Love

0:00 Brothers and sisters, the holy gospel according to St. John, the third chapter, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ. You may be seated. Well, everyone, good evening, or late afternoon, I think. It's a pleasure to be here. If you've ever had an opportunity to hear me preach and speak, I like to involve people in this, and so you might hear me saying, are you with me, a hallelujah, an amen, and you might say, oh, I'm not sure if I'm with you.

0:50 The jury's still out. The jury's still out. There you go. Whatever works for you, but it's a way for you all to be involved. So, are you with me? Yep. All right, here we go. Well, the title for today's sermon, since it was Valentine's Day yesterday, we're thinking about love. We're also thinking in the kind of the theme of the day of justice and mercy and to love kindness. The title of today's sermon is love, simply love, and these passages we talked about speak to us about love in a very robust way.

1:21 So, let me start with the definition of love from Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Love is defined primarily as a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, like a mother's love for a child. There's attraction based on the desire of another person, affection and tenderness between lovers. And then there's another aspect of love. It's unselfish loyalty and to be benevolent and have benevolent concern for the good of another. For example, in a theological way, fatherly concern of God for humankind or brothers and sisters loving each other.

2:02 I bring up this definition because we use the word love in so many ways in our culture. And I think most people, even Christians, think of love as sometimes just an affection or an emotion towards something. And that's not wrong. But as followers of Jesus, we may want to consider what is our definition of love? And how is that definition informed by the Bible? Are you with me? Yes. The point I want us to consider today is how we define love will define how we live.

2:40 How we define love will define how we live. For example, if you live and breathe and die football, then basically all of your life will revolve around things football. You love football. You live by it. You quote coaches about it. You're always, all your analogies are somehow always tied back to football. Your house looks like a museum because it's got memorabilia and you've got jerseys. You've got things that are signed. ESPN is always on at your house and you're watching all the games from way back when.

3:20 That defines what you love and you live by it and it's all around you. So again, how we define love will define how we live. A way I kind of define love for myself is love is choosing to act in a way that may not benefit you. Love is choosing to act in a way that may not benefit you. I think love is really better understood as choosing to act in a way that doesn't always give you maybe something great, but you're still choosing to do that.

3:54 Because as I frame love this way, I think about God and God's way of loving us and how Jesus reveals that love to us. Let me read a few verses that we kind of heard before. 1 John 3.16 from the epistle. By this we know what love is. Jesus laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. There's a willingness, a decision, a choosing to do that. And then John chapter 15, verses 12 through 13, as Jesus is talking to his disciples, he says, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

4:38 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. These are actions. These are things you're choosing to do and they may not benefit you directly. John 3.16, very famous, reveals to us how God gives love through sacrifice. In 1 John 3.16, the epistle, we love through sacrifice towards others because that's how Jesus showed us. And then John 15, we see the command is a command, an urgency to love in a sacrificial way. So we're called to be like Jesus, to act like Jesus, and to love like that.

5:22 So love from a biblical view isn't just fluffy, it's not just romantic. It may actually be hard, it may be challenging, and that's where the choice comes in. Are you with me? Now, most of us will probably not be called to lay down our lives for someone. We may not be asked to take a bullet for someone. So what does it look like to think and act sacrificially in different ways, in this form of love? Well, it's most evident, I think, in trying to reach people for Jesus.

5:59 Because evangelism really meets where the rubber meets the road. Because for a lot of people, it's not a comfortable thing to do. Am I wrong? No. Well, I recall a time, this was way back when, when I was pastoring a church out in California. And I would go to Starbucks a lot, and I would do most of my kind of preparation for sermons there. I would host some meetings with folks there, some discipleship time with people there. And long story short, I went to a different Starbucks, and I met, and I saw this young man, his name is Daniel.

6:32 We actually went to school together, but I haven't seen him for many years. We weren't good friends. We went to elementary school, we went to junior high, and then we went to high school, but we didn't go in the same circles. Anyways, I saw him, and I thought that was interesting. I did my work, carried out my life. The next day, I'm driving my neighborhood, and I see him outside of a home. And I thought, that's interesting. I haven't seen him in a couple years. I saw him yesterday, and I see him as I'm driving the neighborhood.

