INTRO.- The movie, Love Story, came out in 1970 and starred Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw. This was when MacGraw was 32 years old and O’Neal was only 29. The film is considered one of the most romantic movies of all time by the American Film Institute.
Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail. Oliver and Jenny continue to build their life together. Relying only on each other, they believe love can fix anything. But fate has other plans.
After failing to have a child, they consult a medical specialist, who after repeated tests, informs Oliver that Jenny is ill and will soon die. Oliver then tries again. While this is not stated explicitly, she appears to have leukemia.
From her hospital bed, Jenny speaks with her father about funeral arrangements, then asks for Oliver. She tells him to avoid blaming himself, and asks him to embrace her tightly before she dies. They lie together on the hospital bed.
It’s a love story but also a sad love story. And they believed that love could fix anything. Well, it can if it’s the right kind of love. But romantic love won’t fix what ails the world! What this world really needs now is God’s love manifested in Jesus Christ!
Love comes in various forms: romantic love, parental love,brotherly love, but the greatest of all is GODLY LOVE! It’s the love that God had for mankind when He sent Jesus into the world to become a sacrifice for our sins. THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE THAN THIS.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world...”
That is God’s love in action! That is the kind of love this world needs to know. It’s the very love that caused Jesus to leave Heaven for earth and become our Savior!
How can we come to know what true love is? Are we listening to Hollywood, the world or to our Holy God?
PROP.- This text teaches us the truth about real love.
How we know what true love is:
1- By understanding Jesus’ death
2- By sharing material possessions
3- By resting in God’s presence
I. BY UNDERSTANDING JESUS’ DEATH
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
ILL.- It all happened on January 13, 1982, in the Potomac River. Do you remember? Do you know what I’m referring to? The air crash, Air Florida Flight 90, into the Potomac River. IT WAS BIG NEWS, if for no other reason, because of one person. Remember his name? LENNY SKUTNIK. Lenny dove into that river to help save someone from drowning.
One passenger, Priscilla Tirado, was too weak to grab the line dropped from a helicopter. Hundreds of people were watching, including emergency services personnel. Skutnik saw the situation, and stripped off his coat and boots and, in short sleeves, dove into the icy water and swam out to assist her.
He succeeded in getting Tirado to the river shore, from where Tirado was subsequently taken to hospital, saving her life. And Lenny Skutnik did risk his own life for that woman. But there is another story. Here’s a one-upper.
Arland Dean Williams Jr. (September 23, 1935 – January 13, 1982) was a passenger aboard Air Florida Flight 90, which crashed on take-off in Washington, D.C. on January 13, 1982, killing 78 people. He was among the six people to initially survive the crash. His actions after the crash, handling the initial rescue efforts as a first responder, became a well-known example of extraordinary heroism, although it cost him his life. He did not know any of the other victims personally. In fact, his identity was not even known until some time after the bodies were recovered.
The next day, the Washington Post described his heroism: “He was about 50 years old, one of half a dozen survivors clinging to twisted wreckage bobbing in the icy Potomac when the first helicopter arrived. To the copter's two-man Park Police crew he seemed the most alert. Life vests were dropped, then a flotation ball. The man passed them to the others. On two occasions, the crew recalled last night, he handed away a life line from the hovering machine that could have dragged him to safety. The helicopter crew - who rescued five people, the only persons who survived from the jetliner - lifted a woman to the riverbank, then dragged three more persons across the ice to safety. Then the life line saved a woman who was trying to swim away from the sinking wreckage, and the helicopter pilot, Donald W. Usher, returned to the scene, but the man was gone.
The passenger who had survived the crash and had repeatedly given up the rescue lines to other survivors before drowning was later identified as a 46-year-old bank examiner from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Arland D. Williams Jr. The coroner determined that Williams was the only passenger recovered from the river whose body revealed that he had died from drowning rather than impact injuries suffered in the crash. Arland Williams was from Mattoon, IL, and an elementary school is named for after him.
John 15:12-13 “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
As great as the sacrifice of Arland Williams was, there is one greater still!
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Heb. 2:9 “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
I Pet. 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
II Cor. 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The death of the Lord Jesus shows us what true love is. His death shows us the greatest love this world has ever known!
II. BY SHARING MATERIAL POSSESSIONS
17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
Welfare applications
Welfare payments are made in the US to individuals and families with a low level income. The following quotations are taken from actual letters received by the Welfare Department in applications for support of receiving payments.
- I am writing the welfare department to say that my baby was born two years old. When do I get my money?
- Mrs. Jones has not had any clothes for two years and has been visited regularly by the clergy.
- I cannot get sick pay. I have six children can you tell me why?
- I am glad to report that my husband who is missing is dead.
- This is my eighth child. What are you going to do about it?
