Love One Another
Series: One Another
Meridian Church of God Seventh Day
March 29, 2003
INTRODUCTION
Good Morning
Series Introduction
We began a new series last week on “one anothering,” the different commands we have in our interaction with one another.
The commands we have from our Lord in how we treat one another.The Biblical view of how relationships should be in the church. The goal we should press on towards in how we “one another.”
And over the next six weeks or so, we are going to spend time looking at these “one anothers” and examining how we should interact with each other. Last week, we began by looking at two “one anothers” that I think help lay down the foundation for what we are talking about – genuine, sincere, Christian community.
Fellowship that is more than the simple “Hello, how ya doin’? Good. See ya next week” fellowship that is so common in the church today. Shallow relationships that do not extend below the surface, or often times, even under the mask or façade we too often wear.
First, we talked about how we need to be accepting of one another, Paul wrote just as God has accepted you through Christ Jesus. We should accept one another through Christ Jesus. As we recall, this stems from the knowledge that none of us are perfect, none of us can stand on his own – we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If we have all sinned, we all have fallen short, none of us yet have reached perfection on our own – then we are all really on a level playing field. I accept you, with your failings and your weaknesses, and you accept me with mine. Again, this is not condoning sin, nor is it saying it is OK. It is, though, putting us in the position where the church and our brothers and sisters in Christ can help us overcome our sin in a truly Christian manner. If the church is a place of condemnation, rather than acceptance, who would dare come forth and share their struggles, their weaknesses, their trials? Who indeed.
True Christian community is not a place where sin can run rampant, but rather a place where we can do the second of the “one anothers” from last week. Be real with one another. Be real, share who we really are.
When we have a community that is going to accept us, then we are free to share who we really are, to share the trials that we are facing, the struggles we are going through.
We no longer have to wear a mask or a façade, we can bear our inner soul and truly grow as a Christian individual and as a Christian community.
When facing a trial, the question wouldn’t be “oh, what will the church think – they’ll just say and think terrible things about me – these are the last people I want to know about this” but rather “I can’t wait to share this with my church, boy, I really need their help right now. I could really use their counsel and support and love.”
Which one of those two statements most accurately reflects the church that God intended for us in His Word? Which one most accurately reflects what should be the church of Jesus Christ?
But where are we? Which one do you think is the more common sentiment in this body?
When you are facing a trial, perhaps a sin you are struggling with, which one of those sentiments are the first to pop in your mind?
When we are accepting of one another, and we have the freedom to be real with one another, then the church can start to fulfill one of its functions – these “one another’s” that we are and will be talking about.
Before we move on to today, I want to say to you – I know I sin. I am not proud of it, the Holy Spirit is working in me and I see strides in many areas. One of the things that have helped me, though, is the fact that I have built intentional relationships where I am comfortable sharing those struggles. That has been a great help to me.
I want any of you who need it to know, I consider myself a safe place for you. If you need someone to accept you, not the sin, but you, the sinner, if you need someone to talk to without fear of condemnation or a judgmental attitude, I really try to practice what I preach here.
Together, we can move forward, pressing on towards that goal – to be what God wants us to be.
Together, as real people with real life struggles, we can grow and mature and live in Jesus Christ.
Sermon Introduction
Today, we are going to be expanding on what we talked about last week – our call to love one another.
We will be looking at our call and what it means, and we will start examining what it looks like.
This too will be laying foundation for what we are talking about in this series. The other messages will be built upon this. Our fellowship with one another needs to be built upon this. Our interaction with one another needs to be built upon this.
To illustrate the importance of what we will be talking about today, I want to start out our message with a story.
Illustration: Monks
LOVE DEFINED
Today we are talking about “loving one another,” but before we can talk about loving one another, I think it is important to talk about what love is.
Love Today
We live in a world that has a rather distorted view of love. At the very least, there are often varying views of what love is. People have killed their children in the name of love. Husbands have beaten wives in the name of love. “Fatal Attraction” type stalking has been done in the name of love. “Crimes of Passion” – crimes committed “out of love.” Love can be a dangerous thing these days.
