Love

and receive the letter one day. Recognize the handwriting so with a tremble. He opened it up and read the following words. Dearest Jimmy, no words could ever express the great unhappiness I felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart. So please forgive me. I love you. I love you. I love you. Yours forever, Marie. P.S. And congratulations on winning the state lottery. There's love and then there's love. And what we're talking about this morning is love. We're in 17th chapter of John's Gospel. We've been working our way through the Gospel cornyed John for quite a while. And now we're at that place where it is the final night of Jesus' life. He's had his final dinner, what we call the Lord's supper or the last supper with his disciples. He's given them final instructions. And now he's praying to his Heavenly Father what a lot of us want to call his high priestly prayer or the real Lord's Prayer. You have the whole chapter printed for you there. We've been working our way through various parts of it in the last several weeks. I'm indebted to the late great Dr. James Montgomery Boyce pointing out that in this passage you can find several key characteristics. Marks of the true church. This morning we're talking about love. Read with me, if you will, from John 17. Read verses 22 to 26 with me. Jesus says to his Heavenly Father, I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one. I am them, you and me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you. I know you and they know that you have sent me. I've made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them, that I myself may be in them. Let's pray. Lord, you have been known to give sight to the blind and to open the ears of the deaf. We are often blind to your leading and deaf to your voice. This morning, Lord, we ask that you would open our eyes. Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus. Open our ears and cause us to listen and use this message to show forth His all-sour passing greatness and His grace. And I pray in His name, amen, amen. This is the fifth of the marks of the true church, the fifth of the characteristics. We began by looking at joy. We've considered unity. Holiness, that's what we talked about, truth. This morning we want to talk about love as the mark of the true church. What's there left about love? What possible new insight can I give you about love? Absolutely nothing. There's nothing new to say about love. So let's say a few things, old. Let's say something old about love. First thing I would say about it is that love takes the initiative. Love takes the initiative. Love comes first, both temporarily, I should say, both in a temporal sense and also in priority. Love comes first in a time manner and also in priority. And love takes the initiative. Verse 23, may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and that loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you've given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory. The glory you've given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Love comes first, love comes first, and love takes the initiative. You notice that love is active? It is not passive. Love doesn't wait for the other person to make the first move. And that's why we have that great promising first John 4 and verse 19. We love because he first loved us. We love because he first loved us. Our love, all love, true love, is a response to what God has done for us. Let me ask the men here. I'll be a little sexist. It's not going to be the only time, but let me be a little sexist here this morning. Man, when you first, if you're married, when you first met the woman that is now your wife, did you just sit back and wait for her to notice you? Did you sit back and just wait for her to come up and say, you are so fine, please, please, take me to be your own,

please marry me, please be the father of my children. Is that how it happened with you? Did you wait for her to call you? If you did, you're not married, you don't have kids. No, you didn't wait. You saw that girl, that young lady, that you were interested in, and you took the initiative. You moved into her world. You asked for a phone number, or today it's an email, or a send a text. You found a way to move into a world. And if you hadn't done that, if you hadn't moved in a world, she never would have taken leave of her senses and married you in the first place. Love takes the initiative. Love is not some nice, warm, sentimental, fuzzy thing. Love is made out of concrete and steel and guts and commitment as I was trying to say to our young people. It's not a feeling. Love is an action that is a concrete initiative. Love asks the question, what do you need? What are your needs? What are the practical real life, real world needs that you have that I might be able to move into your life and meet those needs? So no such thing as abstract theoretical love. Love either takes some practical manifestation, either finds a practical manifestation or it's just talked. This again is John's message in 1 John 3 when he says, if anyone sees his brother in need and doesn't reach out to help him, looks at him and says, well, be filled and stay warm. He says, that's not love at all. John says that is not love at all. I remember