The Greatest of These is Love

Read 1 Corinthians 13

Christians typically love the 23^rd Psalm.  Many know Psalm 100.  John 3:16 is a given—who does not like this gospel in miniature verse.  But the 13^th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth has such a special quality, a meter, an idiom to it that it has endeared itself to many as poetic.

It’s just got that special feel to it.

It’s something of an odd chapter to be loved so much.  It comes in the middle of Paul’s counsel on Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ and unity in the body.  It was written to a congregation that placed too much value on the gift of tongues, perhaps to the point of minimizing other gifts and talents of the body.

It is written to a congregation that was in the heart of the pagan world.  The temple of Aphrodite, the pagan goddess of love, overlooked Corinth.  This was a temple of 1000 prostitutes.

Corinth was also a port city.  If you have never spent any time in a major port, know there are all sorts of worldly influences there.

While some of the believers in Corinth came out of the Jewish Synagogue; many came straight out of pagansville.  The only definition of love these folks knew was the kind that Aphrodite was selling.  Paul had some time with this new church but then he was sent elsewhere by God’s Spirit.  So he did much of his ministry and mentoring in letters.

Paul had much to address.  We are blessed today that this congregation had many issues.  Beyond the specific issues, they didn’t quite grasp this one godly fundamental—love.

People were at odds with each other over gifts.  They were self-centered and self-indulgent at the Lord’s Supper.  They had members still practicing pagan ways and were at a loss as to how to deal with them.

Paul addressed all issues one by one, but in this 13^th chapter, he gets to the heart of so many things when it comes to following Jesus.

He said it didn’t matter how skilled he was at any given thing.  If love was absent, God was not glorified.  Absent love, he was the cowbell drowning out the New York Philharmonic.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Paul did what good communicators do, he gave a variety of examples.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Let’s understand this.  If I can fathom all mysteries, I am making the rounds on the national television shows.  Everybody wants me.   If I can move a mountain, then people are listening to me—they are tuned in.

But if I don’t have love then I am nothing.  Really?  I am big time in the world.  I am getting more than my 15 minutes of fame.  But in the eyes of the Creator of that world, my amazing feats don’t count for diddly.

Paul said, look at it this way.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

If I am the philanthropist of the century—giving to the point that I don’t’ have anything—but don’t have love, I gain nothing.   This sounds like a guy who ought to have some treasure in heaven, He gave up everything that he had.  That’s got to count for something.  Right?

Not if it was done without love.  That’s a tough one.  Is not the act of substantial giving love in itself?  Elsewhere, Paul notes that the Lord loves a cheerful giver.  If we give much or even everything and our heart is not right with the Lord, don’t expect heavenly dividends.

But what if on top of my stuff, I gave my very body to be a slave, or servant, or to be tortured or burned to death.  Don’t those things show my dedication?

Not if they were out of something other than love.  If you want fame or glory or notoriety for yourself, don’t expect God to see these acts as a sacrifice to or for him.  They don’t register on his scale.

So what is this thing called love?  What is it that turns the fantastic things that we can do into something that puts a smile on God’s face?  What is it that turns the smallest things that we can do into something that puts a smile on God’s face?  What is this thing called love?  How do we explain it?

Paul proffers some explanation.

Let’s start with love is patient.  Really?  Does anyone have time to be patient anymore?  Maybe there is a unique meaning that will get me out of this part.

Let’s try these definitions—the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

Those don’t get me off the hook.  Here’s some additional definitions--an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay, such as having patience with a slow learner.

Let me read more definitions, maybe one will get me off the hook--quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence.

There is no back door or side exit on this one.  Patience is exactly what we thought it was and love is patient.  This is like Jesus beginning his teachings on love with love your enemies.  Paul begins, love is patient.

Love—the ultimate characteristic of God’s heart—seems counter intuitive to our human heart.  It is, but our heart is being changed to the likeness of our Father’s heart.  He is patient with us, desiring that all come to repentance and enter his saving grace.

Love is patient.  OK, got it.

Love is kind.  That one doesn’t take too much to grasp.  If we are practicing speaking the truth in love by telling one of our friends that those drugs are killing you and destroying your family, we will still be gentle about it.  We will be direct and full of truth, but our words and deeds will be kind ones. We will proceed without harsh motives.

Those are good positive qualities—patience and kindness.  Next, Paul notes what love is not.

Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Most of us think those make sense, well, except the last one.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.  Many are in the I will forgive but not forget mode.  That’s common among Christians.  It is probably an acceptable intermediate objective.

But the goal is to keep no record of wrongs--to truly forgive and forget.  That’s right up there with patience and love your enemies as far as the difficulty level. 

How can anyone expect this of us?  How can God expect this of us?  Once again, our heart is being shaped like his and God said I will remember your sins no more.

We like that part.  Not only does God forgive us, but he forgets our transgressions.  Our record is made clean.  Love tells us to do the same.

Some of you are upset with me at this point.  What has always been a beautiful scripture, easy to listen to, and always sends us away feeling good, has now become one that challenges us to be patient and keep no record of wrongs.

To continue in Paul’s message, we need to understand that while this is beautiful prose in translation after translation, we are challenged in these verses.  Here’s one that ties many together.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Love leads us away from evil and into the truth.  We get the shunning of evil at every turn but rejoicing in the truth is a sign of Christian maturity.  The world is not happy with the truth.  The world wants to redefine truth, but you who live in love rejoice in the truth.

Of all the things that you know, of all the things we see as truth, and of all of the growth in grace that lies ahead of us, know with certainty this truth: God loves you.

In all of the trials of your life, know that God loves you.

When you feel you have reached rock bottom, know that God loves you.

He loves you so much that he sent his Son into this world not to condemn the world—a condemnation it surely deserved—but to save the world through him.  Christ died for us.

That’s God’s most visible sign of his love for us.  Perhaps, remembering that foundational truth will help us be a little more patient.  Maybe, it will help us forget something that someone did to us that lingers on. And surely, because we know that the truth will set us free, we can learn to rejoice in the truth.

·       Even when it reveals our shortcomings.

·       Even when it is not what people want to hear.

·       Even when it rattles our comfort zone.

Want to know someone who got his comfort zone rattled?  Paul, when everyone called him Saul.  He was squarely in the middle of his comfort zone rounding up followers of The Way.  Then weren’t enough in Jerusalem so he headed to Damascus.  Then the Truth hit him right between the eyes.

Everything that he knew about God was reframed by love.  The man who knew God’s word inside and out and who wrote today’s words about love was introduced to the truth.  Paul went beyond accepting the truth—with the bit T and little t—he embraced it.  He rejoiced in it.

Love rejoices in the truth.

What else can we say about love?  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

We can get on board with those without too much contemplation.  But now here it comes.  This is the centerpiece of Paul’s prose.

Love never fails.

Things of this world fail all of the time.  Once or twice a year, my smart phone and computer and printer and the copier rebel against God and humankind. 

Sometimes the satellite television revolts too.  It fails to do what it is supposed to do.   I don’t worry about that too much.  My wife is the one who gets to call the guy in India on how to fix it.

Even some of the Spiritual Gifts that we know will not be important as the age comes to an end.  Prophecy and special knowledge and speaking in tongues won’t continue.  They will have served their purpose and won’t be needed.

Even with the gifts that we have, they do not complete us.  We understand only in part.  God’s ways are not our ways.  His thoughts are not our thoughts, but we do get a glimpse of what this creation and our Creator is all about. 

One day, we will see clearly.  We will grasp the whole picture.  Things will be clear.

On that day, the thing that we had to hold onto in our forgive but not forget mindset will seem so insignificant. 

The things that stressed us out because we struggled against patience will seem absurd—having no eternal merit and surely worthy of our patience and not our grief.

But we do not have such clear vision yet.  We are moving that way.  We are exchanging the ways of the world for the ways of God.  We are moving the right direction, but we are still in the incomplete zone.  Yes, Christ completes us, but we don't see the full picture just yet.

For we know in part,

and we prophesy in part.

 But when the perfect comes,

the partial will come to an end.

 When I was a child,

I spoke like a child,

I thought like a child,

I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man,

I put aside childish things.

We are growing.  We are growing in God’s grace.  We are growing in love and becoming love.  We are not there yet. 

Our growth is sometimes slowed by the fact that we won’t put away our childish things.  Our growth is stunted when we must hold on to some of the world’s precepts.

Our growth stagnates when we choose our own understanding over trusting in the Lord.

Perfection, completeness, and the fruition of the work on the cross is coming into fulness in each of us.  Some embrace it.  Some resist.  Some are back and forth.

Fast or slow, we are being shaped into love.  It’s a process that takes us out of our comfort zone time and time again.

