Love Does Not Insist On Its Own Way Series

(Matthew 14:13-21 ESV)

In order for us to understand the extent to which Jesus’ love here does not insist on its own way, we need to consider the context of this event. In the first part of Matthew 14, we learn that John the Baptist had just been beheaded. John’s disciples had taken his body and buried it and came to tell Jesus what had happened. So Jesus had withdrawn to a desolate place to grieve the death of His cousin, the one who had prepared the way for His earthly ministry.

But the crowds quickly found out where Jesus was and they flocked to Him before He had a chance to mourn His loss. So even though it was probably the last thing He wanted to do at that time, because of His compassion for the people, Jesus began to teach and to heal the sick. As the day drew to a close, the disciples approached Jesus and suggested that He send them into the surrounding villages to buy food. That was certainly not an unreasonable suggestion. After all, the only food they had on hand was two fish and five loaves of bread, not even enough for the disciples, alone for the entire crowd.

I’m pretty sure every one of us here would have made the same suggestion. And no one could have quarreled with Jesus had He chosen to follow their advice. After all, He had come to that place to be alone and mourn privately and the people had completely ignored His needs and desires and interrupted that time He needed for Himself. But as we’ve seen consistently in this series, Jesus doesn’t behave like we do naturally.

Here in this passage we learn that…

When I love like Jesus loves

I see life’s interruptions

as divine opportunities

Most of us tend to live busy lives so many of us try to plan out our time carefully to make sure that we get everything done that we need to do each week. But inevitably, there are going to be interruptions to our plans.

Jesus was certainly no stranger to interruptions in His life here on earth. If you think there are things that are urgent in your life, just remember that from the time He began His earthly ministry by standing in the synagogue and reading from the scroll of Isaiah until He died on the cross and rose from the dead, Jesus had only a little over three years to accomplish the task His Father had given to Him. So the kind of interruptions that we see here in this passage were undoubtedly much more disruptive to Jesus than most of the ones we tend to deal with.

And yet, Jesus was never too busy to love others because He viewed those interruptions as divine opportunities. So let’s see what we can learn from this passage that will help us to love others like that.

APPLICATION

HOW TO EXERCISE A LOVE THAT DOES NOT INSIST ON ITS OWN WAY

1. Be willing to put my needs and desires on the “back burner”

Although my schedule is somewhat flexible each week, I do generally set aside most of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday to work on my sermon so that I can have it finished in time to get everything to Paul so he can print the bulletins on Thursday morning. So I try to protect my schedule as much as possible on those days.