- Opening Remarks and Introduction
Last week we started a new series called “Love Does” based on a book of that same title by the author Bob Goff. As the name suggests, our sermons for the next few weeks are going to talk a lot about love. Not just the emotion of love, but what we do when we love.
Tonight, we’ll look at how love doesn’t always go as planned. Have you ever had something fail when you tried really hard? Have you ever tried to show your love, and somehow it went all wrong? Not all expressions of love turn out how we’d like them to.
We’re going to look at Bob Goff as he plans to love, and the disciple Peter who failed through love, and see what we can learn about love.
- A Story of Love and Failure
So, let’s start our journey tonight by looking at a story about love and how it doesn’t turn out exactly as planned. It’s a love story of sorts, with some interesting, impulsive ideas.
When love gets into our brain, into our blood… we act differently. Sometimes we go overboard, and our actions might end up a bit out of control. In the book “Love Does”, Bob Goff described many times when love didn’t turn out quite the way he planned.
Several years ago, Bob met a woman named Maria and for Bob, it was love at first sight. Maria didn’t know it yet, but he was sure that he had found his future bride. It was only a matter of time before she understood their destiny.
It was 10 days before Valentine’s Day. Maria worked in an advertising agency in a high-rise office building. Bob had plans to make a big impression.
That impression, consisted of making a HUGE Valentine for the holiday of love. Bob got two sheets of 4 ft. by 8 ft. cardboard and glued the edges together. And made a perfect envelope with a stamp the size of a doormat. Inside the massive card, he wrote “Maria, will you be my valentine?” Simple… Straightforward… but massive in size.
Bob borrowed a truck and drove the gigantic card downtown into the garage of the office building. He struggled to get the card into the elevator, but all the time he couldn’t think of anything else, but the wonderful look on her face when she received this show of love. She was going to love it! Do you see where this is going?
He struggled to get the card into the elevator, with a few odd looks coming his way. The elevator arrived at its destination and Bob worked to get the Valentine out, but it didn’t want to come out. Then the bells of the elevator started to go off since the doors were open for too long. As the bells continued, this drew the attention of several folks, and a small crowd started to gather to see this guy struggle with such a large, bulky package.
Once he got clear of the elevator, everyone was staring at him, and Bob began to think that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. But it was too late. Maria was paged, came around the corner, and saw Bob standing there with a big dumb grin, and an overambitious card. Maria was shocked, embarrassed and mortified. What was meant to be an oversized expression of his love, ended up crashing and burning.
During the next six months, Bob knew that his first approach wasn’t quite right. But, he knew that he needed to do something. He decided to start his day by making Maria a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He didn’t feel comfortable bringing it to her office. But, he knew where she parked her car. … so he put it under the windshield wiper. Bob wasn’t sure why. Sometimes, he even put two sandwiches.
This sounds crazy, but Bob’s weird, and whimsy style of living lead to this impulsive show of love. Sometimes love is irrational. Sometimes it’s a spur of the moment thing. Sometimes, the actions of love may be strange, but they come from the heart. So maybe the illogical outpouring of love is the most honest expression of how someone feels.
Bob’s not the only one who reacted without thinking.
- Peter failed, over and over
There are all sorts of people in the bible that loved and failed, but I’d like to look at one that also had impulsive ways of showing love, the disciple Peter. It wasn’t so much that he was crazy, but that he acted before he thought thru things. He was sort of a ready, fire, aim kind of guy. He talked a lot and asked a lot of questions, but he didn’t think through everything as well as he should have.
Peter was a fisherman and one of the first followers of Jesus. As one of the disciples, he had a unique experience with our Lord in a way that no-one else could. But that didn’t mean he always got it right.
In Matthew 14, Jesus stayed with some crowds while the disciples got into a boat and went ahead. When Jesus finishes with the crowd, He walked on water to get to the boat and Peter saw him approaching. Peter’s words are amazing because he understood the power that was in the savior so, even though he was afraid, he says “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus says “Come” and Peter does. (Matthew 14:28-29, ESV)
Peter actually walks on the water. But then he notices the wind and the waves and doubts what’s going on and begins to sink. Fear got in the way of Peter’s love.
Another time, in Matthew 16, Jesus is explaining to his disciples how He would suffer and end up dying, and Peter jumps into the conversation and says
“Far be it from you, Lord! this shall never happen to you.”
And how does Jesus respond? He says
“Get behind me Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:22-23, ESV)
How’s that for a comparison. Jesus is trying to explain what’s going to happen and Peter isn’t getting it. Peter loved Jesus so much that he couldn’t think of Jesus being hurt.
