July 21, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God is Love"

1 John 3:11-24

How to Walk in Love

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – This humorous love note was posted on Sermoncentral.com - "Dearest Jimmy, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Marie... P.S., And congratulations on willing the state lottery."
2. Context – We all have a lot of misguided concepts about what love is supposed to look like. Our whole society does. But while we often laugh and joke about it, rarely do we do anything to correct these misconceptions, to find out what love really is from God’s perspective. That’s what John is doing in his letter, chapter three, starting in verse eleven, reading from The Message,

1. Scripture Passage

1. 1 John 3:11-24 (from The Message) – For this is the original message we heard: We should love each other. We must not be like Cain, who joined the Evil One and then killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because he was deep in the practice of evil, while the acts of his brother were righteous. So don’t be surprised, friends, when the world hates you. This has been going on a long time. The way we know we’ve been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead. Anyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don’t go together. This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear. My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing and condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, what pleases him. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

1. Love is a Verb!

1. We like that fuzzy, warm word we know as love. The problem is that the word means nothing of the sort in this passage. We’ve talked about it a lot in the past, but the word used here is agape’. Agape’ isn’t warm, fuzzy love; it’s sacrificial, costs everything you are and have, love. It’s love that gives until it hurts, and then gives a whole bunch more. Verse sixteen tells us about it: This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. Agape’ caused Jesus to go through very painful torture and death for us. That should motivate us to, as Peterson puts it, live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. We buy so much into the world’s view that’s expressed so well in the Whitney Houston song: Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all. Certainly loving yourself is a biblical concept – look at Psalm 139 if you have any doubts about that. But when self love overrides agape’ love for others, it becomes self-deception. Verse fourteen says, The way we know we’ve been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. We can’t love ourselves sacrificially and love others sacrificially at the same time. We cannot have eternal life and love ourselves more than others. That’s what John is saying.
2. But what about people who suffer from extremely low self-esteem? What about those who struggle to feel like they’re not lower than a pregnant ant? John addresses that issue: My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing and condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, what pleases him. I’ve spent a lot of my life struggling with this issue – how can God love someone like me? How can God love someone who is constantly struggling to do His will and to love like He does, and not doing very well at it? How can God love someone who never seems to do anything right? Anybody else here ever feel that way? Nike has a slogan: Just do it. That’s what John is telling us here. If we stop spending our time telling God how worthless we are (which, incidentally, is the same as calling God a liar), and start spending that time practicing love, doing God’s will, the transformation is remarkable. Instead of spending hours crying and calling out to God to rescue us from our self-inflicted misery, acting out His love to others makes us feel good about who we are and Who we belong to. And I say "self-inflicted misery" because we inflict on ourselves by listening to the devil’s lies. We’ve got to stop doing that!
3. Let me share with you what God has been placing heavy on my heart lately. We as human beings have a problem with being easily offended and with forgiveness. Many of us still hang on to hurts and perceived offenses and who are refusing to forgive. There’s a line in the Lord’s Prayer that helps us understand God’s perspective on whether or not we forgive. Luke records in chapter eleven verse four Jesus’ teaching his disciples to pray "forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us." Jesus is basically saying that whether or not we are forgiven depends on whether or not we forgive others. Refusing to forgive creates a bitter spirit within anyone, and that spirit creates a stronghold which makes us perfect putty in the hands of the devil to do his will instead of God’s will. And over a period of time refusing to forgive will drive us away from God to the point of losing our salvation, and will take others along for the ride because of the dissension we raise. Yes, I know we have our rights! Yes, we all want those who’ve hurt us to pay for it! But we’ve got to ask ourselves this question: would we rather have our rights for revenge or would we rather have a relationship with Jesus Christ? We can’t have both. We can’t have unforgiveness toward someone and still love them. And as John says, For this is the original message we heard: We should love each other. We must not be like Cain, who joined the Evil One and then killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because he was deep in the practice of evil, while the acts of his brother were righteous. When we refuse to forgive, we are deep in the practice of evil. We cannot enter heaven and still hate people. When will we get smart enough to realize that hatred destroys everyone? When will we get smart enough to realize that God can’t do anything with us until we forgive and move on? When will we realize that if we want to call ourselves Christians we have to forgive from our hearts and love each other?
