Love: Head, Heart, Hands

Opener

In 1969, the Beatles published their album Yellow Submarine. Part of that album was a song called “All You Need Is Love.” The message of the song is basically that there is nothing you can’t do, no one you can’t help, nothing you can’t learn, nothing you can’t accomplish. There is a superpower within you, the song argues, and with that superpower there nothing you can’t achieve. What is that superpower? It’s love.

Now the thing about this song is that there is nothing in the song to explain what kind of love they mean: is it romantic love, neighbor love, friendship love? The song doesn’t tell us. How does it operate? The song doesn’t tell us. What does it look like and what are its characteristics? The song doesn’t tell us. How can we get it for ourselves? The song doesn’t tell us.

I like the song. I like the Beatles. And I know one song can’t begin to say everything there is to say about love or anything else. But the song illustrates the point I want to make: our culture is hopelessly confused about what love is - what real love, biblical love, true love, Christian love - is.

This is part of our sermon series on summer theme. What was last year’s summer theme?

What is this year’s summer theme?

Be The Church.

You can see the permanent logo for our church on your screen.

Now you can see the summer theme on your screen. Be The Church. What does it mean to be the church? It means to worship, serve, grow, and love. It’s the purpose of these sermons to help you understand what it looks like to worship, grow, love, and serve.

May the Lord bless the preaching of His word.

#1: Christian love for others originates in God’s love for us

Our love for others originates in God’s love for us. That is to say, love comes from God. Real love comes from God.

1 John 4:9–10 ESV

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

We see this in 1 John 4:9-10 on your screen. The apostle John writes, “in this the love of God was made manifest among us” - in other words, this is how God has shown us His love. How? “that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” God is love, John also says. God is not merely a loving God; He is love itself. We are broken lovers. We are called to love God with all that we are and our neighbor as ourselves. But we cannot do this on our own. Sin has left us selfish and self-centered, and as a result we are to varying degrees selfish and self-centered lovers.

And that’s what John means when he then says in verse 10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation” - or the sacrifice that atones for our sins, the offering Christ offered in offering Himself on the cross for us and in our place. God’s wrath toward us was exhausted and absorbed by Jesus; the penalty for us breaking the law is death, and Jesus satisfied that penalty. God has sent His Son to us when He needed Him the most and when we could do absolutely nothing to repay Him. That is love. Not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us.

You’ve probably heard it said that you can’t love others if you don’t love yourself? No, that’s not true. Some of you might not like me saying this: Our deepest need church is not to grow to love ourselves; our deepest need is to understand God’s love for us. Then we can learn to love others.

The Bible seems to be pretty clear in saying to us that we already love ourselves and that moreover this self-love is the root of all of our problems. Self-love drains us and leaves us feeling empty and hopeless and unloved. His love fills us up. And out of that fullness, we learn to love others.

Christian love for others originates in God.

#2: Christian love for others is shaped by the truth of Scripture (Head)

The second thing the Bible teaches us about true love is that Christian love is shaped by the truth of Scripture.

We see this in 1Cor. 13:6.

1 Corinthians 13:6 ESV

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

Our culture’s definition of love disagrees. Our culture’s idea of love says that if you love me, you must affirm everything about me. If you love me, you will celebrate every choice I make. But church, that is not love. I don’t always make the best decisions; some of my decisions you cannot and should not celebrate. Not everything about me needs to be affirmed. Some things about me need to be called out for the sin that it is.

And when Paul writes that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing”, he means just that. He means that real love does not celebrate sin. Real love does not affirm what is wrong. True love does not condone the things about us that work against love and destroy it.

True love does, however, Paul says, rejoice with the truth. What does that mean? What is the truth? Our culture is just as confused on what the truth is as they are about love.

