WWJD? Love First

 Back in the 1990’s when I first started as a pastor, there were bracelets that were very popular that had 4 letters on it.  My guess is you know what they were.  WWJD.  What Would Jesus Do?  The movement started at a church in Holland MI, but spread across the nation and across the world.  The idea was that every time you had a decision to make you would ask yourself, what would Jesus do?  Once you figured out what Jesus would do, that’s what you would do.  The idea of doing what Jesus would do and looking like Jesus in the world can be traced to Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20

If Christ lives in me, I should look like Jesus and do what Jesus did.  Last week I mentioned an early theologian of the church, Augustine, who talked about the proper order of love.  Augustine also took this idea of Christ living in us and developed what came to be known as the Imitation of Christ.  In 1400, Thomas à  Kempis wrote a classic devotional book with that name which explores doing what Jesus would do in our day to day lives.  

But the actual phrase, what would Jesus do, comes from a book written in 1896 by Charles Sheldon called In His Steps.  In the book, a pastor is working on his sermon when there is a knock at his door.  It is a homeless man looking to do a little bit of work to get some money, but the pastor says he doesn’t have any work for him and sends him away.  That Sunday, sitting in the back of the church, is that same man.  After the last hymn he asks if he can say a few words.  He comes to the front of the church and is clearly sick and says, It seems to me there’s an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn’t exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don’t understand. But what would Jesus do?  

The pastor takes the man home and cares for him all week, but he dies before the next Sunday.  In worship that next week, the pastor gets up and doesn’t have a sermon but asks people to join him in an experiment and not make any major decision without first stopping and asking themselves, what would Jesus do?  That question changed the lives of many in the church and eventually set off a revival in the town.  

Sheldon’s book set off its own revival in our nation as people started asking themselves, what would Jesus do.  The question calls us to stop and think about how we can imitate Christ, how we can look more like Jesus in the world and how doing what Jesus would do can change our lives and our world.  

So in any given situation, what would Jesus do?  Or as some might say, what would Jesus have me do?  We may not be able to do exactly what Jesus would do, but what would Jesus have me do?  The short answer might be the single word - LOVE.  

In any and every situation we find ourselves, the question we might want to ask is: how can I love like Jesus?  What would the love of Jesus look like in this situation?  How can I put the love of Jesus to work in this situation?

Many people have said that if we could sum up all the teaching of Jesus, it would be to love.  Jesus told us that the first and greatest commandment is to Love God and the second is to Love Others.  Jesus said that all of the law and the prophets, in other words, all the teaching of God, can be summed up with a call to love.  Paul said, For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Galatians 5:14

Paul also said. Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  Ephesians 5:1-2

John said, If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.  1 John 3:17-18

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  1 John 4:7-11

Love is the driving passion and message of Jesus and so to imitate Jesus we need to love.  Love God.  Love others.  Love ourselves. And find the most loving thing to do in every situation.  We need to love like Jesus.  And this is what the love of Jesus looks like.

When at the table with His disciples, Jesus got up and served His friends by taking on the role of a household servant and washing their feet.  

Love looked like eating with tax collectors, prostitutes and other outcasts and sinners when no one else wanted to get near them.  It looked like forgiving a woman caught in adultery when everyone around her held rocks and wanted to stone her.  It looked like turning over the tables of the money changers in the Temple because they were taking advantage of the poor.  It looked like stretching out His arms and willingly laying down His life to pay the penalty for our sin.  

All those pictures of Jesus can teach us what loving like Jesus means for us today.  Love means serving others.  It means welcoming others.  It means putting the wellbeing of others before our own.  It means sacrificing for others.  It means being willing to lay aside our lives for others.  

So what does this love look like in practical ways today?  Let me offer a few examples of what loving like Jesus might look like today. 

(Amazon driver shovelling snow)  This is an amazon driver who delivered a package to a house that had a wheelchair ramp.  It had snowed the day before and the ramp was still mostly covered, but he saw a snow shovel there so after he dropped off the package, he picked up the shovel and cleaned off the rest of the ramp.  He just did it.  He didn’t want recognition or thanks, he just wanted to love.

(Amazon Driver tying tie) This driver saw a young man heading off to his homecoming dance with his tie not looking right.  The driver stopped and took the time to tie the tie the right way so the young man looked good for the dance.  The driver said he learned how to tie from some of the older men at his church when he was younger and he passed on the knowledge to his own children because wearing a tie can be an important thing at times.  

What makes these stories really powerful is that Amazon drivers are often timed and have a tight schedule to keep, so when they stop and sacrifice a few minutes here or there, it is a gift of love.  

Another picture of love I was able to be part of was on a snowy night here at the church.  We had about 40 people on a bus trip that was delayed due to snow.  They were getting in late and it had been a difficult trip so I came up to the church to make sure the bus could get into the parking lot and people could get to their cars.  I was just shoveling some pathways when Linda Heverly - Ferenchick’s husband came up to clean off her car as she was on the trip.  As we talked, Gene started to clean off another car and so I helped out.  We were able to clean off all the cars so when the people got home, they were able to just get in their cars and head home.  It was a great example of love that Gene invited me to be part of.  

