Living a life of love
1 Thessalonians 3:11-12
November 28th & 29th, 2009
There are some things in life that go without saying. I think Paul’s admonition to the
Thessalonians which goes like this seems to fall into this category. “..and may the Lord make you increase and
abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you”. Increasing love and concern for others
should be sort of a given, and yet Paul doesn’t hesitate to state the
“supposed” obvious to the Thessalonians not only here, but also a few verses
later. “Now
about brotherly love, we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have
been taught by God to love each other.
And in fact, you do love all brothers throughout
First Christian love does not start with us. In the prayer, Paul writes that the Lord
would work in you to make you increase and abound in love for one another. He didn’t just say “be more loving”, but he prayed
to the God who can and does make it happen in our lives. Love stops and ends with the God who the
bible says is love and his love always leads to action. In other words it is not merely an
emotion. For God so loved the world he did something. He sent
forth Jesus to conquer our greatest barrier to love, sin itself. Now this leads to further action. In John 13:34 he says “As I have loved you, so
you must love one another”. Here we see
that love toward our neighbor, not only
comes from our relationship with God, but also it is not an option. This means that living a life of love is simply
what we do. It is not based on the “so
called” lovableness of the person to be loved.
The question “What does love mean?”,
given to 4-8 year olds, Nikki, age six responded
by saying… “If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend
who you hate. She understood that the
source of love is outside of ourselves in God, and it is expressed outside ourselves
toward our neighbor. The source of love,
the strength to love, the reality of love comes from the God who sent Jesus into our lives, not when we stopped
being sinners, but in the midst of our sin.
This love starts and ends outside of us, it is not based
upon the lovableness of the person, and it is not an option. Our calling as God’s dearly loved people
is to serve and love our neighbor. This
changes how we look at life. As we
consider transitions in life, for young people new careers, often we only ask
ourselves the question “will I be happy at this? will I be good at it? Worthy and significant questions, but just as
important and I think even more important is this “How does this career , this decision,
enhance my calling to love my neighbor.”
This love is also be a witness to others. “By this all men will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another”.
Back in the fourth century, Julian the Apostate charged the Christians
with seeking to obtain followers by bribing the sick and suffering and
needy. He said “These Christians give themselves
to this kind of humanity. So we
see what it is that makes them such powerful
enemies of our gods. It is the
brotherly love that they manifest toward the stranger, and the suffering and
the poor.” That’s quite a charge- a charge that I pray we are always found
guilty.
This witness is both to fellow believers and to the
world. I’ve
heard it said that we don’t go to worship for others, but for ourselves
(explain) Yet, in another sense we are
here for others, in that we are called to serve and love and witness to our
faith. I wonder how worship in this
community would be different before each service we got up and said “whom will
God place in my path today that I can love and serve”. Notice also he is not saying that love isn’t happening, he just says make it increase
all the more. The Thessalonians were
already giving to the Macedonians, they already met their “quota”, but he says
do so all the more. This reflects the
storehouse of love and forgiveness Christ has won for you on
To love our fellow believers and our neighbors means to
honor one another above ourselves. Rebecca
age 8 responded to the same question “What
does love mean in the following way. When my grandma got arthritis, she couldn't
bend over and paint her toe nails anymore. So my grandpa does it for her now
all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.” There is an organization called the Rotary
that gives out an award titled “Service above self”. They get the flavor of what Jesus has done,
and how he calls us to live. Jesus on
the cross, in the midst of his sorrow and suffering, was in the business
of providing for his mother, praying for
his followers and his enemies. “Jesus
says did not come to be served, but to serve and to
give my life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).
We have received the ultimate in love and sacrifice in
Christ Jesus. He is our source, he gets
the credit and thanksgiving when acts of love are seen and experienced. Living a life of love is not an option, and
is not based on the lovableness of the person involved. Love of neighbor is a witness of our faith, both to fellow Christians, and those outside
the faith.
However, there is a challenge. Just how does this happen? The wisdom of carrying this out is what we
pray for. In the show “Everybody loves
Raymond”, Ray’s mother Marie meddles into her family’s life, but she sees it as love. Sometimes doing what is best for someone
means getting deeply involved, at other times it means allowing others to make
their own decisions, and the most loving thing to do is to allow a child to
make his or her own decisions. While
the principle almost goes without saying, applying it is what why prayer is to
be involved. There was a 4 year old child whose next door
neighbor was an elderly man who had just lost his wife. When the child saw the
man cry, the little boy went over into the man's yard and climbed on top of the
man's lap and just sat there. When the boy's mother asked him what he'd said to
the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him
cry." Lord help us make increase
and abound in fervent love for one another”.
Amen.