Intro: gratitude, pray, go with emotion
Do you like stories? I like stories. Especially dramatic love stories. I think deep in our hearts when we watch some romantic dramas and you have been following the story and right about the climax something happens to us- we start yelling at the screen, “Kiss her you fool!” We all want him to get the girl, but we enjoy the radical love story as it unfolds.
Love should be radical and needs to be the motivating desire in our lives.
Story/Illustration: Lesson in Love
As a group of college students toured the slums of a city, one of the girls, seeing a little girl playing in the dirt, asked a guide, "Why doesn’t her mother clean her up?"
"Madam," he replied, "that girl’s mother probably loves her, but she doesn’t hate dirt. You hate dirt, but you don’t love her enough to go down there and clean her up. Until hate for dirt and love for that child are in the same person, that little girl is likely to remain as she is."
Until hate for sin and love for the sinner gets in a person, he will do little about the plight of the lost.
Transition-I know this was a little heavy to throw at you first thing but we need to be shaken sometimes, sometimes you have to be radical!
I. Love should be radical
A. Read thru 1Cor13:1-3 even spiritual power isn’t greater than love.
1. so Paul says that the greatest spiritual gift is nothing w/o love- that’s a radical statement
B. Read thru 1Cor13:4-8 explain how radical each and Every Time
1. Superlatives-Always-no condemnation- but we can’t say always love- that’s a radical statement
C. Read thru 1Cor13:9-13 Even how we relate to God is incomplete without love.
1. All knowledge, mysteries, even faith is not as great as love behind it and the bible says its impossible to please God w/o Faith- that’s a radical statement
C. Jesus’ love is radical
1. Jn8:3Woman caught in adultery-she is like that girl in the dirt, but Jesus saw her loved her and he did something about her sin problem. Imagine-Expect condemn/stoned
2. Radical doesn’t always look the way you think, radical doesn’t have to be the “big” gestures. Radical is the consistent moment to moment choice you and I make to Love.
Transition- The Valuable Picture
When a certain wealthy man died, his will could not be found. Since his wife and only son had preceded him in death, his possessions were sold at auction. Everything was disposed of except a picture of the son. Nobody seemed to want it until an elderly woman approached and pleaded with the auctioneer to let her have it for the few dollars in her possession. When he gave her the picture, she hugged it to her heart, for she had been the son’s nurse in his infancy and boyhood days. Attached to the back of the painting she discovered an envelope addressed to an attorney. Taking it to him, she was astonished to hear him exclaim, "Woman, you have a fortune! This is the man’s will, and in it he has left a large sum of money to anyone who loved his son enough to buy the picture."
II. Love needs to be motivating our desires in life
A. Luke 2:36/7 Anna 1 of 3 prophetesses, 103-110 years old
B. When its not strife, strongholds, and storms occur.
Transition-Once you’ve been touched by the Love of the Creator of all in your inner most being, no one will have to tell you to witness, or to read your bible, or be patient at the drive thru window, or courteous to you bill collectors, or love your enemies or any of that you would just do it because you will have the same desire as the Father who is Love.
Love should be radical and needs to be the motivating desire in our lives.
Conclusion:
He Did It Without Regret
United States Senator Jake Garn of Utah did something most of us admire-and perhaps should consider doing ourselves. He donated one of his organs to save a life.
A recent survey says 73 percent of Americans approve organ donation. But only about 20 percent actually sign donor cards and make arrangements for our corneas, kidneys, or other organs to be used when we die.
In Senator Garn’s case, however, he did not wait until his death to donate his left kidney. His 27-year-old daughter, Susan Garn Horne, suffered from progressive kidney failure due to diabetes. Her condition deteriorated, and doctors determined that she needed a kidney transplant immediately.
Jake Garn and his two sons were all found to be compatible donors. The senator insisted that he should be the one to give the kidney. "Her mother carried her for nine months," he said, "and I am honored to give her part of me."
So, on September 10, 1986, in a Washington, D.C. hospital, a six-hour surgical procedure was performed to remove one of his kidneys and to implant it into his daughter.
The radio news broadcast a story on Garns, and in it was a comment from the doctor who put the donated kidney into Susan’s body. At a press briefing at Georgetown University Hospital, the doctor said, "The senator is awake, has a bit of a grin on his face. He seems very self-satisfied, and happy and peaceful."
The senator had to be in pain at that moment. The incision through which his kidney was removed goes from his back to his front ribs. There were tubes in him, needles yet to come, and several weeks of recuperation lying ahead. But he was smiling!
That grin on Jake Garn’s face could have meant only one thing: no regrets. Love makes it possible for a person to do the most difficult and dreaded of things without looking back.
Think for a moment about what Jesus did to save you. He left the worship of angels to be born in a stable. He accepted the limitations of human form, suffered indignities of the greatest magnitude, and shed His lifeblood to purchase your redemption.
The most astounding thing about all He did is that there is not a word in the Bible which indicates that the Son of God regretted doing it. On the day of His ascension back to the Father, there may have been a bit of a grin on His face.
His only regret would come if you refused His gift of life.
Jesus’ death and life is the most Radical love story ever told. His Love is the most passionate, unconditional, self-less and Radical love for us. My radical love is asking a stranger Hi, how are you? Really? Can I pray for you about something now? Or forgiving all the people who hurt me in the past. What’s your radical love going to be? Maybe you feel like you already do a lot. I know a lot of you do, but look around, you never know what is behind someone’s smile- one of my mentors used to say “ Be nice to everyone, cuz everyone’s going through a battle” how else does God want to use you? Why don’t you come down to the front and we will pray and find out what God would say to you today.