Love is central to our discipleship.  In fact, Paul thought it the most essential of the main things that we embrace.

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

We have considered the words of Jesus to love our enemies.  We have reviewed Paul’s words and understand that if love is pouring out of us, that love will meet the requirements of the law.  Now we see that Paul charges us to keep the faith and be people of hope, but most of all live in love.

We need to understand love.  It is the who and what we are becoming.  It is a process that will not always be easy but surely and certainly worthwhile.

I mentioned before that there was poetry or a rhythm to this part of the Bible, often dubbed the love chapter.  I conclude once more with these words of love.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Amen.

Love Fulfills the Law

Read Romans 13:8-10

We often talk about a subject that we don’t really comprehend.  It is a big part of the Bible.  Paul discussed it frequently, but we in this modern era do not really comprehend what we call the law.

Today we think of law as something enacted by government.  We think of law as something enforceable by some sort of sanction.  Enforcement is often difficult even when the law is clear.

Many of our laws today are rooted in what the Bible talks about as the law.  Do not murder is manifested in all sorts of degrees of manslaughter.  Malice aforethought or mens rea is essential for the most severe cases.  A death resulting from negligence on the part of one or more parties also has its roots in thou shalt not murder.

We see God’s law at work in many of our own laws.  Then there are other laws that we don’t see in our societal laws.  Take do not covet as an easy example.  This one does not translate into something enforceable.  Now if you covet something so much that you go and take it, then we get to thou shalt not steal, and that is enforceable.

When you ask your kids what they want to be when they grow up, nobody ever says the coveting police.  That’s like the Major Case Division of the Thought Police.

“Maam, do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No officer.”

“As soon as you pulled into the Walmart parking lot, I could tell you were wanting that space near the entrance by the lawn and garden section.”

“No officer.  I had my heart set on the one by the food market.”

“Aha!  A confession at last.”

Honor your father and mother surely makes sense to those of us set upon bringing up children in the way they should go, but it’s hard to translate that into what we would call law.

Not all of God’s laws were for all of his people.  Some just told the priestly order how to conduct business.  Others were more about agriculture.  Many were about relationships that we don’t deal with any more.

What do you do if a slave girl is violated?  Slavery still exists in parts of the world, but by and large most western countries think it repulsive.  God’s law considered human relations that included the status of slaves.

The law as it is called in the Bible is something that we don’t grasp as firmly as the Hebrew people who grew up with it two millennia ago. Even then, Paul brought the good news to many who had been pagans.  They likely knew of the Hebrew law but did not study it or consider that it applied to them in any way.

If we look to the Hebrew Shema, we see God talking about My Words.  The term law wasn’t something frequently associated with God’s words.  His words were teaching and instruction and his purpose was right living and right standing.

While there are 613 directives of sorts that might be called the law or laws; we should not associate them too closely with our modern concept of man-made law.  The Law of Moses as it came to be called was not the same to all people.

Some of what we know as the law came with penalties, including death penalties.  Others fell into what today we would call civil law with compensation for damage done to a certain party.

Sometimes, we read through the Torah and might just ask ourselves, “Did God really need to tell his people not to do some of this stuff?” 

Actually, he did and he attached his reasoning with some of these laws.  He said these are the things that the people who are not living in the land that I am giving you are doing.  You, however, are not to do them.

Few of us today grew up learning the Hebrew law before we came to know Christ.  We learned it after receiving Jesus as Lord.  We were saved from our sin before we knew the full extent of our sin as revealed to us in the law.  God’s Spirit was at work in us before we understood much at all about the law.

We understand that the law points out our transgression to us.  It helps us understand our need for salvation that we cannot achieve on our own.  It gives us eyes to see Jesus as our Savior.

The law still condemns our heart so that our soul may be saved in Christ Jesus, but does the law apply to us today?  Is it binding?

Jesus said that not the smallest word or letter in a word would pass away until all things are accomplished.  We believe that to mean the end of the age—this church age that we live in.

So do we live by the law today?  If so, we have missed out on making sacrifices and burnt offerings for a long time. 

The problem rests in our connotations that we place upon this term law. 

We have this thing that we call free will but God has not left us to aimlessly figure out right and wrong, what pleases him and what doesn’t, or how to relate to him and to others.

He gave the world teaching and instruction through one people.  God gave instruction and teaching—sometimes with consequences attached for disobedience—and he gave a means to be made right once again with him through offerings and sacrifices.

