Christ’s Love – A Call to Action
John 13:34-35
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
There are several actions steps we can take to love like Jesus loved.
Live a Life of Love
Ephesians 4:32-5:2 - Paul admonishes Christians in Ephesus to get rid of all bad behavior. “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Follow God’s example in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away your sins. And God was pleased, because that sacrifice was like sweet perfume to him.”
A Jewish Rabbi once commented to a well-known pastor that if Christians were just kind to each other he might consider the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.
Paul gave the key to living a life of love. We are to follow the example of Jesus. “Be kind to each other…”
You live a life of love when you show consideration and politeness to others.
Not long ago I mentioned in one of our services that because I showed consideration to a waitress I had the opportunity to pray with her.
I ordered a couple sand witches to go at the Blue Rock Café. While I was waiting for the order I thought I would show kindness by giving the waitress a good tip just for bringing me the order to where I was waiting. When she brought me the order to go I thanked her and gave her a nice tip. Along with the tip I gave her an invitation card. She looked at the card and saw the cross on top of the church steeple of our church picture. She said a friend that week had given her a cross on a chain to hang around her neck.
I shared some scripture that related to the cross and asked her if she had anything she would like for me to pray with her about. She said she had two requests. First, for her teen age boys and second that she would do a good job working as a waitress. She had some other questions and she told me she needed to get back into church. I thanked her for bringing me the order and was about ready to leave. She said, “You forgot to pray with me.” So we bowed in prayer at the table where I was setting and had prayer for her teenage sons and success in her work.
Being polite and thoughtful opened doors for prayer and encouraging words.
When you are polite and look your waitress or waiter in the eye and say “Thank you.” You add vale to them. When you talk to people and look them in the eye you are saying, “I value what you have to say. I accept you and want to hear you.”
We live a life of love by following the example of Jesus. Jesus saw potential in every person who was searching for truth. Jesus saw leadership potential in ordinary fisherman. He saw the possibility of integrity in Matthew a tax collector. He saw generosity in Zachaeus who had made his living by cheating people out of their hard earned money. He saw the possibility of a transformed life in a prostitute. Jesus saw the hope of a new life in a man, Saul, who woke up every day with an agenda to arrest and put in jail all followers of Jesus. Paul became a great church planter and missionary in the Roman world.
A three year old was on the heels of her mother everywhere she walked around the house. Time and time again she’d trip over her small son. She suggested her son play with his toys, but he said he was okay and said, “I’d rather be here with you.” Then he continued to bounce happily along behind her.
After stepping on her toes for the fifth time, she began to lose patience. The mother asked him why he was acting this way and he looked up with his soft blue eyes and said, “Well, Mommy, my Sunday school teacher told me to walk in Jesus’ footsteps. But I can’t see Him, so I’m walking in yours.”
Living a life of love is walking in the steps of Jesus and doing our best to honor the Lord in all we do and say.
The first action step of Loving like Jesus loves is living a life of love. The second action step is
Live a Life of Forgiveness
Ephesians 4:32 – “…Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
Out of a life of love flows a life of forgiveness. Forgiveness is love in action.
Corrie ten Boom was a Jew and a follower of Jesus. She had spent months in a German prison. After her release from prison she wrote books and spoke in churches. In 1947 she traveled from Holland to Germany to speak in churches about the message of God’s love and forgiveness. In one of the churches in Munich she looked out during her message and saw a former prison guard.
In her message she told the congregation that God forgives and casts our sins into the deepest ocean, gone forever. She said that God puts up a big sign, “No fishing allowed.”
After the service the people stood up in silence and began to walk out of the room. She noticed the guard working his way toward her. In her mind she not only saw his brown overcoat and brown hat, she also saw a blue uniform with a cap with its skull and crossbones. She felt shame of walking naked past the guards and her sister walking before her very frail. Her sister died in that prison.
Now in front of her was a former guard, one of the cruelest guards in the prison. He thrust out his hand? “A fine message, Fraulein! How good to know that all our sins are at the bottom of the sea.”
Corrie ten Boom said that she who had just spoken about forgiveness, kept her hand in her pocket. She could not lift her hand that seemed like lead. The man said, “You mentioned Ravensbruk in your talk. I was a guard there. But since that time I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did. Will you forgive me?”
Corrie ten Boom said she knew that Jesus had forgiven her sins, but how could she forgive a guard and a place where she saw her sister suffer a slow cruel death. It was probably seconds that he stood with his hand outstretched, but to her it seemed like hours. The scripture came to her mind, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus said, “Neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
In her heart Corrie prayed, “Jesus, help me! I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.” So she put her hand in the outstretched hand of the former guard. As she did she said an “Incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm and sprang into our joined hands. And then the healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.” Corrie said, “I forgive you, brother, with all my heart.”
It’s not easy to forgive someone who had hurt you. The normal response is to want to get even:
• The person should pay for his sins.
• The person should be punished.
• Revenge is the only way to get even with the person to teach them a lesson.
• You can hate the person. Nurse a grudge, ignore the person, refuse to forgive and harbor resentment.
• Or you can put the love of Christ into action and offer forgiveness.
George Herbert once wrote: “He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven.”
Forgiveness and being forgiven are tired together as one. An unforgiving heart is unforgiveable.
When Jesus was asked how many times a person should forgive, he answered: “seventy times seven.” In other words we are not to give up on forgiving.
Loving like Jesus loved is practiced in the lives of Christ followers by:
Living a life of love
Living a life of forgiveness
Living a selfless life
Living a life of Selflessness
Here is a truth you can live by: There is no real love, selfless love, self giving love, outside of Jesus Christ.
