Loving One Another

The Elephant Man

The movie The Elephant Man tells the true story of John Merrick. Merrick was born in the slums of England in 1862, and almost from birth experienced massive rejection due to his grotesque appearance. Merrick suffered abnormalities that resulted in a large and severely misshapen head, loose, rough skin, and twisted arms and legs.

His mother loved dearly, but died when he was ten. His new step-mother didn’t take to him, and at twelve, he was expected to work to contribute to the family finances. After two years working in a cigar shop he was dismissed because his deformities meant he could not keep up the required pace. His father found him a job, of all things, as a door-to-door salesman. This only accentuated Merrick’s self-loathing. When people opened their doors and saw him people would literally scream and slam the door in his face. Those who knew who he was refused to answer their doors.

After this “failure” Merrick’s father began beating him. Merrick wound up on the street and was rescued by a kindly uncle, the only person who would help him out. Not wishing to further burden his uncle Merrick left to live in a squalid workhouse for drunks, cripples and the mentally ill. His life there was so miserable that he offered himself to a carnival owner as a sideshow act.

Merrick was a hit. People would pay money to line up and observe him like some animal in a zoo. But the carnival finally provided him with security and a place he belonged. It was while the sideshow was in London that Merrick met Dr Frederick Treves. Disgusted by Merrick’s treatment Treves wanted to help. He gave Merrick his card, but lost track of him. The police started clamping down on the sideshows, so Merrick was sent to Belgium to work in a sideshow there. But when Belgian police also clamped down Merrick was forced to make his way back to England. As he limped down Liverpool Street station, foul smelling and misshapen, a crowd gathered simply to watch him.

The police took him aside to sort things out, but Merrick’s speech was so slurred by his deformities that they couldn’t understand him. It was at this point Merrick showed them Dr Treves’ card. The police sent someone to get him, and Treves rushed back. He took Merrick back to London hospital and began a newspaper appeal for funds to help Merrick. The response was very warm, and soon sufficient that Merrick was able to have his own house on the hospital grounds with permission to live there permanently.

Treves’ care marked a real turning point for Merrick. At first Merrick would act like a frightened child and hide when anyone came into his room, but over time he began to engage some in conversation. Dr Treves discovered that Merrick was in fact highly intelligent and sought to nurture his growth. Yet Merrick’s greatest hurdle was still to fall. All his life Merrick had known only fear and rejection from women. They had literally run from him. So Dr Treves asked an attractive widow he knew if she could come into Merrick’s room, smile at him and shake his hand. When she did Merrick broke down into a ball of tears, later telling Treves that she was the first woman in his life apart from his mother to have showed him kindness.

That was a breakthrough moment for Merrick. In the coming years more and more people, women included, would meet him and show him kindness. He began meeting Countesses and Duchesses. He even had many visits and letters from the Princess of Wales, forming a friendship with her. Throughout this time Dr Treves reports Merrick changed dramatically. He began to develop some self-confidence, to spend time traveling in the country, to discuss poetry with another new friend, Sir Walter Steel.

Merrick died in April 1890. His deformities had never allowed him to sleep lying down as most people do. He had to sleep in a sitting position, his head resting on his knees. He apparently tried one night to sleep lying down, to be more “normal”, and sadly dislocated his neck and died.

Merrick’s story shows us the power of love and acceptance. Rejected all his life, treated as a “thing”, it was the loving welcome of others that liberated him to become all he could be.  His life was made tragic not by his deformities but by the response people made to them.

Source: Reported at www.elephant-house.fsnet.co.uk

It is true that perhaps the greatest tragedy we know is not to live a life without one ability or another, but to live a life without love.

Love is not a theory, it is a practice, and it is practice of sacrificing for the well being of others. Jesus Christ Himself said that all of the law hung on the two commandments; love God and love your neighbor as yourself, and that by keeping those commandments, we keep the whole law of God.

And of course, love cannot happen in a vacuum. Love cannot happen in isolation. Love requires community. And this is seen even in the creation of mankind, wherein the Bible says that we are created in the image of God. Part of God’s image is community, and certainly love comes from the nature of God Himself.