- I am very much annoyed to find out that you have branded my son illiterate. This is a dirty lie as I was married a week before he was born.
- Unless I get my husband's money pretty soon, I will be forced to lead an immortal life.
- You have my changed little boy to a girl, will this make any difference?
- I want money as quick as I can get it. I have been in bed with the doctor for two weeks and he doesn't do me any good. If things don't improve, I will have to send for another doctor.
As silly as these applications are, there are people who are truly needy in this world. Do we help them? Can we help them? No doubt there are many users. We’ve all seen them. We’ve had them come to church or call our church and ask for money. Still, there are truly needy people who could be helped by us.
ILL.- A preacher friend named, Carl Kadolph, SonRise Community Church in Debary, FL, wrote me about a Pastor/preacher in Guyana, South America (Northwest) next to Venezuela and Brazil.
Carl wrote: When you arrive you find yourself very deep in the most beautiful jungle imaginable but of course the living conditions are very tough due to the lack of running water, electricity etc.
The pastor that we work with is Ellis Alphonso who is native Amerindian which is considered the lowest level of society on the Guyana scale. He is the most gentle, loving and true man of God you would ever want to meet.
Last July while there we found Pastor Ellis wife Sharon, almost 6 months pregnant with their 6th child. There was some worry because at 35 years old and with the difficult life that the Amerindians live, she is considered too old to have another child. But while we were there she continued to haul water, care for the 5 children, fulfill the duties of "Pastors wife" as well as continue as Worship leader of the church.
We begged her to slow down and be careful but she felt honored that we had come from the U.S. to serve them and she wanted to make sure she was a part of our work in the area. At the close of our 2 week stay we learned that Ellis, Sharon, two of their children as well as many others in the village had contracted Malaria.
The normal treatment in that area for Malaria is to poison the patient with strychnine and break the body down to the point that the blood is so weak that it won't support the malaria in the blood and hopefully the malaria dies before the patient does. Nobody was sure what to do with a pregnant lady but after our return we were told that they had treated her and she seemed to be doing much better.
Last Thursday Sharon delivered a healthy baby boy Jonathon 7 lbs 11 oz. Since conditions are so very different in that area then they are here, new mothers stay in bed and rest and regain their strength for a couple of days after the birthing experience. On Friday morning Sharon sent word to her sister asking her to bring some rice and water.
When her sister came to deliver the nourishment that she needed she found Sharon dead with the baby quietly laying beside her.
If this story doesn’t touch your heart somewhat then something is wrong! It touched my heart to the point I sent some money to help Pastor Ellis and have prayed much for him.
The point is simply: when we are faced with honest needs, how can we not respond and share? And this sharing is evidence of God’s love in our hearts.
III. BY RESTING IN GOD’S PRESENCE
19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
CEV 19When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God. 20But even if we don't feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.
Do you feel at ease in God’s presence? Or do you rest easy in His presence? I’m sure you probably do while you’re in church but what about at other times?
ILL.- A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to "honor thy father and thy mother," she asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill."
I would say that if you want to kill someone or hurt someone or get even with them then you probably wouldn’t feel at ease with God either. If anger or hatred dwells in our hearts, how can we be at peace with God? How can rest easy with God?
Do you feel at ease with at all times? At home? Out shopping? At Wal-mart, the bank, the mall? While dinning out? While playing? On vacation?
ILL.- In Yorkshire, England, during the early 1800s, two sons were born to a family named Taylor. The older one set out to make a name for himself by entering Parliament and gaining public prestige. But the younger son chose to give his life to Christ. He later recalled, “Well do I remember, as in unreserved consecration I put myself, my life, my friends, my all, upon the altar. I felt I was in the presence of God, entering into covenant with the Almighty.”
With that commitment, Hudson Taylor turned his face toward China and obscurity. As a result, he is known and honored on every continent as a faithful missionary and the founder of the China Inland Mission (now known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship).
For the other son, however, there is no lasting monument. When you look in the encyclopedia to see what the other son has done, you find these words, “the brother of Hudson Taylor.” “. . . he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:17).
I am saying that we rest easy in God’s presence most of all when we are right with Him and right in serving Him. Many people, even many Christian people are so involved with the world that they have no time to serve the Lord in any shape or form. And they may well feel somewhat uneasy about God.
There is only one way to feel at ease in God’s presence and that’s to be in His presence every day, as much as possible. And serve Him every chance we get. And when we rest easy with God we can know His love better than ever.
CONCLUSION----------------------------
I John 2:15 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
ILL.- Someone once said that some Christians have just enough religion to make them miserable: too much to be happy at dances and too little to be happy at prayer meeting.
The idea is that we all straddle the fence somewhat when it comes to the world. But are we going to be guided by the world or by God and His Word? Are we listening to God more than we are the world?
The only way we can know true love is by listening to God and walking with Him.
