I want us to pay particular attention this morning to verse 6 and 7 – ‘You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 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.’ And again verse 10 – ‘For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!’
Beauty and the Beast
I’m sure we’re all pretty familiar with the story of beauty and the beast. There are a number of variations of the story around, probably the most popular of which is the Walt Disney version. But basically it’s the story of a poor peasant man who was stealing some food from the grounds of a huge castle which was inhabited by a beast. The beast catches him and says, "I’m going to put you in my dungeon and you will be my prisoner forever, unless you send your beautiful daughter to live with me." And to cut a long story short the daughter decides that she would save her father by going to the castle and living with the beast.
Now of course, unbeknown to everyone, the beast is really a handsome prince who’d been turned into a hideous beast by a fairy after he refused to let her in from the rain, and the only way that the curse could be broken was for him to find true love, despite the way he looked, despite his appearance, despite his ugliness. He had to be loved as a beast before he could return to being a handsome young prince.
And in the closing scenes the beast lies dying from a wound inflicted by his enemy, Gaston. And as he lays there dying, Belle the beauty, confesses her love for the beast and just in time gives him the kiss that breaks the curse. Let’s just remind ourselves of that closing scene.
Show clip
Just think about how simple and yet how profound a fairy tale can be. He had to be loved as a beast before he could return to being a handsome young prince. Now listen to this… ‘While we were still sinners, Christ died for us… when we were still God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son’. He had to be loved as a beast before he could return to being a handsome young prince.
GK Chesterton
The great thinker and write, G K Chesterton, was a big defender of fairytales. He said that “Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” And his favorite fairy tale was this one, Beauty And The Beast because it teaches that the "unlovely must be deeply loved before they become lovable." He said that, ‘the noble lesson behind the fable of the Beauty and the Beast is that one must be loved in order to become lovable... Someone treated like an animal will become an animal, someone treated with worth, dignity and beauty as a human being will become a human being.
The unlovely must be deeply loved before they become lovable. ‘While we were still sinners, Christ died for us… While we were still unlovely because of our sin, Christ showed his love for us by dying for us.’ Loving the Unlovable.
Human love is conditional
Now unfortunately, most of the time the love that we have to give out to others is conditional! You know what I mean? We only tend to love people who are beautiful, or who have great personalities, or who we find attractive in some way. You know, there’s something about them that draws us to them.
We tend to live by the philosophy that there is something out there that is worthy of our love. It might be a person. It might be a car. It might be a place, doesn’t really matter what it is. But it’s so attractive and so alluring that I will give myself to it, and I will bond myself with it because of its beauty, because of its worthiness of my love. That’s the condition – somehow and in someway that person or that object is worthy of my love and attention. But if that object changes, if that object becomes less beautiful, less attractive, less worthy of my attention – then my love for it also changes – because our love is condition.
There was a story of a woman who was badly burned in a house fire and she said that her husband saw her in the hospital and said, “You’re not the woman I married,” and he left her to marry someone younger and more beautiful. You see, human love says, If you change, my love for you will change! Because it’s conditional.
Gospel love is unconditional
But that’s the exact opposite of the gospel. That’s the reason Beauty and the Beast is so profound, because actually it’s not a fairy tale – it actually reflects the message of the gospel. It’s a message that says "I’m determined to love that which is unlovable." And that is exactly the kind of love that the gospel not only demonstrates but also calls each one of us to live out.
Loving the Unlovable. Loving the beast – and lets be honest – there’s a little bit of a beast in everyone of us. In fact, perhaps there’s probably more than anybody around us really knows about. But the message of the Gospel is that while you were still unlovable, while you were still beastly, while you were still living under a curse - ‘God demonstrated his own love for you in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’
Loving the unlovable.
Love you enemies
And whether you like it or not Christianity is all about loving those around us – everyone, without favoritism or preference. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘I love life, it’s people I can’t stand!’ You will often hear me say that ‘church would be great if it wasn’t for the people’. And if we’re honest there will be people who we feel exactly that that way about.