Love in the media and in music often shapes the way we view love – and it tends to give us an unreal expectation of what love is.
The worldview of love has been changed and modified from what I think love is really all about – what the Bible teaches love is about.
I was looking through secular music that Tori and I have – looking through CDs and stuff – trying to find some song lyrics that would illustrate the point.
Before I started listening to Christian music, I listened to hard rock of the 80s and early 90s.
Needless to say, I really didn’t find anything there to share with you.
So, I looked through Tori’s CDs. Tori likes and listens to country music.
I do not know how many of you listen to country music, I try not to – which can be difficult at times when Tori gets a hold of the remote – but I have found that country music and love tends to be more along the lines of my pickup broke down, my wife left me, and the dog kicked me out of the house.
Maybe I am stereo-typing, but hey.
One of the more interesting songs I have heard lately is a wife asks her husband to choose between her and fishing – the chorus goes something along the lines of – “I’m gonna miss her when I get home”
So, I didn’t have much luck among the music department, but if you think about some of the hit movies over the last five years, you see some of these views of love.
The movie “Titanic” by James Cameron was a huge success. While this movie uses the story of the sinking of the Titanic as its backdrop – its main storyline is about two teenagers – Jack and Rose – who meet and fall in love.
In the 48 hours they had together, they fell madly in love and defied everyone to be together.
In the end, Jack dies saving Rose, and everyone in the audience is crying.
People see that movie, and they want that “feeling,” that passion that Jack and Rose had, and if they do not have it, the love they have does not measure up.
Another recent movie was “Pearl Harbor,” again, using the Battle of Britain, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Doolittle Raid as the backdrop, the story revolved primarily around two Army pilots, Rafe and Danny, and a Navy nurse, Evelyn.
Again, we see love being portrayed throughout this movie – showing us what love should look like.
These movies, and many others, show love as this passionate feeling.
There are all sorts of places we can go in the world that will show us what love is, but most of these examples are not accurate according to the Bible in what love really is.
With that in mind, knowing there are varying views out there, some close, some very far from what love is, I think it is important that we have a clear understanding of what we are talking about today.
That we “qualify or define our terms.”
Biblical Love SLIDE
There are two ways that I can think of to do that – given that there is no clear, set in stone definition of love that we can put into a sentence or less.
We could try – we could turn to our good friend Webster and see that love is “an intense affection; a feeling of attraction resulting from sexual desire; or enthusiasm or fondness,” but I think that definition falls short in many areas.
So, the two ways I know of that we can define love, to see what it is – is through looking at the best definitions we can – the meaning of the words used in the Bible, and by looking at the examples in the Bible.
We have shared these before, but there are four Greek words I know of for love. Each one has a different meaning and a different emphasis.
storgh is the love you feel in or towards family members. This is the natural love you have for your children, your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.
This is only used once in the Bible – and it is used in the negative sense of the word – talking about someone who does not love their family.
eroj is another common Greek word for love. This is referring to sexual love and, as in the days of the Greeks, is what is often thought of today when the word love is mentioned.
This word is not used or mentioned in the Bible.
That leaves us with the last two – two that may be familiar to some of you.
filoj is a brotherly love – love between friends. The camaraderie and friendship you have with those you call friends.
The city of Philadelphia gets its name from this word – Philadelphia “the city of brotherly love.”
This is the love you feel towards your friends, those you have things in common with, those you know and have shared with.
filoj and filew, the verb form of the word, are both used in the Bible.
We are called to filew Jesus. We are told that God will filew us.
agaph is one of the best known Greek words of the Bible, I think. Agape, the divine love.
Agape is the most common Greek word for love used in the Bible. It is often associated with God, but it is also the love we are supposed to have for each other and for God.
I have heard all sorts of ways to define this word as well, so I will try to give you a broad view of what I think of when I look at this word.
This is important, because as we look at our call to love one another, this is the Greek word that is used.
For those in the Greek, agapate allhlouj, “love one another.”
