This is going to be a bit longer than most of my blogs, because it is actually a sermon I wrote to preach tonight at my church. I have edited it slightly to make sure it flows as a blog and is readable, but otherwise it is the same message.
If you aren't coming to the service, then feel free to read on. If you are coming, then don't spoil it but reading the sermon yet, wait until afterwards.
LOVE SERMON....
Today is unofficially a holiday, and I love holidays. Today is February the 13th, which makes it St. Valentines Eve, and tomorrow St Valentines Day. I have never actually celebrated St Valentines Day before, but I'm still looking forward to it, not because of the Valentines cards, the roses, or the little cherub angels that go along with the celebration, but because St Valentines Day is all about a very Christian concept – love.
Often people try to separate love and Christianity from one another, but it doesn't work. You couldn't have Christianity without love, and you couldn't have love without God!
Why is this? Haven't a lot of people who aren't Christians felt love? Maybe, but love comes from God. The Bible goes so far as saying that "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:16 NIV). If you have ever felt love on earth, and this is true love, not just 'like' or 'luurve' – then you have felt what its like to be in the presence of God. Some people think that being in heaven with God forever would be immensely boring, but (bad pun) you'd love it!
Love is completely tied in with Christianity. You couldn't have Christianity without love. In fact, this is one of the aspects that makes Christianity unique. We are part of the only religion that is not about what we have done, but about what God has done for us. God chose to love us.
2 Timothy 1:9 says: God saved us and chose us to be his holy people. We did nothing to deserve this, but God planned it because he is so kind. Even before time began God planned for Christ Jesus to show kindness to us. (CEV)
If you can get a hold of this, it is incredible. Before God had even created the universe, let alone us, he loved us so much that he was prepared to die on the cross for us. C. S. Lewis puts it like this:
"God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing… the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up… Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves."
C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Pg 116
In any other religion the burden is on us, the creation, to try and attain perfection in order to get to God. There is no certainty of heaven to those in other religions, they are left to try and please God when it is impossible to meet his standards. For example, the Koran states: He forgiveth whom He pleaseth, and punisheth whom He pleaseth (Surah al-Baqarah 2:284). Even if a Muslim lives a perfect life, he can still be condemned to hell, just because Allah 'feels like it.'
However, our God reached down from heaven to bring us back to him. Instead of sitting up there, watching people run around helplessly trying to live good lives, and then condemning them to hell anyway, He actively entered into our world to help us reach him. On earth, he showed us examples of how much he loved us, through his sermons, his miracles, and, most importantly, his death.
God didn't have to love us, and that makes his sacrifice even more incredible. We were fallen creations, we had no redeeming features. C. S. Lewis makes this second illustration:
"Suppose yourself a man struck down shortly after marriage by an incurable disease which may not kill you for many years; useless, impotent, hideous, disgusting; depending on your wife's earnings; impoverished where you hoped to enrich; impaired even in intellect and shaken by gusts of uncontrollable temper, full of unavoidable demands. And suppose your wife's care and pity to be inexhaustible… But what the extreme example illustrates is universal. We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. It is no one's fault if they do not so love it. Only the loveable can be naturally loved."
The Four Loves, Pg 121
We are fallen. If any human could fully realise everything we've done in our lives, and everything we are going to do, then they would be unable to love us with a natural love. But God, who can see into our very souls, who knew us from conception, shows another sort of love, a love not just born of attraction to another person, but a love born of choice. There are at least four words in the NT that are translated as love, and the one that describes this 'God-love' is agape or agapao. Agape, roughly, means: The decision to care about another person unconditionally, regardless of the outcome, in spite of their response.
God may have known from before the beginning of creation that we were going to fall, and cause enough evil to completely corrupt this world, but he chose to love us so much that he was willing to create us anyway. He knew we would turn against him, ignore him, do disgusting things against each other, against ourselves, and against him, but he still chose to love us enough, that he was willing to go through the agony of the cross for us.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweated drops of blood in agony, full-knowing what was coming before him. At any stage he could have decided that we weren't worth it. By all accounts he should have. But he didn't.
