God is Love

Celebrity watch

Celebrity gossip! It’s one of those things that I suspect if I ask most of you, you would probably you don’t care much for it. Funnily enough, much of society also say they don’t care much for it, but yet the gossip mags seem to still do alright.

Now one of our favou

I suspect for most of us here, while we probably don’t care too much whether Brad Pitt has got a new girlfriend, or whether one of the Kardashian had pancakes for breakfast - we are however intrigued when the scandals start to hit.

So as someone who fits into that category of not really knowing much about celebrities but taking note when the big scandals hit, what I’ve noticed is how quickly people can go from being in favour, to out of favour.

Now sometimes there is really good reason that some people fall out of favour with the gerenal public. You could take for example a prominent Aussie, known for his wobble board who has been convicted of child sex abuse.

But there are also other celebrities that fall out of favour with society for far less. One case that springs to mind is Margaret Court, one of Australia’s greatest women’s tennis players.

She fell out of favour, not because of any wrong doing, but because her opinion varied from the general public. You see, she became very outspoken about the issue of same-sex marriage

What becomes clear is that with our celebrities we want to hold them to account, and so we set a bar for them.

The interesting thing however is that the bar is not very static. As was the case with Margaret Court, the very things that put her out of favour where very similar things that the mainstream politicians (for want of a better word) had been saying just a few years prior without anyone getting upset.

But our inconsistent standards are also evident with say football stars. People probably don’t like admitting it, but depending on the ability of a particular player, we may be more or less likely to overlook certain indiscretions.

The point I want to make however, is actually to show how we set these bars.

Once people cross these boundaries, our whole perception changes.

Now the reason I’ve pointed this out for celebrities is because I think we can see it a bit clearer, however a similar thing happens in everyday life. We have lots of people in our lives, be they work colleagues, acquaintances or friends. Things go along well until they do something offensive. Suddenly a big wedge comes between the two of you.

Now, here’s the thing: this is just a part of the way relationships work, that it seems obvious that God would work on a similar principle. That is, God can accept a bit of wrong doing, but there’s a limit. Once we become so offensive to him, he won’t want a bar of us.

And, just like that bar is actually very flexible in our relationships, in a similar, sometimes we might have that bar set at such a level that we think - as long as we don’t fit into the category of murderer, rapist or pedophile, then we are ok. Other times, the built-up guilt of consistently being rude, angry and greedy is enough for God to have had enough.

God is love

Well, as we’ve being doing for the last few weeks, we’re in the middle of a series called: Who is the God I know. And today’s theme is: God is love.

As we’ve seen in each of the different themes, we’ve seen that we have all of these attributes which are really central to what we believe about God, but there are these worldly narratives which white ant the fundamental beliefs.

As I’ve explored in my introduction this morning, the false narrative pulling us away from the understanding that God is love, is the narrative that God can’t love us when we are bad.

Essentially this narrative teaches us that God’s love is conditional. The problem is, if this is true this changes everything.

If God’s love is conditional, there can be no assurance of salvation.

If God’s love is conditional, the whole basis of our relationship with Him is now gone.

Now, the idea of unconditional love, certainly raises some interesting questions, like: what about the worst of the worst offenders? And doesn’t unconditional love just give us a free ticket to do what we want?

Well, I will get to these, but first, I want to explore the narrative that Jesus teaches about unconditional love.

Matthew the Tax Collector

So to do this, I’m going to turn to the passage we read earlier which showed Jesus calling Matthew the tax collector.

Now we might not like paying tax, but I suspect for most of us, there is at least an acceptance that the taxation system is on some level necessary. We could argue whether it should be more or less, but there is some need for a centralised system of governance, and this requires tax.

But the taxation system in the first century was actually a bit different.

You could argue that they still had a need for some sort of governance and this would require taxes, but there system for collecting this left a lot to be desired.

You see, the system relied on tax collectors whose job it was to go around obtaining the tax. The problem however was that there were very little checks and balances to ensure the money was handled properly. Extortion was easy. And so getting a tidy little profit was a piece of cake.

Tax collectors therefore got a reputation for lying and cheating. As a result, they ended up on or very near the bottom of the social ladder.

The Pharisees would hold them up as the model sinner. The type of lifestyle that they warned people against.

A shocking story

Well, it is with this context that we come to the passage starting in .