Then there’s the Garden where Jesus is praying. Jesus is waiting to be arrested, and ready to be taken when Judas, soldiers, and the High Priest show up to take Him away. But Peter has a different plan. He defends Jesus and attacks one of the high priest's servants during Jesus’ arrest. (John 18:10, ESV) and Jesus tells Peter to sheath his sword, then heals the servant’s ear. Peter loved Jesus so much that he defended Jesus in the only way he knew how, even when that wasn’t what our Lord wanted him to do.
At the last supper, Jesus tells the disciples that they will all fall away from him and deny him. Peter makes the audacious claim that even if he has to die, he won’t abandon His Lord. Jesus says, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.” (Luke 22:33-34, ESV) And that’s exactly what happens. He denies Jesus three times, then a Rooster crows, and Peter weeps bitterly. (Luke 22:54-62)
Peter failed sometimes when he showed his love. But he showed how to love boldly. He has some of the most interesting failures in the Bible, but he also has some of the most amazing “wow” moments as well.
In Acts 2, there is an amazing event called Pentecost, which we celebrate this weekend, where Peter delivers a sermon to a great crowd that had been gathered. This crowd hears the sermon, and 3,000 are baptized that day. (Acts 2:14, 41)
Then there’s a story about a lame beggar who couldn’t walk who asked Peter for whatever he could spare. Peter said “I have no silver or gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (Acts 3:6, ESV) and the man did.
Then there’s’ this really amazing story. Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13) and Peter says “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus loves this answer and says
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” (Matthew 16:17-18, CSB)
This strong faith is what the foundation of the church was built upon.
How to love
Peter was an ordinary guy. He wasn’t a superman who had his act together and knew how to do everything right. He was a regular person who loved Jesus, and made a few mistakes along the way. God used him in spectacular ways, even with a few errors.
As Christians, we believe in a world that God loves, and we can love the world too. So in the time that we have remaining, I’d like to share a few ways that we can love the world around us, even if we might fail.
First, Love boldly. Sometimes we may feel like we need to have a well thought through plan before we can act. Peter didn’t plan, Bob’s plan was incomplete. Both loved boldly. Plans don’t always have the detail that some would like to see. So the lack of facts may paralyze decisions, and there may be times when nothing gets done. It may be more helpful to love boldly whether there is a plan or not and love those around us in whatever way we can.
No one has to do things perfectly, and if you do love boldly, don’t get discouraged if things don’t turn out the way you’d like. Bob Goff’s Valentines Day card didn’t turn out perfect, but he loved boldly just the same.
Sometimes we may fail. Things don’t always go as planned. Don’t despair in the failures, which leads us into my second point.
Second, learn from the failures. Avoid making the same mistakes. When something doesn’t work, we can try something else. Bob learned that big cards don’t always work, so he tried something else.
I listened to a pastor that said his church had interns and as they learned, they often made mistakes. The advice they gave to the interns was perfect. They told them to try new things, to fail often, but to fail differently, and learn from the failures. It’s the failures that we learn a lot from.
Will Rogers, the famous actor, writer, and cowboy may have said it best when he said: “good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”
Failure is a powerful teacher.
Third, heal and recover. Sometimes failures hurt and sometimes those pains need time to heal. Recovery often takes longer than anyone would like. The pain may even feel like a loss of something that we need to deal with.
Peter felt the pain when he denied Jesus three times. He loved Jesus and probably felt like he betrayed a dear friend. Sometimes, we might feel like that too. Prayer may help. But knowing that Jesus always loves us, even in our time of pain, that may encourage us too.
And after we’ve recovered, love boldly once again.
Peter continued to love and even wrote a few books in the Bible. Bob recovered from the embarrassment of the large card, and eventually, those sandwiches started a conversation that brought Bob and Maria together.
- Conclusion
What can we learn from stories about two ordinary men who loved and sometimes failed?
We all may have some form of failures in our life. God gave us free will to make decisions, and He knew that might lead us to fail once in a while.
With love, everything doesn’t always line up the way we’d like. We may fail in how we express love. We may fail in how we receive love. We may even fail in how we interpret love. If any of you are like me, you’re bound to fail, sometimes in spectacular ways. We can learn from the mistakes, and perhaps we can love boldly. Whether we love or not, whether we fail or succeed, just like Jesus loves Peter, He loves us too.
Bob Goff had a special way of showing love with a ridiculous card stuck in an elevator and with sandwiches under windshield wipers. He was a bit eccentric. But he loved boldly, and sometimes, he failed too.
The Apostle Peter made many bad assumptions, and a few mistakes too. But God used him in spectacular ways anyway. Peter learned from his mistakes and recovered from his errors.
Through these stories, perhaps we can see that God’s love is bigger than anything we can do, bigger any failure we can achieve and larger any error that we can commit. God loves us and can use our lives in ways that we can’t possibly imagine. We are free to fail, and God will love us, even when we do.
Amen.