God did not just set things in motion and say, “Good luck guys.  See you at the judgment.”

He gave instruction—laws if you must.

He sent prophets with messages.

Finally, he sent his Son to reconcile all things to himself.  His finished work on the cross took care of sin and death getting in the way of an eternal relationship with our Father in heaven.

But now that the work on the cross is done, do we still need the law?  Are its consequences binding upon us?  What about the words of Jesus who said that not one pen stroke of the law would pass away until all things were accomplished?

There is an old quiz that I love to use in different contexts.  When I was a counselor in prison programs, I really enjoyed it.  You have surely seen it.

It begins by saying these instructions are important, read this entire page before answering any questions or beginning anything else.  There is a page full of questions and instructions.  Some are as simple as write the answer to what is the sum of 2 and 2.  Some are more fun.  One reads, “Stand and announce that I have reached question 17.”  Another says, “Raise both hands and announce that I love this quiz.”

Other questions and instructions require more thinking and are challenging to some.  Some are surely just boring.  But for the person who follows directions and reads to the end before beginning the quiz, they find one final instruction.  

It reads:

Put your name at the top of the paper.  Set your pencil down.  Be quiet and enjoy the fun.

And without fail, there is some fun to follow.  Those who read to the end and are just sitting quietly are struggling not to laugh out loud every time someone stands up and announces their arrival at question 17 or follows some other instruction requiring public comment.

Why does this exercise work time and time again?  Maybe, we don’t like to follow instructions.  Maybe something inside of us wants to finish before the next guy.  Perhaps there are a hundred different reasons not to simply do what is set before us.

Sometimes, we as people complicate the simple but God doesn’t.  God does not make things complicated for us.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

    And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

    and to walk humbly with your God.

God is always working for our good.  He does not complicate things.  We complicate things.  

Consider the Scribes and Pharisees. 

They knew the law very well.  They knew it so well that they added some things to it to make sure that the common people complied with it.  So if it was not permitted to use a tool on the Sabbath, the additional law would be that you shouldn’t even touch it.

If you have ever been in the military, you understand the concept.  The commander sets the formation time at 0800.  That’s a nice hour to have people get together.

The First Sergeant, tells the platoon sergeants to have their Marines ready by 0730.  Nobody is going to be late to the formation.

Platoon sergeants follow suit and tell their squad leaders that everyone needs to be in formation by 0700.  Nobody is going to be late.

Squad leaders tell their team leaders…well you get the picture.  By the time the captain and first sergeant walk out, people have been standing around for an hour and a half.  This is what the Scribes and Pharisees did with the law.

This is often called putting a fence around the law.  It’s like we are not even going to let you get close to breaking the law. And it seems to be human nature.  It seems to have always been human nature.

What did God tell Adam about the tree at the center of the garden?  Don’t eat its fruit.

When the serpent asked Eve about the fruit of this tree, what did she say?  We can’t even touch it.  Either Adam or Eve had already begun Talmudic commentaries even when there was just one rule.  They had already put a fence around that one rule.

It seems that the Scribes and Pharisees missed the point.  The law was not to produce a compliant people.  The law was to lead people to a good life, a godly life, and eventually it would point people to the One through whom we know eternal life.

Godly instruction is for the purpose of right relationship with God and each other.  The blood of Jesus put us into right relationship, but we also want to live as the people that God has made us to be.  We want to please him.  So what do we do with the law now?

Paul tells us that love fulfills the law.  The law has not vanished but love permits us to fulfill it.

If I love God and do my best to love my neighbor, surely I won’t murder him.

If I am loving the God who loved me so much and I am doing it by loving my neighbor, I am not going to covet or steal his stuff or his wife or his Wi-Fi signal.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.  Love fulfills the law. 

People do so many things to complicate what God has made simple and straightforward.  God says that it is all about love, so much so that if we give our hearts and minds to a life of loving God and each other, all the directions and directives and procedures and prohibitions that are enumerated in the Bible just seem to fall into place, at least those that apply in our lives. 

It’s time for a proverb.  The proverb says that the borrower is slave to the lender.  Translation to today—personal debt stinks!  It is a burden.  We should do as much as we can to live debt free, with one exception.

We will always have one debt.  We will never get it paid off.  We will be paying on it for all of our natural days.

