John 15:9-17
May 17th, 2009
"Love One Another"
I want to begin this message by saying that love is not easy. In many cases it is not natural to our inclinations. If it were easy and natural to us Jesus would not have to “command us to love one another.”
Recently this became very obvious to me as I was listening to writer and speaker Dennis Prager when he said, ‘The 10 commandments were given to us as a means of us countering our human nature. Human nature when left to itself would break all 10 commandments.’ Dennis Prager is a practicing Jew and leads many studies on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament that include the ten commandments.
As I further contemplated the fact that Jesus commanded us to love one another, I thought of the wedding vows that have been used by the Christian Church for literally a thousand years. They speak to the fact that love isn’t easy. Love is not always the intense emotional connection of the wedding day; it is a commitment based on vows and covenants made between two people.
Hear again some of the vows and realize what they are saying is love is not easy, “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” Ask any couple who have been married a long time if life together has not been at times for the poorer, for the worse and in sickness.
It is in those times that we realize that love is not a warm fuzzy feeling, a gushy emotional attachment; it is a commitment from the deepest levels of our will. Love is a choice, a commitment, an action and Jesus commands it.
People are often held together at times by honoring their commitment, not any emotional attachment, but by their commitment, and practicing lots and lots of forgiveness and understanding. It’s the same in the church.
In our Upper Room Devotional this last week on Wednesday it spoke of this commitment to one another and the importance of forgiveness and understanding.
Karri Howard wrote, “As I drove toward El Paso, I fumed over the argument I’d had with my husband the night before. I was sure I was right, but he would never admit it. My frustration increased when I passed an orange caution sign that read “Road Work Ahead.”
I was late, and in a hurry, and irritated by the delay of having to drive slowly. As I moved at snail’s pace through the desert, I told God how angry I was about the night before.
After a while, God gently whispered to me that like the road I was traveling on, my husband is “under construction’ and that I need to be patient with him.
I thought again about the argument, but this time I saw it from; my husband’s perspective. I was horrified by the lack of love I saw in my own behavior. I was ashamed even to ask for forgiveness, but then I saw how patient and gentle God had been with me. I realized that I am also under construction, and I received God’s forgiveness gratefully.
Forgiving my husband was easier when I realized how much God has forgiven me.
We all are works in progress, under construction, growing closer to God and each other and it isn’t easy!!
Today’s scripture is continuation of last week’s in both the Gospel of John and 1 John. In both they continue on with the theme of abiding in Jesus and bearing fruit, or acts of love.
Last week I spoke about one aspect of abiding with Jesus as being in fellowship with one another. This week the most important aspect of abiding with Jesus that is addressed is “obedience”. Jesus is commanding us to obey him by loving one another.
Note this: Jesus is not commanding us to like each other. Jesus is not commanding us to always agree with one another, or never argue with one another. Jesus is commanding us to love one another and when we do that we abide with Jesus. I can’t say this strongly enough today, “love is a commitment, an act of our will, an action, our obedience to Jesus.”
In verse 10 Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
Yes, to obey Jesus is to abide in his love. Simply to obey Jesus is what Jesus requests. To simply obey will keep us abiding in his love, but as I said, “It’s not easy to love.”
Now what are his commandments? You can search the scriptures and find many, but they are all summed up in verses 12 and 17. “This is my commandment that you love one another.”
The depth and measure of that love is in dying for a friend.
But the death we die for another need not be all at once, but a sacrificial death that goes on one day after another.
We die for our friends, our fellow Christians when we serve them rather than being served. When we show up Sunday after Sunday to teach Sunday School, help in worship, sing in the choir, lead music; simply show up to show whose side we are on.
We die to so many recreational opportunities; to sleeping in and yet by doing this we find life. We find our lives by losing them for Jesus.
The words of Jesus that we hear today were spoken to the disciples and the Church.
The call here to “love one another” was and is addressed specifically to the Church!!! Jesus speaks elsewhere of how we are to love the world and those in the world, but here he speaks specifically to us; to Christians in the Church.
He tells us we need to reach out and truly, really and even in a very costly manner “love one another.”
Today in our Church and in many Churches across the land there is a tremendous problem in that people attend to “get” rather than to “give”; to be loved rather than to love, to be served rather than to serve.
Today bigger churches siphon off such unhappy members of smaller churches, because the bigger churches often have a better show, a flashier program and meet more “felt needs.”
The mistake is that those who are often attracted by such ministry don’t grow. They don’t catch the vision of Christ: that true Christian community is composed of giver not getters. That the Church is a place of personal giving not getting.
Many Christians live totally frustrated spiritual lives, because they flit from Church to Church, fellowship to fellowship not seeking to truly contribute but to get.
“My needs are not met” is the great exiting cry again and again and many just retire from church participation for years.
Sometimes I feel God leaves them abandoned in a deep frustration until they find that only by losing themselves in service will they find the abiding peace that is in Jesus.