And speaking about snow, here is another picture of love from a popular movie that is already 12 years old.  (Olaf)

Olaf is a snowman who is so concerned about Anna’s well-being that he builds a fire for her.  She warns him not to do it and to not stay around after the fire is going because he would melt.  Olaf’s response was, some people are worth melting for.  Who are you willing to melt for and how are you willing to melt, or sacrifice, because you want to love like Jesus?  

Let me give you a few other pictures of what love looks like. 

Missions week  Love looks like using our gifts and giving our time and money to people we might not even know but need a helping hand.  There will be a couple of opportunities to love this spring as our mission team organizes a local mission week and then a 2 week mission trip to North Carolina.  

PQSM For some people, love looks like making quilts and knitting shawls for those who are sick and in need.  

Wheelchair swing There is a wheelchair swing at governors park and in the process of installing the swing they were told at the last minute that they had to put down special padding at the base that was going to cost about $5,000.  We heard they didn’t have that much and the project was going to be delayed so I asked our church leaders if we could give them the money.  Everyone agreed that we could and we did.  This is what love looks like.  (child on swing)  

Next month there is going to be a community food drive in Bellefonte and you are going to see signs and boxes for food all over the community.  We will be taking part and you can bring food here to go to the foodbank to help feed those who are hungry.  This is what love looks like  

Sometimes love is painful and sad and we have seen that these past few weeks as we gave away all the items from our daycare.  As difficult as it was that we had to close, we heard from those who were able to get supplies what a blessing it was.  We not only were able to help other child care centers in our area at a time when all of them are struggling, but some of our materials are going to a school in Rwanda.  As sad as it was for us to close, we were able to bless and help others in the process.  This is what love looks like

Love looks like those who visit people who are sick or shut in.  It looks like a card sent to someone who is going through a difficult time or a meal given to someone who just got home from the hospital.  Many of you do these things through the church all the time. You are part of what love looks like.   

There are pictures of love all around us and they need to inspire us to love like Jesus.  Dr. King said, “We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world, for love is the only way."

That quote was included in a sermon on love that was preached to over 1 billion people about 7 years ago.  Bishop Michael Curry spoke about love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Makle.  Over a billion heard about the power of love.  

Someone once said that Jesus began the most revolutionary movement in human history.  A movement grounded in the unconditional love of God for the world - and a movement mandating people to live that love, and in so doing to change not only their lives but the very life of the world itself…

[Jesus] didn't die for anything he could get out of it. Jesus did not get an honorary doctorate for dying… He gave up his life, he sacrificed his life, for the good of others, for the good of the other, for the wellbeing of the world... for us.  That's what love is. Love is not selfish and self-centered. Love can be sacrificial, and in so doing, becomes redemptive. And that way of unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive love changes lives, and it can change this world.

If you don't believe me, just stop and imagine. Think and imagine a world where love is the way. Imagine our homes and families where love is the way. Imagine neighborhoods and communities where love is the way.  Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce where this love is the way.  Imagine this tired old world where love is the way. 

When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again.  When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.  When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary.  When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more.  Bishop Michael Curry

Maybe love is the answer.  Maybe loving the way Jesus loved is the answer.  Imagine what your family would like if love is your way.  Imagine what our community would look like if love was the way we interacted with our neighbors, supported those who are vulnerable, and cared for those in need.  Imagine what kind of revival, what kind of revolutionary movement we could usher into the world if we made love the way of our hearts and lives, and if we loved the way Jesus did.  

While asking, WWJD is good, the truth is that we already know the answer.  Jesus would love first.  Jesus wouldn’t think about what was in it for Him, or what He would get in return.  Jesus wouldn’t ask if the love would be received well and make a difference and if it didn’t then He wouldn’t love.  He would still love.  Jesus didn’t evaluate the people first to see if they would be worthy of His love,  No one is ever worthy of His love, but he still loves.  

WWJD?  He would love first.  Maybe that is what we need to remember, He Would Love First.  HWLF    Maybe that is what we need on our wrists - a reminder to imitate Christ, to follow In His Steps, to love God and love others and love first.   Today we have that reminder for you.  Not only do we want you to know that you are loved, but we want to remind you that He would love first - and so should we.  We have HWLF bracelets for you to take as a reminder that Jesus loved first and so should we.  Let’s go show the world what love looks like.  

Next Steps

WWJD - LOVE

What pictures of love do you see in the life of Jesus?

How did His love change those who received it?

How did His love change those who witnessed it?

How did His love change the disciples?

What did Jesus mean when He said that all the “Law and Prophets” hang on the command to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ and to love your neighbor as yourself?’  Matthew 22:37-40.  

See Galatians 5:14, 

Ephesians 5:1-2, 

1 John 3:17-18 

1 John 4:7-11.

What “pictures” of love have you seen recently?  

How can these pictures inspire you to love first?  

How can you be a “picture” of love in your family?  

In the church? 

In the community?  

In the world?  