quite a few years ago working at a tennis club south of Birmingham and most of the people that came into that club were what you would call the Southern gentility, well-heeled, well-mannered, nice, polite Southern folks. I remember one woman in particular came in there, a lot of her name was Linda, a very nice lady and pretty outspoken about her Christianity. She found out I was a Christian so when she came in to the shop we talked about things of the faith. She talked to me a lot about her church involvement. Linda was a very nice, very nice lady. Most of the people in that club were nice and then there was Don. Don was the guy who came roaring up to the courts on his big loud motorcycle, made sure he revved it a few times before he got off of it. They took off his helmet and then he was just loud. He was just loud the way he greeted people who was exuberant. Don stood out but I really liked him. I thought he was a lot of fun. I remember the time that Don was in the club signing up for his court being Don being loud and Linda came in behind and when she saw him she just kind of stood back, kept her distance. And when Don signed for his court loudly and went out there to play, Linda came up and began to sign in for her court. Then she started to talk badly about Don, about his lifestyle, about his loudness, about his lack of gentility. I'll put it that way. And I listened for a minute too and then I said, you know, I really like him. I really liked Don. And her response, I've never gotten it. She said, so you're going to her family says, oh, we love him. We just don't want him anything to do with him. We love him. We just don't want him anything to do with him. You can't do that, folks. Love doesn't keep a safe distance. Love doesn't keep it arm's length. Love takes initiative. Love moves into the world of the one that is loved. Consider the pattern that is set forth in the incarnation. Consider what John describes for us at the very beginning of this gospel. It's been a while so let me remind you. John says in John chapter 1 and verse 1, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Then he jumped down to verse 10. He was in the world. And though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. To see the pattern, the second person of the Trinity, the son of God, in heaven, with his father, with all his spirit. He is God Almighty, he is in heaven. He comes to the world, the world that he created. And that world does not recognize him. And we know who he is. He moves ahead. He comes to his own, the nation of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, the Jews. He comes to his own and they don't receive him. He moves ahead. He moves into the lives of all who would believe in him, even in his name. He gives them the right to become the children of God. Love takes the initiative to move into the life of the one that is loved. And it does not stop when it meets resistance. Love takes the initiative. I told you it wouldn't be the last time I was gonna be sexist or gender consciousness. What I wanna do it again, I wanna say we're to men. I wanna say we're to men, so ladies don't listen for a minute, okay? Boy, if you ever wanna get women to listen to you. I'm really being politically incorrect. I try to be as often as possible. Men let me say something to you. We are called to be initiators. We are called to be the ones who move into the realm of those we love, those who are in need. We are called to be the ones who move into situation where chaos reigns. We try to set up order and function. We are called to be the ones to move into the places where people are in pain. We bring healing. We bring relief from suffering. We are called to be the ones that move into the realm of where people, the defenseless and innocent are being treated better, being victimized. We are called to be the ones that move into that realm to lay our lives down for their defense, for their liberation. We as men are called to be the ones that move into place where people are dying and we seek to establish avenues of life. Can women do that too? Of course you can, but it is the man's calling. It is our prerogative to be the ones that move into those arenas and seek to establish the kingdom of God into the kingdoms of this world. In other words, we as men who profess Jesus's law we're called to move into a world that is in open rebellion against its creator. And we're called to proclaim there is another king. His name is Jesus. I'm giving this responsibility to try to make things right again until the day, until the day that he comes and makes it all right and makes it all new and there's no more need for restoration. That's our job, men. We don't do it very well. Ladies and gentlemen, people forgive us. We don't do it very well, but that's our calling. We are given the charge by the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings to move into the Serena and to try to make it the way it was supposed to be, echoes of Eden. They're still in our DNA. We know this is not the way it's supposed to be. This is not the way it's supposed to be and we're called to try to do what we can to make it right. We can't do everything. We can do something. Men, that's our calling, that's our task. We do it. We do it for love. We do it for