The husband had just finished reading the book, "MAN OF THE HOUSE". He stormed into the kitchen and walked directly up to his wife. Pointing a finger in her face he said:
"From now on, I want you to know that I am the man of this house and my word is law! I want you to prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I’m finished eating my meal, I expect a sumptuous dessert afterward, Then after dinner, you are going to draw me my bath so I can
relax. And when I’m finished with my bath, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?"
His wife replied......."The funeral director would be my guess"
Guys, I don’t recommend you go home and try this with your wife this afternoon. I would expect that if we did, we would have much the same reaction, and probably even worse.
What is love? It’s obviously not speaking to a loved one the way that husband did. Love is a word that has been given much study in trying to understand exactly what it is. We hear it and probably use it multiple times each day. I love that car or house, we loved the movie last night, for my wife, she loves coffee. For me, I love a good steak. It seems that we have turned something very special into a word, which we use to describe our feelings for everyday things, which has lessened the true meaning of the word.
How often within the church, do we come up to each other and say, I love you, to someone other than our spouse or children? Certainly not often enough. Love is a very special emotion, completely in a class by itself. What other word can make a person feel so happy about themselves with merely the mention of it. I know for me and Melissa, just hearing or saying, “I love you” can melt away any stress we may have, or can turn a bad day into a great one.
So where do we get our understanding of love? Obviously, it is not from society, as we have seen how love has taken a negative tone within the world. This past weekend, we celebrated Easter and remembered what sacrifice Jesus did for you and for me as He was crucified. That is true love. It is not the trivial things we use the word to describe; it is the expression of the deep and constant love of a perfect being towards entirely unworthy objects, we are those objects.
*Turn in your Bibles to 1 John 4:7-12.*
I want to break this passage up into three main points that I think we can all benefit from.
1. Love Defined 7 – 8
Love comes FROM God. It is only through an intimate relationship with Him, that we are able to fully know love and to show it to others. People have tried for years to find love on their own, the problem is, without God, we have no idea what real love is. Within the pages of Scripture, we find the definition of love, God.
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
John Wesley wrote: “It is hard to find human words to explain ‘the depth of God. We read here in 1 John, the best description of the depth of God, Love. God is love! We see repeatedly throughout Scripture this being so. From the calling of Abraham, to God sending His Son Jesus to be our Savior, God has shown His love for us, His creation. We often hear of God’s attributes, holiness, compassion, keeper of His covenants. Those are certainly important attributes of God; however, here is the ultimate attribute of God, love.
Eph 2:4,5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
John shows us how important love is by stating that everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. If we love God and know God, our lives will be lived as one characterized by this love.
For us in the church, it is not enough to simply know what love is, we also need to know how we as Christians can show and share this love with others.
2. Love Demonstrated 9 – 10
“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Real love does not start with us, it starts with God.
If you want to see love demonstrated, look at Jesus. He is the evidence of God’s love. He is the demonstration of God’s love. As I mentioned before, last Sunday we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. Jesus gave all, His dignity and His life so that we might know love. Not a love like we show, but a love which covers all, and
God certainly has shown us what true love looks like. In Christ, we see the depth of His love and compassion for us. Christ came because God loves us. Christ came because God is love. Christ came because God saw our need for love and did something about it.
Think of how difficult this was. Christ left His throne of glory knowing that He would have to offer the sacrifice of His life in order to save us from our sins. Christ humbled Himself for us being made in human form. Christ gave Himself daily for us as He walked the dusty roads of Palestine ministering to people. Finally, Christ offered Himself up willingly as a sacrifice for our sins, enduring the shame and humiliation of the Cross and suffering its terrible pain.
John said that Christ became an atoning sacrifice for our sins. In addition, John says that He did that so that we might live through him. He died for us. He died for our benefit. He died so that we could live. What greater love could ever be shown? How could anyone look at that sacrifice and not see the very love of God?
We should never be able to say to God, "Show me how much you love me!" He has shown us. Look at the Cross. Do you not see there the love of God? Consider Jesus hanging there in agony and pain. Consider the crown of thorns pressed down upon His brow. Consider the stakes driven through His hands and feet. Consider the beating He had already endured, ripping flesh from bone, so much so that He was virtually unrecognizable. Consider what He suffered. He did it all for love. He did it all for you and for me. That is the love of God demonstrated.
3. Love Duplicated 11 – 12
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
If you love based on how you feel, you will wind up loving only those you like, and not the ones we are called to love. God has not called us to love only those we consider friends, or our family members. We are called to love ALL people, with the love we have been shown by God. The love John speaks of here is not human love, but godly love, which goes beyond the superficial or top-level love of our society.