And as we will read today, the Bible is very clear, that God is love, but what does it mean to love?

And what does it mean to love one another?

Furthermore, what does it mean to love one another as Christ loved us?

Today, we begin our One Another message series at Valley Bristol, and we will be moving right along with the Avon campus in terms of weekly messages so I encourage you to check out the messages from the Avon campus as well for more detail and teaching each week.

We will be in three sections of Scripture today starting with .

Before we turn there together, let’s pray.

John 13:34–35 NIV

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Loving one another is not optional, its commanded by Jesus Himself

I know that this sounds obvious, but think about the ramifications of the fact that this is a command.

First, if we have to be commanded to do it, it must be something that we would ordinarily, or naturally, not do on our own or of our own volition.

And this goes to our own depravity apart from God.

Ever since the fall of man when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, instead of a Godly nature, humans are born with a sin nature.

We are naturally depraved and sinful. That is our default position, yours and mine.

We think, in our pride, that its obvious that we should love one another, but really, we all have to be taught to love one another.

Think about it. We have to teach our kids to share and be respectful. We don’t have to teach them how to lie and steal and disrespect others, that comes naturally.

Furthermore, loving one another is so important to the health and benefit of humanity that Jesus commanded it. He did not suggest it, it wasn’t a footnote, it wasn’t a clever teaching point. Loving one another is a command of Jesus that He expects His followers to obey.

And the fact that loving one another is commandment should give you a clue as to how much you actually resist Jesus’ command for you to love others.

And its like we live in a bizarro world, even in our own thoughts and actions. One the one hand, of course we would be all for loving each other, but on the other hand, we feel justified in withholding from those who strike us as unlovable.

And don’t we spend so much more time pointing out all the unlovable qualities and inconsistencies of those we do not love, than actually loving one another?

Yes, if we are going to love one another, we need to understand that it is a command from Jesus, not a request.

1 John 3:16–18 NIV

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

1 Jjohn 3:16-18

So, Jesus commands us to love.

But the love that Jesus commands us to express to one another is not just any love,

We are to love each other as Christ loved us

How did Christ love us?

He laid down His life for us.

What kind of love does God want us to express toward one another?

Sacrificial & Costly Love

The Apostle John points out in no uncertain terms that this is love:

That we lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (i.e., family in the Lord).

This whole section of Scripture that we just read is entirely about sacrificial love. Costly, difficult to give, love. Nonetheless, this is how we are to love one another.

And in case we try to skirt the issue, John clarifies in verse 18 and says that our words or speech is not the kind of love that God is calling us to.

God is commanding us to practice sacrificial love with and for our church family.

To be sure, our culture has replaced the word sacrifice, with the word, compromise.

I hear the word compromise thrown around an awful lot in marriages.

I hear it thrown around in politics.

And I hear it thrown around when it comes to matters of faith and the practicing thereof.

Let me ask you this:

When you think of a person in a compromising position, is that person in a good spot, or a bad spot?

Always a bad spot.

There’s never a time when anyone is described as being in a compromising position and its a good thing.

This is a compromising position:

Pic 1 - Skateboard

2 - Motorcycle

3 - Kid on pavement

4 - Bike with umbrella falling 1

5 - Bike with umbrella falling 2

6 - Tom Brady

But when we think of someone in a sacrificial position, someone who is sacrificing themselves for the sake of others, isn’t that the noblest of expression of love that we as humans can make toward each other?

This is a sacrificial position:

Pic 1 - Soldier carrying soldier. To be sure, the person who made the sacrifice in this photo is probably the one who is being carried.

Pic 2 - Cross. When Jesus says that the world will know we are Christians by our love for each other, is this what Bristol sees from Valley Bristol? Because that’s our command. If its not, we need to repent and start loving each other the way that Jesus commands us to.

But sacrificing for others is not easy is it?

First, we have our own negative inertia that doesn’t want to do a hard thing, or an inconvenient thing, or an uncomfortable thing, or an awkward thing, or a socially embarrassing thing, or a painful thing for someone else.

