Love is Action
1 John 3:11-24
11 This is
the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12
Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his
brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his
brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if
the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to
life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no
murderer has eternal life in him.
16 This is how we
know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay
down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material
possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the
love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words
or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19 This then is how we
know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his
presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than
our hearts, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends,
if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22
and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what
pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of
his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24
Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how
we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Love songs are a dime a dozen. Many love-struck guys have
penned a mushy, drippy love song for their sweetheart. I even wrote one for
Karen the first summer we dated. But you’ll never get to see it! Every song in
country music is a love song—half of them are love songs about making up and the
other half are about breaking up. The most popular country music video is one of
those nasty break-up songs, with the following lyrics.
I dug my key into the side of his pretty little suped up 4
wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seat...
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...
And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.
At its core, this is an awful song about infidelity and
brutal revenge, so why is it so popular? It’s popular because even though most
women would never smash her ex-boyfriend’s truck with a baseball bat, many of
them would like to have done so. A scorned woman can take vicarious revenge
through this song. This song speaks of the pain of a broken heart, and why not?
If half of the country songs are love songs filled with false promises it is
understandable that the other half would be about the pain of broken promises.
But we can’t blame country music, because it is merely reflecting the reality of
false and broken promises in the real world.
That’s why I love this song from Third Day, appropriately
called, Love Song.
I've heard it said that a man would climb a mountain
Just to be with the one he loves
How many times has he broken that promise
It has never been done.
The last phrase is spoken by Jesus…
I've never climbed the highest mountain
But I walked the hill of Calvary.
I like this song for two reasons. First, it testifies to
the empty promises that are spoken with words but are never backed up with
action. Second, it also testifies to the greatest act of love in all
eternity—Jesus walking to and dying on the hill of Calvary. Of all of the things
that could be said about the love of God demonstrated in the cross, let us not
forget this—it was an action. When God says, “I love you,” it is not an empty
promise—it was a promise sealed with a supreme act of sacrifice. I was going to
title this message, “Love in Action,” but then it occurred to me that this could
mean that a type of love exists that is not active; that somehow there could be
active love and passive love. But that would betray the very nature of love. So
instead of using the title “Love in Action,” I have titled this message, “Love
is Action.” There is no such thing as passive love. By its very nature,
love is active. Passive love is an oxymoron. Claiming to have a passive love is
like claiming to eat an organic twinkie. Such an entity simply does not exist!
Love is action.
Here’s some good advice to the young ladies. If a guy ever
says to you, “Hey baby, I love ya,” this is what you need to say in return:
“Prove it!” If the guy is a real jerk, the next thing he’ll probably say is,
“Hey baby, come here and I’ll prove it. Give me a kiss, baby.” To all of the
young ladies—and the young men, let me be clear—a kiss is not proof of love! A
kiss might be an outgrowth of true love or a symbol of true love, but a kiss,
even though it is an action, is never proof of true love. True love is a true
promise backed up with true action. This is why we must keep going back to the
cross—it is the supreme act of love. In 3:1 John said, “See what kind of love
the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God!” When
John tells us to look at this love, he is not asking us to gaze upon an empty
promise. John does not want us to look in the direction of an ambiguous emotion
based on a tenuous relationship. Rather, John is so excited for us to look at
the loving action of the Father in sending the Son to the cross. John is
pointing us to a true, historical event—the event that resulted in our
salvation. In other words, love is action. The very essence of love is
action.
This is the meaning of verse sixteen. This is how we
know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay
down our lives for our brothers. The cross is not only the supreme act of
love, it is the act of love by which all other acts of love must be judged. The
age old question, “What is love?” can only be answered by the historical,
one-time loving act of Jesus Christ—he laid down his life for us. If
someone gave his life to save yours, wouldn’t you be grateful? Of course you
would, but most people do not see Jesus’ actions as an act of sacrifice. They
may not deny that a man named Jesus was executed by the Romans in the first
century, but they do deny that his death had anything to do with them. Why do
people deny the true reality of the cross? Because if Jesus actually did lay
down his life for us, that means that we actually needed him to die for us. In
other words, something about us made his death completely necessary.
