Love Without Walls, Romans 12:9-21
Introduction
An escaped prisoner in the Civil War wandered for many days and nights, seeking the Union lines. At last, in the dusk of the early twilight, he came to a camp which he supposed belonged to the Confederates. Before he knew it he was surrounded by the pickets and captured, to be hurried back to prison, as he thought. But what was his surprise and joy, on looking a little closer, to find that it was the Union blue, and not the Confederate gray, that the soldiers wore!
He had been captured by his friends. When he thought that his friends were far away they were all around him. Oh, wanderer, and fugitive from God, lift up your eyes; the hosts of your friends surround you! God is near you. Jesus Christ is by your side. The Holy Spirit is hovering over you. The opening of your spiritual eyes will reveal it all.
Transition
This morning the primary theme or thesis of this sermon is simply this: “The love of God, the love of Christ in us, knows no walls.” We have been created to love recklessly, with abandon, just as God, in Christ, has loved us, uncontrollably and with reckless abandon.
Exposition
As the Church of Christ, our primary mission, our main objective, is of course to love one another. Galatians 5:13 says, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” (KJV) 1 Peter 1:22 says, “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.” (KJV)
Our primary mission in the Church is to love one another radically, faithfully, freely in liberty, corporately, just as Christ has loved each one of us individually. In the very first verse of today’s Scripture reading the Apostle Paul says, “Let love be genuine.” I like the way that the King James Version says it even better though, rather than affirming the positive notion of letting love be genuine, the King James says, “Let love be without dissimulation,” that is, let love be without hypocrisy.
While more modern translations affirm positive genuineness of the love of Christ, the King James sticks with the original negative clause, by implication of course, love that is without hypocrisy will of course be genuine.
I’d like to focus for a few moments on what it means for love to be without hypocrisy. That is a very interesting concept. What does love have to do with hypocrisy? Here is what the Webster’s dictionary of 1828 says about hypocrisy.
“Simulation; a feigning to be what one is not; or dissimulation, a concealment of one’s real character or motives. More generally, hypocrisy is simulation, or the assuming of a false appearance of virtue or religion; a deceitful show of a good character, in morals or religion; a counterfeiting of religion. Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Luke 12. Simulation; deceitful appearance; false pretence. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.”
How many of us have heard someone say, because surely we would never say such a thing, “I sure don’t like that person, but I love them in Christian love?” What does that mean? If I say that I love someone in “Christian love” but actually have hatred, disgust, or even strong dislike for them in my heart, is that yet pleasing to God? Is there a difference between feeling love and giving love?
In Mathew 5:43-48 Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (ESV)
Wow! Be perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect! That is a tall task is it not? Here is what I believe that Jesus is saying to us; there is more to love than sentiment. There is one thing that we can count on in when reading the red words in the Bible, the words of Christ.
They are always practical and applicable to our lives in ways that are relevant and sure. If we read the words of Jesus and do not understand or appreciate them it is because of our limited ability to grasp and apply. It is never that they are inapplicable. Love is not merely a feeling.
We may not feel inclined to show love to a brother or sister in Christ, we may not understand them, but love is more than sentiment and we have been invited by God to appeal to something far greater than our mood and our feelings; The Holy Spirit within us enabling us to love others as Christ loved us.
Genuine love is shown in spite of others faults, just as God loves us in spite of our faults. Genuine love is not always accompanied by warm sentiments, though as we grow in Christ I would trust that it would become richer, truer, more and more genuine. The key to loving others genuinely is to learn to have God’s eyes to see them; as we see others the way God does then loving them will become easier and easier and at some point it may even become a joy!
I know for some of us someone may well come to mind who is difficult to love. We all have someone, maybe even multiple some ones, who are very difficult to love. Is our love for them contingent upon them? As followers of Christ are we not called to and enabled by something much higher than our feelings and their actions and attitudes; however foul and unlovely they may be?
Charles Spurgeon used to illustrate hypocrisy with the following story: An American gentleman said to a friend, “I wish you would come down to my garden and taste my apples.” He asked him about a dozen times, but the friend did not come. At last the fruit grower said, “I suppose you think my apples are good for nothing, so you won’t come and try them." "Well, to tell the truth,” said his friend, “I have tasted them. As I went along the road I picked one up that fell over the wall, and I never tasted anything so sour in all my life. I do not particularly wish to have any more of your fruit.” “Oh,” said the owner of the garden, “I thought that would happen. Those apples around the outside are for the special benefit of the boys. I selected the sourest kinds to plant all around the orchard so the boys might give them up as not worth stealing. If you will come inside, you will find that we grow a different quality there, sweet as honey.”
Let us not feed our others the sour fruit of deceit. Let us feed them the genuine fruit of the honest and pure love of Christ which dwells within us. We have got to learn to see one another through the lens of God’s vantage point. We are all imperfect recipients of God’s perfect grace. None of us is perfect. Why then do we so often cast judgment upon one another?
