Sermon from Pixley UB

"The Problem with Love"

1 John 3:11-24

“We should love one another.” Seems obvious. That is the right Christian thing to do. But we live in the real world, where resentments, anger, grudges, violence dominate. Look around. Daily we hear stories of people not being loved - killed, assaulted, bullied, sued, terrorized, abused. It happens to everyone, whether you are at home, office, school, Christian or not. Things are not all rosy within churches either, if you read the pages of the Bible, you’ll find what happens in the real world also happens in the lives of Christian. People are not getting along with each other. People are living with hatred, which the Bible equates as murder in their hearts. It seems like our world is overrun with the Cain syndrome. In short, real Christian love is rare. That’s a real problem. We have so few models of real Christian love. We hardly know what real Christian love is all about.

The only thing we can do is look at an out of this world example:

Look at Jesus Christ -- he showed us and taught what real Christian love is:

“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” (v. 16).

A 10 yr old boy was failing math. His parents did everything they could think of, even hired tutors. Finally, as a last resort, they decided to send him to Catholic school. Right on the first day of school he began to spend every night pouring over his books. When the first report card came back, he had an A for math. So the parents were curious "What made the difference?" they asked. "The nuns, the textbooks?" "Well, I never took math seriously but the first day I walked into math class I saw that right up in front of the class they had this guy nailed to a plus sign. I knew then they meant business."

Jesus meant business when he showed us what love is. He was nailed to cross because he was serious about sin -- how it can kill off any hope of relationship with God or other people.

We broke all the rules and Jesus could have spent eternity counting all our infractions, mistakes, every sin -- but what did he do instead to communicate love to His family, whom the Father calls His children? Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. He chose to forgive, to love with action, coming and die in our place. So the Bible teaches us in 1 John 2:2 “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Parents, you love your kids don’t you? You lay down your life for them don’t you? When they’re babies it goes somewhat like this: you bathe them, you feed them, play with them, sing to them, acquire another skill BSL -- baby as second language -- rock them to sleep. When they cry for help you are there to pick them up. You watch them like a hawk if they waddle to close to danger. In other words you have no life. You lay down your life, right? Laying down your life does not mean you smother them; it means giving them room to fail too. Picture this, as they learn to walk, you don’t say to them, “Oh you fell down, poor little thing. You fell again and again and again. I guess that means you can’t do this walking thing, so we’ll strap you down to a wheelchair for life.” No one does that, right?

Love means allowing for growth through failure, looking towards future potential. Love means not expecting that other people will get it, the first time. Or second time or third time. Love means forgiving the baby steps people take in their journey. Love means knowing in your heart people are worth it. They are coming along for the ride but not many are good drivers. People are on a journey; they have not arrived yet! It’s hard to think that way when Christian people let you down. It is even harder when you think they should be mature enough to not let you down, but people do, and will continue to do so; because they are not God. Look at Jesus; he looked towards future potential, towards joy as he endured suffering of people’s sins (Heb.12).

But so for many people in and out of the church. Their expectation is that real Christian people should get it right the first time. No room for failure. No room to learn to grow. This is how we get into trouble. The church becomes graceless, restricting, and rules of how to behave dominate. Every failure and infraction becomes ammunition to nail others to the door. “You let me down because the rules say you need to come through for me every time.”

People are shown the door rather than welcomed. Instead of the church seeking the sinner, the lost, it would be saying “Sinners, get lost!” Instead of gathering sinners and becoming a family the church becomes like a government bureaucracy, if you don’t fill out the right forms, the right way, you are out of luck, you don’t get any benefits.

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am." The woman below replied, "You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip."
The woman below responded, "You must be a Politician."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault."

