OPEN: The cartoon "Peanuts" has been in newspapers for years. The author of that delightful comic strip actually died some time back… but the comic was so powerful and amusing that newspapers have simply reran the comics of the past.
In one of “Peanuts" comic strips Lucy says to Shroeder (the boy she’s hopelessly in love with)
"Guess what...If you don’t tell me that you love me, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to hold my breath until I pass out!"
Looking up from his piano, Shroeder says, "Breath-holding in children is an interesting phenomenon. It could indicate a metabolic disorder. A forty-milligram dose of Vitamin B6 twice a day might be helpful. I think that’s probably it... You need Vitamin B6. You might also consider eating more bananas, avocados, and beef liver..."
As he goes back to his piano, Lucy sighs, "I ask for love, and all I get is beef liver!"
APPLY: Love is a powerful need in people’s lives
ILLUS: Back in the 70’s one psychiatrist wrote:
“In my practice at the Atlanta Psychiatric Clinic, people sometimes ask me what psychiatry is all about. To me, the answer is increasingly clear. Almost every emotional problem can be summed up in one particular bit of behavior: It’s a person walking around screaming, ‘For pity’s sake, love me.’ Love me, that’s all. He goes through a million different manipulations to get somebody to love him.”
That was the very need that motivated God to send His son to the cross:
John 3:16 tells us: “For God so LOVED the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
God knew we needed someone say “I love you”
One of the most powerful messages I have ever seen has been a picture of Jesus on a cross with the caption beneath declaring:
“Jesus said ‘I loved you this much.’ And then He stretched out His arms and died.”
The books in our Bibles haven’t always had chapter and verse divisions. Somewhere during the middle ages, someone realized it would be easier to study the Bible if it was divided in a way that people could locate specific section of any book. So, I’m not sure if it’s a quirk of Scripture or if God deliberately led the people who originally put chapter and verse divisions into the Bible… But, I John 3:16 is almost a mirror image of our beloved John 3:16
Here in I John 3:16 - John declares…
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”
Remember – For God so LOVED the world???? Well, this is how we KNOW God’s kind of love: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us…
But then John adds: “…we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
Why should we lay down our lives for our brothers? BECAUSE Jesus laid down His life for us! Now, this is obviously an important point for John because he dwells on this subject for several verses – but why is it so important?
* 1st – It’s important to John because that’s not how you and I used to live
LOOK AGAIN at 1 John 3:12 “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.”
Now why would John warn us NOT to be like Cain???
Because… we used to be like Cain.
That’s the type of world we grew up in.
That’s the kind of example that others set for us.
That was the kind of response that would have come naturally to us.
Paul writes Titus and says: “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:3-5)
Initially, when I read that passage from Titus, I visualized a Jerry Springer kind of person. The type of person who’s always screaming, always accusing, always concerned only about themselves, always eager to get into a brawl in front of God and everybody.
But you folks aren’t like that. I have yet to see any of you behave like that in the foyer on Sunday mornings. In fact, when I go down to the Supermarket to buy groceries, I never see anyone yelling and screaming in the aisle ways.
So most people aren’t like the goofballs they parade before us on Springer’s show. However, we do have a tendency to be like Cain. As the passage out of Titus says: “WE lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.” That means that this is a common experience for ALL of us.
John uses the example of Cain because Cain was a “slow burn” type of a guy. God said to Cain: “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?” Genesis 4:6
Cain hadn’t said ANYTHING…but you could tell how Cain felt by just looking at him. Cain didn’t say much… but eventually his anger built… until he killed his brother.
Most of us are “slow burners” like Cain was. If we allow ourselves to think like Cain did we get angry about how people have treated us.
We replay the incident in our minds (over and over and over again)
In fact… if we think someone will listen we’ll replay incident for them
BUT we’re not just retelling the story
we’re RELIVING the story
we’re re-FEELING the emotions – the pain and hurt and the rage
ILLUS: I read of a teacher once who was known for his elaborate object lessons. One day, when his students came to class, they saw a big target hanging on the wall, and a number of darts on a nearby table.
The teacher told the students to draw a picture of someone that they disliked or someone who had made them angry . . .and he would allow them to throw darts at the person’s picture.
One girl drew a picture of a girl who had stolen her boyfriend.
Another student drew a picture of his little brother.
Still another drew a picture of the teacher, putting a great deal of detail into her drawing.
When they were all finished, the teacher hung their pictures one at a time over the target and the class lined up and began to laugh and enjoy themselves as they threw their darts at their particular picture.
Some of the students threw their darts with such force that their targets were ripping apart. At last, as the class was nearing its end, the teacher had the students take their seats… and then he began to remove the underlying target from the wall. The one over which the students had hung the pictures they had drawn.
And underneath that target… was a picture of Jesus....
A complete hush fell over the room as each student viewed the mangled picture of Jesus; holes and jagged marks covered His face and His eyes were pierced out.
The teacher then said only these words, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” (Matthew 25:40)
The Bible tells us that, because you and I are Christians, we must love as Jesus loved us.
We must forgive as Jesus forgave us. SO… 1st, John reminds us about how we should love, because that’s NOT how we used to live.
