MCC Podcasts
Love - How Should We, Then, Love?
So please forgive me if I've already told you the story I can't ever remember but I'm gonna tell it again if I did already. Jeff and I were in our my office together were doing some ministry with a couple and thankfully he was there because he rescued the appointment I thought. I came home feeling like dog gone at those people deserve more from me than that. I was disappointed with my contribution as a pastor and feeling kind of bummed out. So I come home I'm talking to our son-in-law Anthony and he's what's wrong? I just smung and missed today you know. So do you know Anthony I just need some gospel. I need some grace message into my head. Do you know what I'm gonna do? It was like 10 o'clock at night right? There's a late showing of Les Mis and I was waiting for mom for us to go see it together but I'm going she's she was working during all night or something. I'm going to lay mis tonight I need some gospel. You know the story of Les Mis right? So a thief gets out of prison comes to hungry and needing a place to stay and a priest takes a man gives him a bed meal in a bed and the priest goes to bed the thief instead of being grateful and responding appropriately sees some silver chalice silver candlesticks and when no one's looking takes him and stuffs him in his bag takes off he's caught. The police bring him with the evidence back to the priest saying this guy stole your candlesticks didn't he? And the priest showing even further mercy deeper mercy said oh no no no those candlesticks were a gift to him. In fact look you forgot you forgot I was I'm glad you came back you forgot the silver cross that goes with them put him in the bag and it changed the guy's life and the story revolves around that kind of theme so you can see what I needed that that night I went to Les Mis I went by myself I really did not know that this newest production was was an opera was completely sung and but I've got to tell you I sat there and I thought oh no man the whole thing is sung Russell crows one of the singers it got worse you know by the end of it I was sitting there saying oh no it's over already I went looking for gospel and I found it but I sat behind some folks or they sat in front of me who while I was being deeply touched in response to deep need they were snickering so every time someone oh right okay and it makes some snide joke you know the lovely people in the movie that think they need their commentary they were there and when the movie was over the screen went dark that movie ends rather powerfully and the first sound anybody in the theater heard after the screen went dark came from those folks sitting in front of me and it sounded like this one of them made the sound of snoring and that was their response to the film I was struck by the difference between the way those four folks had received the story and the way I received the story they were no doubt responding to that unfortunate decision to cast Russell Crow as a lead in an opera and I agreed with them on that but but for me bad singing was trumped by a great love story that was what stood out to me the love God had shown to an ungrateful undeserving thief through the tenacious pit bull uncommon love of a priest and I couldn't leave the theater for several minutes I I just sat there in my seat because I knew the story already we'd seen the movie years before we'd bring that I'd seen the stage play when we lived in Denver I haven't read the thousand pages what was Jeff saying recently he started to read it you started to read it and after an hour you realized the Kendall said you were 1% done and didn't have the 99% to get through the rest but I already knew the story and and that's why I went because I needed that gospel story I sat there in the theater just in spite of the snoring and the jesting and the snickering and then and then after I came out it was right here at Smith Ranch Road and it was what midnight or 1230 by the time the thing was done I came out and all the popcorn that had been popped up had been put away to be put back out and served us fresh the next day you know and all the workers were gone and I had to lean against the wall there and think some more and ask myself this question if God loved me like that because I am that thief aren't you come looking dirty stinky smelly looking for hope used to being turned away doors slammed in our faces but grace opens the door it says not only can you come in out of the rain you can have clean sheets and a meal at my table and I'll leave you with all of my valuables and then we steal come back says oh no no that was a gift and in fact adds to the gift if God loves us like that how should we then love what is my purpose what is my duty what is the Christian church left here for to what and for what purpose did Jesus say I'm leaving but I will send my Holy Spirit to empower you to do these things that I call you to do how should we then love would you stand for the reading of the text from which will take this message this morning from John 15 hear the words of Jesus Jesus said my command is this love each other as I have loved you for greater love has no one than this that you lay down your life for once friends and you are my friends if you do what I command and no longer call you servants because servants do not know their master's business instead I've called you friends which I think is one of the most beautiful words in the whole English language for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you and you did not choose me I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit fruit that will last and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give to you this Jesus says once again is my command love each other they got at his blessing to his holy word has fully inspired message to us you go ahead and be seated how should we then love we love the same way we have been loved we loved with the same character we love with the same force we love with the same definition we love with the same measure we love with the same strength and that means on the one hand that if we're gonna love like we've been loved we love sacrificially and that's the first point I want to make in answer to that question that I was asking leaning against leaning against the wall in that theater we love sacrificially there is no such thing as love without sacrifice we love sacrificially the day I was at the store and outside the store I saw a friend from this fellowship I had seen him in a while hey how are you doing what's up you know he's about seven foot everything and oh there is right back there hey see what I mean and a lot to change the story now that I know you're here what's up and I still ride your motorcycles because I love riding motor skills oh no I don't take risks anymore why not because I've fallen in love with the woman and that struck me as interesting and I said to him don't you understand when you fall in love with the woman that's like the greatest risk in the whole world you never saw risk and sacrifice and they don't