Disordered and Misdirected Love

 For a brief period of time after college I worked in a coffee store.  The store not only sold coffee, espresso and cappuccino but all kinds of coffee beans as well.  One of the perks of working there, pun intended, is that we could drink as much coffee as we wanted as long as we brought in our own coffee mug.  Since I love coffee, I took my mug in and drank a lot of coffee.  We could also take home ground coffee that didn’t sell as well as samples of the coffee we sold so again, since I love coffee, I took coffee home to drink at night.  I was drinking coffee just about all day, every day.   

The caffeine never bothered me and I slept great, but then one night I think that the caffeine from all the coffee I drank for a month hit my system and my heart started beating really fast.  I could feel my body moving as my heart beat.  My brain couldn’t stop and I was up and down about every 5 minutes.  My heart was racing fast and I couldn’t stop moving and thinking and shaking.  

The next day I decided that maybe I needed to cut back on the amount of coffee I was drinking and I began to understand the truth of the saying, too much of a good thing can kill you.  In 2019, there was a Massachusetts man who loved black licorice so much that he ate a bag every day.  Three weeks later he died of a heart attack.  His death was caused by the glycyrrhizin found in the black licorice which can cause low potassium levels and heart arrhythmia.  Once again, too much of a good thing literally killed him.  

While his death was a very unusual circumstance, we know that too much of anything we might love to eat or drink can be dangerous.  Too much alcohol can cause liver damage.  Too much sugar can cause diabetes.  Too much saturated and trans fats can lead to high cholesterol.  Even too much water can cause kidney damage.  Too much love for a good thing can be a bad thing.  So let me ask you to reflect on what you love the most.  

My hope is that the first thing that came to your mind was a person or family, but what is it you love the most?  

Who are the people you love the most?

What are the experiences you love the most?

What are the things you love the most?

My guess is that the people you love the most might include your spouse or your children.  For many people, the real love comes when they are a grandparent because that is a special kind of love.  The people you love most might include a best friend or maye you included yourself on the list.  It’s important for us to love ourselves, not in prideful and narcissistic ways where we put ourselves first in all things, but we have to see ourselves as loved and valued in order to really know how to love others.  We need to remember that I Am Loved (pin) so it’s ok to say that one of the people I love is myself.  

The experiences you love the most might be time spent at the beach or in the mountains.  For years I loved hiking and spent 2 weeks every year in the smoky mountains.  It’s not that I don’t love that anymore, but I then started vacationing at the beach and realized that I really love the beach as well.  Maybe you love playing sports, riding bikes, hunting or fishing or more extreme adventures like skydiving or zip lines or car racing.  

And then the things we love can be broad.  Many here love Penn State Wrestling.  I love Duke basketball and maybe the best thing is eating kettle cooked potato chips while watching Duke basketball.  There are many things we love from food to sports to music to books to movies to games. 

All of these things we love are good, but they need to have their proper place.  My hope is that you love your family more than sports and maybe experiences like hiking or vacations more than potato chips and ice cream.  If we were to look at the things we love like a pyramid, we need to have the foundational things we love at the bottom and secondary things at top.  (Pyramid picture)

The base of the pyramid should be our love for God and understanding God’s love for us.  We were created in the image of God to be loved by God and to love God in return.  This is the love and relationship that needs to be the rock on which everything else, and every other love, is built.  On this love we build our love for family and then a love for others, our friends and neighbors, and then we might talk about love for experiences and the things we love to do and eat.  

When our love is ordered this way, life is healthy and good, but when love is not ordered, when we try and make the foundation things that were never meant to be the foundation, it’s like trying to keep an upside down pyramid stable and strong. Misordered love in our lives can lead to disaster.

St. Augustine, one of the early theologians of the church, talked about the importance of an orderly love, or a love that starts with God and then moves to family, self, others and then the things of the world.  Augustine knew the importance of this because his early life was very disordered.  David Naugle, one of the premier scholars on Augustine, said this about his life.  

He grew up in a dysfunctional family, suffered through a childhood of unhappiness, was prone to theft and dishonesty, abhorred study and formal education, was virtually addicted to sex and food,  enjoyed the life of the theatre, studied off-beat philosophies and religions, and for a time was a single parent. His life was unquestionably disordered, and like many of our contemporaries, he found himself on a relentless course in search of healing and happiness.  

When our love is misordered, we aren’t content, we are always searching for something more, and never happy.  While my early life didn’t reflect the depth of disorder that Augustine’s did, it was disordered.  I went to college thinking I wanted to work at resorts because I wanted to live in beautiful and comfortable places around the world.  I wasn’t thinking about the work of hospitality and business, I was thinking about how nice it would be to live in Bermuda.  I was hoping to make a lot of money and be comfortable. 

Another priority I had when I got to MSU was to transform myself into some kind of party guy so I could experience a life that I didn’t have in High School.  My priorities and what I thought I would love were disordered and the more I tried to make it happen, the worse it got.  I was unstable, unhappy, burning through relationships and isolating myself from family and friends.  I was a mess, and it wasn’t until God stopped me short and began to reorder my life that I began to experience contentment and purpose and peace.  