It means the contents of the OT and NT. It means the character and attributes of God as described in the Bible. It means the commandments and instructions for living found in both the OT and the NT. And especially for Paul and the apostles, means the gospel according to Scripture; the truth that Jesus Christ came and took on flesh and lived a perfect life for me and died a substitutionary atoning death for me and rose in victory to give me eternal life and resurrection power to not only spend eternity with Him in heaven but also to begin learning how to live a holy and godly life here. That is the truth.

That means it gives me tremendous joy to see you all grow in your relationship with Christ. It gives me tremendous joy to know that you all are fighting temptation and confessing sin when you fail and receiving grace when you fail. It should give you joy to see your fellow church members learn to love and show mercy. It should give you joy to see.

It gave me tremendous joy to see that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday. I cannot affirm or celebrate abortion. That would be as Paul says to rejoice at wrongdoing. I don’t think abortion is an unforgivable sin. I don’t think women who have had abortions are monsters who don’t love their children. I think most women who have abortions are in what seems to them to be an impossible situation. And they’re simply taking the path that our society says will bring them the most fulfillment and happiness in life.

I also think churches have a responsibility to really prove that they’re pro-life when it comes to these women. I think now that Roe v. Wade is overturned, now is our time, church. We claim to love the women who are walking into the abortion clinic. Will we?

It’s easy to hold up a sign. It’s harder to befriend a pregnant teenage girl and bring her into your home and give her a place to live and support her financially and emotionally and spiritually all the way through pregnancy and after. If we’re going to ask women to do the hard thing and bring their babies to term, we need to be there for them in that hard thing just like we would anybody else who’s going through any kind of struggle.

It does not give me tremendous joy to hear that a dear friend of mine has left his famliy and his wife for another woman. I cannot affirm that . I cannot celebrate that. I will still love him and be in his corner, but being in his corner will mean that I pray for him and with every opportunity I have I will encourage him to do the right thing and go home. “I have no greater joy”, the apostle John said, “than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3John 4 ESV).

Our love for others is shaped by the truth of Scripture. In other words, love begins with the mind (head).

#3: Christian love for others should engage our affections (Heart)

Our love for others should engage our affections.

Let’s recap the last three Sundays.

Remember Mr. Head? He’s the thinker. He’s not in touch with what’s going on in his heart. Mr. Head, when he loves, tends to be all abstract. Rules and procedures and policies tend to matter more than people and relationships for Mr. Head.

How about Mr. Heart? Mr. Heart is the feeler. Mr. Heart would rather not talk about anything controversial. He’s not going to bring up a topic that could be offensive because he’s so concerned about the sensitivity of the person. People matter more than procedures and policies.

And lastly, I give you Mr. Hand. Mr. Hand is not a feeler or a think but rather a doer. He’d rather not talk about whether a person is doing the right thing; and he’s not too affectionate in his love. But he’ll be the first one on the scene when the person he loves needs something.

Now, which one are you? Are you a thinker, a feeler, or a doer? All of us gravitate toward one of those things. It’s just the way God has wired us. But there’s the problem: Mr. Head, Mr. Heart, and Mr. Hand tend to think that everyone should be like them. We take the way God has wired us and make it a standard for everyone else, and when fail to measure up to that standard, we judge others who aren’t like us.

God gave every person a head, a heart, and two hands. And He intends for us to grow in all three - head, heart, and hands.

So, our love for others not only must be shaped by the truth; our love for others should take root in our hearts, involve our affections. Meaning we should feel something.

We see this in the life of Jesus.

Matthew 9:35–38 ESV

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Mark 10:17–22 ESV

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ ” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Jesus’ love for people was shaped by the truth because He is the truth. But His love for others was something he experienced, something that moved him deeply. His love therefore not only was shaped by the truth but it also originated in his heart.

Now here’s a question I’ve been asked a few times. “Do I have to like people? Or can I just love them and not like them?”

How would you answer that?

I mean, technically it is true that the command is love your neighbor, not like your neighbor. So technically all you have to do is love the person that you can’t stand. You don’t have to like them.

