INTRO: On the morning of Sunday, November 8, 1987, Irishman Gordon Wilson took his daughter Marie to a parade in the town of Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.
As Wilson and his twenty-year-old daughter stood beside a brick wall waiting for English soldiers and police to come marching by, a bomb planted by IRA terrorists exploded from behind, and the brick wall tumbled on them. The blast instantly killed half a dozen people and pinned Gordon and his daughter beneath several feet of bricks. Gordon’s shoulder and arm were injured. Unable to move, Gordon felt someone take hold of his hand. It was his daughter Marie.
"Is that you, Dad?" she asked.
"Yes, Marie," Gordon answered.
He heard several people begin screaming.
"Are you alright?" Gordon asked his daughter.
"Yes," she said. But then she, too, began to scream. As he held her hand, again and again he asked if she was alright, and each time she said yes.
Finally Marie said, "Daddy, I love you very much."
Those were her last words. Four hours later she died in the hospital of severe spinal and brain injuries.
Later that evening a BBC reporter requested permission to interview Gordon Wilson. After Wilson described what had happened, the reporter asked, "How do you feel about the guys who planted the bomb?"
"I bear them no ill will," Wilson replied. "I bear them no grudge. Bitter talk is not going to
bring Marie Wilson back to life. I shall pray tonight and every night that God will forgive them."
In the months that followed, many people asked Wilson, who later became a senator in the Republic of Ireland, how he could say such a thing, how he could forgive such a monstrous act.
Wilson explained, "I was hurt. I had just lost my daughter. But I wasn’t angry. Marie’s last words to me—words of love—had put me on a plane of love. I received God’s grace, through the strength of his love for me, to forgive."
For years after this tragedy, Gordon Wilson continued to work for peace in Northern Ireland.
Love can do miracles. Just as Marie Wilson’s last words to her father lifted him onto the plane of love, so God’s love for us lifts us onto a whole different plane, enabling us to love others no matter how they treat us.
TITLE: How to Have Unlimited Love
TEXT: John 3:16a
I. The proper way. Here is the perfect picture of what love is.
A. God loved the world so much. You might be asking, "How much?"
1. So much that he gave his Son. He gave what was valuable to him so we could have eternal life, a heavenly home.
-Just as the children of Israel who were bitten by snakes. God told Moses to make a snake and put it on a pole so when the people looked at it they could be healed.
2. Much as the serpent was lifted up on that pole, so the Son of God would be lifted up on a cross.
Why? To save us from sin and death. In the camp of Israel, the solution to the serpent problem was not by:
-killing the serpents,
-making medicine,
-pretending they were not there, -passing anti-serpent laws,
-or climbing the pole.
Truth: The answer was in looking by faith at the uplifted serpent. Just as the whole world has been bitten by sin and Jesus was lifted up on a cross for all to see, and those who look in faith in him shall be saved.
B. He gave. Let’s talk a bit about this—he gave.
1. The tremendous thing about this text is that it shows God acting not for his own sake, but for ours, not to satisfy his desire for power, not to bring a universe to heel, but because of his love.
2. Many times when I read the scriptures I marvel at the love that Jesus showed to others—this agape love, this unconditional love that overcomes any barrier that’s put in its way.
3. Question: As a Christian the thought comes, "How do I get more of God’s love?" Truth: Our Heavenly Father is showing us here right in the text, right before our eyes. He gave.
II. Giving is one of the most difficult things to do. I personally believe that giving money is far easier than giving love because love has to come from an open heart. There’s no way to make it a cold business transaction.
A. Many misunderstand what love is. Tommy Barnett writes is his book Hidden Power, "We think love is something that we can receive and possess, like a gift or something owed but that is not what love is. Love is something you can only give, not something you possess. None of us owns love – we use love."
1. The Bible word for love is in the active tense, meaning that love ungiven is not love at all. Principle: We don’t need to be loved as much as we need to love someone.
2. Have you ever met someone who seemed to be like a black hole when it comes to love, always pulling it in, but never getting enough? It’s because they are focusing on what they don’t have rather than on what they do have.
-We don’t need to be loved as much as we need to love someone.
3. When we love unconditionally, we can never be imprisoned to a man or woman; but when we demand that somebody loves us, we become their slave and are easily imprisoned by their lack of love toward us.
-The more love you show, the more you have and the easier it is to leave the tap on and let it flow to others.
B. Remember where the kingdom of God is. It is within you (Luke 17:21).
1. The love of God is within you—the love is already there.
-The poet Robert Browning spoke of "imprisoned splendor." He meant that the love of the kingdom is already within us, but it’s imprisoned. The trick is getting it to flow from us to others.
2. John 7:37, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
Thought: God is not to blame for our lack of love, we have all of heaven at our disposal.
-Then why are so many people depressed, mopey, weighed down, and why do they feel nobody loves them?
3. It’s so important that we catch the meaning of what Solomon wrote. -Ecclesiastes 11:1, "Cast your bread upon the water, for after many days you will find it again."
Principle: You can’t get bread back until you’ve thrown it on the water. You can’t get love to the degree you want until you give it away. Today there may be some who need to release that imprisoned splendor.
-The amount of love you have is directly influenced by how much love you give.
Truth: The only way to hold on to love is give it away. What I mean is this: the path to great love begins with using the love you already have. You can’t get great love in one giant step, and there is no shortcut. Love increases through the process of giving it away.
Example. I remember Tammy and I newly married, we thought we knew what love was until it got tested. Then after a few months we wondered what happened to all the love and we began to treat each other with very little love. Our attitude was "what’s in it for me, you’re not doing this or that," and arguments started off with "if you loved me you would do this or that." The more you’d look to see if they were loving you, the more you felt unloved—vicious cycle downward.
Truth: Not until we started giving love away did things turn around.
4. Poem
A bell is not a bell until you ring it, A song is not a song until you sing it. Love in your heart is not put there to stay, Love is not love until you give it away.
III. Practical thoughts. Love is not a risk – but just remember, "For God so loved the world that he gave". Let me quickly go through 5 ways to release the imprisoned splendor that’s within you.
A. Come right out and say it. If you want to be inundated with love, become a love waterfall, always pouring it on other people.
B. Put your love in writing. Write someone an encouraging note, write your spouse a love letter.
C. Do an outrageously loving thing. I heard about a pastor who planned on asking a girl to marry him. He thought about what she really liked. She always wanted to see the Empire State Building. So he arranged that she go to New York on a fact-finding mission to help start a ministry. Well as soon as she landed she was picked up by a limousine and taken to the Empire State Building; she was taken to the top, out came the pastor from behind the AC and asked her to marry him. All the visitors began to applaud.
D. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Sometimes showing love is about helping someone who’s in no mood to celebrate.
E. Learn to love people in different ways.
-There are books out there on the different love languages. It’s very important to know the love languages of those close to you.
Example. Tammy would be service (helping household chores), Felicia—buying gifts for or going out, Eric is physical, Adam is more emotional.
In Conclusion
Remember our Heavenly Father—he gave.
-We need to give love. I challenge you today to find someone you can love and begin to give to unlock the love that flows inside you.