In Augustine’s work, On Christian Doctrine, he talks about an order to our love and how we need to make sure we love God first, then others and ourselves, and then the things of this world. (pyramid)  If we get the order wrong, life will fall apart, if we get it right, we can find contentment and peace and purpose.  What God says is that our primary love, our first love, has to be Him.  

The greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  The second is like it, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  The love of others and a healthy love of self have to be secondary to our love for God.  Everything has to be secondary to our love for God because when we begin to make our love for other things primary, we run into trouble.

If we love our job more than we love God and our families, it can lead to financial success but relational failure.  Children know when they come in second to the job of their mother or father and that’s when families and marriages start to crumble.  When we love money more than anything else it can lead to reckless behavior like gambling or get rich quick schemes which can quickly deplete all we have and endanger our family’s future.  If we love alcohol more than anything, it can lead to physical problems and dangerous situations that can jeopardize relationships and jobs.  

It’s not that loving our jobs or money or even a glass of wine is wrong, it’s getting our love for those things out of order that can be destructive.  Love has to be ordered.  

Love God

Love Others

Love Self

Love everything else

Not only can our love get disordered, but it can also get misdirected.  There are times we find ourselves loving things that we just shouldn’t love.  For example, if we are in a covenant relationship with a spouse, we shouldn’t be loving other people the same way.  Those feelings might come up.  We might feel drawn to someone in romantic and emotional ways and it might be tempting to entertain those feelings because it is exciting, or the other person makes us feel good or valued when our marriage is struggling, but that is a misdirected love.  Jesus said we shouldn’t entertain those thoughts because it will lead us astray.  

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:27-28

Jesus is clear that entertaining the idea of loving someone we shouldn’t is dangerous and while the feelings and emotions might come up, we need to see it as misdirected love and work to direct our love back to the right places.  We need to direct our love to the right relationships and always make sure God is at the foundation.

Another example from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is that there are times we might actually love to hold on to bitterness and anger.  If we are honest, it can feel good to lash out at others when we are mad and hold on to bitterness and look for opportunities to pounce and hurt others, but Jesus said, 

I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.  Matthew 5:22-24

When we love being angry at someone it is misdirected love.  We love the feeling of anger and getting revenge more than we love God or others.  This is something we shouldn’t love and we need to see it for what it is and work to let it go, to release it, and forgive.  Forgiveness helps us direct our love back to God and then allow that love to shape us.  

We will all experience the struggle and temptation of disordered and misdirected love.  Sin is missing the mark.  Disordered and misdirected love is missing the mark and we all find ourselves there at times.  Every once in a while we need to stop and reflect on the order and direction of our love.  Is our love ordered the right way?  Is our love directed toward the right things or are we loving the wrong things and in the wrong order?  

When Moses was getting the people ready to move into the land God had promised, he took a moment to remind them how they needed to love.  They couldn’t love the land and the abundance of food they were going to get or the military success they were going to have more than they loved God.  Their love had to remain ordered and directed.  Moses said, 

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

If they did this, things would go well with them.  That was God’s promise.  Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.  Deuteronomy 6:3

Loving God first still helps us make sure that things will go well for us.  It is easy for our love to get misdirected.  It is easy to get the order of love wrong.  So it’s important from time to time to stop and ask ourselves, is the foundation of our life love for God?  Is our order of love right?  

To use a circle example, if we look at concentric circles of love with God in the center, others second, us third, and the world fourth, the question becomes, Is God at the center?  If it is, then our love for God radiates out through all the other things we love?  If God is at the center, then all our love is healthy and strong and leads us to life.  If God isn’t at the center, things will slowly fall apart.  Even if we are loving good things, our love is out of order, or misdirected, which in time will lead to chaos and confusion and sin.  

Is God the foundation of your love?  Is God at the center of your heart and all that you say and think and do?  If not, how can you bring your love back in order?  How can you build on the right foundation?  Today I want to invite you to examine what it is you love the most.  Is your love ordered and directed after God’s will?  Hear this again, love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all strength because when we do, things will go well and God will bring blessing and peace.  

Next Steps

Disordered and Misdirected Love

Take time to reflect on these three questions.

Who are the people you love the most?

What are the experiences you love the most?

What are the things you love the most?

St. Augustine says that our love needs to be ordered in the right way.

Love God

Love Others

Love Self

Love everything else

Is this the order of love in your life?  

Is love for God the foundation on which all other love is built?  

How can you grow in your relationship with God?

Check out the resources at bellefontefaith.com/3R.  

How can you grow in the rhythms of passion, scripture, prayer, obedience and identity? 

Take time to reflect on any misdirected love in your life?  

Read Matthew 5:21-30

Are there things you love that you need to let go?

For further study:  Read Matthew 4:1-11.  

How do the three temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness show us the importance of rightly ordered love?  

How was Satan tempting Jesus to love the wrong things and in the wrong order?  

