Love in Action.
John 13:31-35.
Last Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day; a day set aside to show our love and appreciation for all mothers and women in our society; a day to give thanks for all they mean to us; a day in which to honour them. And honour them we did here at CPAC thanks to the men in our church! And a very special thanks to Peter Bishop who organised that very special service. As women we were truly affirmed!
As I thought about how wonderfully affirmed we were as women, it got me thinking how do we affirm God? One of the ways we do, as Christians, is by setting aside one day a week, to celebrate God’s love for us. As we gather in worship this morning we affirm that the greatest blessing that God has given us, is God’s love for us; God’s love that forgives us our sins and makes us children of God; God’s love that brings us together into a fellowship with one another, and God’s love that sends us forth to proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus, our Saviour. As God’s people we gather together in this congregation to affirm to one another, what is most important to us: God’s love.
As Jesus says this morning, “A new commandment I give to you; that you should love one another, even as I have loved you, you should love one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Let’s be very clear about this. This is not a request or a “if you wouldn’t mind” kind of instruction. It is very clearly a command! Most of all, first and foremost, what God desires of us is that we love one another. We may tithe. We may teach. We may sing or serve or sacrifice. We may visit on behalf of our congregation, preach the gospel, set up for the church on Sundays, serve in the kitchen, bake for the morning teas, organise the sound desk, run the power point, select the music, teach King’s Kids, organise youth activities, pick up parishioners, take a home group, serve on council, be involved in outreach, Drug Arm, Prison Ministry, visit the elderly, lead a hospital ministry, teach CRE or even be involved in ALPHA. (Have I left anything out?) And, of course, all of these things are of vital importance to our congregation and our life together. However, if we do not do them out of love for God, if we do not love one another, we miss what God desires most of us.
I am reminded of a Charlie Brown cartoon. Lucy stands with her arms folded and a resolute expression on her face, while Charlie Brown pleads with her, “Lucy,” he says, “You must be more loving. The world needs love. Make this world a better place, Lucy, by loving someone else.” At that Lucy twirls around angrily. “Look you blockhead,” Lucy screams. “The world I love. It’s the people I can’t stand!” And I think that sometimes we can identify with that remark. It’s easy to love in the abstract---the world, people in general. We have no problem with that. It’s people around us that drive us crazy. And yet it is precisely those people around us, people nearest to us, with whom we work and go to school, neighbours next door, and the people we sit next to in church, and, heaven forbid, the members of our family that Jesus calls us to love.
Love in action. That’s what we are talking about this morning; Love which finds expression in kindness, courtesy, tolerance, and acceptance of those around us; the kind of love Sharon and Daniel are soon to experience and live out in through marriage. Jesus calls us to love one another and to bring that love to light, in the way that we treat those around us. It’s easy to love people in general, to affirm that love is a good thing and something we all need. But it’s another thing altogether to put that love into action, to make love concrete in our attitudes and actions toward others. Someone once said, “We are judged by our actions, not our intentions. We may have a heart of gold, but then, so does a hard-boiled egg!”
I don’t know about you, but often it is my family that I have the most difficulty putting that love into action. Before my brother and sister-in-law went off to work in Thailand at the end of last year to I had a family dinner with my brother and his family. All profess to have no faith in God and I spent an evening listening to all their inter-lecturizing about why, what I believe is all rubbish; that God doesn’t exist. I was ready to get up on my high horse and tell them a thing or two when at that instance realised all God wanted me to do was to just love them! I realised it would have been a complete waste of time confronting them, because as Jesus discovered when he was on trial, when peoples’ hearts are so hardened words and confrontation will not make a scrap of difference
Love one another. As a congregation of God’s people, we are called to care for one another, to set aside our preconceived notions of who is and who is not acceptable to God. You know, the interesting thing is that the ground at the foot of the cross is level. Ever thought about that? Well, it’s true because we are all sinners. We have all fallen short of the glory that God expects of us and we are all received into God’s goodness only by God’s grace, not by our own doing.
Have you ever thought that it is only God’s love that unites us. Have a look around you! We are all so different. If it wasn’t for God’s love, would we actually gravitate to one another naturally? Well some of us would, but honestly, there are probably only a small number that you probably have a lot in common with normally. It is God’s love that unites us in a new way and it is God’s love that we are called to share with one another. That means that our lives must be characterized by love in action. For I am convinced that love in God’s language and understanding, is a verb; it’s a doing word! It is what we as Christians are called upon to put into action every day of our lives. Not just on Sundays.
Jesus says, “As I have loved you, love one another.” The truth is that we love because he first loved us. We enjoy the benefits of this congregation because others experienced God’s love and decided to share that love with us. They experienced God’s love for themselves and sacrificed, by meeting initially in a classroom. Anne Allan tells me that the guys even had to drive over every week to St. John’s, load up the trailer and then drive here to Churton Park, unload the trailer and then set up. Afterwards the chairs had to be loaded back onto the trailer and returned to St. John’s. Not just one Sunday but EVERY Sunday!! And they did this to make God’s love the foundation of this congregation, and now it is our turn. It is our time to experience God’s love and action in our lives and to sacrifice and to make it real for others.
We live in a world that is increasingly hostile to the Christian faith, a world that grows more and more self-centred every day, a world that has lost the meaning of the word “sacrifice,” that does not understand the commitment of faith. This is the world in which we are called to share God’s love, but we also admit that we are part of this world. We are among those who find it difficult to love others. We are among those whose time is limited and who find it difficult to make time for church. We are among those who often fail to share God’s love with others. And we are among those whose offerings for the church are often far from “sacrificial.” How often does your gift to God depend upon the amount of change you have in your purse or pockets on Sunday?
Let’s be very clear. Our Christian discipleship, living as faithful members of the church, is not just a matter of will power. It is not just deciding we will do it, that we will love others. It is also not about feelings, because as we all know feelings blow hot and cold. It just doesn’t happen that way. It happens far more simply than that.
Sharing God’s love, living God’s love, loving one another, happens only when we are connected to God’s love, when we allow God’s love to surround us, to shape and mould our lives in Jesus’ image. How do we connect with God’s love? It happens when we invite his Son Jesus Christ into our lives and real transformation happens only when we give him permission to be the Lord of our lives; handing over every area of our lives to him.
In a world all too often filled with people concerned about themselves first, we are called to witness to something far more important----love that gives itself for others; love that cares about others; love that makes our lives meaningful and significant; unconditional love. By this all men will know we truly are Christ’s disciples.