the love of our families. We do it for the love of our fellow countrymen. We do it for the love of those who are in need and have no other safety and other protection but us. We do it for the love of our Lord and Savior who laid down his life for us. Love takes initiative. Love takes initiative. The second is something old I would say about love. Love finds a way to unite. Love finds a way to unite. We've talked a lot about this already but we look back again in verse 23, latter part may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Love finds a way to unite in spite of our differences. Love finds a way to bring us together. One of the reasons that first century Jews were so scandalized by Jesus and by Christianity. And if you don't know, the early going after the death and resurrection of Jesus when the church was exploding throughout the Roman Empire, Christianity was considered a weird little sect of Judaism because most of the converts were Jews. And the Jews were scandalized at their fellow countrymen, their fellow descendants of Abraham, embracing Jesus as Messiah. The Jews hated the Gentiles, despised the Gentiles. You all know I try to find contemporary parallels that would give you an idea. So I thought, okay, how can I explain how much the Jews hated the Gentiles? And I thought about others, people who like rap, versus people who like rock, versus people like country music. That starts to get at it. That didn't really say it. I thought about Harley Riders and how they look at people who ride Japanese bikes. That's a real conflict. I thought about President Obama and Russia Limbaugh and the same room together. Thought that might get it. And then this past week it clicked for me. You want to know how the Jews and Gentiles felt about each other? Think dolphins, fans and jets fans. Does that say it for you? Does that give you an idea? There is no love lost. That's a tip of an iceberg compared to how the Jews hated the Gentiles. North of our Jewish men were beginning prayers in the morning saying, I thank the old God that I'm not a dog or a Gentile. They honestly believe it was in their writings. The Gentiles were only created to fuel the fires of hell. They had it written by their rabbis that if an Orthodox Jewish man would come upon a Gentile woman in labor, struggling to bring her child in the world, that that Jewish man was not to aid or assist that woman because if he did, it would only be to help bring another despised Gentile into the world. Better they should both die. The Jews hated the Gentiles. The Gentiles returned the favor. You can't be treated like that without the natural impulse to return that hatred. And yet the Bible calls for unity between the two that the two are made into one. We talked a lot about this recently as I've said. We talked about this past Wednesday night with the October festive worship. How Paul writes in Galatians 3 verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there's neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And I told them Wednesday night, I will say to you, if Paul were to write those words, if you were at under house arrest here in Miami, right into the churches in Miami, Paul would say in Christ, there is no Hispanic or black or Anglo. There is no urban or suburban. There's no young or old, rich or poor, educated or not educated. There is no Presbyterian or Baptist or charismatic. You're all one in Christ Jesus. You're all one. We don't have to worship together. We don't have to worship the same way, not till we get to heaven and everybody worship just like we do. We don't have to do it all the same way. I just said to make sure you're staying awake with me. I think I may have told you about the two guys that are neighbors and good friends. One's black, one's white, and they're always arguing about what Jesus looked like. The black guy says Jesus is black, the white guy says Jesus is white, and they work together. So they drive into work together and they argue about what Jesus looked like, and they drive home together, argue about what Jesus looked like. Then tragically one afternoon driving home, head on collision. They're both killed both Christians, so they immediately stand at the pearly gates. And when Peter comes to process it, I don't know why it's always Peter that does this, but in these stories Peter comes to welcome them and give them the orientation. They both say, excuse me, don't mean to be rude or presumptuous, but we just gotta know, is Jesus white or is he black? And Peter says, well, he's right there to around asking yourself, Jesus walks up to them and says, when else do you know this? What was I talking about? Oh yeah, unity, unity. May they be brought to complete unity, to let the world know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Love finds a way to unite. When you tell that tomorrow at work, I expect a footnote, please. We've already talked about unity, a great deal. And a number of you have been kind enough to let me know that message really hit home with you two or three Sundays ago. Unity, folks, Jesus prayed the night before his death. More than once, that we would be one as he and his father or one, Jesus thought so much of us in our unity. Yes, the disciples, but also the ones who follow after