4. We’ve all seen marriages and families fall apart because one spouse or the other, or even an adult child, refused to forgive. We’ve all seen lives fractured and crushed because somebody refused to forgive. It’s wrong, and it’s more than wrong, it’s sin! We have to go back and remember what love truly is. Billy Graham (cited in Peace Prayers, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, 97) said, "Love is not a vague feeling or an abstract idea. When I love someone, I seek what is best for them. If I begin to take the love of Christ seriously, then I will work toward what is best for my neighbor. I will seek to bind up the wounds and bring about healing, no matter what the cost may be." A heart that loves and forgives will seek the best for others at any cost.
5. You see, God is calling us to take a stand. Hatred is sin. Bitterness is sin. And unforgiveness is the sin that is at the root of all of it. The Bible tells us that in the world at large it isn’t going to end until Jesus comes again, but we can make the choice to forgive and to love within our own personal spheres of influence. We can make the choice to forgive as an act of faith and step forward and move to where God wants us to be. We can realize that we’ve settled for second best for far too long. We can realize that God has so much more for us than we’re settling for. We can truly love each other as God commands. We can truly live. We can make the choice God is calling us to make today. We can make a stand for His love and His forgiveness. We can choose to love and to forgive.
6. Illustration – From Homiletics Online: Philip Gulley, in For Everything a Season (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah Publishers, 1999, 204) wrote, Now I want to tell you a lie. Hate is an emotion we can't help. Hate is a feeling we cannot overcome. If we hate someone, it is because we just can't help ourselves. We're human. We have no choice but to hate. That is a lie. Unfortunately, it is a lie many people believe. They believe this lie in order to excuse their hatred. After all, if we can't help but hate, if hate is a feeling we simply cannot help, then hatred is never our fault, is it? But we can help it. Hatred is a choice. We choose to hate, just as we choose to love. Oh, I know, there are people out there who believe love isn't a choice, that love is primarily an emotion, a feeling, a stirring in the loins. These are the same people who stay married for six months, then divorce. These are the people who love the idea of love but seem unable to stay in it. Love is a matter of the will - something we decide to do. Love is a choice. We can choose to love and forgive and stop being bitter and hating no matter what has been done to us. We can love each other and God enough to act on faith and allow Him to heal us. Hatred and bitterness destroy. Love and forgiveness restore.
7. There is part of a verse in Isaiah 61 that I believe God gave me as encouragement this week. It follows that beautiful passage that outlines how God is going to rescue those who need it so desperately and heal them and plant them firmly in His righteousness. Immediately following that, in verse four, Isaiah writes this: They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated. What it’s telling me is that God’s love and forgiveness bring healing to people, who in turn bring God’s love and forgiveness and healing to others, restoring those places in their souls that have been devastated for so long. God intends love and forgiveness to bring us healing! God intends what John has written to help us receive the healing God has for us!
8. I know many of us have some very deep wounds. I know some of you are saying, "Pastor Brian, you don’t know what’s been done to me. You don’t know the kind of abuse I’ve suffered. You don’t know the kind of pain those people who are supposed to love God inflicted on me. You just don’t know." No, I don’t know. I don’t know what some of you have suffered. I do know what a few of you have. But I know from my own life that I was a bitter, miserable human being until I began to forgive. And I also know that Jesus knows and understands all of your pain, and He will help you forgive. But you have to be willing to forgive. The time for waiting for a sign from above, or for our emotions to change, or for someone to come groveling on their knees before us, or for divine retribution to strike is over. That time is gone. God is telling us this morning that now is the time to forgive. We may never get another chance. Make the choice to forgive. Allow the devastated places within your soul to be restored! Too much is at stake not to!

1. Communion

1. Today we’re celebrating communion, and we’re going to do it a bit differently than usual. First of all, Liz tells me that in this past communion at this church has been served at the altars, and that’s what we’re going to do. If you are physically able to kneel at the altars when your heart is right, then come forward and kneel. Otherwise, come forward and sit in the front row if you’re able, or ask your neighbor to get the elements for you if you’re not. Second, there is a condition for taking communion this morning beyond the normal one that you have to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The condition is this: if there is anyone you have not forgiven, you must make the decision to forgive them before you come forward. Otherwise, please do not come forward.
2. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is addressing abuses in the partaking of communion. In verse 27, he says this, Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. ²⁹ For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. ³⁰ That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. ³¹ But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. ³² When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world. If you haven’t forgiven someone and you partake of the Lord’s Supper, you are guilty of sinning against the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and He will not hold you guiltless as long as you refuse to forgive. So, if you are not going to make the decision to forgive, and you need to, please do not come forward. I say this because I want God’s best for you. But if you are making the choice to forgive with God’s help, bowing before God and partaking of communion is the perfect place for healing to start. I’ll stop talking with this: when your heart is ready, come forward and I’ll serve you at the altars.