How many of you know who Steven Curtis Chapman is? Steven Curtis Chapman is a contemporary Christian musician. He’s been around for quite a few years, now, and recently released a CD with songs all centred around love. I want to quite the lyrics from the title song of that CD:
We’ve got CDs, tapes & videos,
And radio & TV shows,
And conferences, retreats & seminars.
We’ve got books and magazines to read
On everything from A to Z
And a Web to surf from anywhere we are.
But I hope with all this information running through our brains
That we will not let our heart forget the most important thing
Is love….
And indeed, the most important thing is love. And this is true even moreso for Christians, for Jesus told us, in John 13:35, “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” And so love, love, love, is the key. The Beatles told us “Love is all you need”; another musician declared that “Love makes the world go ‘round”; and still another explains that “love is a many splendoured thing.”
But when the rubber meets the road, do we really know how to love? I mean, really, truly, know how to love in such a way that those around us can know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that we love them, and that we love each other?
You see, I believe that in many circles, “love” has been to theorised, so philosophised, so theologised, that many of us no longer have a clue how to actually love someone. I mean, in theory we say that we need to love of God in our lives, and that when we have the love of God in our lives it will just somehow spill out of us onto those we come into contact with, and they’ll just somehow sense that we have this love in us. And yet I look back in time, and I look at the present day, and I am convinced that we’ve missed the mark. For you see, as I look back in time, I seem men in women like Mahatma Ghandi, who said he would gladly have become a Christian – if he hadn’t met so many. And as I look at the world around me, I see that the picture hasn’t changed much in many parts of the world. What’s worse, friends, is that even more than not inviting those on the outside in, we’re actually driving those that are already in, out. In my reading, and in personal encounters with people, I have discovered an incredible phenomenon in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Would you like to know what it is? It is this: of the hundreds of Seventh-day Adventists no longer in the Church, only a small fraction left because of doctrinal or lifestyle disagreement. Very few left because they rejected the Sabbath, or the state of the dead, or the health message, or Spirit of Prophecy. So why do the majority of Adventists leave the Church? It’s either because they never felt loved in the Church, or because at some point in time another saint stepped on their toes and never said “I’m sorry”.
Now, I’m certain that if you were to ask those people who have stepped on the toes of others if they love God and love others, there would be no question in their minds about it. “Of course,” they would tell you. “We’re Christians, we’re supposed to love!” Yet for all of our head-knowledge about love, somewhere along the way we’ve missed the mark – we’ve failed to effectively demonstrate that love, which we claim to have in such abundance.
Now, I didn’t come here this morning to discourage you. The picture is bleak as it stands; but praise God, He didn’t leave us without hope. With God, we know, ALL things are possible. And so I am firmly convinced that, by His grace, and with a little bit of study, we can leave here today knowing how to love others. Do you want to know how today?
Let’s start by looking at Matthew chapter 5, starting at verse 43….
Having just read this verse, I want to point something out to you. Jesus makes 6 references, throughout chapter 5, to laws and customs of Jewish society in His day: Do not kill (v. 21); do not commit adultery (v. 27); laws concerning divorce (v. 31); laws concerning the swearing of oaths (v. 33); the law of eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth (v. 38); and the law to love your neighbour and hate your enemy, which we just read in verse 43.
Now, this is where is gets interesting, because for the first five statements Jesus look at, there are direct references to Old Testament commands; in other words, for the first 5 customs and laws Jesus addresses, there is a direct “thus saith the Lord” to back it up. But when you get to the sixth custom – the one about loving your neighbours and hating your enemies – you know what? There is not one single reference that I have found, in all of the Old Testament, where we are instructed by God to hate our enemies.
Isn’t that interesting? That for five of the six laws Jesus spoke about, there are direct – in some cases, word-for-word – references to passages in the Old Testament; and yet when it comes to hating your enemy, there isn’t even a hint of any such law to be found in the Old Testament! Doesn’t that strike you as odd?
What it says to me, friends, is that the concept of hating your enemy never originated with God, but was added by man over time, until it was accepted as standard practice in Jewish society. And so the Jews hated, literally, anybody that wasn’t Jewish. But notice, as we go on to verse 44 here in Matthew 5, what Jesus did to change that mindset…. (read vs. 44-48)
Jesus calls us to a higher love. It’s easy to love those who go to our church, who dress the way we do, who think the way we do, who eat and worship the way that we do. But what happens when we encounter someone who doesn’t think, act, eat, worship, talk or dress the way we do? We avoid them for the most part, don’t we? I know that there are times in my own life, when somebody different walks in the room, and people start whispering and pointing, I do my best to avoid getting close to them. And I must admit that there have been times when I have gone out of my way to avoid someone. I’ll be standing at the church door greeting people, and I’ll see someone coming in who makes me uncomfortable, and I’ll pretend I’ve got something to do in my office, and I’ll duck out. And then after church I’ll keep myself as busy as possible, and avoid eye contact as much as possible, to avoid having to be around someone who is different from me, or who makes me uncomfortable. And I’m not saying that it’s right; but I am saying it’s a natural human tendency to only want to associate with those who are just like us, and to avoid, discriminate against, and yes, in some cases, even hate those who are different.