Only Love Can Forgive

 day is Valentine’s Day so it’s not too late to buy the card, order flowers, make the reservation for dinner, or get that diamond.  There’s still time.  February is the month of love and we are in a series to help us know what love is all about.  Last week we heard that what the world needs now is love, sweet love, and that love is all we need.  Sometimes pop music gets it right.  The Bible says God is love and we know that God made us in love.  We were made to receive God’s love and the foundation of love in our lives is to know that we are loved. (pins) We were also made to respond to God’s love by loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and we can do that through worship, praise, thanksgiving, and prayer.  But we were also made to reflect God’s love.

As children created in the image of God, we were made to love others.  It’s easy to think about loving those we like and have affection for, but the word most often used for love in the NT is not philo or eros, which is the emotional and affectionate love we have others, but agape.  Agape love is not a feeling but a choice and an action.  It is how we treat people and respond to others regardless of how they treat us.  This is the kind of love we are called to reflect in the world and it’s the love we are to have for ALL people.

The 1955 song made famous by Jackie DeShannon says, what the world needs now is love, sweet love, no not just for some, but for everyone.  Everyone.  Those we like and those we don’t like.  Friend and foe and even our enemies.  Jesus said, 

To you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  Luke 6:27-28

Many of us hear these words and think it just isn’t possible to really love our enemy.  Many have said that this teaching proves that Jesus was just an impractical idealist whose message can’t be lived out in our world.  It’s a nice idea, but not practical or liveable.  But what if love for our enemy really is the answer and what if that kind of love is exactly what the world needs now.

Dr. Martin Luther King said this about loving our enemies.

This command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilizations.  Yes, it is love that will save our world, our civilizations.  Love even for our enemies.   Dr MLK Jr. 

If there is any Christian preacher of the past century that we should listen to and learn from when it comes to how to love our enemies, it is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..  Today, we are going to hear some of what Dr. King had to say about this teaching of Jesus from a sermon he preached in 1957 and was later included in the book, The Strength to Love.  For us to fully understand the power of Dr. King’s call to love our enemies, we have to understand the context of this sermon.  

So let’s go back to 1955, 70 years ago.  The #2 TV show was I Love Lucy, the #5 song of the year was a love song that has been recorded many times (Carol will play unchained melody).  The song lyrics include, I need your love, I need your love, God speed your love to me.   But the reason many of us know about this time in history isn’t because we lived then but because we relived it on Happy Days.  

I grew up watching happy days in primetime, maybe you grew up watching it in syndication, but this is often how we think of the 1950’s - filled with family fun and the fonze.  A happy time.  But the truth is that for many people, the 1950’s were not happy days, they were days filled with anger, hatred, division and violence.  

In 1955, the year rock around the clock made the top 10, Rev. George Lee was the first black man to register to vote in Humphreys County, Mississippi.  While African Americans were given the right to vote in 1870, many states and counties kept them from registering to vote by putting in place poll taxes and literacy requirements.  In 1955, after winning a court battle, Rev Lee helped register almost all the African American voters in his county.  

This action was met with anger and hatred and about a month later, as Rev Lee was driving down the road, he was shot three times by a shotgun and died before he could get to the hospital.  While lead pellets from his head were consistent with buckshot, the local sheriff said they were just lead fillings that had dislodged from his teeth when his car veered off the road so the case was never pursued.  

Later, that summer,  Emmit Till, a 14 year old African American youth, went to Mississippi to visit some relatives.  He was abducted and lynched for speaking to a white woman.  He was brutally beaten and killed and his mother took his body home to Chicago where she had a public viewing of her son so the world could see the kind of violence and brutality that African Amerians faced in the nation.  The men accused of killing Emmit were acquitted and then turned around and sold the story of how they killed Emmit to a national magazine knowing that they couldn’t be tried again due to double jeopardy. The injustice of this whole event sparked outrage.  

The deaths of Rev. Lee and Emmit Till, and the acquittal of the men who openly acknowledged killing Till, were all discussed at a meeting at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL later that same year.  At that meeting there was a woman who decided that something needed to be done to address the hatred and violence toward African Americans and so 4 days later, when she was asked to give up her seat in the “colored” section of the bus to a white woman, she refused.  

Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat led to the Montgomery Bus Boycotts which many believe was the first official act of the Civil Rights Movement.  Why all of this is important for us today is because there was a young preacher who was instrumental in leading that bus boycott who later said this about the fight for justice.  

Let us fight passionately and unrelentingly to the goals of justice. Let’s be sure that our hands are clean. Let us never fight with falsehood and violence and hate and malice, but always fight with love so that when the day comes and the walls of segregation are completely crumbled in Montgomery, we will be able to live with people as brothers.  Dr. MLK Jr. 

That preacher, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., called his followers to love their enemy in the face of the enemy.  For me to stand here and talk about how we need to love our enemies when I don’t really have actual enemies seems inauthentic, but to hear Dr. King's call for love in the face of the unspeakable violence of 1955 is powerful.  

It would be 2 years later, in 1957, that Dr. King would give one of his most powerful sermons, Love Your Enemy, and what I’d like to do is have us learn from both Jesus and Dr. King what it means to actually love our enemies.  Not a love full of feelings and emotions, but a love based on choice and action.  