But here’s the problem: Christians aren’t the kind of people who say, “The law says I have to go this far, and no further.” Christians are called to go beyond mere duty. Jesus spoke of going the second mile with someone who asks you to go one. He said “if anyone would sue you take and take your tunic, give him your cloak as well” (Matt. 5:40 ESV). In other words, Christians go the extra mile.

Is liking someone going the extra mile when all you were asked to do was love them?

Do I have to like them?

Does God love you? Yes

Do you deserve His love? No

Does God like you? Yes

Should your love model His? Yes

Did God give you the ability to love them? Yes

Can God give you the ability to like them? Yes

Think of that person you know that’s hard to love and hard to like. Now I’m going to ask you some questions by way of me asking myself some questions.

Does God love me? Yes. Do I deserve His love? No. Does God like me? I think He loves us and genuinely likes us. Should my love model His? And if so, then am I called to love and like? Maybe. Is the person you’re thinking about hard to like? They’re probably also for the same reason hard to love. Did God give you the ability to love them? And if He did, can He not also give you the ability to like them? I think I can.

This is getting harder, isn’t it?

Do you want to overcome your dislike for someone? Pray for them every time you see them or think of them.

There was a person that at one time in ministry many years ago, I found myself experiencing some resentment. I did not like this person. And that made it hard to love this person. They were hard to love and hard to like. I decided one day that I couldn’t preach Jesus’ command to love others if I wasn’t living it myself. So I decided to try praying for this person every single time a negative thought about them came to my mind. God used that to soften my heart towad this person so that now, almost six years later, I still have genuine affection for this person, even though I doubt very seriously that the feeling is mutual.

I sincerely believe that God can change your heart too.

Our love for others comes from God. Our love for others is shaped by the truth of Scripture. Our love for others should involve our affections. Next, our love for others must extend even to those who hate us.

#4: Christian love for others must extend even to those who hate us (Heart)

Our love for others must extend even to those who hate us. This also involves the heart.

Matthew 5:43–47 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Do you know the story of Elizabeth Elliot? Elizabeth was the wife of missionary John Eliot. John and Elizabeth along with a few other couples believed strongly God was calling them in the 1950s to go plant themselves in the jungles of Ecuador. Their target group was a tribal people called the Aucas.

The Aucas were fierce. Most often when people went into that remote area of Ecuador, they didn’t come out. Just a decade or so earlier, eight Shell Oil employees were brutally murdered by the Aucas. The three young men went anyway, but they would not be the ones who bring the gospel finally to the Aucas. John Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian - their bodies were pulled out of the river with spears still embedded in them. The Aucas were frightened and did what they felt they had to do to protect their families.

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember when this happened. Major newspaper outlets immediately sent correspondants to Quito in Ecuador. Their deaths made international news.

But in the wake all of this publicity, something happened which didn’t make the news. Elizabeth Elliot went back to the Aucas who murdered her husband and forgave them, made peace with them, shared the gospel with them, some were born again and became disciples of Jesus. A quiet gospel movement was born in the jungles of Ecuador because the love of these women extended even to their enemies, even to the people who murdered their husbands. [Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, 2nd ed., pp. 352-60]

Love is the mark of the Christian.

And, Christian love shows itself most clearly when we stand to gain absolutely nothing from the one we love. That is to say, Christian love shows itself most clearly when it is the enemy who is loved. My claim to be a loving person is tested and proved when God brings the enemy across my path and says, “Love him as I have loved you. Love her, your enemy, as I loved you and gave myself for you when you were my enemy.”

Our love for others must extend even to those who are our enemies. That’s the heart of love. Now we move to the hands.

#5: Christian love for others must result in practical help and good works (Hands)

Our love for others must result in practical help and good works.

Deuteronomy 15:7–8 ESV

“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.

The apostle John picks up on this language and writes something similar in his letter to the church in Ephesus:

1 John 3:16–17 ESV

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

Our love for others must show itself in practical help and good works.

