Let’s just be real here. Jesus followers are weird people. We’re wacked. We say stuff and do things that most people around us find odd, or even dumb. For example, we look for ways to bless the kind of people that others want to avoid. We want to go to prison and love on inmates. We get a thrill out of doing stuff like that. We get a rush when we take food to someone, or when we visit an elderly person. We’re excited when we’re presented opportunities to give money, or time and help to others. And we do all this stuff for a completely different reason than everyone else.
People help people all the time, because good people help those who need it. That’s not the weird thing; the weird thing is that Jesus followers help others not because people need help, but, because we love Jesus. There is a difference. When a person helps another person they usually do so because the person needs help. But Jesus followers help other people because we want Jesus Christ to get all the attention. We don’t want the attention. We don’t want the accolades, the “atta boys.” We could care less about getting a pat on the back, we want Jesus to receive the accolades. Jesus followers point to Jesus Christ in everything they do, and this makes us different. Paul tells Titus to do good stuff for people for the purpose of sharing the truth of Jesus. We love people as God loves. God wants people to know His Son Jesus, so we do too.
We’re talking about genuine love today. Godly love. The love God showed us and expects us to have for Him and others. God created love. He said He is love and He showed us what love is. "This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." 1 John 4:10.
Everyone has their own definition of what love is. If you're on facebook and/or twitter you know what I'm talking about. Many facebook status updates and tweets that people put up about love is evidence enough that most people don't have a clue what love really is. Well, they know what the world thinks of love, but, a lot of folks, maybe even Christians don’t have a clue what genuine love is. For example I found this little nugget on the internet from 'Canada Sweety' she defines love this way, "...Love is when you can feel someone coursing through your veins. Love is when you know you have found love. Love is when someone breaks your heart in every possible way and you can still admit you love them. Love is a 4 letter word with 4 million meanings"
Canada Sweety says there are 4 million meanings to the world love, but, God defines it much more simply. And while Canada Sweety finds it difficult to define love other than a feeling coursing through her veins, if she were sitting here today, I would hope she would discover how simple love really is and be amazed at how much God loves her. Jesus tells us that the single greatest command is to love God and to love others. So we must have a Biblical understanding about what love is to obey God's most important command.
God's love flies in the face of how human beings think or even experience love. His love isn't normal. The world around us has a completely different understanding of love than the way God defines it. Many folks often confuse love and lust, or even love and caring deeply for someone. This God love we’re talking about is foolish to most people. They don’t get it, because they don’t understand what love really is. God loved us by offering Himself as a sacrifice to save us from our sins. So I just want to point out two things this morning about this God love we're talking about.
1. Genuine love is about faithfulness.
“Professor Bradley Wright, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut, explains from his analysis of people who identify as Christians but rarely attend church, that 60 percent of these have been divorced. Of those who attend church regularly, 38 percent have been divorced.”
So according to this researcher fans of Jesus are 60 percent more likely to get a divorce. His analysis also tells us that even people who go to church regularly divorce almost 40 percent of the time. What does this research say? Is it surprising? I don’t think so. I know a lot of people in our churches who are divorced. But what does all of this suggest? It’s uncomfortable to talk about. But these divorce statistics tell us that even among the people group who should understand God’s love, His genuine love, we don’t. I understand that sometimes, especially in cases of abuse, or unfaithfulness that separation is necessary, but, this isn't the case for many terminated relationships.
I believe it’s important here to share with those who have gone through the painful experience of a divorce, that God is faithful. He’s faithful to forgive. He’s faithful with His mercy and grace. We’re told in the Scripture that nothing can separate us from his love. I hope and pray that you hear this. Every day is a new day to love God and others like it’s the first day of your life. I hope you take encouragement from these words, I hope you know that today is a great day to begin.
If loving God and others is the single greatest thing we can do with our life according to Jesus, then we really need to understand this love thing. We need to define what this love is, and what it looks like. We need to understand that God’s love looks very different than the world’s definition. As a result the people of God, those who love Him, our love is going to look and act very differently than everyone else.