And like a lot of stories, we lose the absolute shock! horror! because it has become so familiar.

You see, the story tells us that Jesus goes up to him and says “Follow me”, to which Matthew got up and followed.

Now because the worldly narratives are so prominent in our minds - in this case, the narrative that says that there is a limit at which God can no longer love us - we then tend to modify this story in our own minds, even if just subconsciously.

You see, it is very easy to start to minimise the wrong doing of Matthew. Sure he made a few wrong choices, but it wasn’t that bad - temptation just got away from him.

Maybe there is some truth to that, but the reality is, the Pharisees were right in one regard - the life style of the tax collector went completely against God’s way.

This really is meant to be a shocking story about the unconditional love of God.

To help us consider how shocking this is, consider this:

Rabbi - disciples

For Jewish rabbi’s, it was a very important task to select your disciples well.

You see, the whole model of the rabbi was to train people up who would essentially represent you and your ways.

If you choose poorly, then your legacy is doomed.

You can think about this from a modern perspective. As an employer takes on a new employee, they want to be very careful that the employee is committed to the ethos of the company. It’s not a perfect parallel, but you can see how choosing the wrong person can have massive detrimental effect.

But here is Jesus. He almost seems to be going out of his way to choose the dirtiest, most vile person he can find.

Someone watching this happen in the first century could only conclude that Jesus was setting himself up for failure.

No questions

But then it gets even more shocking. You see, surely if you are going to invite someone with such a nasty reputation, surely you would ask a lot of questions. You know, to check to see he has it in him to change.

Now I do recognise that what’s recorded for us is just a small snippet of what happened. There was no doubt other dialogue that wasn’t recorded for us. But generally, the biblical authors are very deliberate about what they include, and I think that what we’re meant to get from this, is that Jesus is taking the initiative in showing love.

In fact this becomes a theme in the Bible, most notably in which says: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us...”

You see, back in this passage in - what is completely absent is any kind of message of: well, if you can clean up your act, then you can follow me; or, if you can promise me things will change, and if we can put a plan in place for you to keep these promise, then you can follow me.

1 John 4:7 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Rather, the simplicity of what Jesus says is striking: “Follow me”

It gets worse...

But then it gets worse.

You know when you make a bad call and the moment things turn bad, you get a chorus of people saying - I knew that would happen. I tend to make a lot of bad calls so that’s not an unusual thing for me.

Well, this shocking call of Jesus is about to bite him.

You see, Jesus goes off to have dinner with Matthew - that’s just terrible in itself. But it gets worse when this meal ends up as a den of sinners.

Even the author of the gospel (who, incidentally, is generally thought to be the tax collector in this story), doesn’t sugar coat it. He clearly calls these people who come to eat with him as sinners.

And so we get the Pharisees, who well knew Jesus just made a horrible mistake. Now being early in the ministry of Jesus, there’s a bit more constraints shown. Their horror is expressed in the form of a question, but I don’t think it was a mere polite question. I think it was rather a very pointed question, in such a way that they express how foolish Jesus has just been.

You might be familiar with the phrase: you lay down with dogs, you’ll rise with fleas.

Well, seemingly, that is what has just happened with Jesus.

The narrative of Jesus

But of course, Jesus doesn’t flinch. That’s because he is well aware that what he is doing goes completely against the narrative that they were all familiar with.

You see, if you dig beneath this narrative that someone is unlovable once they have reached a certain threshold, what you are saying is essentially that they are ruined beyond repair.

The shocking thing is that we often do this to kids today when they are bad. We seal their fate by telling them that they will amount to nothing.

But look what Jesus says in verse 12: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill”.

The doctor doesn’t expect the patient to heal themself, rather it is the doctor job to give the required treatment.

What Jesus is saying is that it is right and proper that the sinners flock to him. This is not a problem, this should be desired.

You see, for Jesus people do not move beyond the point of his love. If they come to him, he will accept them!

This by necessity should challenge our narrative that some people are unlovable.

Some objections

Now I want to consider what the implications of this teaching is for us, but before I do, I think it is worthwhile exploring some objections. You see, the narrative of Jesus really does push against the narrative of the world, and when this happens, we’ll get points a which the ideas clash.

What about the really bad?

I think the first place where this clash becomes really evident is with the people who we might consider the lowest of society.

