As I - Loving Like Jesus John 13:31-35 September 30, 2012 Ken Holden Have any of you read or journeyed through Rick Warren s The Purpose Driven Life? If you have you may remember the very first sentence of the book: It s not about you. So, what is it about? It s all about Loving God and Loving People. Rick Warren says, Learning to love God and others is to be our highest goal, our greatest aim, our first priority, our deepest aspiration, our strongest ambition, our constant focus, our passionate intention, and the dominant life value of our lives. The reality is - Relationships are difficult. There is often a divide between what we hope for and desire in relationships, and what we actually experience. Yet, we were reminded last week through the words of the Great Commandment, that nothing is more important than relationships. So for a few weeks we are going to sit together under the tent of this theme: Jesus on Relationships. Jesus is the expert, so we would be wise to learn from him. Where will we pitch our tent? In the Gospels of Jesus Christ. And, as I said last week, we will use as a resource a book by Tom Holladay, The Relationship Principles of Jesus. Last week we talked about The Priority of Relationships, and we heard Jesus respond to the question, Of all the commandments, which is the greatest? Jesus said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength...and love your neighbor as yourself. DO THAT...and live abundantly. *********************** Scripture & Prayer ********************** It was the night before Jesus would die on the cross. He and his disciples gathered in an upper room to share an important meal together - the annual Passover meal. These Jewish men had vivid memories of enjoying this Passover celebration their entire lives. But this night was different. The meal is overshadowed by more pressing feelings. Jesus had spoken of his imminent death. There was confusion and doubt. Yet, in the midst of this sober supper, Jesus begins to talk about something new. Bread that now represented his body. Wine that now represented his blood. A new promise between God and humankind.
Then Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Three times on this emotional, last evening together, Jesus lovingly says (even commands) his disciples to love one another. It s a relationship principle. I. We need to look back for a moment: In fact, we will probably look back each week to the words of Jesus about the greatest commandment. The two in one commandment. The one coin with inseparable and interrelated sides. Our relationship with God (the vertical) - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. Our relationship with others (the horizontal) -...and love your neighbor as yourself. There is Truth in these words, in this commandment. But just acknowledging that Truth does not change our lives one way or the other. Tom Holladay says, Knowing more facts and ideas and principles - even if they are God s principles - does not have the power to change your relationships. The power to change starts with faith - with trusting God - and then acting on that faith. Did you hear it in Jesus words? All - ALL your heart. The heart is where you feel. Emotions. God wants his children to express their feelings of love for him! ALL your soul. It s that part of you that decides. You have a will. You are not controlled by your emotions or thoughts. You can decide! ALL your mind. It s where you think. News flash - being a Christian does not mean we stop thinking. Quite the opposite. God wants us to love him with our minds. ALL your strength. The place where you physically interact. Real actions in the world. Your mouth (voice), your hands, your feet. It takes energy. Holladay sums it up this way: If you re not feeling something about your way of relating to God, deciding something about it, thinking something about it, and doing something about it -- then you won t see any change. And what about that...love for neighbor as you love yourself? We are not going to delve into the story today, but on another occasion when Jesus shared this Great Commandment on relationships, a scholar asked him, So, Jesus, who exactly is my neighbor? His answer came in the form of a parable. We call it The Good Samaritan. It might best be summed up this way, Your neighbor is anyone to whom you can be neighborly. It is one whom God may bring across your path, anyone or someone, to whom you can love and relate. The parable is lifechanging if we will let it be. Everyone means there is no one outside the limits of my love; and someone means I can only practice love toward people I am with right now.
Last week we said that this relationship stuff is a choice. We choose to love...god and people. We make it our business!! II. Now, what about this new commandment? Jesus pointed us to the First - Love God; and to the Second - Love Your Neighbors. And now he gives us a New Commandment. Note: All three center on relationships. But this third one is worded a bit differently. Jesus said to love one another. Who is he talking about? He is talking to those sitting with him at meal. What did they have in common? To be honest, not much. They were an eclectic group. But what they did have in common was that they were all followers of Jesus. We might say other Christians or our families or those closest to us. You would think that this would have been covered within the sphere of the Great Commandment. But Jesus says, No, this is too important. This commandment deserves its own pedestal upon which to stand. Important enough to repeat it several times just hours before he was to die. Love one another. But with this command there is something else. A qualifier if you will. And that qualification begins with two little words that carry with them a seemingly insurmountable challenge: As I. (vs. 34) As I have loved you, love one another. Jesus is commanding you and me to love others as he loves us. Wow. WOW. That is impossible! Yes, it is...in your human power. But on that night Jesus went on to talk to his followers about a gift for them. The gift of the Holy Spirit of God. Their Helper. Their Enabler. Jesus gave us this seemingly impossible challenge not to discourage us but to lead us to find in him the power to love others. If Im going to love as Jesus loved, I need the power that only Jesus can give. As I. It s the difference between Try and Trust. God does not want us to say, I ll do my best. I ll give it a try. Jesus doesn t want us to try our hardest; Jesus wants us to learn to trust in him. Hearing again from Tom Holladay who says, Christianity is not trying harder; Christianity is trusting Jesus.Make no mistake; it s not a passive trust, sitting and waiting for God to act; it s a real trust, involving your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. As I. It is also the difference between what you Feel and what you Do. Our feelings are important. Our feelings and emotions are real. But make no mistake here, Jesus is not commanding us to feel love. He is not. He is, however, commanding us to act with love. Love one another. Jesus didn t say we must feel this way; he s saying Act this way. It reminds me of the Apostle Paul s words to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Our feelings are real. They are important. They are a part of the package of love. But we do not have to succumb to them. In fact, feelings tend to follow actions - sometimes immediately, sometimes slowly. But feelings do tend to follow actions.
