For the last 2 weeks, we’ve been working through a sermon series entitled “Crazy Love” We began the series by focusing on God’s relentless love for us - love that can’t be stopped. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this - Nothing compares to His love nor will we ever be able to fully comprehend it on this side of heaven - It’s Crazy Love.
Last week, we dug a little deeper, and looked into our hearts at our own love for God. Are we loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, as Scripture instructs us? We could stop right there & have our work cut out for us until we see Him face to face.
But Scripture doesn’t stop with God’s love for us, or our love for Him. In fact, Jesus connected our love for Him to our love for others. That will be our focus for today - learning how our love for others reflects our love for Him.
Have you ever wondered what kind of friend you are? How many of you have, at some time, found it difficult to get along with others? That’s just human nature - conflicts & disagreements are to be expected.
C.W. Vanderbergh wrote:
“To love the whole world for me is no chore. My only real problem is my neighbor next door.”
Sometimes loving those within our immediate reach can be the hardest thing to do - it’s too much work. It’s much easier to love generically - I mean, loving in word and not in action. Kind of like the person who LOVES puppies. That love is put to the test when your favorite shoes are chewed up. Or you keep searching for the source of that horrible odor in your home
Sometimes it’s easier to say we love, than to live it out!
Jesus told us that “Love is the distinctive mark of Christian community”.
Let’s take another look at last week’s passage for today’s lesson - loving your neighbor
35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Last week I mentioned something that struck me pretty forcefully… If the greatest thing in this life is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, then the greatest sin in the world must be not doing that. While working on this week’s lesson, that though came back to me again, and I applied it to today’s focus: If the second greatest commandment is to love my neighbor as myself, then the second greatest sin in the world must be not doing it.
How often do we fall short of loving and caring for others the way we care for our own selves or our families. My question is: What Is Love? It is silence--when your words would hurt? It is patience--when your neighbor is curt? It is deafness--when gossip flows? It is thoughtfulness--for other’s woes? It is promptness--when stern duty calls? It is courage--when misfortune falls? Love ever gives, and forgives… What would our community look like if we treated everyone like the somebody God says they are? I’ll ask that question again: What would our world look like if we treated everyone like the somebody God says they are?
I John 4:20 (NKJV) 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
· First of All… Real Love Is From the Heart (How We Feel)
Last week we looked at the first half of that statement. We talked about loving God
We spoke about living vertically – love that is given to our Creator. It is vital to have a hunger for God - loving God more than the temporal things that fill and consume our lives. It’s in loving God that we are most fully alive. Out of this huge body of material called the Jewish Law, what is the most important commandment of all?
Jesus says, "Love"
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself."
Real love can only be found where there is freedom. “Where there is no freedom, there can be no love.” God gave us the freedom to choose whether we would follow Him, or push Him away and live for ourselves. Loving God, or really loving another person, is simply opening your life to that person. It’s sharing yourself with them, and allowing them to share with you. Knowing there is risk involved, because when we really love, it will always come with hurt but knowing the small hurts & disappointments are worth it because love outweighs them!
What is the bottom line that God wants for us? Having a life that is open to God and open to other people, real love - having an open life - is an attitude of the heart. It’s a choice we make every day—will I take the time and effort to love others? If it’s not heart-felt, it’s not real; I’ve got to believe it for it to be sincere and God-honoring
· Not Only Is Real Love from the Heart….BUT…Secondly… Real Love Calls for Action - Doing Something
"Love your neighbor as yourself," is a very radical command. What I mean is that it cuts to the root of our sinfulness and exposes it. The root of our sinfulness is the desire to be happy apart from God and apart from the happiness of others in God.
Self-Love: What Humanity is Born With
Jesus says:
I start with your inborn, deep, defining human trait -- your love for yourself.
Humanity has a powerful instinct of self-preservation and self-fulfillment. We all want to be happy. We want food for ourselves. We want a place to live. We want protection from violence. We want friends to like us and spend some time with us. We want our life to count in some way. Jesus might say I start with the issue of self-love in this portion of scripture because: It is common to all people. If you don’t believe me, go to the nursery right now - I imagine those 2 beautiful ones will demonstrate this for us!