As someone pointed out: The cross is the ultimate symbol of love.
If God is love, then for 3 years the disciples lived with love in their midst. Those who were close to him would have got an even deeper view of the love of Jesus than we could possibly imagine, and one in particular, John, knew Gods love so much that he is remembered as 'the beloved disciple.' This love transformed John's life, and he spent the rest of his life preaching about it to all who would hear. In fact, the word agape appears in the works of John 95 times, over one third of all occurrences in the bible.
Despite this, the first occurrence of agape in John doesn't come until half way through the third chapter. John first mentions love when he explains Jesus' ministry on earth: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16 NIV).
God gave up his Son, his own life, for us. He never forces us to accept this sacrifice, but he promises that if we do, everything we have ever done wrong will be forgiven, and we will have eternal life. The bible promises that he will cast our sins as far as the 'east is from the west.' The world has a north pole, and a south pole, but there are no east and west poles. You can continue travelling east or west forever, and never reach their limits. Thats how far away God throws away our sins. They are gone, and we are redeemed, if we simply accept Jesus' sacrifice for ourselves.
Agape love is not a natural love. It is not something that we simply feel. It is a choice, and it is not a part of our fallen nature. But when we receive God's gift of agape love in our lives (Jesus' death for us), we receive a new nature, pure and holy before God. Now we can show this agape love in our lives, in two ways: towards God, and towards others.
Why do you serve God? Is it out of fear of hell, or is it the desire to feel good about yourself... You should serve God because you love him. Columbine martyr Rachel Scott recognised this. In an excerpt from her journal, published in the book 'Rachel's Tears', Rachel wrote about the reason for her decision not to go out and get drunk with her friends. She wrote:
"Well, I thought about it (as you know) and I thought that since you would forgive me anyways I may as well do it. Then I realized that you will always, always forgive, but you may not let it go unpunished. Then I decided not to do it strictly out of fear. Then I thought about it more, and thought that if I did it out of fear it would not be done because I loved you, I obeyed you, and I followed you. That is my reason for not going now. I know that I will always be faced with temptation, but because I love you, I obey you, and I follow you, I will not fall into the core of it. Thankyou, Father."
– Rachel Scott as quoted in Rachels Tears, by Darrell Scott and Beth Nimmo, pg 49/50
Our love for God should be a reflection of God's love for us. It is our choice to love him, but he is also easy to love. Sometimes loving others is not so easy.
When we accept God's gift of agape love, we are redeemed, and we have the choice to show agape to others. We receive God's love-gift freely, but then we have to do our part, and our part is to pass this gift on. Remember, we as Christians are called to be salt and light in the world. As Pastor David said this morning, what good is salt in a salt shaker? It has to be out mixing with the food to make a difference. We have to get out there and let people see that we're different. Let them see the light, and the love of God within us.
But what about those annoying people out there? The ones who really frustrate us. It can be very hard to like people like that. Its the same with those who hate us, or hurt us, or ignore us, or sin towards us, or sin in general. We may absolutely hate them!
But we are called to love them! Remember, this is not the natural love, this is the spiritual love, the choice you can make. You don't have to like what they do, but the Bible instructs 'Hate the sin, but love the sinner.' Jesus reminded us this in Matthew 5:43-44:
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (NIV)
"But, they don't deserve it!" Well, so what? Did you? Remember, the Bible says 'while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.' We don't deserve it. God could have obliterated the world, and killed everyone on it, and he would have still been a just God. But he chose to give everything up to save you, and to love you. We need to do the same.
Now I want to make some challenges.
First, if you haven't accepted the love-gift of Jesus' sacrifice for yourself, and you want to, then I want to challenge you to do that. Take a moment, and think about the things you've done that you need forgiveness for. Then, in the quiet, ask Jesus to take the punishment of that sin for you, and ask him to cast your sins as far as the east is from the west. If you truly asked that, then you have been forgiven.
But tonight, I also want to challenge you to think about your response to this sacrifice. Jesus loved you enough to die for you. How well are you showing that love in your life? How well are you showing God that you love him? How well are you letting others see that same love of God?
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