How does it help anyone, if we start blaming people, getting technical, for every disappointment we feel? Can we be less historical (not hysterical), citing every infraction, feeling every slight as an offence punishable by death? “You didn’t do this for me, but you did it for George and Sally on their birthdays. How can you forget me? I thought you were supposed to be Christians and love me.” We can become as exacting and calculating as the Pharisees, noting every infraction of the law, to the minutest detail. Carrying a grudge until kingdom come! Like Cain in Bible story who carried a grudge against his brother Abel, it led to first recorded homicide in the world. In fact the Bible is clear when the hating begins, murder is the outcome. No wonder ever since Cain, the world has hardly seen much peace. Always there are wars and rumors of wars. Therefore the experience of love and acceptance and forgiveness is almost non-existent. As a result, their version of Christianity becomes joyless, like Cain his life became joyless, speaking of rules rather than love “Am I brother’s keeper?”

“We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him” (vs. 14, 15).

Do you know God delights in you? Read 3:1. Once we really get this, appropriate it, personally receive it in our heads, hearts, in our programming, what real love is, the laying down your life -- Christ-like love -- it is only then will we have true power.

Memorize it. Revel in it.

Look deep within ourselves

What’s at stake here? We are told “to love in actions and in truth” do we love in the truth of 3:1? Why are we carrying the grudge? How am I laying down my life for my brother or sister? Could it be that we have not really tasted richly of God’s love? A heart that has not tasted the truth of Christ’s passion, the thrill of the prospect of what will be, and the prospect of transformation (3:2), will have little to give to transform what was hatred into love.

Look at Jesus again, in the moment of pain, laying down his life he looked ahead to joy, to prospect of perfection, the prospect of what will be when we see Him face to face, of personal relationship.

I think we could learn a lot from crayons: Some are sharp, some are dull, some are pretty, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box. When others do weird things, it may not be pretty to you, they may look dull to you, you may call them weird names, remember we are in same box - the common experience and life we have in the love of Jesus Christ. The minute we carry a grudge we are in danger of saying “forget that we are in the same box” or we have forgotten how great the Father’s love is for you.

Look at others through Christ’s love.

Love is always building up another person. Maturity is living with the tension of what people can be and what they are now. “Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love” Ephesians 4:2 (NLT). Love is not merely feeling mushy -- but love has the goal of looking after another’s welfare - by doing something tangible. It is not just words, nor does it exist in brainwaves. And when others in your perception are not doing their part, do you then take an “an eye for an eye” approach? “You poked my eye, well, I will poke your eyes out” or because you don’t come through for me the way I want, I won’t have anything to do with you? Someone said: “A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.” Others may put you on a detour but enjoy the scenery.

Stop evaluating others by what the world thinks but see each other as new creations (2 Cor.5:16-17).

Look at the benefits.

1.           When we learn to love in actions and in truth, we will have great confidence before God.

Sometimes, our conscience can play tricks on us, but it we can be at rest if the evidence of actions and truth is obvious, if we are shifting the focus to others, not to ourselves. Whenever you feel condemned you can go back and point to the concrete things you did, the sacrifice you’ve shown, that will put to rest whether you love another or not.

“This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (vs. 19-21).

God knows you better than you do, he knows everything.

2.           When we learn to love in actions and in truth, our prayer life will be more effective;

“and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us” (vs. 22, 23).

3.           When we learn to love in actions and in truth, we gain a closer intimacy with God

“Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us” (v. 24).

Conclusion:

Seeing how much God loves us -- knowing the love of the Father (3:1) is the foundation for us to move ahead. Get the security we long for by faith from that. It takes faith to believe that when we feel hurt by a brother that this is all part of growing up, that others are on a journey, that others are in growing; figuring out their walk with God, taking baby steps to Christ. It takes faith to believe I am worth dying for by Jesus when someone does not seem to want to lay down their lives for me. It takes incredible faith to move towards someone courageously and say “I forgive you” when it hurts like crazy inwardly. It takes enormous faith to believe that God sees what you did for the welfare of another when you suspect they are cursing you behind your back. Take what you feel, what you perceive, what you go through and put it in the larger picture of God’s love for you. That’s enough for me.



