Untitled Sermon (2)

Introduction

The Bible says we are to love one another. Sounds good, can we do it? Whoever said, “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand ,” was about right.

People are just irritating. I agree with the guy who said. “To live above with those we love, oh, how that will be glory. To live below with those we know, now that’s another story”.

Even people at church can be difficult to love. Sometimes we sing a chorus in church: “I’m so glad because you’re part of the family of God”, and then we look at the person beside us and sing, “I’m surprised you’re part of the family of God”.

Whoever said, “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand ,” was about right.

Even people at church can be difficult to love. Sometimes we sing a chorus in church: “I’m so glad because you’re part of the family of God”, and then we look at the person beside us and sing, “I’m surprised you’re part of the family of God”.

Sometimes it’s hard enough to love our own family. One guy told his wife that if she had really loved him she would be married someone else.

How do we make love a dominating characteristics of our lives?

1. Make Love a Priority

Indeed love people is difficult. Yet this is what the Bible commands. “For this is the message you have heard from the beggining: we should love one another” (). We spend time on what er deem important. For many of us these choices are valid: time with family and friends, work, prayer, serving the poor, fighting for rights protesting wrongs. But as the Scripture reminds us, “And if I donate all my goods to fees the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing” ().

Even though we have the freeom to set our own priorities, Jesus made a point of defining certain ones of them for us: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. ‘This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (). Love, then, is not a gray area the Scriptures. Jesus gave love priority over all other Christian virtues. Every thought, response, and act of goodwiill must first pass trhough the fine of love, or it means nothing at all.

In “Strenght to Love”, Mrtin Luther King, Jr., encouraged us to realize that “our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives.”

But why love? What makes it so important?

2. Understand the Importance of Love

When Jesus spoke to the disciples regarding the first and second greatest commands, he explained, “All the Law and Prophets depend on these two commands” ().

To the people of Israel, as well as for many believers today, it would seem more logical for obedience to be the peg from which the Law hangs, since the point of writing a law is adherence to it. And it is written. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (). Yet Jesus also said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another” (). The apostle Paul goes on to tell us “ Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fullfillment of the law” ().

This may sound irrelevant to our generation that depends on police departments, guns, and force to uphold and fullfill the law. Yet Jesus’ simple command requires greater strenght than any of us naturally possess - more power than any man-made weapon.

The logic of Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’ command that love fullfills the Law seems equally simple. For if one loves his neighbor, he will not commit adultery with his neighbor’s spouse. If he loves his coworker, he will not lie to him. And if loves his enemy, he will not slander him. Love fullfills the law, bacause if we truly love every person because he is a person, we will not desire to hurt or violate him or her, thus never break the law. God establish love as the impetus for obedience.

3. Embody the Distinguishing Nature of Love

When we demonstrate Christian love, it distinguishes believers from the rest of the world. Jesus goes on to say, “By this [love] all people will know that you are My disciples,, if you have love for one another” (). Notice Jesus did not say that people will know that you are my disciples if you prommote my agenda, or wear Christian T-shirts or WWJD bracelet, or have a fish decal on your car, but rather if you love one another. A watching world will be persuaded not when our values are promoted but ewhen they are incarnated, when we become purveyors of love. It is as though Jesus has given the entire world the right to judge whether or not one is His follower simply on the basis of their love for fellow human beings. The vivacious virtue of love distinguishes the Christian.

From the very beggining, God’s plan was to develop a people that reflectes his character. And what is His character? Love. “God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; for we are as He is in this world” (). Believers are God’s advertisement to a watching society as to how individuals could best live in that society. In fact, Christian love will always be the best apologetic that that church has.

When Ira Gillet, missionary to East Africa, returned home to report on his activities overseas, he related an interesting phenomenon. Repeatedly, Gillet had notice how groups of Africans would walk past government hospitals and travel many extra miles to receive medical treatment at the missionary compound. He finally asked a particular group why they walked the extra distance when the same treatments were available at the government clinics. The reply: “The medicines may be the same but the hands are different”.

That’s the virtue of love incarnated. That kind of love makes difference. Christ has no hands, but our hands; no feet, but our feet. We are his ambassadors, representing him to the world. And when we love as he as loved us, it will make the difference. People will notice. Christian love is indispensable.