I love what I once heard a pastor say on this subject: You are more likely to ACT your way into a new way of THINKING than you are to THINK yourself into a new way of ACTING. As I. It s the difference in Trying and Trusting. It s the difference in what you Feel and what you Do. And, it s the difference between Fear and Love. Jesus said it was a NEW commandment. The motivation in the Old Commandments was fear of the judgment of God. The New Commandment is motivated by love. Instead of following a list of rules, we are following a living example - Jesus! What a frighteningly wonderful commandment. Love one another...as I have loved you, you are to love one another. I will give you the strength - Trust Me. I will give you the power - Act on that power. I will give you my Spirit - Love them for Me! III. Game Plan. Every sermon needs a YBH part. A Yes, But How? part. A Game Plan if you will. Well, here s at least a partial game plan for Living an As I Love 1) Get in touch with your heart, your feelings. Jesus said one another so let s bringing it home. What is in your heart, what you are feeling toward your husband or wife; your Mom or Dad or child; your boss or co-worker; your brother or sister in Christ? Honest discernment is needed here. You can t hide it. Not really. The heart always leaks out...or, it explodes. Honest discernment first. Then, Courageous action. Do you remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount? If you are going to the Temple to offer a sacrifice; oh, let s just bring that home and just say - going to church to worship and pray; and you remember that another person has something against you...stop. Stop what you are doing and go to that other person, and repair your heart trouble. Jesus had feelings but they did not control him. You too must honestly discern your heart, and then act immediately. Do it for the sake of your relationships. 2) Another part of the Game Plan: If we are going to live an As I love we will Enjoy our time investments with people. Enjoy people and open ourselves to them in love. There is a risk here. It s the risk of dropping the barriers we have built around our lives. Risk becoming vulnerable in order to love like Jesus loves us. Put down the paper, stop texting, turn off the TV, open the garage door, say Hello - risk in order to love. 3) Choose to Forgive: This may be the hardest thing to do as Jesus did. Have you ever heard or have you ever said, I just can t forgive. Maybe we don t actually say it, we just live it - in some relationship, with some individual. Well, first we may need to ask, What do you mean by forgive? If forgiveness to you means you must forget - then you are correct, you can t do that. Forgiveness means you let it go. Let it go! Let go of your bitterness and desire for revenge. Jesus did not say you would forget, and he did not say that forgiving means you must trust that individual to the extent that they can hurt you again. Trust has to be re-built. But forgiveness - that means let it go.
Second, we must ask, Who are you trying to punish by choosing not to forgive? Be careful of thinking If I forgive the other party they will get off the hook. Folks, the other party may not even know, or care that you are hurt or angry or remembering. But, through your bitterness and un-forgiveness, that past pain hurts you over and over again. Tom Holladay would warn us this way: If you think you can choose not to forgive someone else and not have it affect your relationship with God, you re lying to yourself. 4) Just one more for now, as to what it means to love As I - like Jesus did and does. Choose to Sacrifice. Sacrifice What a word. But Jesus would say to us, True love sacrifices. My kind of love sacrifices. Now hear this! The greatest sacrifices may not be the once-in-a-lifetime sacrifices; they may well be the daily sacrifices. You know, it s times when you give up your way and seek another person s good. Lest you think we are making too much of Jesus words, As I ; consider his words earlier in the 13th chapter of John. He said, If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another s feet. And even John s words years later when he said, This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, (as He) ought to give our lives for others! (I John 3:16 TEV). Choose to sacrifice! Conclusion: Jesus on Relationships. There is so much more...and we will talk about much of it. But remember, Jesus tells us that there is nothing more important than relationships. Our relationship with God; our relationships with others - our neighbors; and our relationships with one another. What a minute preacher! Don t get carried away. ALL of the people in my relationship world do not deserve, or even expect that kind of love from me. You are right! And, none of us really deserve that kind of love from God either. And yet the Bible says clearly that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So, what do we do? Tom Holladay says, Our GOAL is relationships that are transformed by the example and power of Jesus Christ. It s a goal. Yet, we have the ultimate example; and we have a power that is out of this world. That is a freeing thought isn t it? In fact, possibly the most refreshing and energizing moment in any person s life is the moment he or she says, I know I can t, but I know God can. God can do in me what I cannot do for myself. AM I loving like Jesus? Are you? Prayer: Father, I don t have the strength to do this on my own. I am trusting in your strength to enable me to believe and think and say and do the right thing. The Christ thing. In Jesus name. Amen. Notes:
[The Relationship Principles of Jesus, Tom Holladay, Zondervan Press, 2008]