W’gong
Wed pm
13/08/97
“Who gives a rip? We do, that’s who!”
Intro: THE GREATEST NEED men / women have in the world today – is to be loved.
God saw it & responded to that need by sending his only Son.
As T.B.S. (Rom 5:8 NKJV) "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
It was the greatest need & it remains the greatest need to this very day.
THE GREATEST PROBLEM in the world is that men / women are basically self centred.
We live in a time when people have a consummate love for themselves!!!
As Paul says …… men will be lovers of themselves, ……. Unloving…..
And so we see here a conflict of man’s two greatest interests.
On one hand ……. A need to be loved …… on the other hand …….. consumed w/ self love!
And I might add that this problem is as great w/I the church world as it is w/o.
I have a favourite saying ……. WHO GIVES A RIP?
This is the same question people both in the church & in the world are asking ……. WHO GIVES A RIP?
So t/n I want to preach a sermon called ….. ‘Who gives a rip? We do, that’s who!’
Text: (Mat 22:37-39 NKJV) "Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' {38} "This is the first and great commandment. {39} "And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
(John 13:34-35 NKJV) ""A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. {35} "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.""
# 1. The mandate to love.
A. God’s heart beats for the souls of men.
*** Talking to Greg Mitchell at conference coffee break one time in Perth. In conversation …… the nation of India came up. None of the Indian people I had ever known were very nice …… my response – let ‘em burn! They could nuke India for all I care!
But God has an incredible sense of justice & an incredible sense of humour ……. b/c He took me to The Fiji Islands where about 50% of the population is Indian & where I pastor a church which is about 50% Indian people. I now live & work as a missionary amongst the Indians & we love them very much!
THIS WAS GOD’S WAY OF SHOWING ME THAT HE GIVES A RIP ABOUT THESE PEOPLE!
1. God gives us here a mandate to love.
a.) A mandate is a command / order ….. something we don’t have any choice in & here Jesus is ordering us to love!
b.) Our immediate response is ……. You can’t force / order people to love!
c.) But God came down in the flesh & showed us how to love people.
2. Our difficulty lies in the fact that we really fail to u/s what love really is.
a.) Love runs far deeper than a feeling …… love is an action!
*** Newspaper columnist Dr George Crane tells the story of a woman who came into his office full of hatred & bitterness towards her husband. She said, I don’t want to just get rid of him, I want to get even! B/4 I divorce him I want to hurt him as much as he has hurt me.
Dr Crane suggested an ingenious plan. Go home & act as though you really love your husband. Tell him how much you love him & how much he means to you. Praise every decent trait he has & go out of your way to be as kind, considerate & as generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him so that you can make him believe that you really love him. After you’ve convinced him of your undying love & that you can’t live w/o him, drop the bomb. Tell him that you’re getting a divorce; that will really hurt him!
W/ revenge filled eyes she smiled a wide smile & said ….. beautiful, that’s just beautiful! Will he ever be surprised! And so she did it w/ enthusiasm …… acting ‘as if’ for two months she showed kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing & sharing.
When she didn’t return to Dr Crane’s office …… crane called her up. Are you ready to go ahead w/ the divorce yet? Divorce she exclaimed ……… never! I have discovered that I really do love him after all!
HER ACTIONS HAD CHANGED HER FEELINGS …. MOTION HAD RESULTED IN EMOTION!
b.) Our ability to love is established not so much by feelings as it is by our actions.
c.) When God commands us to love he is not commanding us to feel something …….. he’s commanding us to do something!
B. The challenge that Jesus issues here is the challenge to make people your priority.
1. This mandate can be difficult b/c – people are not always easy to love.
a.) In fact I have found that people can furnish me w/ an endless number of reasons why I shouldn’t love them.
b.) As a pastor / missionary ……… I am in the people business.
c.) If you could write a job description for a pastor …… it would be basically summed up in the words …… must love people!
d.) But instead of feeling an overflowing love for people sometimes it’s all I can do to not get violent w/ them.
