Love is more than a four-letter word
1 John 3:11-16
"Batman Begins" movie has a scene in it that I like – Bruce Wayne aka Batman puts on the playboy act—meant to keep people from connecting him with the crusading hero Batman— Wayne’s girlfriend from his past and now a zealous district attorney, saw all that and relates her disappointment in what she thinks he has become. Wayne wanted to defend himself but she tells him, “It’s not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you” and asks, “What chance does Gotham have when the good people do nothing?”
What you do defines you!!! What you do matters... And if the good people do nothing what chance will the world have? The Bible says…
11This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
From the very start of Christianity these words are etched into the Christian heart - “We should love one another.” How is love defined - by what you do. What you do defines you. John wrote this to correct the Gnostic heresy which was running wild in his time. The false teaching there taught people to run wild (licentious living). John knew that folks are being led away by the pursuit of wild "spiritual" encounters but do little to show love. God is love and so he defines his love as "Jesus Christ laid down his life for us".
It is not what you feel, what you think, your good intentions, your ideals... it what you do, the outcome of your life that speaks loudly about who you are.
It is clear that people don’t get along with each other and I predict it will be so till kingdom come. People are living with hatred, which the Bible equates as murder (see.v.15 “Anyone who HATES his brother is a MURDERER). Strong stuff… How true? Look at the KKK as they sermonize about hate… look at the numerous murders they’ve committed. Look at the awful carnage of Sept.11 and the bombings and killings in response to it. It’s a world drunk in violence! It seems our world is overrun with the Cain syndrome. And why? Just to feel better. How long will those feelings last? Cuz’ others also wants to feel better at your expense!
In short, real love is rare and in short supply. That’s a real problem. Hate dominates our world! We have so few working models of real Christian love. WE hardly know what real Christian love is all about. Where in the world can we find a good model to follow? Is there such a workable model?
Best thing we can do is look at an “out of this world” example. Look at Jesus Christ – he showed us and taught what real Christian love is –
“16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
Jesus says love is not mere mushy feelings though it is intensely personal. LOOK at how Jesus came to us. He could’ve stayed in heaven. Or he could’ve just press control alt delete and reboot his whole creation. He could’ve just traded us in for some new improved model. But no he came personally, lived as a human being, suffer the effects of pure hatred, nailed on a rough wooden cross, to identify with our hurts, our pain, our suffering!
Love is also intensely action-based. Love compels one to act, to do, to demonstrate, to show, to give of oneself. It is not measured with unseen heartbeats, or even great intentions. So Jesus says He loves, and He did not just say it, He showed it! He put it on display when He laid down His life for us. He defined LOVE! You can say, He put it on the world-wide web for all to see and to download it for free!
And what chance does this world have if God did nothing? What chance does our world have, when our G8 leaders can’t do a thing to stop the hatred that fuels the terrorist attacks in London, Madrid, New York, Jerusalem? How can the human heart be transformed? How can hate turn to love? Our head, our leader and master Jesus, shows us the way to turn hate around… He died for us instead of burying us in our own muck of hatred and sin!
10 yr old boy was failing math - parents did everything - hired tutors - finally last option send him to Catholic school. Right on the first day of school he began to spend every nite pouring over his books. When the 1st report card came back, he had an A for math. So the parents were curious "what made the diff." they asked. "The nuns, textbooks?" "Well, i never took math seriously but the 1st day I walked in
to math class I saw this guy nailed to a plus sign. I knew then they meant business."
This is just it Jesus meant business when he showed us what love is. He was nailed to cross cuz he was serious about sin! He knew how it could kill off any hope of relationship with people. He knew it was a cancer that needed deep surgery. He showed it with the deepest surgery ever, by offering His own body to be cut up for us, nailed to the plus sign, to show he meant business so that the price of holy justice is paid! God’s holy standards have been mangled and justice says punishment for sin must be exacted but grace and love says, sin is forgiven but with a price – the blood of Christ!
We broke all the rules and Jesus could have spent eternity counting all our infractions, mistakes, every sin – but what did he do instead to communicate love to His family, whom the Father calls His children… Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. He chose to forgive, to love with action, coming and die in our place. So the Bible teaches us in 1 John 2:2 “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Parents u love your kids don’t u? Lay down your life for them don’t u? I have 4 kids. Sometimes they drive me up the wall, but I love them. As babies I love them somewhat like this: bathe them, feed them, play with them, sing to them, acquire another skill BSL – baby as second language “ga ga”, rock them to sleep, when they cry for help u are there to pick them up, watch ‘em like a hawk if they waddle to close to danger, in other words u have no life – u lay down your life, right? Laying down your life does not mean u smother them… it means giving them room to fail too. Picture this, as they learn to walk, u don’t say to them, oh u fell down, poor little bump hurts. U fell again and again and again. That’s too bad. This means you are walking impaired. OK because you can’t do this walking thing right, strap u down to a wheelchair for life. No one does that, right?