There is power and strength in selfless love. Arthur Hinkley demonstrated selfless love to his friend Lloyd Bachelder. Both boys were 18. Lloyd Bachelder was driving a tractor when it turned over and pinned Lloyd under the tractor. Arthur Hinkler quickly ran to the tractor and lifted a 3,000-pound tractor off his friend with his bear hands. Author was not a weigh lifter, but hearing the screams of his friend and motivated by love he was able to lift the tractor up enough for his friend to wriggle from under it.
Selfless love is the opposite of a letter a woman sent the man she had broken her engagement with.
“Dearest Jimmy, no words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve had felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Forever, Marie…
P.S., And congratulations on winning the state lottery.”
Living a life of selfless love means you take time for people who constantly irritates you. They are like heavenly sandpaper. No one wants to go out to lunch with the person because he or she is so cantankerous and irritable.
Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you…for if you love them that love you, what then have you? For sinners also love those who love them…but love your enemies.” Luke 6:27,32,35
Jesus is saying you are to love EGR people – Extra Grace Required people. They need extra doses of love. Loving like Jesus means I learn to accept and love others the way Jesus loves and accept me.
We can love others without totally agreeing with them. Often love is worked out by agreeing to disagree. We can offer love and care for people who are different from us and people we don’t agree with.
This fact is illustrated by a true story that took place in the state of Maryland. There are many rivers that flow into the Atlantic. On the coastline, in lakes and rivers there are geese and swans. The geese and swans seem to be indifferent to each other and there is even a rivalry between the two birds.
Once or twice a year it snows and the river Tread Avon even freezes over.
One morning, Theresa, was having breakfast near a big window where she had a perfect view of the river. When she looked out of the window she saw a large Canadian goose, with its feet frozen in the ice.
Then to her amazement she looked up into the sky and saw a line of beautiful swan flying overhead. The leader of the swan made a right turn; and started flying in a circle. Then all at once the entire circle of swan descended and landed on the ice where the goose was.
Theresa was astonished to see the swan surround the goose frozen to the ice and with their long necks started picking at the ice in a circle around the goose. They kept this up for quite a while. The ice was not real thick and with the hard pecking of the swans a circle of ice broke around the Canadian Goose’s feet.
The swans ascended and flew in circles above the goose, as if they were waiting to see the goose take flight. The goose stood up and couldn’t more it frozen wings. Again the swans descended and landed around the goose. With their powerful beaks, they began to scrape the goose’s wings from top to bottom. They lifted the goose’s wings and it body to scrape and scratch the ice that was glued to its feathers.
Finally the goose extended its wings and flapped them several times. The four swans flew back to the join the rest of the swans that were still circling above.
Theresa was overcome with emotion as she witness the goose fly up with incredible speed and join the swans in the sky following along behind the ones who had come to her rescue.
Jesus said, “A new commandment 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
We love as Jesus loved as we
Live a life of love,
Live a life of forgiveness,
Live a life of selfless love, and
Live a life Building Up Others
I Thess. 5:11, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.”
When we truly love one another minor irritations are overlooked. Without love in our heart we get irritated and overly react to the most insignificant things. Love bears long, is patient and is kind.
Paul instructed the Christians in Ephesus: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:2
To build up one another means that we look for ways to give affirmation and encouragement to people. Rather than looking for what is wrong with others we look for what is right. You never know when an encouraging act of kindness will bring about change in a person’s life for the better.
In a supermarket, Kurtis, the stock boy, was busily working when a new voice came over the intercom asking for a carry out at checkout register 4. Kurtis was almost finished with his stocking and wanted to get some fresh air, so he decided to answer the call. As he approached the check-out stand a distant smile caught his eye, the new check out girl was beautiful. She was an older woman, 26 or 27 years old, and he fell in love.
Later that day, after his shift was over, he waited by the punch clock to find out her name. She came into the break room, smiled softly at him, took her card and punched out, then left. He looked at her card, Brenda. He walked out only to see her start walking up the road.
The next day, he waited outside as she left the supermarket, and offered her a ride home. She accepted and when he dropped her off he asked if he could see her again outside of work. She said it wasn’t possible. He pressed and she explained that she had two children and she couldn’t afford a baby-sitter, so he offered to pay for the baby-sitter. Reluctantly she accepted his offer for a date for the following Saturday.
That Saturday night he arrived at her door only to have her tell him hat she was unable to go with him. The baby-sitter had called and canceled. To which Kurtis simply said, “Well, lets take the kids with us. “She tried to explain that taking the children was not an option, but again he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Finally Brenda gave in and introduced Kurtis to her two children, a daughter and a son in a wheelchair. Brenda said her son was born a paraplegic with down syndrome. Kurtis again said he didn’t see any reason why the kids couldn’t come with them. Brenda was amazed. Most men would run away from a woman with two kids and especially if one had disabilities, just like her first husband had done.
That evening Kurtis and Brenda loaded up the kids, went to dinner and the movies. When her son needed anything Kurtis would take care of him. When he needed to use the restroom, he picked him up and out of his chair, took him, and brought him back. The kids loved Kurtis. At the end of the evening, Brenda knew this was the man she was going to marry and spend the rest of her life with. A year later they were married and Kurtis adopted both of her children. Since then they have added two more children.
So what happened to the stock boy in the grocery store? Kurtis Warner became a well known football quarterback, and last Sunday nearly led the Arizona Cardinals to a Super Bowl victory. Kurtis also has a vital Christian testimony for the Lord.
Kurtis Warner demonstrated loving like Jesus loved.
To love as Jesus love we take action steps to:
Live a life of love,
Life a life of forgiveness,
Live a life of selfless love, and
Build up one another in love.
This coming week I challenge you to practice these four action steps and put Christ’s love into action.
(Resource for this message – “Forty Days of Love” – Rick Warren)