2. Unless we see people in the same light as God sees them we won’t make them our priority.
*** A group of friends went deer hunting & paired off in twos for the day. That night one of the hunters returned alone staggering under the weight of a 80 lb deer.
Where’s Harry? He was asked. Harry had a stroke of some kind, he’s a couple of miles back up the trail. You left Harry laying there & carried the deer back?
Well, said the hunter, I figured no one was going to steal Harry!
a.) When people are our priority our attitude towards them changes completely!
b.) God wants people to b/co our priority in life b/c people are his priority.
# 2. The conflict w/ self interest.
A. The conflict that comes into play here is that we are wrapped up in our own little world of self interest.
** Sydney Harris once quipped, “If the devil could be persuaded to write a Bible, he would title it, You only Live Once!
1. Self love & self interest are the greatest problems we struggle w/.
a.) Putting others first is often the furthest thing from our mind.
*** My wife & I sometimes play a little game …… I’m sure many married couples have played this one. It’s called whoever gets into bed last turns off the light! One night we were both at the bedroom door & made a run for the bed & took a flying leap onto the bed! We both hit at the same time & so an argument ensued about who was last. We were both adamant that weren’t the last & neither of us would give in & so ……. we slept the whole night w/ the light on!
b.) As Christians w/o Jesus’ command to love one another we would be completely wrapped up in our own little world of self interest.
c.) That’s why Jesus commands us ……
Vs 39. ……. 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
d.) But when you live in your own little world of self interest you can’t see the needs of others or be touched by them.
e.) You can only see what hurts you / what you like / what is best for you / what will make you feel good & what others aren’t doing for you!
2. In the small world of self interest there is rarely any room for anyone else except for those that can somehow help us.
a.) But the trouble is that when self interest b/co the main purpose for our existence it destroys us.
b.) The quickest way to destroy y/s is for your love to have no other outlet or avenue of expression except on y/s.
*** A terrible diet & room w/ no ventilation is being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but the autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans & cabbage (& a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he have been outside or had his windows have been opened, it wouldn’t have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. He was a big man w/ a huge capacity for creating this deadly gas. Three of the rescuers got sick & one had to be hospitalised.
This is a classic case of stewing in one’s own juices!!!
c.) Self love does exactly the same thing to us in a spiritual sense!
B. But the gospel is not a gospel of self interest!
*** A little boy who was thinking about ‘his ideal world’ gives us an appropriate pict of the way we would be if we could get everything our way.
If I were in charge of the world
I’d cancel oatmeal,
Monday mornings
And allergy shots.
If I were in charge of the world
There’d be brighter night lights,
Healthier hamsters
And basketball baskets would be 48 inches lower.
If I were in charge of the world
You wouldn’t have lonely,
You wouldn’t have clean
You wouldn’t have bedtimes
Or …… “Don’t punch your sister”
You wouldn’t even have sisters!
If I were in charge of the world
A chocolate sundae with whipped cream and nuts would be a vegetable
All 007 movies would be G
And a person who sometimes forgot to brush
And sometimes forgot to flush
Would still be allowed to be
In charge of the world!
1. You might not openly admit it but this little guy sums up the way we’d like everything to be – OUR WAY!!!
a.) But Jesus called us to walk his way!
b.) He emphatically states that his way is the only way we can get to heaven when he says …..
(John 14:6 NKJV) "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
2. Jesus’ way is also the way of self denial rather than self interest!
(Mark 8:34-35 NKJV) "When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. {35} "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."
a.) Here Jesus sends out the clarion call to abandon self interest & take up the cross of self sacrifice.
b.) We may not like to dwell on this truth but the gospel message to the disciple of Christ is a message of self sacrifice!
c.) If there is anything the gospel is not ……. It is not a gospel of self interest!
(Phil 2:4 NKJV) "Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others."
Vs 39. 'You shall love your neighbor AS YOURSELF.'"
C. Jesus lays the responsibility of loving others at YOUR feet.
1. At this point in a sermon like this many of us would be tempted to think …….. Yeh, good stuff – they really do need to consider me more, I need more love!
a.) I’m feeling unloved …… it’s about time the pastor preached a sermon on people loving me more!
b.) But possibly God is trying to tell you that you’re the offender rather than the offended!