	"The Problem with Love"
	1 John 3:11-24
	“We should love one another.” Seems obvious. That is the right Christian thing to do. But we live in the real world, where resentments, anger, grudges, violence dominate. Look around. Daily we hear stories of people not being loved - killed, assaulted, bullied, sued, terrorized, abused. It happens to everyone, whether you are at home, office, school, Christian or not. Things are not all rosy within churches either, if you read the pages of the Bible, you’ll find what happens in the real world also happens in the lives of Christian. People are not getting along with each other. People are living with hatred, which the Bible equates as murder in their hearts. It seems like our world is overrun with the Cain syndrome. In short, real Christian love is rare. That’s a real problem. We have so few models of real Christian love. We hardly know what real Christian love is all about. The only thing we can do is look at an out of this world example: Look at Jesus Christ -- he showed us and taught what real Christian love is: “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” (v. 16). A 10 yr old boy was failing math. His parents did everything they could think of, even hired tutors. Finally, as a last resort, they decided to send him to Catholic school. Right on the first day of school he began to spend every night pouring over his books. When the first report card came back, he had an A for math. So the parents were curious "What made the difference?" they asked. "The nuns, the textbooks?" "Well, I never took math seriously but the first day I walked into math class I saw that right up in front of the class they had this guy nailed to a plus sign. I knew then they meant business." Jesus meant business when he showed us what love is. He was nailed to cross because he was serious about sin -- how it can kill off any hope of relationship with God or other people. We broke all the rules and Jesus could have spent eternity counting all our infractions, mistakes, every sin -- but what did he do instead to communicate love to His family, whom the Father calls His children? Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. He chose to forgive, to love with action, coming and die in our place. So the Bible teaches us in 1 John 2:2 “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Parents, you love your kids don’t you? You lay down your life for them don’t you? When they’re babies it goes somewhat like this: you bathe them, you feed them, play with them, sing to them, acquire another skill BSL -- baby as second language -- rock them to sleep. When they cry for help you are there to pick them up. You watch them like a hawk if they waddle to close to danger. In other words you have no life. You lay down your life, right? Laying down your life does not mean you smother them; it means giving them room to fail too. Picture this, as they learn to walk, you don’t say to them, “Oh you fell down, poor little thing. You fell again and again and again. I guess that means you can’t do this walking thing, so we’ll strap you down to a wheelchair for life.” No one does that, right? Love means allowing for growth through failure, looking towards future potential. Love means not expecting that other people will get it, the first time. Or second time or third time. Love means forgiving the baby steps people take in their journey. Love means knowing in your heart people are worth it. They are coming along for the ride but not many are good drivers. People are on a journey; they have not arrived yet! It’s hard to think that way when Christian people let you down. It is even harder when you think they should be mature enough to not let you down, but people do, and will continue to do so; because they are not God. Look at Jesus; he looked towards future potential, towards joy as he endured suffering of people’s sins (Heb.12). But so for many people in and out of the church. Their expectation is that real Christian people should get it right the first time. No room for failure. No room to learn to grow. This is how we get into trouble. The church becomes graceless, restricting, and rules of how to behave dominate. Every failure and infraction becomes ammunition to nail others to the door. “You let me down because the rules say you need to come through for me every time.” People are shown the door rather than welcomed. Instead of the church seeking the sinner, the lost, it would be saying “Sinners, get lost!” Instead of gathering sinners and becoming a family the church becomes like a government bureaucracy, if you don’t fill out the right forms, the right way, you are out of luck, you don’t get any benefits. A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am." The woman below replied, "You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude." "You must be an engineer," said the balloonist. "I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?" "Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip." The woman below responded, "You must be a Politician." "I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," said the woman, "you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault." How does it help anyone, if we start blaming people, getting technical, for every