Introduction ~ Love is strong stuff, isn t it?! Though, on the one hand, it s a feeling that s easily damaged; on the other, it s the toughest emotion of all, and one that s inspired so many acts of heroism. Here are some love-related statements that highlight its strength of feeling and power to work: I hate you then I love you. It s like I want to throw you off a cliff, then rush to the bottom to catch you. Now that s pretty strong! Here s another Loving someone who doesn t love you back is like hugging a cactus ~ the tighter you hold on to it, the more it hurts. Yeow! I got stabbed by a cactus once and it really did hurt ~ for days! Here s one more Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. So said Martin Luther King ~ because love is strong stuff! So let s have a look at what Jesus said about love ~ and, more specifically, about loving people. Which reminds me that our strapline ~ the slogan that sums up what M.C.F. is all about, in as few words as possible ~ is Loving God, loving people. Let s start with Jesus words about 1 LOVING ONE ANOTHER By which I mean, within the family of God ~ what we sometimes call the Church, with a big C. i.e. What did Jesus say about us loving our sisters and brothers in Him? (Which, of course, encompasses each of us loving each of us!) Well, the answer itself isn t difficult because John tells us exactly what Jesus said! BUT, actually doing what He says we should do verges on the impossible, for what Jesus said was: My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.! Or, as the GNB renders it: Love one another, just as I love you.! So, exactly HOW did Jesus love them? Well, I know that many of you know this, and will have heard it umpteen times before, but for the sake of those who haven t, I need to stress that we re not talking about any old kind of love! For example, it wasn t the kind of love that Jane Austen and Emily Bronte wrote about! Nor was it the kind of love that a man might have for his car, or for rugby, or a woman might have for a pair of shoes! And we know this, for the Greeks had a very specific word for the kind of love that Jesus had for His followers. (And I say Greek, of course, because that was the language the New Testament was written in ~ the closest thing there was to a universal language.) So, as John recorded Jesus command to love each other as I have loved, he used the verbal form of the Greek noun agape. And agape is the distinctively Christian word for love ; which, says Vine s Expository Dictionary, is not an impulse from the feelings, but seeks the welfare of all. i.e. It owes as much to the mind and will of a person as it does to their heart and emotions. Dr. Wayne Detzler adds: This is a totally sacrificial love. The secret of agape love is not what I can get, but rather what I can give It is used to describe that deep and tender love which a parent has for his or her child. Are you getting the picture? Is it coming into focus? John 15:9, As the Father has agaped me i.e. This is how God loves! Agape love ~ the form of love that exists eternally within the Trinity! The love that each member of it has for the other two. But, not only that, it s also the love that Christ has for us. v12 again: As the Father has agaped 1
me, so have I agaped you. That s how Christ loved the twelve, and it s how He loves His people today! He loves us with a love that always seeks our highest good. But it doesn t stop there! For Jesus adds, in v12: As I have agaped you, so you (in turn) must agape each other. That is, not with a fickle and frivolous love ~ a love that s all feeling and no real substance! But with a love that s deep and true ~ a love that is the outflow of a conscious decision to love one another unselfishly and sacrificially. That s how believers are to love their fellow believers! A level of love that s not difficult, so much as impossible! Apart, that is, from God s supernatural resources. Apart from His love flowing through us ~ His love, like steel through concrete, giving our love a far greater strength and resilience. Dear friends, true Christian living will often be deeply challenging and, dare I say, uncomfortable! Not least because there are things Christ calls us to DO whether they re easy, or not; convenient, or not; enjoyable, or not; fulfilling, or not; construed by others to be crazy, or not! And this is one of them! That we are to love one another as Christ has loved us! Truly, madly, deeply ~ and unreservedly! And if, by the grace of God, we can actually do that, over the course of these next few months, then all will be well! Notice I didn t say calm. I didn t say perfect, or even smooth! And I certainly didn t say to everyone s liking! I said all will be well. i.e. to spell it out, if we can love each other as Christ loves us, throughout the two service experiment, with all its potential for mishaps ~ despite all we ve done to guard against them! ~ then all will be well. By which I mean, the most important thing ~ which is not organisational perfection, but our oneness in Christ ~ that most important thing will be well! Commenting on John 15:12, Bruce Milne says: Christ is revealed when his people love one another. I ll say that again: Christ is revealed when his people love one another. I m sure he s right! And it s what we want, isn t it? For the Lord Jesus to be seen! Referring to a heart that s torn in two, the Queen guitarist, Brian May, wrote a song called, Too much love will kill you! But, in terms of God s people loving God s people, there s no such thing as too much love! On the contrary, it s not loving enough that does the damage! And the Enemy s constantly on the case! So may God fill us all with the sacrificial love that Jesus spoke of! But, then, that s just the baseline! The comparatively easy bit, if I can put it that way! For Jesus also had things to say about 2 LOVING OUR NEIGHBOURS And we know who our neighbour is, don t we? France! (I m kidding!) But it s not just the people who live closest to us, is it? For Jesus upped the ante on that one a million-fold with His much-told story of the Good Samaritan. Who is my neighbour?, said an expert in the law to Jesus one day. To which Jesus replied: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took 2
pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? asked Jesus. The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, Go and do likewise. I read about a man called Willie Lyle, who was appointed minister of a Methodist church in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 2013. On the 23rd June he was due to preach his first sermon as its new pastor. However, just a little while before that, God spoke to Willie through a dream and told him to live on the streets of Clarksville for a few days, to get some experience of what it s like to be homeless and have nothing ~ no home, no money, no friends, no food, no anything! So, early on Monday morning, less than a week from his first Sunday at his new church, Willie s wife dropped him off in downtown Clarksville, dressed like a homeless man. And for the next four-and-a-half days he lived on the streets, where he learned a great deal about homelessness, and the working poor, for whom hunger is a daily reality. Then, early on the morning of Sunday, 23rd, Willie lay under a tree on his new church s lawn, covered up by a big overcoat. He still hadn t shaved, or combed his hair, and he wondered how many people would speak to him and offer him food, or any other kind of help. Well, around 20 people did. 20, that is, of the 200 who were in his congregation that morning, as he stood up to preach ~ still wearing that big old overcoat and a scruffy beard. And as he spoke, his daughter-in-law cut his hair; his daughter shaved off his beard; and he took off his coat to reveal his Sunday shirt and trousers. Do you think they got the message?! Like the priest and Levite in Jesus story ~ the religious people, if you like ~ many of them had passed him by on their way to church! I doubt they ll ever forget it! But how easy it is for us to forget ~ for me to forget! As I lean back in my comfortable chair and ponder such a world from a distance ~ a pretty safe distance! It s easy to forget the hurts, the needs, the loneliness, and the darkness without Christ! Jesus said that the second most important commandment ~ second only to loving God with the whole of our being ~ was to love our neighbour as we love ourselves! And how do we love ourselves? We do it by looking after ourselves, by taking care of ourselves, by ensuring we ve got all we need to survive and thrive! And Jesus said: Love your neighbour as yourself. John Piper calls that an overwhelming commandment! Overwhelming, he says, because it seems to demand that I tear the skin off my body and wrap it around another person so that I feel I AM that other person; and all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness I now feel for that other person as though he were ME. Whoah! So was Jesus really saying, by way of story and commandment, that we should all be ready to meet the needs of everyone who needs our help?! Was He?! Really?! I don t think so! For if He was, and we all took Him seriously, we d all be heading for a nervous breakdown! Wouldn t we?! Wondering how we could possibly care for the needs of everyone who could do with our help! 3
But that wasn t the challenge of the story ~ was it? The challenge of Jesus parable was that, rather than ignore him ~ as the priest and the Levite did ~ the Good Samaritan stopped and helped a man whose needs were both obvious and such that he could meet. And all three of those factors are important. The Samaritan saw the need; he knew he could meet the need; but, unlike the others, he was ready to actually do it! And, having started to help, he went out of his way to complete his commitment of care. And that s what I think Jesus is calling us all to do. None of us have the time or money to help everyone who could be seen to be our neighbour! But almost certainly all of us have been blessed with the wherewithal to help somebody! i.e. to love at least one needy person as we love ourselves. What Jesus said about loving people. Part of it has to do with loving one another, within the body of Christ. Part of it has to do with loving our neighbours, whoever they happen to be. And, thirdly, (perhaps the most challenging of all), part of it has to do with 3 LOVING OUR ENEMIES But I tell you, love your enemies, said Jesus, and pray for those who persecute you And once again it s that agape love that s demanded. Not the phileo type, that has to do with brotherly love and is most often exhibited in a close friendship ; but, rather, the agape kind, which is not impulsive, but has to do with sacrifice and with deliberately seeking someone else s wellbeing. Comments a professor called Augsburger: This is not the natural course of action for man. Only the disciple who has been born of the Spirit, who knows the enabling grace of Christ, can live by this standard. Such love is not primarily something you feel but something you do, opening your life in the spirit of Christ even to your enemy. So, in a sense, the bar is raised yet again! Though actually, (whether we re seeking to love our fellow believers, our neighbours, or our enemies), it s agape love that s called for and we cannot manifest that apart from the grace of God! I read a story about a Christian man called DuPre. Just before he reached retirement, his sonin-law left his only daughter ~ and left her with nothing, except for their four children. Some time after the marriage was dissolved the ex-son-in-law was diagnosed with brain cancer ~ virulent, inoperable, and therefore terminal, brain cancer. So who was there to visit him, and comfort him, and share the Gospel with him, during his final stay in hospital? That s right. DuPre! The father of the woman he had left the grandfather of the children he had left and the man who d put off his retirement in order to support that needy family of five. That man, (who most would say had cause to hate him), was there to comfort him, and finally lead him to Christ, not long before he died. That s just one example of how to love your enemy. Even rogues and villains love their own, said Jesus. You don t need grace for that! But loving those who despise you; those who insult you, or seek to do you harm; that calls for something deeper, something stronger, than merely human love! That calls for the very love of God! On 17th November, 1957, at the first church he pastored, Martin Luther King preached a sermon called Loving Your Enemies. Here s a little extract from a man who did just that. Jesus was very serious when he gave this command. He wasn t playing. He realized that it s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it s difficult to love those persons who seek to 4
defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn t playing! And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole ~ a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. (And) because Jesus wasn t playing, (and) because He was serious we have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words ~ and to discover HOW we can live out this command, and WHY we should live by this command. That was close to sixty years ago ~ but the challenge still remains! Jesus wasn t playing when He told His friends to love their enemies! He was serious! And He still is! Our society has accepted two huge lies, said Rick Warren, more recently. The first is that if you disagree with someone s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate, he said. Let s never forget who the real enemy is! It s not atheism, or humanism, or terrorism, or any other ism. It s the Devil! The one who is beyond loving, who is beyond redemption! Everyone else, however difficult, we re called to love ~ with agape love! Because Jesus said so! Conclusion ~ What does love look like?, asked the saintly Augustine. Then he answered his own question like this It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like. Do you recognise it when you look in the mirror? If you don t, there s only one place to get it. At the cross of Christ, where the love of God was poured out on this sin-sick world. Hear the words of Jesus as I close: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love 5