* 2nd – John reminds about how we should love, because this IS how we’re supposed to live
In fact, the more we love, the more of God we have in your life.
1 John 3:23-24 tell us “… this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”
You see, if – as Christians - we love one another then God LIVES IN US. AND His Spirit controls us. Paul says about the same thing in Galatians 5, when he tells us the fruit of the Spirit is (what?)
“Love… joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness…” and so on.
If we have God’s love dwelling within us, that is a mark that we are anointed by God. We are indwelt with His Spirit. Love is the marker that tells us we belong to Him.
ILLUS: One of the most annoying commercials I’ve heard of late is from a preacher in a nearby town yelling “IF YOU WANT TO HEAR ANOINTED PREACHING, AND HEAR ANOINTED SINGING….” you should come to his church.
Now, all due respect to that preacher and his church… he’s got it all wrong. He’s trying to say that his preaching, and the singing of their church has a special “anointing” from God’s Spirit. But, that’s not how it works.
How much we love is the yardstick God gives us to measure how much of His Spirit dwells within us.
The church John was writing to were being challenged by certain individuals who had told them they didn’t have the “anointing” because they lacked some special knowledge or experience
John said: “I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.
As for you, THE ANOINTING YOU RECEIVED FROM HIM REMAINS IN YOU, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit— just as it has taught you, remain in him.” 1 John 2:26-27
ILLUS: I recently spoke with a man who told me he “prayed in tongues”. And, as is often the case, he began to tell me that I needed to “open myself up” to the possibility that God would allow me to have this same experience in my life as well.
It became obvious that he believed that how much a person prayed in tongues was the “gas gage” of how much of the Spirit a person had within them.
I explained to him that the Bible never used “tongues” (or any other spiritual gift) as a measuring stick of spirituality even when tongues existed in the early church. The “measuring stick” of how much of God’s Spirit we have in our lives is LOVE… nothing more, nothing less.
* So, how can I tell how much I love???
Look again with me at 1 John 3:16-18
“This is how we know what love is:” (this is our example)
“Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And” (so, we ought to follow His example) “we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
How do we do that? “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 with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
That is what Christ taught.
But, by contrast, RELIGION teaches that doctrine and worship are the highest priorities. Anything that interferes with doctrine or worship for “religious people” is set aside.
Example: Diet Emam (author of Things We Couldn’t Say) told the story about a rail line that ran nearby and was used by the Nazis to transport boxcars jammed with Jews and other “undesirables.” They were on their way to the death camps in the east. Many times, the trains were sidetracked for hours while the miserable people begged pitifully for food, water and mercy. There were no bathroom facilities for the journey, which could last four days or longer. Nearby, I’m told, was a small church located close enough to the rail line to hear the cries coming from within the boxcars. The church people attending services were deeply disturbed by these mournful “distractions,” and so, they began singing more loudly so they wouldn’t have to hear them.
These were “religious” people.
By contrast, JESUS taught us that our HIGHEST priority should be to show love to others.
Luke 6:6-11 tells us: “On another Sabbath (Jesus) went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath.
But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Get up and stand in front of everyone." So he got up and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?"
He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He did so, and his hand was completely restored. But they were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.”
Now, I don’t mean that we shouldn’t keep our doctrine pure (in fact, Scripture is quite clear that we MUST do that).
Or that we shouldn’t strive to give God our best worship
What I’m saying is this–
We can be DEEPLY religious
We can be ABSOLUTELY pure in our doctrine
We can be RIGHT ON TARGET with our Sunday morning worship
But, if we fail to love others… if we fail to love others
· whose lives are less than perfect
· who have failed
· and who’ve fallen
Then we’ve failed.
We have fallen
Because, you see ultimately, the reason we are to love others as Jesus loved us - is because they need Jesus too. They’re just like we were when we first came to Jesus. They are crying out “for pity’s sake, somebody love me” Our objective-as Christ’s children – is to give them our love… because Jesus gave His love to us.
CLOSE: Commenting on John’s writing about love Thomas a’ Kempis summed it all up in these words: "Whoever loves much, does much."
An evangelist once told how much he’d admired his mother because of how she loved. He told of the time, as a boy, when he found her sitting at the table with an old tramp. Apparently she had gone shopping, met the tramp along the way, and invited him home for a warm meal.
During the conversation the tramp said, “I wish there were more people like you in the world.”
Whereupon his mother replied, “Oh, there are. But you must look for them.”
The old man simply shook his head, saying. “But, lady, I didn’t need to look for you. You looked for me.”
Commenting on the his mother’s kindness toward the tramp, the evangelist reflected that she did something more than simply offer him welfare. He said “It was a compassion that went out of its way to love the unlovely. And that’s the story of our Savior’s life, death and resurrection.
He came looking for us in the sick, the maimed, the lame, the bruised, the broken hearted…
… the wretched wanderer, the poor and forgotten, the prisoner, and the lonely.
Then the evangelist closed with this question: “Has he found you?”
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES (3:16 and Us)
The Temple of Power - 1 Corinthians 3:16-3:16
The Power of Music - Colossians 3:15-3:16
The Power of Trust - 1 Peter 3:8-3:22
The Power Of Love - 1 John 3:11-3:24