disappointment we feel? Can we be less historical (not hysterical), citing every infraction, feeling every slight as an offence punishable by death? “You didn’t do this for me, but you did it for George and Sally on their birthdays. How can you forget me? I thought you were supposed to be Christians and love me.” We can become as exacting and calculating as the Pharisees, noting every infraction of the law, to the minutest detail. Carrying a grudge until kingdom come! Like Cain in Bible story who carried a grudge against his brother Abel, it led to first recorded homicide in the world. In fact the Bible is clear when the hating begins, murder is the outcome. No wonder ever since Cain, the world has hardly seen much peace. Always there are wars and rumors of wars. Therefore the experience of love and acceptance and forgiveness is almost non-existent. As a result, their version of Christianity becomes joyless, like Cain his life became joyless, speaking of rules rather than love “Am I brother’s keeper?” “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him” (vs. 14, 15). Do you know God delights in you? Read 3:1. Once we really get this, appropriate it, personally receive it in our heads, hearts, in our programming, what real love is, the laying down your life -- Christ-like love -- it is only then will we have true power. Memorize it. Revel in it. Look deep within ourselves What’s at stake here? We are told “to love in actions and in truth” do we love in the truth of 3:1? Why are we carrying the grudge? How am I laying down my life for my brother or sister? Could it be that we have not really tasted richly of God’s love? A heart that has not tasted the truth of Christ’s passion, the thrill of the prospect of what will be, and the prospect of transformation (3:2), will have little to give to transform what was hatred into love. Look at Jesus again, in the moment of pain, laying down his life he looked ahead to joy, to prospect of perfection, the prospect of what will be when we see Him face to face, of personal relationship. I think we could learn a lot from crayons: Some are sharp, some are dull, some are pretty, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box. When others do weird things, it may not be pretty to you, they may look dull to you, you may call them weird names, remember we are in same box - the common experience and life we have in the love of Jesus Christ. The minute we carry a grudge we are in danger of saying “forget that we are in the same box” or we have forgotten how great the Father’s love is for you. Look at others through Christ’s love. Love is always building up another person. Maturity is living with the tension of what people can be and what they are now. “Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love” Ephesians 4:2 (NLT). Love is not merely feeling mushy -- but love has the goal of looking after another’s welfare - by doing something tangible. It is not just words, nor does it exist in brainwaves. And when others in your perception are not doing their part, do you then take an “an eye for an eye” approach? “You poked my eye, well, I will poke your eyes out” or because you don’t come through for me the way I want, I won’t have anything to do with you? Someone said: “A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.” Others may put you on a detour but enjoy the scenery. Stop evaluating others by what the world thinks but see each other as new creations (2 Cor.5:16-17). Look at the benefits. 1. When we learn to love in actions and in truth, we will have great confidence before God. Sometimes, our conscience can play tricks on us, but it we can be at rest if the evidence of actions and truth is obvious, if we are shifting the focus to others, not to ourselves. Whenever you feel condemned you can go back and point to the concrete things you did, the sacrifice you’ve shown, that will put to rest whether you love another or not. “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (vs. 19-21). God knows you better than you do, he knows everything. 2. When we learn to love in actions and in truth, our prayer life will be more effective; “and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us” (vs. 22, 23). 3. When we learn to love in actions and in truth, we gain a closer intimacy with God “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us” (v. 24). Conclusion: Seeing how much God loves us -- knowing the love of the Father (3:1) is the foundation for us to move ahead. Get the security we long for by faith from that. It takes faith to believe that when we feel hurt by a brother that this is all part of growing up, that others are on a journey, that others are in growing; figuring out their walk with God, taking baby steps to Christ. It takes faith to believe I am worth dying for by Jesus when someone does not seem to want to lay down their lives for me. It takes incredible faith to move towards someone courageously and say “I forgive you” when it hurts like crazy inwardly. It takes enormous faith to believe that God sees what you did for the welfare of another when you suspect they are cursing you behind your back. Take what you feel, what you perceive, what you go through and put it in the larger picture of God’s love for you. That’s enough for me.