Theme: The Spirit of God’s love in the Church
Text: Acts 10:44-48; 1 Jn. 4:7-10; Jn. 15:9-17
The Scriptures take it for granted that God exists. It begins with the words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Creation declares that there must be a Creator. Philosophers and Scientists tell us some things about His works – that the universe is one of order and design held together by unchangeable laws. Nature shows God as the Creator of beauty and infinite variety. But there is more to knowing God than the mere fact that He exists. Science and nature cannot reveal anything about the moral nature of God. They cannot say anything about God being a loving Father neither can they say anything about God being Holy and hating sin. This knowledge is only available through the revelation of Holy Scripture by the Holy Spirit. It reveals that the motivation for everything that God does is His glory and His love. Vine’s Expository Dictionary defines love as “The deep and constant love and interest of a perfect Being towards entirely unworthy objects, producing and fostering a reverential love in them towards the Giver, and a practical love towards those who are partakers of the same, and a desire to help others to seek the Giver.” God’s love knows no limit since His very nature is love. It is important for God’s people to know this love and be established in it because God wants that love to be demonstrated in His Body, the Church. That is the reason why He does not just save us and leave us to ourselves. He also gives us His Holy Spirit to give us the power and the motivation to live for Him and to demonstrate the Spirit of God’s love in the Church.
There are different types of love – human love and divine love. Human love is nothing more than affection for someone or something. It is often shallow and variable or changing. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson human love is as subject to wear as the chocolates, cards, flowers and jewellery we use to express it. God’s love, however, is divine, unchanging, unchangeable and everlasting. Love is part of God’s nature and character and He is always motivated by His love for us. He cannot do anything that contradicts this love and we cannot do anything that can change the depth of His love for us. Human love finds it difficult to love someone who has hurt us; divine love loves no matter what has happened. The name of God revealed to us by Christ portrays His love. The Jews knew His name to be Yahweh but found it too sacred to be pronounced through human lips. They failed to see God as love till Jesus revealed His name as Father. God has always been a loving and perfect Father. He chose to create the world and man as a Father because love is best expressed toward something or someone. So great was God’s love for man that he was given authority and dominion over all Creation. God also showed His love by giving man the freedom of choice – freedom to obey His commands or to disobey. To have no freedom of choice is to be less than human and to cease to exist in the image of God. Man’s response to God’s love was to disobey Him and this resulted in man’s separation from God. God, however, loves us so much that He is always working to draw us back into that perfect relationship with Him that is His divine will for us. If we know our Father is love, then love should be the evidence that we are born of God and that we know Him. Every child of God should demonstrate His love.
The love of God can best be manifested in our lives by our obedience to His commands. We are to love one another and the relationships we enter into should be based on love. This is the only way that other people see the manifestation of God’s love. We show our love by meeting the needs of others. Love recognises and responds to human need. Love comforts and provides the needed solutions. God does not only tell us He loves us. He also demonstrated His love by what He did for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ gave up eternity to come into a hostile world to meet man’s greatest need – man’s need for forgiveness. To do this Jesus had to pay a great price. It took the cross to reconcile us to God for us to experience peace with God and the peace of God. It is often assumed that if God loves us, He is the one person we do not have to worry about. Bertrand Russel, the author of ‘Why I am not a Christian’ on his deathbed declared that God would forgive him, as that was His job. This renowned Mathematician conveniently overlooked the other half of the equation, which is that for anyone to receive God’s forgiveness he first had to repent. People who have never been loved are sometimes ‘incapable of love.’ If people who grow up without love are incapable of love, then those who grow up with love must be capable of love. People who grow up in an environment where there is lots of love are also capable of lots of love. All of us have experienced God’s love. He loved us as He loved His Son Jesus Christ. He loved us so much that Jesus was punished for the sins of the world.