Agape is an unconditional love by choice. It is not based on some criteria you have met – that I think you are good enough to be loved by me. It is not based on attraction or affection – and I mean that in the broadest sense.
It isn’t because we have things in common or we are great friends. That’s filew, but rather it is a choice I make to love you regardless of anything you are or you have done – to love you regardless if we have something in common or we have nothing in common – to love you regardless of your past sins or your present sins.
This word was seldom used in other Greek literature of the time, because it is really a kind of a “love for nothing.”
It is totally unselfish – and that tends to go against human nature.
So, the Greeks did not have much use for it. I do not think the world today would either. eroj would probably be the main word.
But, do you see how this word, agape, fits in with what we have been saying as we lay down the groundwork here? As we talk about true Christian fellowship.
We understand family love, we understand romantic love, we understand brotherly love, and we often end there – because agape love is difficult and goes against our human nature.
But it is God’s nature. Remember, we are to put off the old man and put on the new. Agape love is part of that new man – that new creation in Jesus Christ.
And as difficult as it can be at times, it is the foundation for the church of God – it is the foundation for true community – it is the foundation for one anothering.
Love is an Action, not Just an Emotion
Something else I want us to note as we talk about love, is that it is not just a feeling you have or an emotion.
Again, this is the way the world often views love – this passionate feeling we have – the stir of emotions – maybe the excitement of the moment.
When we think of feelings, sad, happy, mad, those are adjectives, which describe nouns. If it has been a long time since you have been in English, or if you haven’t made it there yet – a noun is a person, place, or thing: the boy, the house, the church, or the pastor.
Adjectives and nouns fall in one area of a sentence. When I look in Websters, I see it list “love” as a noun.
Love is something we have, something we feel, similar to being mad or sad.
But if we turn to our Greek New Testaments, we see that yes, agaph is a noun, but like filoj, also has a verb form.
All of the places where we see that we are to love, those are all verbs. agapaw.
And, if we remember from our English classes, a verb is an action. It is something we do.
So, while we will feel love, and we can have love, we are called to do love.
As we talk today and throughout this series, I am not talking about you feeling love necessarily, I am talking about you doing love, showing love – to loving one another.
It is not enough for us to “feel” love for each other, or to “feel” love for the guy down the street – which alone is a stretch for some – but we are to love.
An action, which can be seen.
An action, which bears fruit.
1 John 3:16-18
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
I want to share with you the “one anothers” of the Bible that are related to what we are talking about here – the commandment we are given from God.
There are 14 of them here, so bear with me – they are all important and they are all the Word of God.
ILL> Concordance: One Anothers: Love One Another
As we see there, all of the major writers of the New Testament write about it, and Jesus speaks very clearly about it.
There are three calls I think we have based on these “love one anothers” of the Bible.
We are Called to Love the Church
The first one is that we are called to love the church.
Keep in mind, I am not talking about these walls that surround us, or this roof over our heads.
We call this the church, but it is really just a building – a building that is different than other buildings because the children of God meet here – because as we meet, we invite God into our presence and we share fellowship with Jesus Christ.
Remove us and this would just be an empty building. As much as it might leave distaste in our mouths now, someone could move in here after we have left and start using it as a karate dojo.
The point is, we – you and I – are the church. Wherever we meet, there is this church – this part of the Body of Christ.
And we are to love one another.
Jesus even makes this a mark of true discipleship in John 13, which we’ll come back to.
It is a new commandment, an old commandment, a commandment from the beginning.
That agape love needs to start here in the church, in our interaction with each other.
This agape love should be obvious in the way we interact and treat each other.
And when it is, we will have that accepting of one another, and being real with each other.
We are Called to Show God’s Love to the World
This second calling I think is two-fold. It is related to the first call, that we are to love the church, and it goes out from there – we are called to show God’s love to the world.
I told you we would come back to the verse in John 13, let’s go ahead and turn there.
John 13:34-35
By this, He says, will all men know that we are His disciples.
I wonder, when we are condemning of one another, when we are judgmental and harsh, when we shoot our wounded, what are we showing “all men.”
