LOVES REWARDS

Today, on this week before Valentines, I thought it would be good to address the issue of authentic Christian love.  Not just the “Hallmark” love for a spouse or dating partner, I’ll cover that in a couple of weeks, but the love God calls us to have for those around us.  Not just our friends or relatives, those we think we have to love, but those for whom Jesus hung on the cross.  Do we really love others and what does love look like?  Don’t worry guys this isn’t one of those mushy feeling messages.

Do you know that you can’t really love others if you are unaware of having first been loved?  Let me say it another way.  Real love is unconditional and you can’t love unconditionally if you have no awareness of being loved unconditionally.  You can’t give what you don’t have.

1 John 4:19-21   …We love because he first loved us.  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

I know the rub.  Have you met my brother or my neighbor?  He’s a real piece of work.  She is almost impossible to be around.  Remember I have neighbors also.  Let me describe God’s thinking from His word spoken directly from Jesus.

Matthew 5:43-47    …“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you: Love your enemies pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?     

Hear the message?  There is a reward for this type of scary Christianity.  Maybe your saying to yourself that this just seems to be getting harder.  How can I love my enemy, I can’t even love my parents, my spouse, my kids or my coworkers?  Don’t forget what we’ve heard already, if you are having trouble loving; first see if you’ve settled the question of how greatly you’ve been loved.  Let’s listen to Jesus again. 

Luke 7:36-50   …Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.  When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”  

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.  

“Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”  

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.  Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”  

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

God is trying to teach us that in order to really love others we need to understand the enormity of His love for us first.  Let’s listen to God describe how love operates.  By the way He didn’t write this for weddings but rather to the church regarding the lost souls around them.

(The Message Bible) 1 Corinthians 13:1-7   …If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Notice that love is in the middle of a life mess.  It makes a choice not to do one thing and instead do another.  Love is not described as an emotion but rather a decision.  It’s looking at the person next to you and witnessing their flaws and choosing to see them as God sees them.  They, like you, have had the Son of God go to the cross for the very thing you despise about them.

Romans 5:8   …But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus died for that jerk, that misfit, that insensitive meathead you hang around with.  Don’t condemn them.  Don’t harm them.  Treat them as God would and be merciful.  Don’t walk them into evil.  Don’t lead them into sin or follow them into sin.  Would you buy the person struggling with alcohol his next drink?  Would you ask the woman you say you love but are not married to, to compromise her walk with God by leading her to your bedroom?  Would you serve 3 Big Macs to the person warring against obesity?

NO!  A Thousand times NO!  Love wouldn’t cause harm to one of God’s precious ones.

So what is loves reward?  In this instance the reward comes before you even act.  You are loved by God Himself; so love others.

Matthew 22:36-39   …“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “ ‘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.’    

Romans 13:8-10   …Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.     

Notes from Pastor Pasch’s February 8th weekly message; to get a free CD of the complete message, please contact Christ’s Family Church at (651) 437-2340.