them. Us, he prayed the night before he was to be betrayed, arrested, scourged, crucified. He prayed that we would be one. So anytime we do or say anything that would undermine or repudiate the unity of the body of Christ, you realize we're working against that very thing. He prayed his last breaths for. Love finds a way to unite. Not only man to man, also man to God. Look at verse 24 again, Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am. And to see my glory, the glory you've given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Did you get that? Jesus says, I want them to be with me. The same guys, the 12 minus Judas, now it's 11. The ones that were the keystone cops of the first century world, stumbling and bumming and making fools themselves and saying the wrong things and worrying about themselves when they should have been worried about Jesus and he says, I want them to be with me. And those who follow after them, I want them to be with me too. That's you. You know Christ is Lord. Have you received the payment he made for you on the cross? He wants you to be with him forever. Why? I don't know. We can't stand each other for an hour on Sundays sometimes. And he wants us to be with him forever. Does that do something for you in terms of our coming together for worship on Sundays? Does that give you an added incentive knowing he wants to meet with you? Is that doing for you in terms of your own devotional life? It's not something you have to do. He wants to meet with you. He wants to be with us. Why? I don't know. He just says he does. Love. Not only finds a way to bring man together with man. It brings man together with our God. Love finds a way to unite. Love takes the initiative. Finds a way to unite. Love pays the price. Love pays the price. Verse 26, I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known, in order that the love you have for me may be in them, that I myself may be in them. How did he, quote, continue to make his father known? This is the 11th hour, almost literally. 11th hour, 59th minute, before the suffering and the crucifixion being, how did he continue to make his father known? Through the suffering and the crucifixion, through the death and the burial and the resurrection and the ascension. Through that he continued to make his father known. Love pays the price, folks. Love pays the price. The early church understood this. They weren't perfect. They were a bunch of sinners like we are. But listen to what Aristides, a Greek philosopher, early 2nd century, that's early 100s. Early 2nd century Aristides writes this to the emperor, a Hadrian Caesar. He says they, and talking about the Christians, they love one another. They do not overlook the widow. They save the orphan. They understand the ancient world. Widows and orphans were just useless. They were just excess baggage for humanity. They do not overlook the widow. And they save the orphan. He who has ministers ungrudgingly to him who does not have. When they see strangers that take him under their roof and rejoice over him as a true brother. For they do not call themselves brothers according to the flesh but according to the soul. Love pays the price. That's what Jesus was talking about when he said, the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. This is exactly what he meant. When earlier in John, chapter 15, where he had said to them, greater love has no man than this that a man laid down his life for his friends. And that is precisely what he was about to do that night. Love pays the price, folks. He laid down his life. He showed us the mind of God. And we pressed the crown of thorns into his head. He walked our streets. And he stretched out his hands to us. And we pierced his feet and his hands with nails and put him on a cross. He opened his heart to us. And we plunged his spear into his side. And we broke it wide open. Love pays the price. How important is love? How important is love? We can understand the importance, the preeminence of love. If we just consider all the other characteristics we've mentioned so far about marks of the true church. If we just consider all those and then we subtract love from each and every one of them. If we pursue joy without love, it becomes mere hedonism. The reckless pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain without love, we will do this regardless of the impact, regardless of the destruction it may cause and the lives of other people around us. Is this not an apt description of our culture today? The pursuit of joy without love, without regard for what it might do to the other people around us? If we pursue holiness without love, we get self-righteousness. The pursuit of holiness without love becomes a narrow, a sterile pursuit of purity and religious obedience without regard to the impact on others. This leads to what in Christianity we call legalism. And if online makes so bold as to say as an outsider, Christianity, the pursuit of holiness without love, least legalism, this is precisely what is wrong with radical Islam. The Muslim fanatic, his zeal to obey what it says in his holy book, the Quran is admirable. His zeal to be obedient to his holy book is an admirable thing. He is total, blatant, disregard for the devastation and destruction that might bring the