Are we showing them we are disciples of Jesus Christ?
Are we showing them the love of God?
Are we showing them Jesus Christ?
What are we showing the world?
Many people do not want to be Christian because of what they see in the church. Not that we sin or make mistakes, but that we are judgmental and condemning, not just of them but of each other, we are hypocrites.
I think that is one of the top objections to Christianity by those of the world.
Just like love has taken on a distorted meaning in today’s world, so has Christianity.
Gandhi once considered becoming Christian. He studied the Bible and the teachings of Christ, he was drawn into it. When he went to church, instead of finding love, he found hate, and he never converted.
He later said of Christianity. “Your Jesus I like, it’s the Christians I don’t”
When dealing with evangelism and evangelism classes, one of the things you encounter is that someone had a bad experience with a church. In sharing the Gospel with them, you try to direct them towards Jesus and take the church out of the equation.
Instead of the church being the light on the hill and the example of Jesus Christ, you are instead trying to show them that the actions the church did that hurt them are not the actions that Jesus would have done.
And that is very sad.
It is, and I hate to say it folks, but we have had that problem here too.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus’ harshest words were not for the murderer, the adulterer, the thief or the tax collector, but for the hypocrite.
We are to show God’s love to the world, to each other, by this all men will know that we are His disciples.
All of these teachings of love, and the Christian church is looked at by the world as a hate-monger.
The world will not be one over to Jesus by us saying how great we are and how bad they are.
The world will not be one over to Christ through judgment and condemnation, but instead by the love of God through His Son Jesus Christ.
We are to show the world that love in how we deal with each other and how we deal with them.
Love wins people, not condemnation – just like in the story of the monks.
Looking for a way to revive the church or your own Christian life – this is where you start.
John 15:12
We are Called to Love God
The third calling I have here is that we are to love God. You may wonder what this has to do with loving one another, and you will see shortly.
Hopefully, most of us know we are called to love God.
Matthew 22:34-38
Yes, there is a second part to this, but it is not our focus.
The greatest command we have is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
Few would disagree with this, but what if I told you that you can not do this without loving each other first.
“But pastor, that can not be, I love God, He is easy to love, but Brother So-n-so or Sister So-n-so, that’s just, well, it’s asking a lot.”
1 John 4:20-21
Don’t argue with me, argue with the Apostle John.
This goes back to that agaph love. filoj love is the love that is based on easy to love – not easy to love. God does things for me, of course I love Him – after all, He is God – that’s all filoj. Brother So-n-so and Sister So-n-so, that is all filoj.
While filoj love is good, it is not what we are called to here. We are called to agaph love.
And the Bible says we cannot agapaw God if we do not agapaw our brother first. Turn projector off
PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF LOVE
In looking at what love means, I said there were two ways to understand love. The first was by looking at the best meaning we could put on the words that are used. From that we were able to see the different “loves” in Greek.
The other way, the second way, is to look at the example of love in the Bible. The Bible has a lot to say about love – it is a book of love – God’s love.
The Example of Jesus Christ
The greatest example we have of love in the Bible is in Jesus Christ. Jesus modeled this agape love throughout His life, and in His death.
To really understand this, we would have to spend the time studying the life of Jesus, something we are going to do down the road, but let’s highlight a part of it now, of whom it is written: John 3:16-17
John 15:12-13
Luke 23:33-46
Could Jesus have stepped down off that cross? Was He physically able to do that?
Some of you will disagree with me, but I think He could have. Why didn’t He – out of His love for us.
Did God have to send Jesus into the world to die on our behalf? Was it possible for God to just wipe us out and start all over?
Again, you may disagree with me, but I think He could have. Why didn’t He – because He so loved the world.
Did God love us because we were some great people – did Jesus die for us because we were so nice to Him and we were all great friends?
Romans 5:7-8
It was because of His love for us – this agape love. The life and death of Jesus Christ shows that love, not just in the fact that He died, but in who He died for.
Brother So-n-so, Sister So-n-so, He died for them. Your neighbor down the street that you can not stand, He died for that person, too. Your coworker, the one who you just can not stand, He died for him, too.