What debt?  The debt that we owe to God for his great love.  Our payments are to love one another.  The proverbs say that debt is bad stuff.  Avoid it.  Get out of it.  Never go back to it.

But Paul reminds us that there is a debt that is essential, and our payments on that debt are that we love one another.  Last week we talked about loving our enemies because Jesus said so and because that just who we are now that we have been born of the Spirit.

We are all about love.  Having been set free from the power of sin and death, God did not burden us with compliance with hundreds of rules.  He set us upon a course of loving him by loving each other.

When we live by love we live inside-out.  Without love governing everything, then it’s outside-in.  We try to keep up with every regulation that applies to us.  It seems complicated.

When we realize that we love because God is love and we are his, and when we realize that love is always our first choice, knowing what to do in this life to please God and just to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord is not as complicated as you might think.

That does not mean that it won’t be difficult to live out a godly decision made in love, but it won’t be a complicated process to know what to do.

Has God shown us what is good?  Absolutely yes!  We have his words.  Some of them we have called laws.  God was content to call them his words and didn’t seem to be hung up on the term law.

We have the life and teachings of Jesus.  He taught us what is good.  We know from God what is good.

Well then what does he require of us?

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

How can we do that?

By living a life governed fully by love.  When we live a life governed by love, we have met the requirements of God.  We have fulfilled his words.  We have fulfilled the law.

That’s good news.

Let’s not complicate what God has made so simple.  Love fulfills the law.  Live by love.

Amen.

Love Your Enemies

Read Luke 6:27-36

It’s like a Geico commercial.  Everybody knows that if you are going to preach a few Sundays on love, you don’t start with love your enemies.  Everybody knows that you have to work your way up to that one.

Everybody knows that, well, maybe, except Jesus.  As you read through Luke’s gospel you get a Christmas story, Jesus presented in the temple, Jesus back in the temple at 12, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus rejected in his hometown, Jesus driving out demons and healing many, sometimes even on the Sabbath. 

You get Jesus calling disciples to follow him.  You get Jesus teaching that he is Lord of the Sabbath.  He is getting people’s attention for sure, but the first time that he really teaches about love, he starts with love your enemies.

That’s crazy.  That’s graduate level Christianity.  That’s super-mature Christianity.  How can Jesus start with love you enemies?

It seems hard enough to love friends and family sometimes.  How can Jesus dive into this topic—this mega topic—of love with love your enemies?

Let’s begin with a very simple but provocative statement.  Jesus did not enter this world to blend in with this world.  He was on a mission from his Father.  He came with purpose.

As it turns out, I’m a big supporter of his Father’s purpose.  I love that Jesus came on a mission.  He came to save us.  God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save it through him.

There is something about being on a mission.  Having a little Marine Corps experience, I will talk first hand for the moment.  You have focus.  You have intensity.  Your whole force of personality is given to the mission.  What others not involved in the mission think becomes a blur.  It doesn’t even aggravate you.

You don’t sugar coat anything to others who are on the same mission.  You think that things might get nasty, then you tell your Marines.  This might get nasty.

If you have no good intel then that’s what you share.  We are going in here totally in the dark. Intel will develop as we run into people who like or they don’t. You don’t sugar coat anything.

If you are on a mission—have a purpose for your existence—tact and fluffy words and even a spoon full of sugar don’t help the medicine go down.  It is truth and truth administered the only way it is truly effective, and that’s full strength is what’s needed.

Jesus gave his disciples and those who would listen the same message about love.  Love must be administered full strength.  Love is not for one but not for another.

It’s easy to love those who love us back.  Even sinners and the ungodly know that.  Even the ungodly do that.  Tit-for-tat does not distinguish the one who follows Jesus from the one who belongs to the world.

Jesus said, they will know you are my disciple by your love—that you love one another.  Most of that love is directed at the covenant community.  We take care of each other because we are all brothers and sisters with Christ Jesus.

We do our best to live in one spirit, one hope, one accord and in love.  The family of faith that you know should be the most welcoming and accepting and loving place that you know.

We didn’t earn our way into this family. Jesus paid our admission fees in blood.  Jesus made us right with his Father so that we could live in this wonderful family of faith, but we know that our response is love.  We love one another.

And while we look at the history of the church that we know in scripture, we see most of the love expressed was within the covenant community.  That first century church in Jerusalem that you have read about in Acts, didn’t go out doing all sorts of things for the ungodly.  They did everything for each other.