In his sermon, Dr. King gives three very practical things we can do to love our enemy.  The first is that we must CHOOSE to forgive.  

 First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.  He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.  Dr. MLK Jr.  

The power of love at work in our lives is seen when we choose to forgive.  Let’s be clear that forgiveness is not usually a feeling or emotion, it is an action.  Forgiveness is making the choice to not seek revenge or retribution.  We are choosing to let go of our desire to see those who have hurt us suffer and “get what they deserve”.  The Greek word used for forgiveness in the New Testament is aphiemi, which means to release or let go.  

Forgiveness is letting go of the pain and hurt we have suffered.  Sometimes that takes years, but it is a conscious decision to let go of our desire to see those who have hurt us to be hurt themselves.  We aren’t justifying their wrong behavior.  Forgiveness is not saying that what was done to us wasn’t that bad or that the person shouldn’t be held accountable, it simply means we let go of wanting to see those who have hurt us punished and suffer and get what’s coming to them.  

Several years ago we did a series on forgiveness and used an image that several people said was helpful for them when it came to learning to forgive.  It was a simple backpack and some rocks.  The backpack is our life and the rocks are the hurt and pain that has been caused by others.  When we experience situations where we feel slighted or hurt, it’s like a rock being thrown into the pack.  Through life, all this suffering and pain accumulates and the burden weighs us down.  We can’t experience joy and freedom and the fullness of life this way, we have to learn to let this go.  

Forgiveness is letting go of the situations so they don’t weigh us down.  While forgiving others might have a redemptive quality in their life, it might help them, it really is about us.  Can we forgive so that we can be set free.  Holding on to grudges and pain doesn’t do anything to anyone else, it just holds us back. People have said that not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to suffer and die.  It doesn’t work that way. We forgive so we can be set free.  

This is the love we see in Jesus when from the cross He said, Father forgive them.  In that moment, I don’t know that Jesus had a lot of affection for those who had betrayed Him, abandoned Him and crucified Him, but He let go of seeking revenge.  Love, agape love, Christian love, the love that comes from God, is a love that helps us to let go and forgive so that we can be set free.  This is the kind of love that the world needs now.  

The second thing Dr. King said about love for our enemies is that we have to look beyond the outside of people and in their actions and look to the image of God that is in us all.   

We must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is.  An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy.  Dr. MLK Jr.

Last week we heard that God made us in His image and that we are all loved.  We are ALL loved.  Our enemy is loved by God because they were also created in God’s image.  There is value and goodness in them just as there might be brokenness and evil in us.  We aren’t always as good as we think we are and our enemy isn’t always as evil as we think they are.  It’s important for us to remember this and look for the good in our enemy.  

In our Men’s Bible study a few weeks ago we were talking about what it means to forgive those who have hurt us and someone said that what helps him to forgive is to look at those who have hurt him and try to understand what they are going through.  Sometimes there is hurt and pain in their lives that we never see and that is what has caused them to lash out in anger.  The more we are willing to see people the way God sees them, as loved but also broken and hurting people, the more love we will have for them and the more willing we will be to forgive.  The more we see people the way God does, the more we are willing to keep no record of wrongs, which is part of what 1 Corinthians 13 says love is all about.  

The third thing Dr. King said about love is that we must not destroy our enemy.

Inevitably, his weak moments come and we are able to thrust in his side the spear of defeat.  But this we must not do. Dr. MLK Jr.

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples in the upper room.  They had all deserted Him.  They ran away when He needed them.  Jesus could have come back and in their weak moments of defeat he could have driven home their failures like a spear in their sides.  Jesus could have given them what they deserved but he didn’t.  In that moment, Jesus opened His hands to show them the wounds He bore for them.  He told them to place their hands in His side instead of driving a sword into theirs.  He forgave them.  Jesus breathed on them and gave them peace.  

In a moment when He could have turned on them in anger, Jesus chose to love.  In moments when we are tempted to say, I told you so and gloat over being right and humiliate others for being wrong, we need to choose to forgive and love.  We need to let go of our desire for revenge and retribution and choose to love.  

Peter, who asked Jesus how many times we had to forgive someone, learned that love and forgiveness is always the answer.  He said,  Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.  1 Peter 3:9

And Romans 12:21 says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The only thing that can overcome evil is love.  The only thing that can defeat violence and hatred is love.  The only thing that can change our world is love.  One of the most powerful and most often quoted lines of Dr. King says this well.  

Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that.  

Hate can not drive out hate, only love can do that.  

Only love can overcome hate.  Only love can forgive our enemy and change our hearts and the hearts and lives of others.  

So let’s go back to what Jesus said about loving our enemies.  

To you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  Luke 6:27-28

To you who are listening, love your enemy.  I guess the question for us is, are we listening?  Do we believe what Jesus has said about love and how He has loved?  Can we learn to love in ways that can help overcome hate and change our world?   We can love our enemy.  Are we listening?  

Next Steps

To know what Love is - Week 2

Who is it that you struggle to love and forgive?

Why does loving our enemy often seem wrong?