And second, we are born completely and totally love bankrupt, and we don’t know what to do with real love.

Over time, we get used to the artificial love, we may even like the fake love more than the real love.

Its kind of like those of who like strawberry candy more than actual strawberries.

Nevertheless, this is what the Scriptures say:

That we are commanded by Jesus to love one another

And that loving one another means sacrificing for one another

We know our command, we know what we are supposed to do, but what is love, actually?

1 John 4:7–21 NIV

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

What Is Love?

Love comes from God. (v.7)

Love finds its origin and meaning in God. Love does not come from any other source. Our culture is trying to remove the fingerprints of God from His very creation because the world rejects and hates God, and the world’s version of love is always shown to be counterfeit when seen in the light of God’s love. So the only way for the world’s way of life to work, is if God is removed.

Love is demonstrated through sacrificial action (v.9)

Love, as defined and demonstrated by God, is the commitment to sacrifice one’s most beloved possession for another’s gain. (v.10)

It is, then, no act of happenstance that Jesus, when talking with the rich, young ruler in , told the young man that, if he truly wants to please God, he will sell all his possessions and give them away. This proved too difficult for the young man, and he went away sad.

What was Jesus pointing out? First, that the young man was still an idol worshiper, even though the young man had an intellectual knowledge of God. Second, the young man did not understand, nor did he know how to love. He would not be able to respond to God’s love in obedience and love. He would not be able to love others as Jesus loved him. Do you see this?

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary notes:

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 12: Hebrews through Revelation A. Brotherly Love (4:7–12)

The difference in understanding between John and the false teachers is never greater than in their understanding of love. The false teachers claimed to love God but understood love not in Christian terms but in those of Greek philosophy. As Dodd (Johannine Epistles, p. 111) points out, love in the Hellenistic world became a “cosmic principle, and the mystical craving for union with the eternal is given a metaphysical basis.” In religious terms, love is perceived as “essentially the love of man for God—that is to say, the insatiable craving of limited, conditional, and temporal beings for the infinite, the Absolute, the Eternal” (ibid.). Two things derive from this understanding of love. First, love for God as it was expressed by the false teachers becomes primarily an exercise in self-gratification. As such, it expresses the vanity of those teachers. Second, one can never attribute love to God and say, for example that God loves us. God as the Absolute is always passionless and unmoved.

How many of us have heard people criticize God as being aloof and distant?

How many of us have criticized God like that ourselves?

Why do you think its so important to God that world recognize as Christians by our love for each other, as opposed to our denominations, or our politics, or whatever? Why by our love for each other? And specifically the love that is found in and defined and demonstrated by Jesus Himself?

I suggest this to you. When we evangelize and share Christ with others, the way people will know that we are aren’t full of el toro poo poo, is if the circumstances of our lives are consistent with the message that we gave them.

When people see God’s love, they will recognize it as something that they do not have, because, as we have seen today, without God, they don’t have it.

They will also see that they need it. Now, whether or not they surrender and place their faith in Christ is another matter.

But our problem as Christians is that we are too tied up with our opinions, preferences, problems, and politics to really reflect God’s love to others. God’s love gets drowned out in the noise of our own nonsense at times.

Let’s say that you’re on Facebook. I am too. And let’s say that someone has really offended you. And so, day by day, you post all kinds of derogatory and unloving statements and clever one-liners about how stupid or ignorant or offensive this person is to you.

Now, let’s say that you run into this person one day and you have an opportunity to witness to them and share Christ. And you’re a Christian, so you do. And they receive your testimony, and the conversation was a good one.

Now they want to be friends on Facebook, so they send you a friend request, and you happily accept. And then they read your posts on your wall and they see that you’ve spent the better part of recent weeks mocking them and belittling them.

I ask you, which of your testimonies do you think they will think is true from you?

Do you think that they will believe that you actually love them?

You see, one of the most difficult things about obeying Jesus’ command to love one another is that we will have to love those who offend us the most.

Jesus’ command to love one another means I am to love the door man, the best man, and the elephant man.