That’s the power of this love, not that He had died for an elect few who had earned it by their superb and Godly life, but that He died for us – you and me.
His love is indiscriminate.
And He is a model, an example to understand what love really is.
The Other “One Anothers”
So, how do we love one another? It is great to talk about it in theory, to look at definitions, commands, and examples, but how do we live it?
Maybe you are thinking, “Yeah, I need to love more, I need to agapaw others, but what do I do”
Love is about the “one anothers”
At the FamilyLife Marriage Conference, one of the neat things I learned about love, is that it is not 50-50.
It is not me giving my 50 to Tori, waiting for and expecting her to give her 50 to me.
It is about me giving her 100%
Some of the worldviews of love that we have talked about have made love into a very selfish act.
We look for what we get out of it. But love is about the other person.
As we talk about the one another’s over the course of this series, we are going to see the house upon which our foundation is built.
These other one another’s are going to give us specific examples of what it means to “love one another”
The rest of this series will give us specific examples and commands of how we “love one another.”
This is the foundation, and all these others help us to build the house of agape love and true Christian fellowship.
CONCLUSION
As we conclude, I want to encourage you to remember agape love.
To remember what it is and what it means in our lives.
To remember it as we push on to love one another.
That is the mark we press on towards.
I want to leave you with a short illustration. It is the for the church version of 1 Corinthians 13, the infamous “love chapter” of the Bible.
Illustration: 1 Corinthians 13 for the church
The greatest of these is love.
One of the greatest things we can have is love for one another.
Romans 13:8
Thank you, and God bless you.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Monks
There is a story told of an old monastery that had fallen upon hard times. It was once a great order, but as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order. Things looked grim.
In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. “The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again,” they would whisper to each other. As he agonised over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot on one of those occasions to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate him. “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no-one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. They talked for a short while and then the time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?”
“No, I am sorry,” the rabbi responded. I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”
When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well, what did the rabbi say?”
He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving – It was something cryptic – was that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi’s words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the Father Abbot? He has been our leader for more that a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Eldred! Eldred gets so grumpy at times. But, come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it Eldred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Eldred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just so ordinary. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn’t be that much for You, could I?
As they each contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat one another with extraordinary love and respect on the off chance that one among them might be Messiah. And on the ‘off’, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary love and respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander among some of its paths, even now and then goes to go into the dilapidated buildings to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary love and respect that now began to surround the five monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it.
Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery to picnic, to play, to pray. Its beauty drew them in. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s gift, a vibrant centre of light and spirituality in the realm.
The church can be an amazing place when it is working as its supposed to – when we are treating one another as if each person were Christ himself. When we are following the command Jesus left – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and love your neighbour as yourself”
1 Corinthians 13 - church version, by Jim Kane
If our church could hold services in five languages or our members could speak three, but we didn’t love others, we would be all talk and no action.
If our church really expressed it’s spiritual gifts with wholehearted service and we became spiritual giants, but we did not love others, what good would we be?
If our church had such faith that resulted in great healings and great miracles taking place, but we really did not love others, what would be the point? If we gave 50% of our budget to various missions across our nation and around our world so that a great deal of spiritual and physical poverty was alleviated, but we did not love others, why would we do it?
Our church is patient and kind. Our church is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Our church does not demand its own way. Our church is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. Our church is never glad about injustice but rejoices when the truth wins out. Our church never gives up, never looses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
God and His love will last forever. But, our church’s pronouncements and decisions and giftedness and abilities will all disappear. Our church now knows only a little but when the Lord returns, our church will know everything.
It’s like this, “When we were still new believers, our church spoke and thought and reasoned like a new believers. But as we grew up, we became mature believers. Today, we don’t see things clearly or fully understand every thing that has happened to us. All that our church knows at this point in time is partial and incomplete, but one day our church, and all of those redeemed by God, will know everything that God knows!
There are three things that will endure beyond our church - faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love.” (Based on NLT of I Corinthians 13)
