A NEW KIND OF LOVE

Interestingly on the Eastern Orthodox and Greek Church Calendar, today is also Zacchaeus Sunday. Zacchaeus was the man who on meeting Jesus, promised to be just and generous with his money. He sought to make restitution to those he had cheated in the past. I guess that is also a kind of love.

Anyway, let’s focus on Valentine. On Valentine’s day people from all walks of life find ways to express love to someone. These range from young boys and girls who would write cryptic love letters to each other, to very old couples who would simply hold hands and quietly look into each others eyes. In between this range, there would be all kinds of expression of the good, the bad and the ugly of ‘love’.

My message today is titled, ‘A New Kind of Love’. That would presuppose that there is an old kind of love that has been, or needs to replaced by the new.

Today we will attempt to respond to these questions about love.

What is this love?

What does is mean to us?

How should we respond to it?

Let’s attempt a definition of the word Love before we examine the subject from the Bible.

What is love? Can we define it?

There are so many different definitions but this is the one I choose.

Love is… an intense affection and loyalty.

It is a simple enough definition. It shows that love is intense. It is not passive. It also shows that love affects us. It impacts both the one who loves and the thing or people they love. And also that love involves a commitment or loyalty.

As Christians, we live our lives by the teachings and example of of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s see how Jesus expects us to show love. We will start with a question that was asked Jesus…

Matthew 22:34–40 (NKJV) — 34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 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.”

The question was posed by the a section of the Pharisees. They were a strict jewish religious group that prided itself in its allegiance to the Law of Moses - the Old Testament Law.

Verse 34 gives a little background to what prompted the question.

34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,

The Pharisees heard Jesus give an answer to the Sadducees, that silenced them. The Sadducees had asked a question relating to the resurrection although they did not believe in the resurrection. The question had to do with marriage in the resurrection (about seven brothers who married the same woman). Jesus’ answer disarmed the Sadducees.

Now, the Pharisees ask Jesus their question. They asked the question to test Jesus. This is their question.

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

Pay attention to the question. It is not a general question about the great commandment. It is a specific question about the great commandment in the law.

Jesus is responding to a question on the Law. He is not responding to a question about His own teaching about His great commandment. The question is, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

This is how Jesus answered the question.

The Law and Prophets. In verse 40, Jesus gives an answer in relation to ‘the law and the prophets’. It is another way of saying ‘the Old Testament’. Israel lived by the instructions of the Law and the Prophets.

In His answer, the Lord places Love at the center of the great commandment. In essence, He is saying ‘it’s all about love’. That sounds like the lyrics to a popular love song.

Jesus answered that there were two parts to the great commandment in the Law.

The first is...

Love the Lord: with all your heart, soul, mind. Note how we are to love the Lord – with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind – totally and completely. This love is absolute. You don’t hold back.

Jesus calls it the ‘first and great commandment’. That means it is the BIG ONE. It is the foundation of our relationship with God. Absolute Love!

Then He mentions the second one… both are commandments, ‘you shall’.

Love your neighbour: as yourself – this love is relative. It is relative to yourself. That implies that you first have to love yourself and then use that love as a basis to love others.

The Love for God is absolute with everything we are and have.

The Love for our neighbour is relative. It is not absolute. We love our neighbour in relation to the love we have for ourselves.

Nagging question is...

What if a person doesn’t love themselves? We’ll look at that a bit later.

Jesus says that both the Law and the Prophets are based on these two expressions of love. He was not reinventing anything. He was just quoting from the Law. He picks these laws from the Law.

Remember He is answering a question about the Law.

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (NKJV) — 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

This is how the Law begins…it is the foundation for the Law

Leviticus 19:17–18 (NKJV) — 17 ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

This is how Israel was to relate with each other

Kinds of Love

The Old Testament had one main Hebrew word for ‘Love’ ‘a-hav’. It was used to expressed different levels of commitment based on context.

On the other hand, the Greek language, the language of the New Testament, had developed different words for love. These words described the many ways that people expressed love.

On this Valentines day, people will act with either of these kinds of love

Love that seeks to fullfill its own need. This is a general love of the world seeking satisfaction wherever it can..

It is the love you have when you have your favorite meal served you. Or when you listen to your favorite music. It is love that makes you feel good.

In ancient Greece it was used for the ecstasy that people felt in worship – they worship to experience a ‘feel good’.

Love that fulfills each other’s need. It involves obligation. It requires that you reciprocate an act of love.

It is the kind of love you will call, ‘scratch my back, I scratch your back’ or ‘hand go, hand come’ – quid pro quo.

Most human relationships are based on this kind of love.

Love that seeks to fullfill the need of others. It is “to show love”; it is a giving, active love on the other’s behalf.

It is love that does not seek a reward.

It is love that reaches out to others.

It relates for the most part to the love of God or the love of the higher lifting up the lower.

It is love that goes beyond yourself. It is an act that goes beyond the instinct of self-preservation.

When John 3:16 says, ‘For God so loved…that He gave’ it is referring to this kind of love.

When Ephesians 2:4 talks about ‘the great love with which He loved us’, it is talking about this Love – The God kind of Love.

With that in mind, let’s look the kind of love Jesus wants His disciples to show. Remember how He answered the question about the Law.

He said the first was ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind’ and the second was, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’.

I asked the question, ‘what if you don’t love yourself?’ Ideally, a person who loves the Lord would also love himself. The reality is that there are people who love the Lord passionately but have self-hatred.

The Law’s requirement to love our neighbours as ourselves makes us the measure of love for others. That can make love subject to our

Now Let’s go to Jesus…

A New Commandment

John 13:34–35 (NKJV) — 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another

Jesus did affirmed the first great commandment to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, strength.

However, the Lord altered the second part of the great commanded. He gave us a new basis for showing love to others. Instead of basing our love on ourselves, we base our love on the Lord Jesus.

This is what He said...

Love one another: as I have loved you. Not as yourself but as I have loved you. Christ is the measure of our love; not ourselves.

Christ is the measure of our love. He is the standard of our love. Our love is measured on His standard. We are not the standard of love. This answers the question of ‘what if I don’t love myself?’

Christ is the model of our love. He is the example of our love. Wherever we express love, to others, we must model our love on that of Christ towards us. It is not about you. It is about Jesus.

Now is that easy? No…. Is it possible? Yes!

The commandment to love one another has almost no meaning apart from its contextual basis, “I have loved you.”

Those who do not love themselves have no excuse not to love others. We love as Christ loved; not as we love.

The command is new in that it is a special love based on the sacrificial love of Jesus: As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Ephesians 5:1–2 (NKJV) — 1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

True Christian love must have these expressions.

Surrender: Christ gave Himself for us. When Christ prayed to the Father, ‘not my will but yours be done’, He surrendered Himself. He did not preserve Himself.

He did all of that for a people who would spit on Him, mock Him, reject Him, brutally whip Him and crucify Him. He did it for people who blaspheme Him. He surrendered it all.

Sacrifice: Christ made Himself a sacrifice to God. He bore the punishment for a sin He did not commit. He died for a dead He did not deserve so that the just demands for our redemption would be met.

Note: He made Himself a sacrifice to God and not to Satan.

Having understood what the scripture says in Ephesians 5:1-2, we can now make sense of what the rest of Ephesians 5

Ephesians 5:25–26 (NKJV) — 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,

The Love we show in marriage is centered on the Lord Christ showed to us.

Husbands love as Christ loved

Wives submit as to Christ

Without Christ at the center, our love would be selfish and centered on ourselves.

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