So how is God's love different from the world? That's a great question. Let's talk for just a second about what is normal in our world. Unfaithfulness is normal. It's expected. The world doesn't think that purity is possible. Just mention abstinence to the school system and you'll get laughed at. Kids are expected to have sex. I can't tell you how many times Kristi and I have received a call to talk to a couple because one was a cheater. This is what Jesus said in Matthew 5:28 that if a guy looks at a woman with lust in his heart he has committed adultery. Do you see what Jesus did there? He took a normal guy thing and said if I want to be a faithful follower then I will do the abnormal thing. Living a faithful life with God is not normal. If I love him I won't be like everyone else, thinking like everyone else and doing the things that everyone else around me is doing.
God says, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” 1 John 1:9 Genuine love is about faithfulness first. Several times in the Bible we're reminded that God is faithful, he showed us what it is.
And you know what’s really weird? A Jesus follower who is living a faithful life in Christ and in their relationships, they experience joy.
2. Genuine love is about Joy.
For me, Bertha is one of those people. You know who I’m talking about? She’s that crazy person that just always seems to be content, happy and at peace no matter what is going on around them, or to them.
I called and talked to Bertha to make sure she would be OK with me sharing her story with you. I met Bertha as a youth minister in Kansas City. She was a widowed grandma who was taking care of an adult disabled son and another young boy whose mom was in jail. She often had to take care of her grandkids because their parents were irresponsible, and she had all kinds of financial problems. But if you met Bertha you wouldn’t know any of that. Bertha made sure her grandkids had everything they needed. As a youth minister I spent quite a bit of time with them. I would pick them up for youth events and drop them off. When the boys were older I spent some time with them in a Bible Study for guys before school. I took them on mission trips, to camp, retreats and other things. I loved those kids.
But Bertha loved them more. She fed them. She took care of them. She raised these kids like they were her own. And at the same time, she had to handle all kinds of dysfunctional issues with her adult kids. Once after worship, Bertha shared with me that she loved one of the songs we sang that morning. The song was Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.” She said, “No matter what my day is going to be about, I know that God is with me. I will make the choice to be glad for no other reason than I know God is with me.”
Bertha shared with me on the phone that she still loves that song and she also said her disabled son she cared for passed away a couple of years ago. And while he was in the hospital, Bertha would bring her Bible and read to herself and her son. She said pretty soon doctors and nurses wanted to know what she was reading, and she would read the Bible to them, too. I wish I had a video of Bertha telling you her story, because you wouldn't hear sadness. You wouldn't hear dejection and brokenness. You would hear joy in her voice telling you that many people, including her son who was dying, heard the Good News of Jesus. And that's weird.
Bertha loves God. She loves Jesus more than anything else in this world. I sent a message to one of Bertha's grandkids, that grew up in my youth group, and asked him to write a paragraph about his grandma that I could share with you this morning.
This is what Derrik says, "I would have to say that for the most part my grandma, Bertha, has been the most influential person in my life when it comes to my relationship with Jesus. My grandma has always been very persistent about taking my family to church. I used to not really think much of it but as I have grown up, I see more of who she is as a person and as a lover of Jesus. Upon closer review of her life you can see a woman that struggled when she was young but managed to get things together and when she decided to do that she made a commitment to love Jesus everyday and give Him her best. That commitment is what I believe is the most important thing she has done to help impact my life and my personal relationship with Jesus. When I look at my grandma I see a woman that is so giving and so loving and those are the things that have changed my life and how I have seen Jesus in Bertha."