make a helmet for that where you fall off that's gonna conk you on the head and we had a good laugh about it outside and when we love if we love like Christ loved us like God loved us we love sacrificially this is the Christian normal now we're doing everything we can to make something else the Christian normal this is the Christian normal to love sacrificially how should we then love it has been modeled for us in the love we've received if you jump back into John 15 and look at those first two verses our first three verses you'll see John 15 12 my commandment is love each other how as I have loved you and greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends and you think of that lay down one's life and our minds automatically go to physical death and that be great thing that's a lot of love but the more daily experience is this as though Jesus were saying set aside your life for your friends you also taught about the need for Christians this is another Christian normal that we've made abnormal to die to yourself to show restraint for your friends to give up a right for your friends to not do something you have the the privilege of doing there's a freedom to do because it's not in the best interest of somebody you love there is no such thing as love without sacrifice if we're loving the way Jesus loved us set aside your life for your for your friends John 3 16 is the most well-known it's got to be the most well-known verse if you watch golf you know John 3 16 always at the 18th hole a big sign John 3 16 that God so loved the world that he sacrificed he sent his uniquely begotten son that whoever would believe in him follow him but not perish but have ever lasting life so just a couple of points to make underneath this idea of loving sacrificially again the question is how should we then love we love like God loved us sacrificially couple of points to make underneath that main point when we're loving the way God loved first of all we reject the notion that loving people is painless if you're going to love the way God loved that's why Jesus left us here that's the reason he sends his Holy Spirit to strengthen us because he wants us to love in ways we don't have the natural capacity to love we need an infilling of some other force and some other strength to love like that it means we reject the notion that you can love without feeling pain it's kind of like you know you're not gonna dance with me without having your feet stepped on it's just gonna go one goes with the other you know love the way Jesus wants us to love the way we've been loved we reject the notion that that is painless and we reject the notion that loving people is costless it will cost us when you love sacrificially Abraham Lincoln loved a united collection of states was that love costless for him Martin Luther King Jr. whom we rightfully celebrated recently loved equality and justice through non-violence his heart was broken when he saw the division and it still would be broken he would still be worked but did that love come with no price tag for him even in our own North X we have a little banner up there it says nothing of significance ever happens without vision calling or commitment and sacrifice and it's true and we all know it's true those of you who have children is their love without sacrifice and the answer is come on no those of you who have what we're gonna be talking about in February you know this idea of marriage or even a deep friendship is their love without sacrifice without the setting aside of your life for someone else no there is it how should we then love we love the same way we've been loved we love sacrificially and we reject the notion that loving people is painless that's just not true and we reject the notion that loving people is costless that's just not true we love like God loved us God finds us stealing apples from his garden and instead of showing what we did giving us what we deserve and holding us accountable and showing contempt and giving us prison he shows us the gate and he gives us the key and then he gives us the orchard loving is painful and costly and that's what sacrificial love is that's how we should then love and then lastly so we love sacrificially but we also love proactively John 15 16 you did not choose me but I was proactive I took initiative I chose you and then I appointed you pointed us what together once a week you call it good sing a few songs excuse I appointed you that you might go and bear fruit fruit that will last with the result that whatever you ask in my name the father will give you this is my command he reiterates love one another love each other Romans 5 Paul in Romans 5 Paul explains that even further says but God demonstrates his own love for us and that while we were still practicing sin while we were still sinners Christ died for us so there he's taking initiative love is his love is proactive when we love like Christ loved us we love proactively while we're still sinners Christ died for us and he goes on in verse nine since we have been justified by his blood how much more shall we be rescued or saved from God's wrath through Jesus for if while we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through his initiative through the death of his son how much more haven't been reconciled shall we be saved through this life and you have another example another explanation of this idea of the love of God being proactive he doesn't wait around to be loved he takes initiative to love he's the first to love so that love is proactive that means we take the initiative to love people that's really what this is getting at a couple of points under that idea of loving proactively it means that we show prevenient grace long before oh thanks brother thanks Todd God bless you you're being proactive aren't you he said art I knew you were coughing here I needed that we love proactively we take the initiative to love people so the idea that we then he appointed us remember how should we then love the way we've been loved by God we show prevenient grace here's what we mean by that we do infant baptisms here every once in a while most people in our church choose to have the children dedicated but we serve the whole church and we'll we'll do infant baptisms as well and we picture in that infant baptism prevenient grace and so it's meant to be a picture for all of us the baby comes unaware that there's a thing called faith unaware as far as we can tell at least conscious awareness measurable awareness that there is a God who loves them all they know is when they cry they get fed when they cry the diaper gets changed and they need cuddling and all the things the babies are aware but we bring that baby is a picture for us of prevenient grace the baby not knowing what's going on is taken by someone else the family of faith and the community of faith and in that context taken to a baptism of fun that represents in this ceremony the grace of God the mercy of God and baptized by that water before they're aware that there's even a thing called receiving Christ and making a conscious