What about the world? We can surely all appreciate that we are to show love to the brethren, to our brothers and sisters in Christ, but what about the world? What about those who are outside of the body of Christ? What is our mandate in light of the Scripture and what God has done for us?
It has been well said that people are not looking for friendly churches, they are looking for friends. The genuine love of Christ is not only to be for the brethren. Remember, the love of Christ, which is in us, knows no walls.
Our mission as the Church is not only to support and nurture one another, although that is incredibly important. Our mission as the Church is also to reach out with the same love that we share with one another to the world outside of the walls of the Church. As it has been said, the Church is not a country club for saints but a hospital for sinners.
It has been my experience in last few years that most church growth happens by way of church transplants and not new Christians. I would that we could see that change in the Church at large and here in our local fellowship. But how can we see that change? By what means can we encourage this generation toward the love of Christ and fellowship with His Church?
The story is told of a small dog which had been struck by a car and was lying by the side of the road. A doctor, driving by, noticed that the dog was still alive, stopped his car, picked up the dog, and took him home with him. There he discovered that the dog had been stunned, had suffered a few minor cuts and abrasions, but was otherwise all right.
He revived the dog, cleaned up the wounds and was carrying the animal from the house to the garage when suddenly it jumped from his arms and scampered off. “What an ungrateful little dog,” the doctor said to himself. He thought no more about the incident until the next evening when he heard a scratching at the door. When he opened it, there was the little dog he had treated with another hurt dog.
We’ve got to get better at reaching out. I know that this generation is incredibly challenging to reach. Many of today’s generation seem not only distant from the Church but some are even hostile to its message. It is interesting though that many are not hostile to the message of Jesus, the message of redemption, the message of love and grace; they are not so much hostile to Jesus as they are to His Church.
It seems that we are battling a two-fold difficulty in terms of modern evangelism. First, the Church, because of so man scandals in the media has lost some of its trustworthiness. This, the Church only has itself to blame. The second is more difficult to tackle; we are living in a rather narcissistic culture where many, if not most, people are very slow to commit to Christ.
The idea of freedom and forgiveness in Christ is all good and fine but the idea of committing their lives to Him is much less attractive than it should be. While we can not change society as a whole, we can do our part to treat wounded dogs, one at a time. We can love others into the kingdom one person at a time.
Again, the key principal in doing this is to see people the way that God sees them. God ascribes unsurpassable worth to all of His creation. God loves every person with a radical sort of unending love. He forgives because it is in His nature to forgive. He shows grace and mercy because He is gracious and merciful.
Today’s Scripture reading tells us clearly the way that the Church is to interact with and relate to the world around it. It is not ambiguous at all. The book of Romans, chapter 12, gives us a mandate of radical compassion and love. It tells us to positively affirm others, to ascribe the same unsurpassable worth to others that God ascribes to them. Paul gives us a lesson in radical love without walls.
The love which we are called collectively as the Church and individually as Christians is the kind of love which is not bound by the walls of the Church building; the kind of love which is not bound by the walls of social class distinctions; the kind of love which is not bound by any of the invisible walls which separate the races, the genders, the generations, or any other walls which seek to keep love bound as in chains of unjust societal manufacture.
The love of Christ is free for all and our mandate is share it freely with all. As to methods of evangelism, there are many. The story is told of one lady who criticized D. L. Moody for his methods of evangelism in attempting to win people to the Lord. Moody’s reply was “I agree with you. I don’t like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?” The lady replied, “I don’t do it.” Moody retorted, “Then I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”
The first and most important way of doing evangelism is to live out what we believe. How can we lead someone else to the saving knowledge of Christ if they don’t first see it lived out in our lives? We can not. I was reminded earlier in the week by a dear friend that chief among godly principals is humility. If we are to share the love of Christ with others we do it in humility.
Perhaps the most obvious way to evangelize is simply to invite someone to Church. We are working on some creative ways to invite people in our community to some of our holiday services next year. In the coming months you’ll hear more about that and be asked to participate in simple accomplishable ways.
Events at the church which draw people into relationship with the church and provide opportunities to share the love of Christ with people are important methods. There are many techniques which we will we explore further in the months and years to come but the driving principal is sharing love without walls.
Conclusion
One evening just before the great Broadway musical star, Mary Martin, was to go on stage in South Pacific, a note was handed to her. It was from Oscar Hammerstein, who at that moment was on his deathbed. The short note simply said: “Dear Mary, A bell’s not a bell till you ring it. A song’s not a song till you sing it. Love in your heart is not put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.”
After her performance that night many people rushed backstage, crying, “Mary, what happened to you out there tonight? We never saw anything like that performance before.” Blinking back the tears, Mary then read them the note from Hammerstein. Then she said, “Tonight, I gave my love away!”
Let us, in this place, be a people of increasing commitment to sharing the love of God with one another and sharing the love of Christ without walls.
Amen.