There was a father who took his son to the hospital for emergency surgery. The child was frightened and didn’t want to leave his father. But as the child was taken into the surgery room, the father could not go along. The child cried and begged that the father not leave his side. But the father, who never stopped loving his son, let go of his son’s hand because he knew it was necessary. It had to be. So it was in those moments on the cross. It had to be. There was no other way for mankind to be saved. It would take the life of his one and only Son. So God let go of his Son, not because he stopped loving Him, but because it had to be. Jesus knew it had to be and He never lost sight of his Father’s love. His first words from the cross were, “Father, forgive them” and His last words were, “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.” God’s Son never stopped showing that he was confident of his heavenly Father’s love. The cross was a demonstration of God’s love for us Jesus, who says that he loved us as his heavenly Father loved him, loved us more than his own life. Our response to such love is to remain in His love by obeying His commands as He obeyed His Father’s commands and remained in His love.
God’s love as Father gives us an identity and security. We can only know who we really are when we know who our Father is. We need to know God as a Father who loves and cares for us. This knowledge enables us do the things that the world looks down on. Because Jesus knew who He was, He had no problem washing His disciples feet. When we know who we really are we would have no problem loving the way Christ loved. Loving the way Jesus loved is to be prepared to lay down your life for a friend. We can do this because we know our Father values an intimate relationship with us and will always see to our protection.
Every human being has a need to be loved. The baby at birth needs the mother’s love. The child and adolescent need a loving family and environment. The husband and wife need the love of their partner. This need for love is an integral part of human life because that is the way God created us. God is the greatest lover the world has ever known. Jesus was prepared to touch lepers, whom no one else would even come near, even though He could have healed with just a word and not have to touch them. I believe that the touching part is the real show of love and not the actual healing. There is no greater way to show love to someone who has not been touched since contacting leprosy than by touching that person. Some people however show love only in an attempt to meet their own need or to get something they want. They are not really interested in the person or concerned about promoting the good of that person. This is not love at all but selfishness and greed. Mother Theresa was a unique person because she demonstrated the love and compassion of Christ in her life. When Mother Theresa, a catholic nun, died the whole world mourned. Tributes were received from religious leaders, heads of state and ordinary people from all over the world. It is said of Mother Theresa that she cared for the poorest of the poor. She was not just performing an act of kindness; it was her way of life. It was something she believed in, loved and enjoyed doing in a world where love has become so self-centred. A reporter once observing Mother Theresa cleaning a destitute poor filthy person from the slums of Calcutta with her bare hands remarked “I would not do that for a million dollars.” “Neither would I,” replied Mother Theresa. She was able to do what she did because of love. Jesus loved us and was prepared to die for us. Do we love one another in the same way? How often do we even say the words ‘I love you or you are special to me’? How often do we really show our love to others?
Our response to the love of God is also to love as we have been loved. It is not only loving those who love us but also living a life dictated by love. The best way to let the world see God’s love in us. A life dictated by love is proof of our assurance of God’s love. Living a life of love while going through hardship proves our trust in God’s love. It is saying that we believe that no matter what happens God still loves us and will take care of us. The Spirit of God’s love in the Church is what enables the Church to realise its true potential. Some years ago when travelling circuses were common in Europe, one such circus experienced a devastating fire. One thing that puzzled investigators was that a mature elephant tied to a small wooden pole also perished in the fire. A reporter wanted answers why the elephant did not just walk away from the fire. The answer was simply that the elephant could not walk away. It had been trained to stay in one place when tied by initially tying it to a concrete wall. Eventually it was so conditioned that it made no effort to free itself as soon as it was tied even when it was only to a small wooden peg. We have been so conditioned by the world that we cannot realise our full potential as a Church because the Spirit of God’s love is missing in the Church. Christ has revealed who our Father is and what we are capable of doing when we love one another as Christ has loved us. Let us allow the Spirit of God’s love in the Covenant Presbyterian Church so that we can realise our full potential and fulfil God’s divine Will. Amen!