In the gospel of John, we read the words of Jesus as He speaks to His disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35)
As God has loved us, so should we love one another. It is through this love that people will see and know that we are followers of Christ. Each of us as Christians are to live a Christ-like life, always striving to be more like Him. If we will love our fellow believers and all of those we come in contact with, with this faithful love, we will be Christ like.
The Marines have a term, Semper Fidelis. This term means Always Faithful, as a Marine is always faithful to another Marine, and to their country. We as Christians should be always faithful to Christ by living a life full of love.
People cannot see God, but they do see us every day. What are they seeing? Do the people you come into contact with see someone who loves them, no matter what color they are, how poor or rich, no matter if they are the CEO of a large company, someone who simply works to support their family? God showed His love to all of us through Jesus. Jesus did not die for only a certain group of people; He died for all of us. We simply have to be willing to accept Him as Savior and devote our lives to following Him.
“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:7-8)
My prayer today, is that when people think of Bethel Wesleyan Church, they will know above all else, that here is a church where the people not only say they love God, but that they show the love of God to all those who come in contact with them. The burden is on each and every one of us. We should not concern ourselves with whether or not those outside of the church love us, or know how to show love, how can they. We just read, whoever does not know God, does not know love. We as Christians must be loving. If people can’t look at each of us and see the love of God, it is our burden to seek God and find out where we are lacking.
One illustration of this is the true story of Teddy Stallard. By his own admission he was an unattractive, unmotivated little boy. He was difficult to like, especially for a schoolteacher who all daylong faced his deadpan, expressionless, unfocused stare. Although his fifth grade teacher said she loved all her students, Miss Thompson had to admit that deep down she wasn’t being honest. She didn’t like him, and she even received a certain perverse pleasure in marking his papers with red ink and writing the F’s with a flair.
Her view of him was already distorted by her perspective, but she should have known better. As his teacher, she had his records and she knew more about him than she wanted to admit. His records read like this:
First Grade – Teddy shows promise with his work and attitude, but he has a poor home situation.
Second Grade – Teddy could do better. Mother is seriously ill. He receives little help at home.
Third Grade – Teddy is a good boy but too serious. He is a slow learner. His mother died this year.
Fourth Grade – Teddy is very slow but well behaved. His father shows no interest.
At Christmas, her class all brought her presents in pretty wrappings and gathered around to watch her open them. She was surprised when she received a gift from Teddy. It was crudely wrapped in brown paper loosely held together with tape. When she opened it, out fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing and a bottle of cheap perfume. The children began to giggle, but she had enough sense to put on the bracelet and apply some of the perfume on her wrist. She asked the class, "Doesn’t it smell lovely?"
When school was over and the children had left, Teddy had lingered behind. He slowly came over to her desk and said softly, "Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother. And her bracelet looks real pretty on you too. I’m glad you liked my presents." When Teddy left, Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her.
The next day when the children came to school, they were welcomed by a new teacher. Miss Thompson had become a new person. She was no longer just a teacher; she had become an agent of God. She now had a changed perspective. She was now a person committed to loving her children and doing things for them that would live on after her. Because of Miss Thompson’s loving attention, by the end of that school year, Teddy showed dramatic improvement and had caught up with most of the students.
Miss Thompson did not hear from Teddy for a long time, after he left her class. Then one day she received a note that said:
"Dear Miss Thompson:
I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating second in my high school class.
Love, Teddy Stallard."
Four years later, Miss Thompson received another note. It read:
"Dear Miss Thompson:
They just told me I would be graduating first in my class. I wanted you to be the first to know. The university has not been easy, but I liked it.
Love, Teddy Stallard."
Finally, Miss Thompson received another note:
"Dear Miss Thompson:
As of today, I am Theodore Stallard, MD. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact. I want you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You are the only family I have now; Dad died last year.
Love, Teddy Stallard."
Miss Thompson went to that wedding. In Teddy’s eyes she deserved to sit where his mother would have sat; she had earned that right. She had done something for Teddy that he could never forget. By a small act of love and kindness, she had changed the course of his life. She had exercised the power of love. She had become an agent of God.
Today, I pray that each of us is following God and knows of the love John writes. If you are here today, and don’t know or maybe have not experienced this level of love, we would love to show you God’s love today. Maybe you grew up in a home where not much love was shown and you just don’t know how to love. I can promise you, that God can help heal those wounds, as Jesus died on the cross for each of us, if you will only accept Him as your Savior, you too can know of this love. Don’t leave here today without knowing above everything else, that God loves you.