decision to follow Christ that's something in which we believe very strongly as well but this pictures this grace that's unmerited and that comes to you before you have any argument that you deserve it which we never do or any awareness that it's even coming the love of God practiced through us the proactive sacrificial love of God shows prevenient grace in other words the church was commissioned for many things one of which one of the most important of which was this we are going to go into our community and practice this godly love before anybody asks for it deserves it buys it any kind of we are there first we are first responders we are initiators of the love that we've known from god if you want to love like you've been loved you're proactive in your love i'm not going to show love to them because they show no love to me doesn't sound a lot like Jesus to me we're proactive in our love we're launchers of love and we don't just return love for love we plant the seeds of love in the fields of evil we scatter the values and the experience of god where we're not welcomed where we do not feel normal we beg for god to put us in a new field where it's even harder and more needy that's the church that's the purpose for which we've been launched we're going to love like we've been loved god came to us he took initiative for us while we were still off thinking about other things and not at all interested in him he began to woo us if you remember if you've come to Christ your heart was strangely warm somehow that happened step by step maybe we started thinking about different things and not thinking about that thing and wondering what in the world was the purpose of life i was asked just the other day by one of our sons you ever asked the question that what's the point of life i mean why they got even created what's the point you start asking those deep questions and god woo's us and he says come follow me gonna have a yoke on you might as well have one that fits take initiative and we spread the seeds of love in the fields of evil we are proactive in the way we love ours is the kind of love that lowers resistance by raising eyebrows ours is what Francis Chan called crazy love in Luke 6 Jesus says you who are listening to you who are listening i say love your enemies do good to those who hate you bless those who curse you pray for those who mistreat you if someone slaps you on one cheek turn the other cheek also someone ask you for your coat do not withhold your shirt and i would say that qualifies as crazy listen folks the love your enemies is not a metaphor it's a command and it's impossible but if we're going to love the way we've been loved we love sacrificially and we love proactively we go in love before anybody even knows they need the love we go so far as to love our enemies that's not an ideal that's an objective and the Christian church has been commissioned to be on the road toward that objective and then given the Holy Spirit to give us power to be what we only thought we could dream of being we are not simply advocates of love we are the launchers of love to love like we've been loved means we love sacrificially and we love proactively in World War II anybody read the book yet uh unbroken good book this gives you some this is in that book not this particular story but the kinds of things i'm talking about there's another book that came out much earlier called Through the Valley of the Quai anybody read that it was later renamed to a line it saw the book the line with the movie that was launched after the book called Two End All Wars some of you have seen that movie i know and some of you may have read the book under that title the story of allied prisoners now they weren't the only ones they're all sorts of prisoners but allied prisoners in in the uh two end all wars film and book that were captured and placed in Japanese death camps that's what they've been called now and from those camps the workforce was taken to build the Thailand Burmese Railroad so the Japanese had campaigns in Burma and they needed to supply those troops and so they built this from Bangkok on up into Burma 260ish miles of track it was made famous more well known by the movie the bridge over the river Quai you've heard of that movie perhaps and those captors lived by what was called the bershito quote a code it was a a code of a pride honor and duty and there were several hallmarks of that code for instance to be wounded or disabled to the point where you could not fight anymore as opposed to taking your own life when that was true and to be captured then was a disgrace to your family to give assistance to somebody who had been wounded or disabled chosen not to fight and allowed themselves to be captured to assist them was considered an insult a disgrace to your family however to brutalize and treat like dogs those who had been captured especially if they've been captured by you to brutalize those folks was considered a duty that you had in bershito code so when World War II ends and the allied prisoners here that the Japanese had surrendered and all of a sudden the captured became the captors and everything turned on its on a dime when when that happened any responsible person when you understand the brutality the sheer brutality which with these with which these prisoners had been treated anybody for the reasonable mind would expect and maybe even secretly endorse revenge payback that's about how quickly things happen this liberation unless they were people like Ernest Gordon true story who through the nightmare of that camp found Christ and through practicing the teachings of Christ with others turned everything around in these camps men found purpose again and they also learned a different way they learned the way of love i want to show you a clip from the movie to end all wars this is a true story this actually happened was also hit nearby the wounded had abandoned their posts looking for help their arrival at our camp would compel us to make the most important decision of our lives a decision that would defy the bishido code of honor and shame don't let up you oh no good no good god enough for bid you to give comfort and aid to the enemy matter those are wounded dying human beings they're no harm to us he'll need to get back to your end man could someone please get me some water could someone please get me some water so oh oh oh dear friends let us love one another for love comes from god everyone who loves is born of god and knows god whoever does not love does not know god because god is love this is how god showed his love among us he sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him this is love not that we love god but that he first loved us and said his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins dear friends since god so loved us we also ought to love one another last we forget church we have not been commissioned to stop the republicans dethron the democrats undo the agenda of everybody that disagrees with us the church has been commissioned and empowered to love love to love