SERMON

Because I Love You

John 15:9-17

Pastor Robyn Hogue May 10, 2015 Skyline Presbyterian Church

Let’s begin here: We love because God first loved us. This is the message for the day. In this passage, Jesus goes beyond the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says what? . . . That’s right . . . Matthew 7:12 “So, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

In the passage I just read, Jesus interprets the Golden Rule. We are not simply to treat others as we would like them to treat us. We are not simply to love our neighbor as we love our self; we are to love our neighbor as Jesus loves us. That’s a different and much more difficult standard.

Our own human love is always conditional and selective. We may love someone because he or she is simply lovable or perhaps because they act lovable toward us. But then we withdraw our love when we feel wronged or cheated. And, suddenly, love is replaced by a whole lot of something else…something less.

Often we love those people who are like us, who share our background, our status, our values; who are talented and gifted and dress appropriately.  Jesus’ love, on the other hand is for all people. And it is sacrificial even though we may not feel we are sacrificing anything at the time. None of us, if we are healthy emotionally, love our children as we love ourselves. We love them far more than we love ourselves. The Golden Rule is insufficient for the relationship of a parent and a child. When we are healthy emotionally, we love our children as Jesus loves them. I know our love can never measure up to agape love, God’s love, but it does approximate that love. We love them far more than we love ourselves.

But here is the real test of Christian love: can we love all God’s children with a love that approximates the love we have for our own children? That is what Christ is asking us to do. Love others as He loves others. Wow! That’s hard.

It was no big deal, insisted Winnipeg bus driver Kris Doubledee, but his act of kindness was resonating in the city and beyond. When Doubledee saw a man walking barefoot downtown, he stopped his bus, got our—and gave the man his shoes. Then he got back on the bus without comment and drove as usual. A passenger blogged about it at CommunityNewsCommons—and soon the Canadian and international media outlets picked up the story and identified Doubledee as the drive. “It was automatic,” he later explained to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “You know, it was something I could do. It looked like he need the shoes more than I did. Anybody would do the same thing.”

We say, that’s the sort of thing Jesus would do. Yes, and that is the sort of thing a follower of Jesus would do. But I wonder…

We see that kind of love sometimes in those who care for others. There was a beautiful story in Reader’s Digest recently. It was written by a woman in Rhode Island. She wrote that only three times in her whole life did she see her father cry.

The first time she saw him cry was when she was seven. His mother, her grandmother died.

The second time she saw him cry was at the airport when her brother departed for Vietnam.

The third time she saw her father cry was when he was in his 80s. Her mother, in late-stage Alzheimer’s, resided in a nursing home. Her father had visited her mother, his much-beloved wife, daily for ten years except for three months when he broke his foot and both the cast and the brace made it impossible for him to walk or to enter a car.

After his foot healed, he returned to the nursing home. It seemed like such a long time since he had seen his beloved wife. He said, “I thought Mother forgot me, but when she saw me, she recognized me, smiled and said, ‘I love you.’” Then, his daughter said, her father sobbed.

Some of you understand those tears. We know a little bit of what it means to love as Jesus’ loved. We love those closest to us like that. The question is, can we enlarge that circle of love? That is what Christ is asking us to do.

In verse 12 Jesus gives us that second command. It is that we are to “love each other as Jesus has loved us.” This command is linked to the first which is to remain in God’s love. When we remain in God’s love, that love will motivate us and give us the power to love others.

Mark Buchanan, in his book Hidden In Plain Sight, writes: “Fear has to do with judgment. Fear has to do with the sense that I don’t measure up. I’m not good enough. I’m not loved. If you knew me, you’d reject me. And when we fear that way, we become evasive and defensive and aggressive. We want to settle scores. We’re easily threatened. We’re open prey to envy and pride and greed. We try to define ourselves by what we have or what we know or what others think about us. We spend inordinate amounts of time trying to manipulate other people’s perception of us.

But the more you realize how high and deep and wide is the love God has for you—yes, you—the less you fear, for love casts it out.”

Let me say it again: We love because Christ first loved us. And unless we have Christ’s love in our hearts, we simply cannot love others who are outside of our circle of intimate relationships. We simply do not have the power to love as Christ loved us unless we have Christ’s spirit within us. Then, and only then, can we fulfill His command to love others as He has loved us. This is what the cross is all about. We see His love poured out on the cross of Calvary.

The Golden Rule, as wonderful as it is, is insufficient for this task. We are not simply to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We are to do unto them as Christ has done unto us.