But as I read the Word of God here in Matthew 5, I see that I am called to have a perfect love – a love that perfect as God the Father’s. And as I think about that call to a perfect love, I’ve got to admit, I get a little scared, and I get a little nervous, and I start to feel a little discouraged, because I know that I can never, in my humanity, have a perfect love. And for years, I’ve lived in a cloud of discouragement and worry, knowing that this love was out of reach.
Then I got to college and took Greek; and immediately my cloud vanished. Because you see, I learned that the word “perfect” in Greek doesn’t mean the same thing as “perfect” in English.
Perfect in English is usually understood to mean “flawless, beyond reproach, beyond improvement”. In other words, the perfection of the English language is a pipe dream – it’s completely unattainable in this life.
The “perfection” of the Greek, on the other hand, is something almost entirely different. In Greek, “perfect” means, not flawless, but “complete, whole, all-encompassing”.
Big difference, isn’t there? And so rather than calling us to an unattainable type of love, Jesus is calling us a love that is all-encompassing – a love that reaches to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. The kind of love that Jesus is calling us to, according to Matthew 5:48, is the same love God has for each one of us: a love based not on what we do, or how we look, or what we wear or eat, but a love based on who we are.
We discover who we are in relation to God by going back to the Book of Beginnings. Look with me at Genesis chapter 1, starting at verse 26… (read vs. 26-28, ending at “and God blessed them”). Now look at chapter 2, verse 7.
This story has always deeply impressed me. After speaking into creation the world and all it contains, God stopped down, got His hands dirty, and created man. And what does the Bible say is the relationship between God and mankind? God said, “let us create man in our image”. Friends, you and I, and every other person who has ever lived and ever will live, is created in the image of God – we all, by our very existence, have a piece of God in us. And so He loves us, not because of what we do, but because of who we are – children of Almighty God.
I remember when our first child was on the way. We got all the books we could on childbirth and parenting. The one that sticks in my mind is the classic, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”. I remember looking in the book, at the pictures of what the baby would look like right after it was born; and I have to tell you, I was a little disturbed. The book warned that the baby might have a cone-head from the pressure of being pushed out the birth canal, that his skin would probably be really wrinkled, and might have a slimy film on the body – in short, he’d probably be a little ugly at first sight. So, resolving myself to the reality painted by the book, I waited for the day our little “bundle of joy” would arrive.
You can imagine my surprise on the day he was born. Yes, his skin was quite wrinkled, but he was small enough that he didn’t have the cone-head. And he had a bit of jaundice, so his skin was also kind of a splotchy yellow. But in truth, the moment I laid eyes on that little baby boy, I couldn’t have felt more love for anyone else in the world. And I don’t think slimy skin, or even a cone-head, would have made the slightest difference in how I felt at that moment.
Friends, why is it that a parent can love their newborn child so much? It’s because that child – from the very beginning – bears the image of their mother and father. Maybe she has her mother’s eyes, or maybe he has his father’s nose (heaven help him). But there’s something within that child – some resemblance to his parents – which creates a bond of love that cannot be severed. In the same way, God Himself loves us because of that bond which we have to Him as His children by Creation.
Now, the problem is that this bond isn’t what it used to be, because it’s been severed by sin. Even though we’re children of God and bearers of His image, that image has been blurred by our sin and selfishness. And so to restore that image and repair that bond, God sent His own Son – bearing the fullness of His image – down to this planet, so we could be re-connected with Almighty God and be brought back into the fullness of His love. And as with Creation, God took this action, not because of anything we had done to deserve it, but because of His great love toward us. Romans 5, verse 8 tells us that He demonstrated His love toward us in this: while we were yet sinners – while we were yet separated, yet disconnected from Him – His Son, Jesus Christ, died for us. And notice what we are told in Ephesians chapter 1, looking at verse 4…. (read vs. 4-6). Because of Jesus, we are once again in a position to be re-connected to our heavenly Father – to have His image fully restored in us. And this opportunity is granted to everyone who has ever been created in His image.
(BEAT)
It is the custom in India, when to greet someone, to fold your hands together and bow to them. I had a man from India once explain to me that the reason they practice this manner of greeting is because they are recognising the image of God in each other.
Friends, every member of the human race – no matter their skin or hair or eye colour; no matter their height or weight, or talents or abilities; no matter what language they speak, or how they dress, or what they believe – every member of humanity has one thing in common: we are all bearers of the image of Almighty God. And it is only as we begin to understand this truth, and allow God to let us see His image in those around us, that we will be able to express that complete, whole, all-encompassing love for others that God the Father wants us to have.
Let us make it our prayer today, that God would open our eyes to see His image in others, and in seeing Him in them, love them as He loves us.
(Appeal & prayer)