6:58 I don't think much about it. I'm driving somewhere else. I see him again. And I go, this is odd. So at that point, I say, God, what's going on? I say, Holy Spirit, are you trying to tell me something? I kind of felt like Bruce Almighty. There's my sign. So, but there wasn't anything clear. So I said, well, maybe I'll go back to Starbucks. So I go back to the Starbucks. He actually worked at the Starbucks, and he was going, and he wasn't working that day.

7:27 And we sort of ran into each other, and we talked, and we sat down together, and we just talked a little bit, pleasantries. And he asked me, he said, hey, I've been paying attention to you. Sometimes you come in here. You meet with people. You're kind of doing some work. You have a weird schedule. What are you doing? And he goes, oh, well, I'm a pastor, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, oh, okay. And at that point, I asked the Holy Spirit, what do you want me to do?

7:51 And I didn't really get a word or something. But long story short, it was a great conversation. He learned a little bit more about me and how I do Christianity. I learned that he didn't have the best upbringing with his religious perspective. It was a great conversation, but it was kind of awkward for me because I was having to take this risk based on seeing this person, asking God, God, what am I supposed to do with this? Do I pursue him? Am I supposed to tell him about Jesus?

8:19 I think everybody needs Jesus, but am I supposed to tell him? Is that why I'm seeing him multiple times? And so to kind of close this part up, you know, we had a good conversation. I invited him to something that I was doing. He never really came and that was okay. But the biggest piece here is we had an opportunity to meet. He had an opportunity to see who I was again and how Jesus changed my life. And maybe if he thought that was something he should do, then he'll go with it.

8:46 But I bring all this up because it reminds me of that awkward step, that risk you have to take in things you maybe would not want to do, or maybe you don't feel you're good at. Are you with me? Yes. So it's sacrificial in the sense that we're called to be like God, to go and do something that you would rather not probably do because you don't know what the outcome is going to be. But it's important. We still do it as followers of Jesus. When you're in situations where you have to present Jesus to someone, they may reject you or they may just not accept it and it feels like maybe they're rejecting you and maybe they are.

9:33 And that's okay because God loves you and God loves them and God will work it out with them as he's working it out with you. Are you with me? And this is where it's important. And so we go sacrificially to try to express God's love, but we need to be mindful that we are in God's love as we do that. This is why we must be defined by God's love first, especially God's love for us. God's going to love me or you, whether you're like Billy Graham or you're not like Billy Graham.

10:13 God appreciates the sacrifice that I took to kind of pay attention to what was happening, try to talk with somebody about Jesus, and God's still going to love me even though that person didn't walk away with Jesus that day. It will be okay. I'm sort of talking to myself, I think. But I learned so much in those moments that I need to rely on God's love for me, the love that is sacrificed for me as I sacrifice like God does. It's very odd to think about, but it's empowering.

10:45 It's very important because as we reach people for Jesus, we need to know that it'll be okay. So we give ourselves to God and we sacrifice for others and we might have some rejections, but we know we have God's love. Now from love as sacrifice, I'm going to shift now to discuss how love is patient, how love is forgiving, because that's how God is with us. God is a patient, forgiving lover. Let me start with a question here to the audience. Do any of you have pet peeves?

11:24 You know, yeah. Things that people do that go, oh man, that's, I don't, that, mm, Jesus, please. Yeah. Okay, you got me. Yeah. How about this? Do you think God gets annoyed with people? Yeah. And here it comes. Do you think you ever annoy God? Yeah, me too. I'm included in that too. I think at times God definitely gets annoyed with people in general, especially his own people. I think sometimes we, rather than assuming God is just wrathful or just vengeful, we may also need to see that in the Bible, God's annoyed because he's like a parent whose patience is wearing thin.

12:13 God's like a parent who's peeved at his children. They're just not listening. They're not following the ways that were there to help them and guide them. And if you're wondering what I mean, I'm going to bring up Exodus in Exodus chapter 32. Moses goes up to the mountain. He's hanging out with God and the people are down at the bottom and people, they get bored. So what do they do? Hey, this is a great idea. Let's take all the jewelry, melt it down, make idols. What a great idea.