When have you seen someone love their enemy?

3 Lessons from Dr. King on loving our enemy.

We must CHOOSE to forgive

Forgiveness is not a feeling or emotion, it is an action.

Aphiemi (the New Testament word for forgive) means to release or let go.

What hurt or offense are you struggling to let go and  why?

What would it look like for you to let go of this pain?

Ask God for the strength to let go.

We must look to the image of God that is in us all.

What good qualities do you see in those you struggle to love?

We must not destroy our enemy.

What did Jesus do first when he appeared to his disciples after the resurrection?  John 20:19-21

When have you experienced this kind of grace from others?

How does God show us this kind of grace every day?

Reflect on how these quotes can encourage you to love. 

To you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ~Jesus

Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that.  Hate can not drive out hate, only love can do that.  ~ Dr. King

To Know What Love Is

While today is Groundhog Day, what February is most known for is Valentines Day.  As soon as Christmas is over, Christmas cards and candy are replaced with Valentines and chocolate hearts.  We think of buying diamonds, roses, and chocolate as well as planning romantic dinners and getaways.  February is the month of love and so we are going to take the next 4 weeks to explore what love is all about.  

There have been countless books, poems, movies and songs that have talked about love.  Here’s some of what we learned about love from some of Billboards #1 songs about love.

Hughey Lewis and the News told us about the Power of Love.  

Wings told us that the world was filled with silly love songs… but what’s wrong with that?

The Captain and Tennille told us that Love will keep us together.

Stevie Wonder just called to say I love you

The Partridge family said, I think I love you so what I am so afraid of

Whitney Houston said I will always love you and 

Diana Ross and Lionel Richie gave us the top #1 song on love that spoke of an Endless love.  

But maybe it was the Beatles who said it best.  They told us you can’t buy me love but all you need is love.  

While that’s what the world has to say about love, today let’s look at the foundation of love in our lives: 

We were made to 

RECEIVE God’s Love, 

RESPOND to God’s Love, 

REFLECT God’s Love 

We were made to RECEIVE God’s Love

If we go back to Genesis, we read about God creating the world and how everything God created He called good.  God created the world and filled it with plants and animals, but then God created us in His image.  But why did God create it all in the first place?  

What moved God to start the process of creation and what motivated God to create us in His image and to be His children and to occupy a special place in the world?  The answer is love.  God created the world because God wanted to share and give His love.    

We can understand this desire to love.  When I was in 4th grade I had a paper route and one of the families on the route had a dog that had a litter of puppies.  They said I could buy one if my parents said it was ok so I asked and begged my parents to let me get a dog.  We had a dog at the time.  It was the family dog and she was great, but she wasn’t my dog.  I wanted a dog that would be mine.  I wanted a dog because I wanted to give my love to something that was mine.  I knew the dog was going to have to be housetrained and I would have to clean up after him and take care of him and that it was going to be a lot of work and heart ache, but I still wanted to get him because I had love to give.  

Maybe that was part of the process you went through when you thought about having a child.  It’s not that you wanted a tax deduction, or someone to do chores in 10-15 years, or someone to take care of you in your old age, you had love to give.  You knew the problems that would come with a child.  You knew there would be sleepless nights, diapers to change, messes to clean up, tantrums to endure, and that the entire process of raising a child was going to cost you a lot of money, but it would all be worth it because you had love to give.  

The same was true with God.  God created the world and placed us in it as His children because He had love to give.  God knew we would give Him trouble and that we would turn away and that we would be willful, stubborn and sinful people, but God had love to give so He created the world and placed us in it.  We were made to receive God’s love.  

All through the Bible we hear God’s love for us described as a parent’s love for their child.  

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  But the more they were called, the more they went away from me.  They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.  It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them.

4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.  Hosea 11:1-4

Here we see that God knows that as His children we will turn away, but He loves us anyway.  As a good parent, God’s love endures and cares for us even when we sin.  Jesus described God as a father and said we could pray to God as our father, not a distant parent but a loving dad who tenderly cares for His children.  In another place. God is described as a mother hen who gathers her chicks under her protective wings.  

We were created because God wanted to give His love, and so, the most important thing we need to do is RECEIVE God’s love.  We need to accept God’s love and allow that love to shape and guide us.  We need to allow God’s love to draw us close to Him in good times and in difficult times.  We need to let God’s love fill us with a profound sense of value, worth, and dignity.  The most important thing to know about love is that YOU are loved.  You were made to be loved and God loves you.  My prayer is that of Paul’s who said, 

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17-19

Because this is the most important thing to know about love, and because nothing else we will learn about love will make any sense until we have this love firmly placed in our hearts and minds, we are giving out little pins that say, I Am Loved. (picture)  We want you to know that you are loved by God.  

When you aren’t feeling especially loved for any reason, this pin is to remind you that you are loved no matter what.  We want to encourage you to wear the pin during this series and during the week keep it close by to remind you that God’s love is always there for you.  You and I were made to be loved by God and when we receive this and allow God’s love to touch our hearts and lives, everything changes.  