The love of God is most fully manifested within the covenant community—within the family of faith.  But it doesn’t stop there.

We have a message of good news.  We have a mission to take that good news to the world.  For most of us that’s western Oklahoma, at least for folks that we see face-to-face.

And some of those people don’t like us.  Some might hate us.  Some might even get the classification of an enemy.  But our command as followers of Jesus is to love them anyway.

You see, the governing force here is not the nature of the recipient but the nature of the messenger.  We are messengers of good news and love.

The governing factor for us is love.  We carry and embody and deliver love because that is our nature.  That is the nature of the new creation that we have become and are becoming.  It’s a done deal but we are still working on it.  That’s a topic for another day.

The world’s model is if you like somebody and they like you, then you will probably get along.  You can do the tit-for-tat things.  It’s all about the other person and if you think they might be good enough for you to call friend.

Jesus tells us that it’s all about love not the nature of the people who receive our love.  We are the constant.  We are about love.

In the family of faith, love blossoms and grows and does things beyond our expectations.  The covenant community is a wonderful place to live.

In the ungodly world, love is often rejected.  Love is often repelled.  Love is not wanted.  Money, stuff, and the things of this world are always welcome, but love can just stay home if you don’t want to be treated harshly.

Jesus tells us to love them anyway.  The dynamic here is not the condition of others but of ourselves.  We are people of love.  Love governs.

And often, the reward for loving the ungodly is:

·       Being hated

·       Being cursed

·       Being mistreated

·       Disrespected

·       Condescending actions

·       Exploitation

Now in these cases, our response is…

Love.  It’s always love because that’s who we are now.  We were not always that way.

Many of us were very good at the tit-for-tat game.  We learned to navigate the one-thing-for-another world.  Our relationships were based upon what we saw as the value of others to us.

Let’s use one of Paul’s terms and call that the “old self.”

We are different now.  Love governs.  Love rules.  In the internal struggle that we sometimes face between the old and new person, love wins.

We chose love because we belong to a God who is love.

If you belong to the world and are hated, cursed, mistreated, disrespected, and exploited; then your ticket is punched.  The doctors will give you drugs.  The government will give you money.  Your ticket is punched.  You never have to deal with real life again.

That is until you find out that the drugs don’t really fix everything and your cravings for stuff have exceeded your allowance of free money.  The world is a cruel master.

But God is a God of love.  His deliverance is for now and for eternity.  We are his people.  We live in his love.  We love one another and enjoy being a part of the family of faith.

And…

We take his love to those who don’t love us, sometimes hate us, often disrespect us, and who will exploit us whenever possible; yet, we love them.

We treat them as we would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot.  If we were lost or blinded by the god of this age, wouldn’t we want those with eyes to see to help us even when we might be hateful towards the messengers of good news.

Wouldn’t we want them to keep coming back to try to rescue us?  Wouldn’t we want to be rescued even if we were being hateful towards our rescuers?

But the shoe is not on the other foot.  We are blessed.  We have eyes to see.  We have received the grace of our loving God.  Things are good for us.

We still have trouble in this world.  Jesus told us that we would.  We are not surprised but our hope is in Jesus and he has overcome the world and if we stick close to one another and love those in the family, then things seem to go pretty well.

So why do we have to deal with those who hate us?  I will give you the highly theological answer.  Take notes.  They will serve you well.  Why?

Because Jesus said so.

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Be like Dad.

While humankind was still loving sin, while we were rebellious towards our loving God, while people were still living an all about me life; Christ died for us.

Dad loved us when we didn’t love him.  Our Father in heaven loved us before we could muster a decent attempt to love him.  Dad loved us when humankind was not kind towards him.

Be like Dad.

Jesus did not get things backwards by starting with love your enemies.  The governing force here is love and that is the shape that the Potter is making our hearts.  How’s that for metaphor hopping.

Our hearts are being shaped like our Father’s heart.  Our hearts are becoming the heart of Love himself.  Love is who we are as this new creature that we are in Christ.

We feel a wonderful warmth when we love each other in the body of Christ.  We have a reward in the here and now.  But when we love our enemies, even if we don’t see any positive results in the here and now, God has an eternal reward for us.

Even when hate and disrespect and being cursed seem the continual response from those we love, our reward for doing exactly what Jesus told us to do is great.

Why would anyone love their enemies?

# 1  Jesus said so.

# 2  That’s just who we are.

Amen!