12:43 That's not going to go bad at all. Well, I love reading this. Exodus 32 verse seven, the Lord said to Moses, go down at once. Your people whom you brought, your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have acted perversely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way I've commanded. The Lord said to Moses, I've seen this people, how stiff necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And of you, I will make a great nation.

13:22 I'm going to read between the lines there. And I think it's not inappropriate to say that God might be a little upset, might be a little bit hurt. And there's other passages where it seems to communicate that God has emotions, that there's frustration. And we do see that with Jesus in the New Testament as well. Well, going down a little bit more in chapter 32, Moses explains to God, I love this conversation, where if you consume them, then the story is going to go out that why would this sort of God take people out of freedom only to take them in the desert and then get rid of them?

13:57 You wouldn't want to be that sort of known for that. I love the bargaining. So God does change his mind and say, okay, but why does God do this? If he's so annoyed, why does he relent and say, fine, I won't. Let me read from Exodus 34, where God is preparing to give the law to Moses and Moses in turn prepares to people and Moses says this about God, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

14:35 Friends, we have to understand God within God's core and character is the ability to be angry as we see, but also within God's core is very much a God who is slow to anger, who is forgiving as we see with very serious issues with his people that happened in Exodus. And I wonder how many of us realize the immense amount of patience God has had with you and me in the ways we just don't listen. Are you with me? And then we consider how while God is being patient with you, God is also forgiving you.

15:24 I say that because in the Exodus story, the people grew impatient. They commit a huge sin and they forgot so quickly. You were just taken out of slavery and then you go and act like that. But God with Moses as a mediator helps to remind God and about his people that you are a God who forgives. Don't forget. I love it. I love it. And God chooses to be patient, choosing to be patient. And there comes a lot of forgiveness towards those who really don't deserve the forgiveness.

16:02 Yet he does. And God chooses to love us by offering us many opportunities, as we see in the Exodus story, many opportunities to discover that he is patient, that he is forgiving, that he is long suffering, as they say. Now, the challenge with all this, as we see with human nature, is there's no guarantee that we will always make God the priority in our lives. And yet he still loves us. Consider how much forgiveness is on your account from God for all the things and all the things I've done trying to work things out.

16:41 So for us, we have to remind ourselves, if God is patient with me, then how should I be patient with others? I really should. How patient am I with someone when I'm on 1604? How forgiving am I with people who, I don't know, post something on a social media thing that I don't agree with? Friends, our love and how we should love should not be based on whether or not I get love back. It should be based on the fact that God loves me and wants me to try to extend that love towards others, even if it doesn't benefit me.

17:27 This is because God is patient. He's patient with me. He's patient with you. And hopefully recognize this as you try to love people like God does. Are you with me? Well, let me come to a close here with a story. This is a fictitious story. Many years ago, in a city far, far away, rumors started to spread that there was a devout woman who was having visions of Jesus. The reports reached kind of the pastor who oversaw that area. So this pastor decides to go check it out.

18:00 Because there's always a fine line between mysticism and lunacy. Okay? So the pastor goes and he talks to the woman and he says, Ma'am, is it true that you're having visions of Jesus? And the woman just replies simply, yeah. Well, the next time the pastor says you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I just confessed in my last confession. The woman says, did I hear you right? You actually want me to ask Jesus about the sins that you just confessed?

18:38 He says, yes, exactly. Please call me if anything happens. Ten days pass. The woman notifies the pastor that she's had a recent vision. She says, please come. Within the hour, the pastor arrives. He's a little nervous. He trusts eye-to-eye contact. He says, look, you just told me on the phone that you actually had a vision from Jesus. And did you ask him what I asked you to ask him? Yes, pastor. I asked Jesus to tell me the sins that you confessed in your last confession. He leans forward with anticipation.

19:15 His eyes narrow. He looks at her and she looks at him and he says, well, what did he say? She took his hand, gazed deep into his eyes. She said, pastor, these are the exact words Jesus says. I chose not to remember. Brothers and sisters, we have a God who loves us, who chooses us, knowing what we will do that is not always loving. As far as the east is from the west, it says, the Lord puts our sin from us. Brothers and sisters, this is a weekend of love.

20:13 In our culture, we do that in different ways. We're talking about justice and mercy. As you start to walk this week, may you know God is with you. God is loving you. God is for you. May you go and extend that same sort of love that's been extended to you. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.