LOVE LIKE THAT: How is this even possible?

As I’ve mentioned each week, you may not even be part of a church, but something inside of you gravitates toward having a more loving marriage, family, and friendships.

In fact, don’t we look for solutions in all the relationship challenges we face?

Who wouldn’t want to have a better marriage or a better environment at work or school?

I’d like to get along better with people that might even call me an enemy.

We’re in a series called LOVE LIKE THAT.

Each week I’ve been emphasizing what you already know: none of us have arrived yet.

We are all trying to figure it out, trying to get it right.

Largely because we know the stakes are so high.

All of us intuitively know that our actions, even our intentions can and do have a generational impact.

So, this is something we want to get right.

Last week we covered the chapter on Self-Giving and, while Les didn’t do a sermon on his concluding chapter, I thought it would be good for us to pull a few things out of it and to be reminded of some things we already know.

Today we are going to talk about three things.

We can’t do this.

Jesus will do it through us.

What does it look like when we love like Jesus? Real-world examples from this week.

I have hinted at this throughout this series, and most likely you either already knew it or have figured it out.

We can’t Love Like That.

I know it seems like a terrible way to end a series that focuses on how to love like Jesus, but the reality is that we just can’t.

In fact, most of us have already spent years or maybe even decades dedicated to trying to do what Dr. Parrot describes.

We have spent innumerable hours devoted to trying to make ourselves love better.

After all, it is would be good for us to be more like Jesus.

We like the idea of things...

What I mean by that is we can see or hear something and think “man, it would be awesome if I could do that.”

Have you ever felt that.

A few years ago I fell down a YouTube rabbit whole and found a master carpenters page and I fell in love with it.

I’m not talking about rough carpentry like house framing.

I’m talking about precision, hand cut, perfection.

He would use razors to mark lines, scalpel sharp chisels, and hand crafted wooden mallets to make perfect dovetails.

He used exotic woods and would hand plane it to make these beautifully ornate boxes.

I mean, they were just incredible.

I LOVED IT!

That year for my birthday I asked for wood working tools.

I bought a wood vise and cleared a section on my work bench, bought a diamond blade sharpener, and convinced myself that I could make what he was making.

Guess what.

All those tools are collecting dust in my tool box and I didn’t make one thing.

I mean, I tried to make some custom drawers for a cabinet, and a few other items, but none of it came out right.

Things weren’t square and I quickly got frustrated and just quit.

I loved the idea of being a master carpenter and was even willing to invest some time and money into it, but it didn’t last.

As soon as I began to try and then failed, I quit.

I know that all of us in this room have had similar experiences.

Yours may not be carpentry, but I bet there was something or even some things.

You guys are smart, you know where I’m going with this.

We have had the same exact experiences with our religious life.

We heard a great message, the preacher really stepped on your toes, or read a really motivating author and thought, “this is it, I’m changing my life (fill in the blank).”

What was the result and how long did it last?

We like the idea of being better humans.

We want to be like Jesus and to love like He did, but we all know, deep down, that it isn’t sustainable.

Yesterday morning, Carey sent me a link to Utmost and said he thought it fit perfectly for where we are in this series and he was right.

Some of you also know that his family is in the middle of something significant that is driving this point home right now.

Listen to this devotional and notice what Oswald is saying.

It is entitled, Spontaneous Love.

Love is not premeditated– it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul’s description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, “Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe.” No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity.

We don’t deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.

The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it “has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5). If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don’t love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.

Oswald is putting to words what we already know, On our own, we can’t love like Jesus.

He references some very popular words from Paul.

Even if you have never been to church or read the bible, you have probably read these words on something inspirational or heard them read at a wedding.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NLT

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Oswald is pointing out that it is absurd for us to think that this comes naturally to us.

He even quotes part of Romans 5:5 where it says that this is only in us through the Holy Spirit.

The first step in loving like Jesus is to realize that if we attempt this in our own power, we will fail and make God look bad in the process.

So what do we do?

Where do we start?

How does a person's nature completely change?

Look with me again at the theme passage for this study.

Ephesians 5:1–2 (The Message)

1 Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. 2 Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

If you are taking notes this morning, I want you to underline or write out some parts of these verses.