Sometimes people can be just down right thoughtless, mean, cruel, insensitive and difficult. Whether they mean to or not they cause us pain, and hurt by their words or by their actions. There may be people who for no apparent reason just get under our skin, people we find beastly, people we find repulsive, people we find unlovable, people we make every effort to avoid - ‘hey! Forget about this love thing, after what they did or said they don’t deserve it anyway’ – so we just spend all our time trying to keep out of their way – problem solved!
But listen to what Jesus says in his sermon on the mount
‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ lend to ’sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’. Luke 6:32-36
Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies and bless those who persecute you’. Well, that’s easy for Him to say. He’s God! His capacity for love is infinite. He even forgave those who crucified him while he was hanging in agony on the cross! But it’s not quite that simple for us is it! I came across this prayer. ’May those that love us love us, those that don’t love us may God turn their hearts, and if He doesn’t turn their hearts may He turn their ankles so that we’ll know them by their limping’.
Illustration – There was a young couple who went to see their pastor to try and get him to approve their divorce, because, as they put it, “there’s no feeling left.” The pastor told the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The husband said, “I can’t do that.” The pastor asked him to love her as he would love himself. Again, the said that ‘I can’t do that’. So the pastor said, “The Bible says to love your enemies. Try starting there.”
It’s easy to love those who love us, but what about those we find it difficult to love? What about those who don’t like us? How do we still love and respect them as God’s people? We all know people who are difficult and the last thing we want to do or feel like doing is being a friend to obnoxious people. After all you have good reason to despise them. They have hurt you. They have betrayed you. They have exploited you. They have spread malicious gossip about you, they have ignored you, they have turned their back on you, they’ve excluded you from their social group – or for whatever reason – you just don’t like them.
But Jesus calls us to love people, he calls us to love everybody, even our enemies.
How do we do that? How do we love each other unconditionally? How do we love each other despite our differences? How do we love each other even though sometimes we might loathe each other? How do we love even those we class as our enemies?
Let me just share with you 3 things you will need to do.
1. REMEMBER THAT GOD LOVED YOU WHEN YOU WERE STILL UNLOVABLE.
Number 1 - In order to love the unlovable you must remember that God loved you when you were still unlovable. God’s love for us is not based on who we are, or what we do, or where we live or how much we know. It’s not based on whether his love is deserved or even reciprocated. His love is completely unconditional. And he calls us to demonstrate that same kind of unconditional love toward one another. “God showed how much he loved us by sending his only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other” (1 John 4: 9-11 NLT).
Every one of us has the ability to be a “sandpaper person” – the ability to rub someone else up the wrong way - because we can all be irritating. People can be unlovable because they’re arrogant, rude, mean, or selfish. Because they demand to have their own way or because they brag about their accomplishments.
But the Bible says, ‘since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other”. And where does our example of love come from? God himself. It’s sad isn’t it – but when people look for an example of what love is – or what the accepted behaviour of love is they turn to the latest magazine story - and all they get is stories like the latest Peter and Jordan escapade! What a tragedy if you allow the likes of Peter and Jordan to set your understanding of love. What an example to live by eh! But people do. They set their standards by coronation street, eastenders or the latest block buster movie.
But if you really want to know how to love those around you then it’s no good looking to Hollywood, or the media, or the latest magazine article. God himself has to be your role model for love.
And when did God start loving you? Was it after you had worked all the kinks out of your life? Was it after you made yourselves presentable to Him by doing a bunch of good deeds? No, the Bible says…
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8 (GNT)
If we wait to love others until they have their act all together, if we wait until they deserve to be loved – then I tell you now – you’ll have a long wait. If God can love me and if God can love you in spite of your warts and blemishes – in spite of the fact that we are sinners – then surely we can love our fellow sinners.
So the first step to loving the unlovable is remembering God’s love for you when you were unlovable.