We were made to RECEIVE God’s love, but God’s love also calls for a response.  We were made to RESPOND to God’s love.  

God wants us to love Him in return.  Going back to my first dog, when I brought him home, he responded to my love by giving me love in return.  He would sit in my lap, sleep on my bed, and come to me when I called him.  His response was to do what most dogs do, he loved me in return.  This is what God wants.  He wants us to love Him in return.

In the OT, God showed His love for His people by leading them out of slavery and into the promised land.  After showing them this love, God said that this was how the people should respond:  

love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  Deuteronomy 6:5

It’s known as the greatest commandment, but God really is saying that this should be our response to His love.  We were made to receive God’s love but we were also made to love God in return.  In fact, all of creation was made to love God in return and it does.  The Bible says that all creation worships God.

Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars.

Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars,  wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds… Let them praise the name of the Lord.  

Psalm 148, 3-4, 7-10, 13

All of creation worships God.  When the planets align like they have recently, or we see a meteor shower, or the northern lights, it’s the heavens declaring God’s glory and singing their praise.  When we hear birds sing, animals roar, rain fall and thunder roll, it’s the creation worshipping God.  When we see the sunset, or the beauty of flowers, trees, and animals, it is creation giving praise to God.  If the rocks cry out in praise, so should we.  

We need to worship God with song and praise and prayer.  We need to worship God with all we have and all we are.  Too often we hold back in our worship of God, but we can’t hold back, we need to find ways to give God all we have and all we can as an appropriate response to God’s love.  Take time every day to give God thanks and praise in worship, it is what we were made for. 

We were made to RECEIVE God’s love, to RESPOND to God’s love and we are made to REFLECT God’s love.  It’s not enough to love God, we have to reflect that love into our world.  When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus linked loving God with loving others.  He said, 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.  Matthew 22:37-40

Notice that Jesus said we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  So we have to first love ourselves.  This doesn’t mean we become narcissists who make everything about us, or that we love ourselves over loving others or at the exclusion of others, but it does mean we have to love ourselves. Maybe a better way of saying this is that we first have to know that we are loved by God.  

We can’t fully love others if we can’t first see that we are fully loved by God.  This is why receiving God’s love has to come first.  We can’t reflect and share with the world a love that we don’t understand and can’t receive.  We have to first say, I am loved.  I am somebody to God.  I do have value, dignity and worth, before we can love our neighbors, family, or anyone else.  

It is this love for others that we will explore in the weeks to come.  We will learn what love looks like when it comes to forgiveness and mercy.  We will look at how we can reflect God’s love in justice and service, in our relationships with family and friends, and in our daily living.  There is a lot to unpack in all of this, but for now let’s consider how we can reflect just one example of Jesus’ love, His love shown to us at this table (communion).  

Before Jesus presided at this Passover meal, He first served His disciples by washing their feet.  After He did this, He told His disciples that He had set an example for them and that they should do what He had done.  In other words, we need to reflect the love of God in this world by finding tangible ways to love and serve others.  

The disciple John was deeply moved by what took place here and later wrote this about love:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  1 John 4:7-11

God loved us so much that He not only created us and gave us life but when we willingly turned away, He brought us back and saved us through Jesus.  We not only need to accept this love and respond to God in loving and grateful ways through worship, praise and thanksgiving, but we need to reflect this love to the world.  In fact, if we don’t love others, then we don’t fully know and we haven’t received God’s love.  

Right now, our world needs a reflection of God’s love.  The world needs to see a love that is patient and kind, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.  A love that will never end.  In 1965, Burt Bacharach wrote a song that was turned down by many singers because they thought it was too preachy, but it became one of the anthems of the 1960’s.  It’s a timeless truth that tells us that what the world needs right now is the reflection of God’s love.  (What the world needs now…)

What the world needs now is love.  God’s love.  A love that isn’t just for some but for everyone.  A love that can be reflected through you and me when we RECEIVE God’s love, RESPOND to God’s love and REFLECT God’s love to the world.  

This week, let me invite you to allow love to change your life by doing three simple things:

Daily tell yourself, “I Am Loved”

Daily profess and express your love for God

Daily seek to be more loving to more people

Maybe the Beatles had it right all along.  For our lives to be the best they can be and for the world to be the place God created it to be, all we need is love.

Next Steps

What songs, movies, poems and stories have shaped your understanding of love?  

Read Genesis 1 & 2. How does the creation story teach us that God created the world in order to share His love?

We were made to:

RECEIVE God’s love

When were you first aware that God loves YOU? 

Where and why do you struggle to see yourself as loved by God?

Daily tell yourself, “I Am Loved”

RESPOND to God’s love

How do you see creation worshipping God?  (See Psalm 148)

How have you responded to God’s love for you?

What does it mean for you to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?

In what ways do you tell God that you love Him?

Daily profess and express your love for God.  

REFLECT God’s love

Why does Jesus connect loving God with loving others?  (See Matthew 22:37-40 & 1 John 4:7-11)

How are you currently reflecting God’s love in the world?

Where do you see that God’s love is needed in our world?

Daily seek to be more loving to more people.