “love one another” 3 times in the reading this morning. That seems to make it important.
John gives several interesting descriptions. Like this one:
“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
People always what to know what God looks like, I guess it was no different back then. John points out the obvious, No one has ever seen God, I think he is talking about average humans like you and me. Then he explains that if we love one another then God’s love is made complete in us.
The only way God’s love is made real and complete is for people to show love to others. Not just normal family, or husband and wife love but Love others… …everyone the way God loves is creation.
A Christian is a person that met the Son of God and went from death the life through Jesus Christ. They died to self and now live for Jesus. The person is changed. We become imitators of Christ. Jesus demonstrated Agape Love, sacrificial love, Unconditional Love and we are to do our best to imitate his actions, and his servant hood.
If you think about it there is a lot of difference between saying we love everyone and really expressing that love. Sacrificial or unconditional love automatically includes actions.
If there is a person that does not know God… the most common way they can learn of God’s love is through a person that knows God. The Christian must make an introduction. However, that won’t happen unless the Christian is willing to love the way God loves.
It is tough to meet the expectations of being a Christian. Our world has shaped our feeling and even shaped our view of what people are worth knowing. The world’s view will allow us to draw the line in what and who are acceptable and not judge us if we leave someone out or if we drop a relationship that seems too difficult.
The worldly view of love is drastically different from God’s, view which should be the Christian View.
Christian love is not proven by our avoidance of doing evil or sinful things. It is proven by doing good things. Our actions should be a continuous demonstration of the love of God. Imitating Christ we do things, we touch people, we take risk, we care because we Love God.
When we were new Christians we probably did all kinds of things because we loved God. Young Love makes people do crazy things. But most of our actions, while rather clumsy were done with a combination to please God and to show our thankfulness for the actions of Jesus Christ.
Most of us are mature Christians, we don’t necessarily show our love like we used to. We are comfortable with who we are and what we do. We don’t take any risk with our love any more. We have our reward in the bag and don’t have to do anything else. Not to mention we have been hurt, kicked, and fussed at to many times already.
So, we have set limits that keep us safe and we hold back a little.
Folks, there lies the problem!
Any time a Christian or a church is comfortable and established it starts loosing ground. Any time a Church focuses inside the walls of the church and does nothing outside.. it can’t ask what happened.
Because, as far as the world is concerned - NOTHING HAPPENED!
A church that is not visibly alive and active in the world is dead to the world.
If the people that don’t know God don’t know that you know God, then they will not meet God through you or you Church. Because as far as they can tell, everyone they know is in the same boat. No one is different or special.
If the neighborhood does not see and hear from the Church in the neighborhood that God loves them then we can only pray that they hear it someplace else. We can’t sit around and ask what happened because - NOTHING HAPPENED!,
Our Only redeeming grace will come if we are we should pray that something does. That they are reached by someone.
What if Jesus got tired and said, “well I taught and healed and trained some church leaders. That is it. I have done my part. I have had enough synagogue doors slammed in my face. I have had enough of uneducated know it alls challenging my authority.”
“This is where I draw the line, except for complaining when the crowds die off and when the money runs out.”
We would be in a life that leads to death if that had happened… wouldn’t we. If Jesus did not complete his mission to mankind, death would be the expected destination. There would be no promises connected to our faith in Jesus Christ and a merciful God.
However, Jesus has demonstrated that Christian love is unconditional and often includes different levels of suffering and unconditional action. We know that our faith does not just connect us to the promises of God but, also to the work of the kingdom.
The biggest problem that we need to reconcile is that when we draw the line, when we say we have done our part we are making Jesus Christ fail.
As Christians we are to live for Christ and love for Christ and when we fail to love unconditionally we are letting the world and our church die. We are repealing the actions of Jesus by letting the world go to hell.
I want you to know that we all have at least one thing to be thankful for this morning: God never stops showing his love for us. God never changes his mind or dumps us when we mess up and do the wrong things or fail to do anything.
God’s love is unconditional. God is love and God is Light; All that God does and all that he is…even the coming judgment is all measured with Love and Mercy.
If you look around and notice extra space or missing people, you don’t need to ask what happened. We need to examine the actions of the church and even our personal use of your time and abilities and look for the amount of time that was spent in acts of unconditional love.
Look for moments when we lived for Jesus Christ. When you and the church crossed the invisible barriers that kept us from touching lives for Jesus.
Are we mirroring God’s definition of Unconditional Love?
Thank God for the mercy he shows to thoes that repent and try the change their ways.
Country singer George Strait sings a song entitled, "Love without End, Amen." It tells the story of a young boy coming home from school after having a fight and expecting punishment from his dad. Fully expecting the wrath of his father, the son waited, expecting the worst. However, the father said,
"Let me tell you a secret about a father’s love ...Daddies don’t just love their children every now and then ...it’s a love without end. Amen." The boy grew up and passed this secret on to his children.
One day he dreamed that he died and went to heaven. He was concerned, as he waited to go in, because he realized there must be some mistake for if they knew half the things he’s done they would never let him in. It was then that he heard his father’s words again, "Let me tell you a secret about a father’s love ...Daddies don’t just love their children every now and then ...it’s a love without end. Amen."
Isn’t it comforting to know that we have a Father like this? It is no secret, concerning our Father’s love: God doesn’t just love His children every now and then; indeed, it is a "love without end, Amen."
All Glory be to God!