lives of others is not admirable. I say as an outsider, I think this is a surgically accurate analysis. What is wrong with radical Islam? Christianity is legalism. In radical Islam it becomes terrorism. If we pursue unity without love, at least in tyranny, unity without love becomes tyranny. With those at the top, decree what those further down the food chain have to believe what they have to behave with little or no regard for the impact of such authoritarianism on those further down the line. This is the great danger for the hierarchical church. It's also the great danger for the government in the United States of America. That's for another sermon. If we pursue truth without love, it can become dead orthodoxy. If we pursue truth without love for one another, that's where it becomes dead orthodoxy. Push it too far and you get witch hunts and inquisitions. And let me say, this is one of the great struggles for the reformed faith. We know the truth. We really do. We know the truth. But if we proclaim this truth without love, it becomes crushing. It becomes deadening. It becomes deadly. Truth minus love, folks. It becomes crushing dead orthodoxy. How important is love? Christianity without love. It becomes merely a self-centered, self-righteous, abusive, tyrannical, dead system of beliefs, of rules, and do's and don'ts. Let me say that again in case you were sleeping. You need to hear this. Christianity without love becomes self-centered, self-righteous, abusive, tyrannical, a dead system of beliefs, of rules, of do's and don'ts. It's just another moralistic, legalistic system on the same scrap heap with all the others. Christianity must be animated by love. A loveless Christianity is a contradiction in terms of how important it is. Love? Well, Jesus said it was only so important that it summed up all the law and all the prophets. They could all be summarized. Those 39 books, then what we call the Older Testament, you can summarize them in two things. Love the Lord your God with all your heart's soul in line. Love your neighbor's yourself. Got it? You just passed your Old Testament survey class. Love your God with all your heart's soul in line. Love your neighbor's yourself. On these two things Jesus said, hang all the law and all the prophets. Apostle Paul said, if I speak in a tongue of men and of angels, but have not loved, I am a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy, confound them all mysteries and all knowledge if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not loved, I am nothing. He says, if I give all I possess to the poor, surrender my body to the flames, but have not loved, I gain nothing. Then he goes on to talk about what love is like. It's patient, it's kind. It's not self-seeking, so on. It goes on to talk about what love is all about. And then he says, love never fails. All these other gifts. They'll all fail. They'll all come doing it. But love never fails. He says, in the final analysis, now remain these three things, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. The greatest of these is love. These are the other marks of the church we've talked about, joy, and unity, and holiness and truth. If you have all those, but not love, Paul says we've got nothing. We've got nothing. Love pays the price. Love never fails. One writer put it this way, to love it all is to be vulnerable. Love anything. Your heart will certainly be rung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping your heart intact, you must give it to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell. Love. Love. Love takes the initiative. It doesn't sit back and wait. Love finds a way to unite. It brings us together. Love pays the price. Jesus took the initiative. Jesus made it way to unite us at the cross. He made a way for us to come together with man to man and with man to God. He paid the price. The God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. You want to talk about paying the price. He gave his only begotten son who everyone would believe in him would not perish. But would have everlasting life. When people visit Kennel Presbyterian Church, folks, I hope they say what a beautiful sanctuary it is. I hope they love the music. I hope they love the warm fellowship. Of course, I hope they love the sermon. They say, you know, they're just two dogs on short. I hope they say all these things. But more than anything else, when people visit this church, I want them to believe they're saying, man, those people. They love one another. And they love their God. Let's pray together. My father, we don't understand the kind of love that would look from heaven into a very broken and dying and a dark world. A world that doesn't even care that it's lost in dying likes the fact that it's lost in dying. But we don't understand the kind of love that would look from the splendors of heaven into a world like this and say, I'm going to redeem it. I'm going to reach into that world and I'm going to rescue out a remnant. And Lord, we really don't understand what you would be pleased to have such as us to be a part of that remnant. We're so glad and we're so grateful. Father, as we leave this day, remind us of the love you have for us. Now that you call us to love one another, I pray that Jesus may come in.