Jesus’ call is based on that common feeling--Love Your Neighbor AS You Love Yourself
Which simply means: As you long for food when you are hungry, so long to feed your neighbor when he is hungry. As you strive for a comfortable place to live, so desire a comfortable place to for your neighbor to live. As you pursue safety and security from calamity & violence, so seek comfort & security for your neighbor. As you desire friends for yourself, so be a friend to your neighbor. As you want your life to count and be significant, so desire that same significance for your neighbor. This kind of love incorporates lots of different feelings and actions, from caring to calling, from laughing to forgiving.
Speaking of forgiveness… Can we find it in our hearts to really love by forgiving our neighbor?
Matthew 7:12 READS…
12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
In other words…make your self-seeking the measure of your self-giving. Measure your self-giving by the degree of your self-seeking. This is what is so interesting about this passage: The necessity of the First Commandment to fulfill the Second. Without fulfilling this Second Commandment, you can never fulfill the First, loving God. The Second Commandment is a visible expression of the First Commandment. This kind of love requires giving: of our time, energy, finances - all of who we are.
Mother Teresa stated:
"If you give what you do not need, it isn't giving."
Kind of like what my wife spoke of on Thursday night: When you donate things to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Isn’t it usually just the junk you don’t want cluttering your house anymore? Giving must also come from the heart, WITHOUT expecting something in return
The same principle applies when we reserve our biggest smiles and kindest gestures for others who can repay us. But fail to show the same degree of love to others we deem unworthy. Love people the way you love yourself. Jesus said that the love we have for each other will be the evidence to the world that we are truly following Him
Rick Warren has a vision statement for his church that relates to what we’re talking about: A Great Commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will grow a Great Church.
Loving people as God loves them happens when we apply & live out God’s Word.
· Not Only Is Real Love from the Heart & Calls for Action…BUT Finally …. Real Love Fulfills God’s Purpose for Our Lives
What is our big purpose? To put it in a nut shell, our mission as a church must be: “To love God, and share that love with everyone around us” Jesus makes his feelings about this perfectly clear in the following passage:
Matthew 25:42-45 (NKJV):
42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’
Serving is love in action. One of the neatest things about ministering to others is the fact that the word’s origin has to do with serving others. As Christians, we are all called to be ministers because we’re all called to be servants.
Martin Luther King once said
“everyone can be great because everyone can serve”
A community of amazing love will be irresistible to an unbelieving world. Really, our neighbor is anyone we meet who has a need! Be KIND to people, for the Lord is KIND to us. Be PATIENT, for the Lord is PATIENT with us. Be FORGIVING, for the Lord is FORGIVING with us. Be UNDERSTANDING, for the Lord is UNDERSTANDING with us. You can’t tear someone down while you are building them up. You can’t focus on the bad when you are looking for the good.
This applies in the church as well as outside the church. We can’t treat our brothers & sisters well, but belittle others; nor can we be kind to those in the world, but gossip about our brothers & sisters BOTH ARE HYPOCRITICAL, and fall short of God’s commands. Christian love is more than what we do or say or believe – Christian love is a lifestyle. What an amazing witness to the world we can offer when we live a lifestyle of love.
About one third of the American population are unchurched - some 65 million. That means that 1 in 3 of the people you know have not attended church in the last six months.The interesting thing is that 25 % of your unchurched friends would attend church on any given Sunday if a friend invited them
Dave Mittelberg, author of building a contagious congregation asks a burning question:
“Do we sincerely believe that knowing Christ is the best way to live and the only way to die?
I want to make that my mission – to proclaim Christ to the world around me! I sincerely believe that knowing Jesus is the best way to live and the only way to die. I am convinced of that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
True meaning and purpose in life for me is seeing a life transformed by the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ. It stirs my heart to watch that person continue to grow more faithful to Christ and then lead another person to find redemption in Jesus. Hearing the testimonies of Christians when they came to realize it was not about them. But it’s all about those without Christ energizes me to push aside the entanglements of this world to be more involved in what Jesus is doing.
Someone invited me to come and feel God’s love… I have never felt or looked at the world the same and I’ve never looked at other people the same since.
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