Paul is telling us that if we want to love like Jesus, we do that by watching, keeping company, and observing Jesus.

Gosh, there is a better word to describe all this...

It’s on the tip of my tongue...

What is the word?

Ah, thank you.

ABIDE

Romans 5:5 NLT

5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Jesus will do it through us.

A focal passage for us as a Gathering Place Church is John chapter 15.

John 15:5 CSB

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.

It is only through abiding in Jesus that we can love like Him.

Can I just say that as I was reading this book for the first time, I loved what Dr. Parrot was saying, but it also gave me a lot of anxiety?

It was such a relief when I got to this last chapter and the first line was from John 15.

At that moment, I was on board with what he was saying.

Many of us are still recovering from all the years of trying to be like Jesus on our own.

But when we take what we have learned about abiding and combine it with a focus on loving like Jesus, things start happening.

I want to share a story with you of something that happened this week.

I don’t know the full extent of what God will do long term, but the short term is pretty cool.

A conversation with construction workers:

I make a point to be as authentic as possible with the people that I work with.

If I’m struggling, I let people see it.

If I’m excited, I make sure people know.

Specifically when I’m at work, when people find out that I’m a pastor, they immediately change their behavior or apologize for something they have said.

I always tell them the same thing.

You be you, don’t change how you act on account of me.

I want people to know that I don’t and won’t judge them.

I am essentially asking them to be authentic as well.

Life is better that way.

As a result, people are more willing to open up and talk about things that matter.

This Friday, I got to go work along side one of our crews and God did something amazing.

In front of everyone, one of the guys said, “Will, since you’re a pastor, I have a question.”

I can’t go into the details because we have some little ears in here, but it was a really good/hard question.

One that doesn’t have an easy answer.

I didn’t realize it when he asked, but he has a family member who is dealing with this particular sin and he wanted my opinion about it.

I think what he really wanted was for me to tell it as okay to be upset or even disown this family member.

In the moment, I asked God what to say, and He said to tell him to love the person.

I got to talk with our whole crew about the fact that Jesus loves us, in the middle of our sins.

We all sin, all need forgiveness, and we all get it from Jesus.

That doesn’t mean that Jesus is okay with our sin, but he doesn’t stop loving us.

We should respond to others in the same way.

While I don’t think it was the answer he was looking for, it sparked up a conversation about God’s love and forgiveness amongst the whole crew!

We spent the next fifteen minutes discussing God’s love for people.

I didn’t realize it until the next day, but Jesus had me respond the same way he did when the Pharisees brought the adulteress women.

I knew that my response was decent, but I didn’t realize until later the full extent of what Jesus had done through me.

This is what moment-by-moment abiding looks like.

I wasn’t sure what the right response was, but I knew God did.

I asked God, did what he said, and God did what only he can do, He had our whole crew talking about the love of Jesus.

I want you to understand that when the question was asked, I didn’t immediately know how to respond.

I haven’t had specific training in how to deal with what he asked.

But what I do have is the Holy Spirit living inside of me.

I just asked God and then responded as he led.

I am not the hero of this story, Jesus is the hero.

I am confident that you have been in similar situations and you have the same Spirit living in you as I do.

Paul writes to the church in Colosse about how God reveals himself through us.

Colossians 1:26–27 NLT

26 This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. 27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

As we stay connected to the vine, as we watch and observe what God is doing around us, He will share His glory through you!

We don’t love like Jesus by trying really hard.

We love like Jesus by letting Jesus, who lives in us, work through us!

We don’t need motivation, skills, or the right setting.

We only need to abide in Jesus and He will do the rest.

What does it look like when we love like Jesus?

Over the past five weeks, we have looked at five specific characteristics of Jesus’s love.

Mindful - BEING MINDFUL OF OTHERS, AS JESUS WAS, REQUIRES INTENTIONALLY SETTING ASIDE OUR OWN AGENDA.

Approachable - LOVING LIKE JESUS MEANS PEOPLE KNOW YOU ARE APPROACHABLE, OPEN-ARMED TO EVERYONE.

Grace-Full - ENGAGING PEOPLE WITH GRACE, NOT JUDGMENT, IS THE LOVING ACTION.