The command of Jesus is to “love one another”; to be in a covenantal, committed relationship with one another “till death do us part.” It is only when we stay in a relationship despite our disappointments; despite the pain, and disagreements, and hurts we have with each other that we experience the promises of Jesus here in our scripture that come through loving one another.
When we take our commitment to love one another as members of one church “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health” will we then experience Jesus’ promise of Joy.
But here let me tell you of a woman who knew and understood the meaning of loving one another. Who lived the idea that the Church was about giving and not getting.
I had been called to come pray with this woman right before she was to undergo heart surgery. I had been shuffled all over the hospital looking for her. She was in her early 90’s.
I finally found her on a gurney in a hallway about to enter the operating room. I stopped those who were pushing the gurney and prayed with her. Then she ministered to me!
She grabbed my hand with a firm grip and looked intensely into my eyes with beautiful steel blue eyes I will never forget, and she said, “Don’t worry about me. I have made my peace with God. I know where I am going if I die.”
She then dismissed me to as she said, “To go take care of people who really needed me.”
She had grasped completely that God had called her to serve and through dismissing me she saw it as one way for her to continue her ministry through me as I cared for others.
Her body didn’t survive that surgery, but her spirit ministers on through my words today and the fruits she brought forth, acts of love that will last.
Search your heart? Is this you? Do you come to Christ Church seeking to have your needs completely met? If so we will and we are going to be a complete disappointment to you!
For let me list some of our major weaknesses:
We are poor at following up on inactive members.
Our ministry to parents and young adults is mostly missing.
We do next to nothing in terms of men’s ministries.
I could go on and on and list many of my own faults for I have lots of people over the years who have pointed them out, but we here suffer in these areas and more because some haven’t stepped forward to exercise their ministries, their gifts in these and other areas.
They have come to get, not gotten, and gone; rather than coming to serve, being fruitful and having their prayers answered through an intimate relationship, an abiding with God.
In Greek the word “friend” is “philo.” It literally means “the one who is loved.”
We as Jesus friends, “the ones he loves.” We are called to love one another. To bear fruit which I remind you from last week’s sermon are acts of love. Is this easy? No!!
Because it means we need to put up with each other’s shortcomings, and human imperfections. Some of us are just hard to get along with.
It means we need to put up with and work to overcome the imperfections of the church. It means we need to stay committed to the ones who make us angry, the hypocrites, the sermons and preachers we sometimes strongly disagree with. We need to forgive each other.
I will never tell you it is easy being in the church, or leading the church but if we are to obey Jesus’ commandment, if we are to abide with Jesus we must remain committed to each other!
As one writer put it, “Having a hard time loving someone? Don’t speak, but act on a love that is deeper than your ability to speak of love.”
Again, is this easy? Absolutely not!!! If it was easy Jesus wouldn’t have had to command us to do it. If it was part of our natural inclinations Jesus would not have had to command it.
He wouldn’t have had to remind us that he has chosen us and appointed us.
He wouldn’t have had to send the Holy Spirit to empower us when our natural ability to love failed.
Yes, it’s hard to love as Jesus loved. It takes a daily death to our own inclinations, but the results for us and others are tremendous. The rewards are fantastic!!
Hear what Jesus promises us from our scripture today as we obey him and love one another.
First, Jesus promises us Joy.
Verse eleven reads, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
Joy, Jesus promises us as we abide in Him through our obedience to him by loving one another.
Second, Jesus promises us friendship. “What a friend we have in Jesus” as the words of the hymn go, “all our sins and griefs to bear.”
Jesus through the Holy Spirit reveals to us the mind of God and though, we serve and obey Jesus, it is as friends not servants and slaves for verse 15 says, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends,…”
Third, we are chosen and appointed. We have a purpose and a mission. When we abide in Jesus we don’t ask what is God and the church going to do for us, but we ask what can we do for God and the church. In God’s service we find the joy of the Lord and his everlasting friendship. Some ask, “Why have I lived so long?” The answer is “God has a purpose for you!!!!”
Fourth, we will bear fruit that will last. We will have a legacy. Through our ministry disciples will be made, works of love will be performed, the Church will be strengthened, and the fellowship will grow. Our impact on this world will be eternal and it will be good!
Finally, God will answer our prayers! When we abide in Jesus and grow to know the mind and the will of God; we will ask for the things God wants and they will be given.
We’ll close with the prayer of Francis of Assisi that you find on the cover of your bulletin. Francis of Assisi in these few short verses sums up this sermon and these scriptures. In them is an acknowledgement that it is not easy to love and at times it is very difficult to be the church.
But as we make this our prayer and our life together, Jesus will fulfill the above five promises in our lives.
We will find Joy. We will find friendship with Jesus. We will have a purpose and mission in life and the benefits of the fruit of our acts of love will last.
Please make this your invitation to become a friend of Jesus, to love one another as Christ has loved us. To be committed to one another despite all. Let us pray together:
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
Not so much to be understood as to understand,
Not so much to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
It is in dying that we awake to eternal life.”
St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
