A Servant Church Loves
I John 5: 1-5
“We Love the Children of God”
Verse 2: By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.”
Hear Paul’s poem:
I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but if I have no love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal;
I may prophesy, fathom all mysteries and secret lore,
I may have such absolute faith that I can move hills from their place,
But if I have no love,
I count for nothing;
I may distribute all I possess in charity,
I may give up my body to be burnt,
But if I have no love,
I make nothing of it.
Love is very patient, very kind
Love knows no jealousy;
Love makes no parade, gives itself no airs, is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful;
Love is never glad when others go wrong,
Love is gladdened by goodness, always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient.
Love never disappears.
As for ‘tongues,’ they will cease;
As for knowledge, it will be superseded.
For we only know bit by bit, and we only prophesy bit by bit;
But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded,
When I was a child,
I talked like a child,
I thought like a child,
I argued like a child;
Now that I am a man, I am done with childish ways.
At present we only see the baffling reflections in a mirror, but then it will be face to face;
At present I am learning bit by bit,
But then I shall understand, as all along I have myself been understood.
Thus ‘faith and hope and love last on, these three,’ but the greatest of all is love.
If the Servant Church models itself after Jesus Christ who ultimate taught us what a servant is; then the Servant Church must love God, it must love the children of God, and it must keep His commandment to love.
The people of the church have wrestled with this notion of love since its inception in Antioch. Jesus Christ taught the idea to his disciples. Ultimately he demonstrated this idea to us all. He died on the cross for our sins. “Greater love has no man than that he lay down his life for his friends.”
The people of the church have wrestled with this notion of love because they bring their knowledge of love from the world to the church. Two ideas the world teaches about love that finds itself in the church.
1. The world teaches that love is self serving. If it feels good do it. If it satisfies your cravings, that’s love. If it excites your senses, that’s love. If it fulfills your fantasies, that’s love. The world teaches that love is the drive whose ultimate aim is to satisfy one’s longings for wealth, for power, for fame, for conquests, for dominance, for destiny, for immortality. The world teaches that love must satisfy one’s selfish needs. It will exploit people. It will reduce humanity to things. Self serving love will destroy. It will kill. Self serving love is erotic. The world teaches that love is self serving.
2. The world teaches that love is self exchange. It is something for something. It is quid pro quo. It’s if you will do this for me, I will do that for you. The world teaches that love is reflective of the equality or the value of the exchange. After Kobe Bryant got himself into a little difficulty in Denver, he immediately went out and bought his wife the biggest diamond ring he could find and gave it to her because the world teaches that love is in value of the exchange.
Think about it do you define love in terms of the feelings it produces? Do you define love in terms of its value?
I had to wrestle with this idea myself when just the other day, I donated a 1994 Chevrolet Prism to an organization. The car had 182,000 miles on it. It was used by my wife, my son, and my daughter. Through many dangers toils and strife, it had brought us. I had to wrestle with my feelings as I drove the car to the front of the house to be towed away. It was good on gas. It had a good engine. It was dependable. I realized that I had developed an affinity for a thing. See the USA in your Chevrolet. I had to rebuke Satan who had seeking to trick me. What I had done was attribute qualities to a thing based upon its utilitarian value.
Because the thing had served me, because the thing did what I wanted when I wanted, because the thing had not really costs me much; I had positive feelings towards the thing. The positive feelings where derived from the fact that it served me when I wanted it to serve me. Because I was about to get rid of it I was feeling a sense of lost.
The sense of lost was based upon the fact that I no longer had it to serve me.
How often have you placed value upon people solely because of their utilitarian value? If you have that’s a self serving type of love.
Yesterday, I attended the 90th Birthday party for a woman who had 4 children, 28 grandchildren, and 28 great grandchildren. Everyone talked about her sweet potato pies and the meals she prepared. But one great grandson got up and as he began to talk about her, tears starting streaming down his face because what she had taught him was the value of prayer and the love of God.
That’s the challenge to the Servant Church who models itself after Jesus Christ. Do you teach people how to love God?
Our text this morning answers the question this way. It says that you must first believe that Jesus Christ is born of God. This is the question that no one can answer for you. You have to answer this question for yourself: do you believe that Jesus Christ died for you and has saved you from sin?
Do you love Jesus Christ? If you love Jesus Christ, then you must love the children of God.
The challenge to the people of the Servant Church is that you must love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself.
That’s a self-sacrificial love. That’s a love that is given to be lived in the life of another. That’s a love that seeks nothing in return. It’s called agape love. The love of God causes one to bear another’s burdens; to accept another’s pain to give joy; to shoulders another’s responsibility, so they may have opportunity. That’s the challenge to become so self-sacrificial in loving that you become known as the embodiment of love. Christians are not to be known by what they do, or by what they say; but by how they love. A Christian must be and is love.
This text teaches us that if we can love like that we will overcome all that is in the world. “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
If you love like that you will overcome
1. the desires of the flesh
2. the desires of the eye
3. the desires of pride
If you love like that you will achieve victory
1. over sin
2. over Satan
3. over death – what can separate us from the love of God.
When the Servant Church models itself after Jesus Christ; then the people of the Servant Church will love God, they will love the children of God, and they will keep His commandment to love.