Love here means allowing for growth through failure, looking towards future potential. Love means not expecting that other people will get it, the first time. Or second time or third time. Love means forgiving the bumbling baby steps people take in their journey. Yes - love means knowing in the heart people are worth it, and they are coming along for the ride but not many are good drivers, they maybe good at backseat driving and reaming you out. Many are just hanging out the “N” or “L” sign. People are on a journey they have not arrived yet! So hard to think that way when Christian people let u down. It is even harder when u think they are mature enuff to not let u down in such a big way, but people do, and will continue to do so… because they are not gods. Look at Jesus now, he looked towards future potential, towards joy as he endured suffering of people’s sins (Heb.12).
But for so many people in and out of the church, their expectation is this - that real Christian people should get it right the first time. No room for failure. No room to learn to grow. This is how we get into trouble. If this is really so, the church becomes graceless, restricting, and rules of how to behave dominate. Every failure and infraction becomes ammunition to nail others to the door. Oh u let me down this way, cos the rules say u need to come through for me, make my day.
People are shown the door rather than welcomed. Instead of the church seeking the sinner, the lost, it would be saying sinners get lost. Instead of gathering sinners and becoming a family. The church becomes a govt bureaucracy, that if u don’t fill out the right forms, the right way, u are out of luck, u don’t get any benefits.
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am." The woman below replied, "You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip."
The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman, "you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault."
How does it help anyone, if we start, getting technical like an engineer, or spouting hot air and blaming others, for every disappointment we feel? Can we be less historical, citing every infraction, feeling every slight as an offence punishable by death? They did not do this for me, but they did that for George and Sally on their birthdays. How can they forget me? I thought they were supposed to be Christians and love me. Oh how we can become as exacting and calculating as the Pharisees, noting every infraction of the law, to the minutest detail. Carrying a grudge until kingdom come! Like Cain in Bible story who carried a grudge against his brother Abel, it lead to first recorded homicide in the world. In fact the Bible is clear when the hating begins, murder is the outcome. NO wonder ever since Cain, the world has hardly seen much peace. Always there are wars and rumors of wars. Therefore the experience of love and acceptance and forgiveness is almost non-existent. As a result, their version of Christianity becomes joyless, like Cain his life became joyless, speaking of rules rather than love “Am I brother’s keeper?” And hate and murder is not far away.
14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
I submit to you today that love is what you do - as defined in Christ and what He did for us! Thus, the question I have is this - First have we experienced personally the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, who died for us to show us what love is? Do we really know the love of God?
Second, if we have, How have we become like Jesus? How have we forgiven others? What have we done to demonstrate, show, and put on display the love of God? Perhaps we are anxious about our own hurts and brokeness, the disappointments we have had with another person… Remember we ought to lay down our lives for others like Christ did!
I think we could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box. When others do weird things, it may not be pretty to u, they may look dull to u, u may call them weird names, remember we are in same box - the common experience and life we have in the love of Jesus Christ. The minute we carry a grudge we are in danger of saying “forget that we are in the same box” or you have forgotten how great the Father’s love is for you.
Maturity is living with the tension of what people can be and what they are now. “Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” Ephesians 4:2 (NLT). Love is not merely feeling mushy – but love has the goal of looking after another’s welfare - by doing something obvious, tangible. It is not just words, nor does it exist in brainwaves. And when others in your perception are not doing their part, then according to principle of “laying down your life” do u then strategize “an eye for an eye” life – u poked my eye eh, well, I will poke your eyes out or because u don’t come through for me the way I want, I won’t have anything to do with u? Some one said: “A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.” Others may put u on a detour but enjoy the scenery. Humming and hawing, complaining bitterly, does not help anyone.
It takes faith to love and believe that when we feel hurt by another brother in the faith that this is all part of growing up. That others are on a journey, growing figuring out their walk with God, taking baby steps to Christ. It takes faith to believe I am worth dying for by Jesus when someone does not seem to want to lay down their lives for me, or even take the time to send me an e-mail message… takes incredible faith to move towards someone courageously and say “I forgive you” when it hurts like crazy inwardly. Takes enormous faith to believe that God sees what u did for the welfare of others serving others, when you suspect they are cursing u upside down while u work on the fact that God has met your needs for security, you are worthwhile. Take what u feel, what u perceive, what u go through and put it in the larger picture of “Jesus loves me this I know” and that’s enuff for me. Love is more than a four-letter word, it is all about what Christ did, and what you’ll do in His name! You’ll be blessed if you do and take love as more than a four-letter word!