If you watch the news you will see some horrendous crimes. Only a week ago we saw a gunman kill 50 defenseless people. But there are plenty of other horrendous crimes. Violent rapists picking people off the street. Pedophiles preying on innocent children.

You see, we might accept that God loves me even though I get angry, cheat and lie, but can we accept that Jesus loves the murderer, the rapist and the pedophile?

Well, as shocking as it might be, the answer is yes!

But, it is necessary to add that that does not mean they will automatically go to heaven.

What it does mean is that the same love that God displays to you and me is also available to them.

And just like us, they can either accept it or reject it.

But then, this too clashes with the our narrative. Surely if someone has been that bad, a simple acceptance of a free gift is not right!

What we need to understand however, is that acceptance is not about saying a few words.

Jesus in fact addressed this directly just two chapters before the one we are in now. Back in , Jesus tells us that many will say “Lord, Lord...” but he will say “I never knew you”.

The point is that accepting the love of Jesus means allowing the spirit to transform you. That transformative work is an ongoing process, so don’t be alarmed if you haven’t got it all together, in fact, this side of Christ return, the sinful nature will always have an affect on us, but if you’ve truly accepted Christ, then there needs to be some evidence of the spirit working in your life.

So, for the rapist, murderer and pedophile, just like us, they have the same opportunity to accept the love of Christ and to allow the spirit to transform them into the likeness of Christ.

Ticket to sin?

Now there is another clash we find in the two narratives.

You see, the worldly narrative I’ve been speaking about, is actually really good for behavioural management.

You see, we can reduce the narrative to the idea that if you do good, you will get accepted, if you do bad, you will be punished. We can use this strategy to good effect with children, even with the common punishment for bad behaviour being time out.

But this idea can clash with the idea that everyone is loved. This clash then finds its release point with the objection: isn’t unconditional love just a ticket to keep on sinning?

If God loves us unconditionally, where is the incentive to live better?

Paul actually addresses this objection very explicitly in his letter to the Romans. But I’m just going to give a very brief explanation.

You see, as I described with the previous objection, the love of God is actually transformative.

You see, it is easy to think, God will love us when we change, but the reality is, it’s God’s love that allows us to change.

So rather than God’s love being a ticket to sin, God’s love enables us to change for the better.

Application

I want to come back now to consider what the implication of this is for us.

Accepting ourselves

The first implication is about how we see ourselves.

Depression is rife in our society. Now I recognise that there are many different reasons for this. But as we get into depressive modes, and let’s face it, everyone goes through some depressive moments, even if only minor. But as we go through depressive times, it is so easy to think no one loves us.

Now I also recognise that there is not a simple answer to depression. And if you suffer significantly from this, I would urge you to seek help.

But one aspect of getting through these times can be to meditate on the truths of God’s love for us.

Meditate on passages like which describes the love of God. Or on which describe the true nature of love.

This will help counter the worldly narrative of love, one which is highly conditional and forces us to think that perhaps we don’t fit.

The reality is that God does love you and even though the world may let you down, God will always be by your side.

Loving others

But I also want to consider another implication of God’s love, and that is the way in which we show love to others.

You see, if God unconditionally loves us, then we too need to show unconditional love for others.

Now this is not always easy. It’s not easy because we get hurt. I suspect that’s actually why the worldly narrative of conditional love started - self protection.

But we need to love the person, even when they don’t have a nice word to say about you.

We need to love the person who has no strategic benefit to you at all.

This in fact is part of our vision statement here at Tanilba Bay. To Love, Share and Serve.

Love is the thing that drives us, but not the conditional love that we are used to. Rather the love that Jesus shows. The love that finds the person with the worst reputation and says “follow me”.

This kind of love is not neat and clean. At times it is very messy and ugly.

You see, it is very easy to say we love everyone, but the question we need to ask is: how are we showing this love to the unlovable?

I recognise that’s not an easy question to answer, but it is one we need to think about, both as individuals and as a church.

Conclusion

God’s love truly is very different to what the world knows. It clashes with our thought that some people are just unlovable.

But it truly is the most amazing thing that this world has ever known. God’s love is the thing that drives everything God does.

I want to end with some of the words the Apostle Paul wrote as he concluded the powerful words he wrote in . The whole chapter is extraordinarily powerful, but I’m going to pick it up at verse 35:

Romans 8:35–39 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:3

Let me pray...