In a special Christmas Eve issue, USA Today ran a story on the many charity organizations in America. Now, USA Today is a secular institution. So of course they avoided any explicitly Christian organizations. But I wonder if they knew that out of the 25 other organizations they listed, at least eight had Christian founders or Christian connections. [Mark Coppenger, Moral Apologetics, pp. 189ff]

Some of these include organizations we’re familiar with, like Big Brothers, Big Sisters; America’s Second Harvest; Habitat for Humanity; Good Will Industries International; and American Red Cross. I’m not saying those organizations are run by Christians. I’m saying they’ve been influenced by Christian principles they might not even be aware of.

The whole civil rights movement in the 1960s was led by a man who was a Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. He was a Christian pastor, and it was His Christianity that compelled him to work for racial justice and equality. That civil rights movement of the 1960s would barely recognize the racial justice movement of today. The current racial justice movement is driven by Marxist ideology. King and his movement were driven by Jesus Christ.

King understood what the founders of those organizations understood, what USA Today did not understand, which is that Christian love for others is often what is behind real, practical help for other people.

Christian love for other people must show itself in practical help and good works. Lastly, Christian love for other people is the test of our sincerity.

#6: Christian love for others is the proof that our faith is genuine(Hands)

Look with me at what the apostle John says. He has so much to say about love in his three letters in the NT.

John says this: notice the claim and then the proof.

1 John 4:20 ESV

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

“If anyone says “I love God” - that’s the claim, that’s the profession of faith - now notice the proof one way or the other - “if anyone says ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother” - that’s the proof, the evidence, and here’s the verdict: “he is a liar.” For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Jesus also taught this. He taught that our love for each other would be the proof not so much for us but for the watching world: John 13:35

John 13:35 ESV

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

So our witness rests on our ability to love others. The validity of our profession rests on our ability to actually love others, not just talk about it.

This is basically the idea that it’s one thing to talk the talk and another thing to walk the walk. It’s easy to say you’re a Christian, at least in America; it’s harder to actually live like one. Thankfully, it’s not complicated. Do you want to live like a Christian? Love other people. Do you want your faith to be proven to be sincere, genuine? Love other people.

Conclusion and call for response

Christian love for other people originates in God’s love for us. Christian love for other people is shaped by the truth. Christian love for other people should engage our affections. Christian love for other people must result in practical help and good works. Christian love for other people must extend even to our enemy. And lastly, Christian love for other people is the proof that our faith is genuine.

So let me help you process this this morning with a question. Which one of those gave you trouble?

I’m assuming that one of the points gave you trouble. I’m assuming that because I know that talking about love very quickly reveals the idols of our heart.

Maybe you struggle to think of helping those who need it - after all, they’ve had the same opportunities you’ve had. If they didn’t make a life for themselves, that’s their fault, not mine.

Or maybe it’s the enemy thing for you. “I’m just supposed to overlook all that he’s done to me over the years?”

Maybe for you it’s the truth thing. “I just want to love people and welcome them. Why do we have to worry about what’s right and wrong?”

Maybe for you it’s God’s love for us. You have a hard time believing that God loves you, or that He’s a good Father. “People have hurt me; they’ve let me down. How do I know God is any different?”

As we bring our service to a close, that is where you need God to deal with you. That discomfort is precisely where God wants to do His work in us. So my encouragement to you this morning is to bring that discomfort to Him. Offer it to Him. And in love He will take that and replace it with His love.

Maybe you’re here this morning and you haven’t entrusted your soul to Jesus Christ. Maybe you made a profession of faith at a young age and you feel like it wasn’t sincere. Or maybe you’ve never made a profession of faith. Never been baptized. God is calling you to salvation this morning. It is never too late.

Maybe God is calling you to commit to Him in another way, maybe by rededicating your life to Him. Or by joining this church if you’ve been attending for a while and you feel this is where God is leading you. The point is: wherever you’re at today, God is calling you to respond to Him this morning.