Love - The Great propellor.
1 Corinthians chapter 13 - Love never gives up
Take a great Airoplane - space craft or Ship - in itself it is nothing a mere curiosity.
But switch on the engines - engage the rockets and the curiosity becomes a vessel with a destination.
5-4-3-2-1 - zero we have lift off!! Shouts the voice from the Space shuttle.
Good Afternoon ladies and gentleman welcome to Air New Zealand’s flight 123 to Christchurch - I am Captain Brown - and we are flying at twelve thousand feet.
When we hear that or "welcome aboard sir", we know that we are on the journey propelled from one place to another.
What propels the Space shuttle Columbia, I suppose, is rocket fuel.
Without Fuel you will not get that thing off the ground.
Rocket fuel at the end of the day is recycled vegetation.
I don’t know about you but some time I have a hard time of it doing the things that I believe God would have me do.
Sometimes I just run out of steam of being the kind of person I am meant to do. Now sometimes that may mean that I may need more of the Holy Spirit - and I know at times some folk have asked God to pray for me that I would be filled with the Spirit of God and I know that I have been touched with an overwhelming sense of God’s presence.
The scriptures do command us to be filled with the Holy Spirit and Jesus when he leaves his disciples instructs them to wait on the Holy Spirit - and Jesus himself was filled with the Spirit at his Baptism before, then going out to minister to Israel.
But while that is so I sometimes wonder if the experience of the Holy Spirit is quite seriously misinterpreted by us at times. One of the dimensions that we can observe in Jesus’ ministry is multiple expressions of an incredible applied love - for example
MT 8:1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
MT 8:3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
MT 8:5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."
MT 8:7 Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
Jesus had just completed preaching the greatest sermon that has ever been preached - it is known as the sermon on the mount - Large crowds were following him - he was enjoying the favour of the people around him - the temptation to be just a popular teacher must have been there but this passage we have just read convinces me that he was propelled by the rocket fuel of God’s love.
Some words of Jesus that convince me of his incredible love towards others are:-
I am willing and I will go.
These are the least used words in the Christian churches in the West today:-
I am willing
And I will go.
How could Jesus love like this?
The answer really is quite simple - because he knew the Father’s love.
It is only as you know the incredible acceptance and love of God that you can love others in this way.
2 Corinthians chapter 5:-18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
In this passage we see a kind of double side to this coin called Christianity.
On one side is God’s incredible love reconciling us to himself and on the other our call to express this call of reconciliation to the world - thus we read - We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors.
There is little achieved by feeling helpless about what you feel that you should be doing in Christ’s name in the world.
Something is achieved by that, but it will not easily propel you into loving orbit around God’s world.
You achieve more by growing in understanding how much God has loved you personally - because as you do you are released to love others.
The scriptures are full of examples of God’s love poured out for you personally.
Someone sent me this little scriptural piece on god’s love recently and I have given you a copy to consider.
My Child…
You may not know me, but I know everything about you…Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up…Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways…Psalm 139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered…Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image…Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being…Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring…Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived…Jeremiah 1:4-5
I chose you when I planned creation…Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book…Psalm 139:15-16
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live…Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made…Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother’s womb…Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born…Psalm 71:6
I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me…John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love…1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you…1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your father…1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could…Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father…Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand…James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs…Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope…Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love…Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore…Psalm 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing…Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you…Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession…Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul…Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things…Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me…Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart…Psalm 37:4
For it is I who gave you those desires…Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine…Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager…2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles…2 Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you…Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart…Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes…Revelation 21:3-4
And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth…Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus…John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed…John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being…Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you…Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you…1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love…Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me…1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again…Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen…Luke 15:7
I have always been Father, and will always be Father…Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is…Will you be my child?…John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you…Luke 15:11-32
Love, Your Dad. Almighty God
Perhaps you can take this sheet and reflect on it in the week ahead.
But what I am trying to suggest is that as you grow in understanding the power of God’s love for you so you will continue to grow in expressing his love to the world.
JN 17:25 "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
God’s desire is for His love to be in us - so that when you express love to another your action points people not towards yourself but rather to God.
Jesus makes it clear that the call is for us to express the very same love we have received from God to others in the world.
JN 13:34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
In the 1970’s there was a woman in a soviet prison called Liuba Ganavakaya.
She was arrested for her faith was kept in a solitary cell and beaten. Still she had not denied Jesus or revealed the name of other believers. As so many others, she had patiently suffered for the sake of the Gospel.
One night when the guard insulted her and was just about to start beating her, she somehow saw him differently.
She noticed for the first time that he was as tired of beating her as she was of being beaten. She was worn out from lack of sleep and so was he. He was as desperate over not getting any information from her as she was about suffering for refusing to betray her friends.
Liuda looked up at the guard who had already lifted his whip to beat her. She smiled.
Stunned he asked, "Why do you smile."
She replied, "I don’t see you the way a mirror would show you right now, I see you as you surely once were, a beautiful innocent child. We are the same age. We might have been playmates.
"I see you, too, as I hope you will be. There was once a persecutor worse than you named Saul of Tarsus. He became an apostle and a saint."
The torturer put down his whip.
She continued, "What burden weighs so heavily on you that it drives you to the madness of beating a person who has done you no harm?"
He had no answer. The torturer left that day a changed man.
When Liuda saw the man through God’s loving eyes - everything changed -
I guess we could apply Proverbs 15 verse 1 here - A gentle response defuses anger.
The apostle John said Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear.
It is only when this great love that is from God is operating in us that we are enabled to love others with God’s love.
Sometimes I think the Church is like that airoplane I mentionmed earlier - just imagine it on the end of the runway at full revs. The captain announces it will take off soon - the whole plane shudders as it reaches full pitch and then it just sits there at full revs until it runs out of feul.
it then taxis back to the terminal building for a fresh load of passengers.
As a church feuled by an incredible love we need to take off and get onto the christian journey.
Why would we want to love like that?
There are a number of reasons:-
One God tells us to.
Secondly because it helps others .
Thirdly because it builds great communities.
But mostly we do it out of response to the love that god has poured out for us in Jesus Christ.
You cannot love the unlovely without the love of God dwelling firmly in your heart.
We do that as we draw near to him
Hebrews 10:
, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
If you have never known God as personally or as fully as the scriptures that we have read to you today picture.
Can we encourage you to draw near to him this morning.
Love always requires reception before it effective in your life.
I once wrote a letter to an elderly lady explaining how much God loved her and how he longed to cleanse her from her sins - She took my letter very seriously and took the letter to a Christian friend and asked her - "Is it true."
My friend said "Yes that is exactly how God lives you."
Her reply was quite telling " God could never forgive me."
"That is - "God could never love me like that."
She died some years after that - and the great sadness for me is that I never knew if she accepted God’s offer of love to her.
It seems to me that many Christians have accepted God’s offer of love - technically - if you like but have failed to allow that love to flow over their whole lives to be embedded at the very core of their beings.
Because it seems to me when you allow God to love you in that way
You begin to love others in just the same way.
1JN 2:3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
Love is a great propellor - God’s love propels us into caring for others with unreasonable love - we sacrifice ourselves unreasonably for others.
May God both fill you with this love and enable you to love like this in the week ahead.