You know what I’m talking about. Those people that push your buttons in just the right way, and when they do, its not Jesus they see in you, its your sinful flesh they get a heaping helping of, isn’t it?

And isn’t kind of weird how the hardest people to love, the people who offend you the most, are often times the people closest to you.

Its easy to romanticize a faceless criminal and do a prison ministry outreach once a year. After all, you have no deep attachment to them relationally, or otherwise. Its a one-off event.

But man, that guy sitting next to me in church is a real idiot. God broke the mold with that guy. Probably because He didn’t want to make another one. That guy is the reason there are more horse’s behinds in the world than there are horses.

And of course, when its time to turn and greet those around you, you’re so glad to see them.

Jesus’ command to love one another means I am to love the door man, the best man, and the elephant man.

There is a video on youtube of a Rabbi talking about love. The Rabbi starts with a story of young man who was enjoying a plate of fish. Another man comes up and asks him if he is enjoying his meal, and the young man says, “oh yes! I love fish!”

The rabbi responds, “You love fish do you? Is that why you hooked it by its face, kidnapped it out of its home, hit it in head with a mallet, cut off its head and threw it away, cut open its body, pulled out its bones, cooked its meat, and ate it? I don’t think you love fish, young man, I think you love yourself.”

And its true. So much of what we call love is fish love. In other words, what we love is not each other, but the other person or thing does for me. Its a self-gratifying love at the literal expense of someone or something else.

Now, even the rabbi in the video would go on to say that love is investing a piece of ourselves in someone else, and since we love ourselves, then we love the other person because a piece of ourselves is in them. Now that part, is not love, that is selfish.

I don’t love you because I see me in you. I love you because I love you.

Our romantic love is like this. I love my spouse because they make me a better person. That’s fish love. Sure, your spouse might make you a better person, but that’s not what love is. Love is when we sacrifice ourselves so that our spouses can benefit, love is not the benefit we gain from our spouses, does that make sense?

Our spiritual love is also like this. I love my church because (fill in the blank). When we say that we love our church, sometimes what we are really saying is here is how my church is loving me. Because for us to love our church means that we are sacrificing for our church family, i.e., one another.

The benefits we gain from our spouses, or loved ones, our churches, or whomever, are certainly blessings, and they are important. But

love is shown through what we sacrifice for one another, not what we accumulate from one another.

1 John 4:13–21 NIV

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

1 John 4:13-21

What Is Love?

We know we have love and can love through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. (v.13)

Love is made complete (mature) in us the more we are transformed to be like Christ throughout our lives. (v.17)

Love does not inspire fear. (v.18).

In fact, if we think we are loving our families, for example, but our families are afraid of us for whatever reason, we are demonstrating our own immaturity and spiritual ignorance.

We are able to love at all because God loved us first (v.19).

If God is the origin of love, then it makes sense that we would not be able to love, or even know what love is, if God had not given us His love in the first place. You can’t eat a cookie if somebody doesn’t make a cookie first.

Our love for God is best demonstrated through our love for one another (v.21)

So what about you? (cross picture back up)

How do you love others?

Have you ever loved anyone as Christ has loved you?

Do you love your spouse and family the way that Christ loves you?

Do you love your church family the way that Christ loves you?

Is your love for your own gratification, or for the glory of God?

Your answer makes all the difference.

I want to invite the music back up at this time. And as they come, I want us to see this video of love in action.

You know, when we say that love means sacrifice, our minds go to the extremes, the most difficult things to sacrifice. And that is true.

But so often, during our day to day lives, there are so many small sacrifices that we can make for others that would truly demonstrate the love of Christ to them in ways that will leave them forever changed.

Let’s check this out together.

We’re going to close and sing two songs together.

Both of them echo how God has loved us. But the challenge is this.

While we certainly celebrate and are thankful for how God has loved us, will we love one another in the same way?

Will be a place of refuge for one another?

Will be an instrument of peace for one another?

Will we be a fountain for the thirsty and love for the lonely for one another?

Because this is how God loves us.

This is how we are commanded to love one another.

And without a doubt this is what the world is waiting for.