I have known many people who have lived through a lot less in their life who have given up on their faith in God. When they were no longer happy with God, they just walked away from Him. Life is hard for everybody. I don’t know anyone who can say that life is easy. There’s always death, disappointment, or struggles of various kinds to contend with. But the weird thing about Jesus followers is that we don’t allow circumstances to dictate our behavior. We don’t allow our struggles to define our faith. Jesus followers, like Bertha, can endure an immeasurable amount of grief and struggle and yet proclaim every morning, “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.” And that’s just weird. Genuine love is about being faithful.
The normal thing for people is to be happy. For those who are Jesus followers we seek our happiness from an abnormal source. Followers of Jesus are happy when they are living the mission of Jesus. Normal people seek happiness from other sources. When our source of happiness depends on a person, our happiness is fragile, because people fail us all the time. We all fail. This is the irony of it all, the ONE who can provide happiness, eternal happiness, 100 percent of the time is often ignored. Instead people do what is normal for them and rely on some temporary thing, whether it's money, prestige, popularity or a relationship for their happiness.
In Acts 16 Luke records an event that happens to missionaries Paul and Silas in Philippi. Luke says that a demon possessed slave girl is following Paul and Silas around and she’s yelling at the top of her voice, shouting in the streets that these two guys are messengers from God. This goes on for days, so I’m guessing it works for Paul and Silas at least for awhile. She’s obviously drawing attention. But after a few days, Paul decides it’s time for the demon to go and he casts the demon out in the street.
This particular demon gave this girl an ability to forecast the future, or at least be very convincing, and she made a lot of money for her master. When he found out she was useless as a fortune teller he had Paul and Silas arrested for disturbing the peace. Because they were preaching about worshipping Jesus, rather than the Roman gods, they were accused of encouraging illegal worship activity. Luke tells us a mob stripped them naked and beat them severely with wooden rods. Then they were not only thrown in jail, but, they were put in the most dark, disgusting, foul smelling, rodent infested part, the inner dungeon. And to top it all off, their hands and feet were shackled so they couldn’t defend themselves from rats eating their bloody flesh.
Now, after this kind of a day, and I have to think you would agree this was a really bad day for these guys, how does Luke say they deal with it? Are they angry with God for allowing this to happen, after all, they were preaching about Jesus? Are they depressed wondering if God is around, does He care? Luke says in verse 25 that other prisoners could hear Paul and Silas singing praises and praying. That’s right. Singing and praying. I can imagine they sang Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it” Genuine love is about faithfulness and the understanding of Joy.
They were happy. They were filled with joy. This is weird stuff. People just don’t act like this in this kind of a situation; unless they are Jesus followers. Jesus followers live the mission of Jesus and when they do they are happy. But this abnormal happiness is called something different. We know it as joy. Joy is deeper than just a fleeting feeling of glee. We experience Joy even in the midst of intense pain and suffering. When the normal person will quit a relationship because they aren't happy anymore, a weird Jesus follower will find joy in suffering. James 1:2-4
Now many of us wouldn’t want to return to a place that treated us like this, and we certainly wouldn’t have a lot of nice things to say about it, or the people who live there, but here’s what Paul wrote as he began his letter to the people in this city.
“Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy” Philippians 1:3 I wonder if there were folks in the Philippian church who received this letter from Paul who were in the mob the day he was beaten and thrown in jail. How would they have felt reading that Paul thanked God for them. That he remembers them with joy. I don't know how many times I've promised never to return to Walmart because the customer service stinks. Paul was thankful for a group of people who beat the crud out of him. Genuine love is weird. It’s not normal. Jesus followers are faithful to God and in their relationships and they are filled with joy through their faithfulness.
Jesus followers are a weird group of people. We don’t live like other people. We don’t have the same priorities or look at life the same way as everyone else. Genuine love always points people to Jesus Christ. If I say I love someone, but, I'm not willing through my behavior and what I say to make sure that person knows who Jesus is, then I don't love them the way God loves. God love is faithful to His commands, to His Son and as a result is full of joy, even in a prison cell, half dead and shackled to the wall; or reading Scripture to anyone who will listen while your son lies dying in a hospital bed, and that's just weird.
