What Are the Dimensions of Love?

What Are the Dimensions of Love?

Series: The Gospel Truth

Text: Luke 10:25-42

Introduction: (What?)

There are literally thousands if not millions of songs and books that are based on the word “love”. I heard a little jingle as a kid that has stuck with me through the years. “Love is a feeling, shaped like a lizard. It runs around your heart and nips at your gizzard.” Laughable as that may seem, the current ideas of love are almost as inane. Almost everyone equates love with feeling. We talk about “falling in love” as though it is something we have no control over. In the passage we will consider today Jesus gives both a definition and at least two examples of what real love is all about.

Examination: (Why?)

1. Love and salvation

Lk 10:25-29 “Then an expert in the law stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (the same question was asked by Nicodemus and the Rich Young Ruler) “What is written in the law?” he asked him. “How do you read it?” He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” “You’ve answered correctly,” he told him. “Do this and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?””

In 1John 4:16 many of us learned a verse fragment as children. “And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.”

If that is true then everything in life must be viewed through the lens of love. As a matter of fact, even our salvation is visible evidence of the love of God.

John 3:16“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Most of us learned this in the KJV. Let’s quote it together.

The mode or method of demonstrating His love for mankind is the unselfish act of giving His most precious possession for those who did not and do not deserve it. To make this expression of God’s love personal you can insert your name in the place of the word “everyone” or “whoever”.

Romans 5:8 “But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So many times we ask God to prove His love by doing this or that for us. The reality is that He has already proven His love and doesn’t need to do anything beyond what He has already done. Apart from the love of God there is no salvation for anyone.

When it comes to our loving God, it is to be with our total being. Heart (spirit, inner being), soul (will and emotions), strength (physical being) and mind (brain, thoughts, imaginations). So I love God with who I am, what I think and imagine, choices I make, and what I do. I know of no one who can do this consistently and completely. This does not mean that we should stop trying to love God supremely. We do the best we can and then rely on the mercy and grace of God to make up the lack.

Loving our neighbor as ourselves is the outworking of our love for God. We cannot love God and either ignore the need or do evil toward our neighbor. While we would love to think that love for God is invisible, that is not the case. Love for God is demonstrated by love for one’s neighbor(s). When the lawyer heard that, he looked for a loophole and asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus, as was often the case, told a story (parable).

2. Love Defined

Lk 10:30-37 “Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’ “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.””

In this story Jesus contrasted the actions of the spiritual elite (Priest, Levite) with those of one of those most hated by the Jews, a Samaritan. As we saw last week the Samaritans were half-breeds between Jews and pagan idol worshippers. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day felt that they had scriptural basis for hating the Samaritans because they were idol-worshippers. The point Jesus made was that true love was demonstrated by the Samaritan while the religious elite chose to do ignore the plight of the man and not get involved. Over the years there have been numerous reports of rapes and murders taking place where several witnesses either ogled and filmed the attack or just did nothing to stop it. Recently a young man who did intervene when another man was threatening people at a subway stop and now he is being charged with manslaughter. The recently released movie “Sound of Freedom” tells the story of Tim Ballard, a former Homeland Security agent who, much like the Samaritan, got involved to save children of other races from sex-traffickers. He resigned his job, risked his own life and spent his own money to help people he had never met. It seems that the answer to “who is my neighbor?” is, “anyone who has a need and you know about it and can do something about it.”

Through the years I’ve had people tell me of a situation with someone they know and then say, “The church should do something about that.” Duh! You are the church if you claim to be a Christian. What are you doing? The definition of love is doing what you can with what you have for whomever you know has a need. All people are to be treated with mercy and compassion.

3. Love’s Focus

Lk 10:38-42 “While they were traveling, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.” The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.””

The focus of our love drives our actions. In this story there are several actions that reveal the focus of the love of the person acting. First let’s look at Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. We find her sitting at the feet of Jesus, which is the posture of learning for a disciple. Her love for Jesus caused her to hang onto His every word even though there was a hub-bub all around her. Her eager to learn attitude did not go unnoticed by Jesus who noted in v 42 “Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.” He was acknowledging Mary’s attitude of worship and meditation with an open mind and heart to His every word. We learn most when we focus best. When we focus on something it is easy to block out all the distractions around us. When I was in college I worked in a chemical lab. Often I would go into another lab and find a person deeply engrossed in their work. Sometimes we would even have a conversation, but later the person would not remember it because they were so focused on what they were doing. This was Mary’s situation. She was oblivious to the hustle and bustle around her because she was so “locked-in” to Jesus and what He was saying.

Martha, on the other hand, was “distracted by her many tasks”. She obviously had the gift of hospitality. Upper most in he mind was seeing that her guests, Jesus and His disciples, were well-fed. Her love for hospitality caused her to focus on “her many tasks”. When Jesus responded to her request that He tell Mary to come and help her, He repeated her name twice, which was a mild rebuke. Kind of like when your mom called you by your complete given name. What she was doing was not bad, but it also was not the best choice that could be made. While what she was doing was important, in the great scheme of things it was not the MOST important. After all, when everyone has eaten and is satisfied, they go their way and many times don’t even remember what they ate. On the other hand, those who focused on Jesus and His teachings were impacted for the rest of their lives.

The physical food would go into the body, be digested, some of it assimilated into the body and the rest eliminated. The spiritual food would, like a seed planted in fertile soil, bear fruit for years to come.

Love determined the focus. Mary loved Jesus. Martha loved serving food to Jesus. I’ve had to deal with loving the ministry instead of loving Jesus. When I love the ministry I’m very busy, running here and there doing “ministry” things.I find my identity in what I DO rather than who I am. When I love Jesus, there is a calmness and peace that overflows into ministry. I’ve tried to learn to preach and teach from the overflow rather than from the study. When I focus on Jesus and His Word, the messages almost write themselves.

Application: (How will I apply this to my life?)

Do you love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength? How does your use of time show this? If you love Him you will surrender to Him and time spent with Him will not be a burden, but rather a joy.