*** Brian driving along a country road & his car breaks down. He starts walking & w/I a few minutes another car pulls up & offers him a lift. He gratefully accepts & gets into the car & begins talking to the people. But w/I a minute of being in the car he notices an overpowering smell & quite clearly someone had stepped in some doggy do-do.
Not wanting to make a scene he acted as though he couldn’t smell it. He was greatly relieved when they came to the next town & my friend was able to get out of the car. He walked into the service station & while he was standing at the counter he noticed that the same smell was there too! W/ a flash of inspiration he decided to check under his shoe & there it was ………. In his own words – a quarter pounder that some demon possessed dog had strategically laid in his path – lodged in the instep of his shoe!
c.) In the Christian experience one of the painful but necessary truths we often have to face is the fact that the offensive odour you can smell is actually you!
2. The W. of G. speaks about being dull of hearing.
(Mat 13:15 NKJV) "For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.'"
a.) One of the greatest problems w/ the preaching of the W. of G. is placing the blame where it really belongs.
(James 1:23-25 NKJV) "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; {24} for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. {25} But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."
b.) For the W. of G. to truly touch your life / impact / be effective ….. it takes more than a cursory hearing …… necessitates hearing / doing / applying it to our lives.
# 3. Carrying on the work of the master.
*** Leonardo da Vinci had started work on a large canvas in his studio. For a while he worked at it ….. choosing the subject, planning the perspective, sketching the outline, applying his own natural genius. Then suddenly he ceased, the painting still unfinished, and summoning one of his students he invited him to complete the work. The student protested that he was unworthy and unable to complete the great painting the master had begun. But Da Vinci silenced him w/ these words ……… “Will not what I have done inspire you to do your best?”
Our master began 2,000 years ago …… by what he said, by what he did & supremely by what he suffered. He illustrated his message but he has left you & I to finish the picture.
A. To love is to continue the work that Jesus began while he was here on earth.
1. Jesus, the great master has left an unfinished work that you & I must continue & complete.
a.) Our text in John was spoken by Jesus the day b/4 his crucifixion … he is leaving his disciples w/ final instructions to carry on his work.
Vs 13. …….as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
(Rom 12:10 NKJV) "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;"
b.) Jesus preached a totally selfless gospel …… one that expected you & I not only to agree w/ but the practice.
(Mat 5:41 NKJV) ""And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two."
B. Loving others will cost you something.
1. Real love never comes w/o a price.
*** I read of a teenager who bought his girlfriend an orchid. It was the first orchid he had ever bought anyone & the first one she had ever received. There was a card attached & it read …….
“With all of my love & most of my allowance.”
a.) It’s our love for people that marks us as God’s people not just our words.
*** Getting into LAX for the first time …… pastor who was supposed to pick me up was 2 hours late & eventually took off leaving us to fend for our/s. He told us to catch a shuttle to the place we had to go to. We got into the shuttle ….. tired / rushed b/c I was preaching that night & the driver figured he was going to stop at every stop to pick up some more people. Finally I had enough ….. in a very Christian manner I put my head out the door & yelled ……. Come on – let’s get going!
All was quiet for a while & then he finally began chatting. We were talking quite pleasantly & then he asked ….. so what are you doing in the States?
You can imagine how I felt!
b.) Does our love for people mark us as one of Christ’s disciples?
C. Loving others is the true mark of our discipleship.
Vs 35. "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.""
1. We show our/s to be disciples of Christ by our giving.
** O.M.S. “You can give w/o loving but you can’t love w/o giving.”
a.) Many Christians struggle w/ the feeling of not being loved.
b.) If you want to be loved then begin to / continue & never stop loving people.
c.) By sacrificially loving others we inadvertently meet our own deepest need.
Close: *** No one ever said it better than C.S. Lewis: To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung & possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round w/ hobbies & little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket …. Safe, dark, motionless, airless …. It will change. It will not be broken; it will b/co unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…… the only place outside of heaven where you can be safe from all the dangers of love is hell itself!
