Love
• In Life I have found there are a lot of things that make me stop and wonder.
• I wonder why a speaker who "needs no introduction" --- gets one anyway.
• I wonder why, when a preacher says, "In closing..." he doesn’t.
• I wonder why people will punish a child for lying
• But they will tell the same child, "Just say I’m not home."
• When they don’t want to be bothered.
Many things in this world cause us to wonder.
But one of the strangest of all is why God would love us.
A Minister was speaking about all the things that money can’t buy.
• Money can’t buy happiness it can’t but laughter and money can’t buy love.
• To drive home his point he said What if I offered you $1000 not to love your mother and Father?
• A hush fell over the congregation and finally a small voice was heard near the front and raised an important question
• How much would you give me not to love my sister?
John 15:9-17
• And that is the subject of the day Love
• Not our love for God because that should be obvious
• But our love for our fellow man
• Today I want us to look at the importance of loving each other
• What exactly is Jesus instructing us to do?
Read
Jn 15:9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.
Jn 15:10 When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. Jn 15:11 I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! Jn 15:12 I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. Jn 15:13 And here is how to measure it—the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. Jn 15:14 You are my friends if you obey me. Jn 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a master doesn’t confide in his servants. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
Jn 15:16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.
Jn 15:17 I command you to love each other.
We see that twice Jesus’ is giving us a command
• And that command is To Love each another just as He loves us.
• Jesus invites us to be in relationship with Him by loving others.
Love is a complex word.
• If you ask 100 people what love means to them
• You’ll probably get at least 50 different answers. Maybe more.
• People say: I love my wife. I love my dogs. I love Alice’s Chocolate chip cookies. I love to work in the yard. I love to ride my bike.
• I love… well, you fill in the blank.
• Love is a very complex word.
• Now the examples I mentioned (and others), are all different types of love.
• So often love can be misplaced, misdirected, and misunderstood
• Sometimes, people end up “looking for love in all the wrong places”.
• The challenge that we face today is “what did Jesus mean by ‘love each other as I have loved you’?”
It might be helpful to look at what Jesus was doing just before He said this
• In John 3, we see that Jesus speaks to Nicodemus at night.
• Nicodemus was a teacher of the law and was nervous to talk to Jesus during the day,
• Because he was afraid that someone might see him.
• Jesus showed patience towards Nicodemus to answer his questions so that he could understand.
Jn 3:5 Jesus replied, “The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.
Jn 3:6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. Jn 3:7 So don’t be surprised at my statement that you must be born again.
• Now at times I know that its hard to be Patient (Elab)
• Maybe this is the type of love that Jesus was talking about. Patience.
In the very next chapter, Jesus reaches out to a Samaritan and talks to her.
• It was Amazing that Jesus was talking to a Samaritan.
• Samaritans were the outcasts of society.
• It was prohibited for Jews and Samaritans to talk with each other.
• There a huge hatred between these two groups.
• But to make matters worst,
• Jesus wasn’t only talking to a Samaritan He was talking to a Samaritan woman.
Maybe the kind of love that Jesus is talking about is one of tolerance.
• In life it seems that we have to tolerate a lot of things
• Maybe the kind of love that Jesus is talking about is one of tolerance.
Through out John’s Gospel, we read about the many miracles and healing that Jesus performed.
• He can see a great deal of compassion in these stories.
• Compassion towards the weak and outcast.
• Loving others- through compassion.
• Today as Christians we have to have a sense of compassion
(Poor, Sick, the elderly, the homeless)
• Jesus has called us to love others through our compassion
In today’s text
• Jesus tells us “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life.”
• Unlike us, the disciples didn’t have the luxury of know what the future would be like.
• We understand that Jesus would voluntarily die,
• But the disciples and other Jews couldn’t see that at the time.
• Consider for a minute the incredible amount of love that one must have
• To take the place of another and die for them.
On that last night when Jesus gathered with The disciples in an upper room.
• To have what would be His final meal with them
• He knew He was going to be betrayed by Judas,
• And Before they sat down,
• Jesus took off His outer robe and used it to wash their feet.
• His love that night was the love of a humbled servant.
• It’s incredible to think that Jesus washed all the disciples feet.
• Including the feet of Judas
• Judas the one who was going to betray Him was served in the same way as the faithful,
• And through it all, Jesus knew who was going to betray Him.
• It’s through this example that we see the challenge that is presented to us.
Once again we are reminded,
• Jesus says; “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
In John’s Gospel, John uses two Greek words that both translate into the English word “love”.
• The first Greek word is philos- which means a friendship type of love.
• And the second Greek word the John uses is agape - which is more of an intimate type of love.
As John was writing this passage,
• He used both words, alternating between the two of them.
• The English translators translated one meaning “friend” and the other meaning “love”.
• Jesus knew that the type of love that we needed to show each other
• Was more than just a friendship type of love;
• It needed to be a love that was genuine and true.
• It needed to be a love of patience and tolerance,
• A love of compassion and servant hood.
The key to having a relationship with Christ is “obedience.”
• The key to relationship with other believers is “love.”
• The key to having a relationship with the world is to “testify”
• Witness/ tell our story / to share what He has done for us
Jesus has instructed us to love people with a different type of love than we are taught to love.
• I think it’s safe to say, that our society, our families and our friends, have taught us to be friends with each other.
• We tolerate some people and we show interest in others.
• But Jesus’ command to each one of us is a little bit different than the friendship type of love that we have been taught.
• Instead, we are to love people with truly genuine patience and tolerance, compassion and servant hood.
• It goes against all the norms that we have been taught,
• It requires that we change our mindset
• And at the same time it challenges us to strive to be better.
Now personally, I know that I’m nowhere close to demonstrating
• The type of love that Jesus wants me to demonstrate.
• But, I have been challenged to try.
• And what I want to ask you is won’t you try with me…?
• To begin to change from within; / From the inside
• And then together we can begin to change
• our community, our country, and the world.
We can do this because Jesus will guide us
• This is the kind of love that Jesus calls us to display to the world.
• You and I know there will be those in a fellowship of believers who have not yet responded to Jesus’ message of forgiveness.
• Will they respond, or will they prove to be like Judas?
• Should we try and separate them?
• Should we set up guide lines on the way that we treat true believers and the non-believers?
• A different set of rules for each
• NO
• We are commanded to love each other.
• We are commanded to love everyone
Part of being a Christian means we are to serve brother and Judas alike,
• In the same way that Jesus knelt to wash all of their feet in that Upper Room.
• We should and must be willing to treat everyone the same / everyone equally
And when we do this
• When we display this kind of love
• We’ll see that it’s the kind of love that makes people ask the question
• What’s different about him?
• And this often leads to the statement I want to be more like them
It’s through this kind of Love that we can show Christ in our actions and in our lives.
It’s through this type of Love that we can lead others to a life in Christ