Bold - TRUTHFULNESS IS AT THE CENTER OF A MORE LOVING LIFE. IT’S WHAT MAKES US AUTHENTIC.

Self-Giving - HUMILITY IS NOT PUTTING YOURSELF DOWN BUT LIFTING OTHERS UP.

Trying to be really good at just one of these is impossible, let alone all five.

But, if we will abide in Christ and let him exhibit these qualities through us, the world around us will begin to see who Jesus is!

We have all heard people talk about the hypocrisy they see in the church and they aren’t wrong.

As we’ve already discussed, many of us spent a lot of time trying to be something we weren’t.

On the opposite side of that spectrum, if we will be real and let Jesus live through us, the world will begin to see authenticity.

The world will be drawn in, not turned away.

One last story this morning.

Over the last month or so since we began the Thursday night ministry, Craig Glasscock has been inviting some of the young men he works with to join us.

Now, I don’t know what all Craig has said about what we do.

What I do know is that his work environment isn’t ideal, to say the least.

We all know what that is like...

However, in spite of the trouble at work, Craig has been abiding and it shows.

This Thursday one of the guys he has been inviting came to play ball.

After the first game, we break, grab a drink, and I lead a 10 minute devo.

I’ll be honest, I thought my lesson kind of fell flat.

I prayed about what to teach and really felt like I was teaching what God wanted, but the guys didn’t respond as I thought they would.

It’s okay, I’ve learned many times that the message is God’s and the response is up to him as well.

Craig called me Friday, which by the way, I didn’t know the guy worked with him, and told me that the guy brought the lesson up at work.

What!?!

I thought my lesson didn’t do anything, but apparently I was wrong.

I made an off hand comment about how much my relationship with God changed about 10-12 years ago, but I didn’t explain why.

This guy asked Craig what I meant by that and what happened.

Craig wasn’t 100% sure what I was refering to, but because he knows my story, he had a pretty good idea.

Craig got to have a conversation, at work, about what it means to abide and how God wants do life with us.

Craig didn’t do anything other than abiding.

As he has followed God’s leading, he is making a difference in the people that he works with.

When Jesus began His ministry he turned the world upside down.

But it wasn’t just his miracles, it was the way he loved people.

We know the story of the woman at the well.

There was no physical healing or other miracles that happened.

Jesus strikes up a conversation and reveals his love through it.

If you go back and look at it later you will see all five characteristics that we have been discussing.

It isn’t the conversation that I want to focus on this morning, but rather, I want us to look at what happened after Jesus had a loving conversation with her.

Let’s pick up just after this interaction at the well and see what happened.

John 4:39–42 NLT

39 Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” 40 When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, 41 long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. 42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Here is a woman who had a conversation with Jesus.

As they talked, she experienced His love and it changed her.

She was so excited about what Jesus did in HER life that she went and told everyone.

Their interest peaked because of what Jesus did in HER life.

Then the people went to experience Jesus for themselves.

As a result of her story and their personal experience, they choose to believe that Jesus was the messiah.

This is the goal!

The goal is for each of us to have daily experiences with God, to be so excited about it that we can’t help but tell others, for them to hear the story, and then go check out God for themselves.

This woman didn’t have fancy words or know some special way to present the gospel.

She literally went to town, to the people she knew, and told them what she discovered in Jesus.

The result of her story was many more people hearing the message and choosing to believe Jesus.

In case you haven’t realized it, we have been practicing telling our stories for over a year!

We have spent these last five weeks learning how Jesus loved.

It is good to know how it works, but that isn’t the most important part.

The most important part of Loving Like Jesus is abiding in him.

Or as Paul said it, “Watch what God does, and then you do it… Jesus gave everything of himself… LOVE LIKE THAT!

I want to close out today back in John 15 to be reminded of how all this functionally works.

John 15:7–8 CSB

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

God wants to work in you and through you.

He wants to produce much fruit in your life.

All that is required for this to happen is for you to make a decision every day to abide in Jesus.

This is what it means to be in a relationship with Jesus and as we experience it for ourselves, we are also modeling it for others.

As we abide, God is glorified, and people are drawn to Jesus.

Do you want to LOVE LIKE JESUS?

Then abide in him.

Let’s pray.

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