2. RECOGNIZE THEIR NEED FOR HELP.
Number 2 – in order to love the unlovable you will need to recognise their need for help. Everyone wants to be accepted. Some people try too hard and others not hard enough. But something is wrong in someone’s life when they’re being unlovable and it’s a cry for your understanding. It’s like when a baby cries. They may need to be fed. They may need to be changed. They may just need to be held.
I’m not trying to make excuses but sometimes when people behave badly it’s a cry for attention and what they need is love. And you will need to try to recognise their need. Remember from a couple of weeks ago – we are called to be servants toward one another. We are called to wash one anothers feet, despite the dirt, despite the varookas, despite the bunions, despite the warts! We are called to humble ourselves and to meet the needs of those around us.
Now we try to justify our failure to meet the needs of others in a lot of different ways. And I know that love must be tough some times. But I wonder how many times my love was tough because I needed an excuse not to get involved in meeting someone else’s needs, or I wrote someone off because they behaved badly toward me? I gave up on them prematurely because they didn’t change as quickly as I wanted them to.
How do you love someone who has been or who is being unlovable? You need to recognize that their bad behaviour is actually a symptom of their need for help and you try to help them. No doubt it will need patience and a lot of it - but isn’t that what love is about, "Love is patient and kind. (Circle that phrase in your Bibles. Are you patient and kind to those you say you love to those you’re called to love? 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (NLT)
3. RE-ENERGIZE YOUR LOVE FOR GOD AND OTHERS.
Finally, in order to love the unlovable you will need to re-energise your love for God and for others. Listen carefully to what Jesus said to the Church in Ephesus in Rev 2:4. “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Revelation 2:4 (NLT)
What was your love for God like when He first found you? Do you remember the hours you spent studying the Scriptures, those all night prayer sessions, never a meeting went by in church that you weren’t at. Sunday morning, Sunday evening. Midweek bible study, midweek prayer meeting. Do you remember those days? What’s it like now? You get up in the morning – you don’t have time to get into the scriptures, you’re off here, you’re off there – not time, really, for God.
What was your love for others like when you first loved them? Those of you who are married, or those of you who are in a long term relationship. How much did you love your partner at the beginning? How much did you love them when you first got married? How much did you love your child when you first brought them home from the hospital? How much did you love your church family when you first started worshipping with them?
Jesus says we need to get back to loving people in the way we loved “at first.” That’s got to be your starting point when someone around you is unlovable.
You know when I first fell in love with Michelle I wanted to be with her as much as I could, I wanted to spend every second of every day with her. To love others like you did "at first" means that you must spend time with them. The trouble is when someone is being unlovable we do the opposite. Instead of spending time with them like we’re supposed to – we try to avoid them.
But we need to re-energize our love for God and our love for people by loving Him and loving each other as we did “at first”. And that means spending time with them. It means creating opportunities to come along side and to be together. And when that happens the relationship will be rebuilt. Whatever you do, don’t isolate each another. That will just breed more dissention and bad feelings. I’ve known people who had a falling out with someone in church and stayed home from worship and Bible study and prayer meetings because they didn’t want to run into the other person. How sad!
Conclusion
So, how do we love the unlovable?
• You need to remember that God loved you even when you were still unlovable.
• You need to recognise their need for help and humble yourself and try to serve them in whatever way you can.
• You need to re-energise your love for God and for others – to start loving again as you did ‘at first’.
And when you do these things you will find that the unlovable will become lovely. When you start loving the beast, while it is still a beast, the curse will be broken.
Jesus says, ‘Love each other as I have loved you’. Ask yourself this morning, ‘Am I like Jesus. Am I resembling Him in the love that I offer others’? St Augustine said: ’Good for good, evil for evil, that is natural. Evil for good, that is devilish. Good for evil, that is divine’. The ability to love the unlovable, to hate the sin but to love the sinner – is a characteristic that shows God’s divine nature is at work in your life.
Lord, we pray this morning that our lives will exhibit the divine nature: that God is love. We pray that we would love one another, that we would love our neighbours, that we would love our enemies, that we would love all - for in this truth we believe – God is love and God loves all. Help us to be a people of love we pray. Amen