Let
me give you an example of why the cross is denied. Last week we finally
discovered the rope sing at Sidie Hollow. This was the greatest discovery of the
entire summer for our family. If you have swung on the rope swing, you know what
I am talking about, and if you haven’t, you need to throw on your swimsuit and
get over to Sidie Hollow this afternoon! It is great fun! Suppose I was sitting
on the shore beside the rope swing, and suddenly this guy comes swinging out
into the water screaming, “I’ll save you!” He splashes into the water and
begins to swim into the middle of the lake, all the while yelling, “Don’t worry,
I’ll save you. I’ll save you!” He keeps swimming and yelling, swimming and
yelling, until finally he gets to the middle of the lake and begins to sink. A
minute goes by and you realize he is drowned. This man gave his life to save
your life…but did he? You are still sitting on the shore. He wasn’t actually
saving anyone and his death was in vain. This is the way most people view the
death of Jesus. Perhaps it was a good example of heroism and bravery, but it did
not actually accomplish anything. Jesus died in vain because I did not need
anyone to save me. Instead of the supreme act of love they reduce the cross to
the supreme act of insanity. They would have to import a whole new meaning to
verse sixteen. This is how we know what insanity
is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives
for our brothers.
There are really only two choices—either Jesus was insane
or he is my Savior. Either he gave his life in vain or he gave his life because
I was a sinner in desperate need of a Savior. If his death did not accomplish
anything, then verse sixteen is meaningless. How would the execution of a man
two thousand years ago help me to love my wife today? Two millennia ago, the
leader of a peaceful movement was brutally executed. So what! Thousands of
people were executed by the Roman government and no doubt many of them were also
innocent and did not deserve such an ignoble death. Yes, Jesus died an ignoble,
brutal death, but his death was not in vain. This is the core of the gospel:
Jesus’ death was not in vain. Jesus’ death accomplished something, and that
something is strewn all over the pages of this book. That something is the
reason John wrote this letter. That something is beautifully expressed in verse
fourteen. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our
brothers. Our love for one another is proof that something that happened to
us.
Karen broke her little toe a few weeks ago and still walks
with a slight limp. Her limp is proof of her broken toe, not the other way
around. Her broken toe is not the evidence of her limp. In the same way, when we
love one another, it is proof that something happened to us—we have passed from
death to life. Jesus’ death was not in vain. His death caused us to pass from
death to life. He left his eternal throne to take our place. By his death he
took on our sins and absorbed the wrath of His Father. By his death he breathed
spiritual life into our dead bodies. By his death we passed from a place of
spiritual death to a place of spiritual life. Therefore, our love is evidence of
this miraculous conversion, but the opposite is also true. As the second half of
verse fourteen says, anyone who does not love remains in death. Our
loving actions is proof that we have crossed over from death to life, but our
lack of love is also evidence that we are still in a state of spiritual death.
This does not mean that every time we struggle to love someone that it proves we
are not saved, but if we have a life pattern of not demonstrating love.
Do you recall the three types of koinonia? First, there is
eternal koinonia among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Second, there is
koinonia that is granted to a unbeliever when they pass over from death to life.
This happens when we pass from death to life, from darkness to light, from lies
to the truth. This type of koinonia is salvation. The third type of koinonia is
the fellowship we have with fellow believers. This is Christian unity and love.
But if we do not have love for one another, it is proof that we do not have
fellowship with God. This is why John says that, anyone who does not love
remains in death. Love is action. Love is not words or promises, but true
love must result in loving actions.
Therefore, our love for other people is directly linked to
our perception of the cross. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ
laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
If the cross accomplished little to nothing, then our love will be little to
nothing. But if the cross looms large in our hearts and minds, then our love for
others will grow and grow. This is not a new concept is it? As John said in
verse eleven, This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should
love one another. Our love for others has always been tied to our perception
of God’s love for us.
This is what Jesus taught in the parable of the unmerciful
servant in Matthew 18. The king in the parable wanted to settle accounts with
one of his servant who owed him ten thousand talents. This was a sum which could
not be repaid in a lifetime. It was an insurmountable debt. The king forgave the
servant of the entire debt. He was completely free. Do you remember what this
servant did next? But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow
servants who owed him a hundred denarii. (This amounted to a few dollars by
comparison of his former debt.) He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay
back what you owe me!’ he demanded. Now what happened in this parable? This
man who was forgiven the insurmountable debt suddenly turned into a crazed
lunatic. He grabbed this man who owed him a few dollars and began to choke him.
I’ve hard that the bill collectors have gotten pretty nasty these days, but
unless your name is Guido and you work for the mafia, I have never heard of a
bill collector who was this nasty! (“Hey you! Gimme da’ money or I breaka you
leg.”) What happened? The king showed incredible mercy and love to him but it
resulted in no love at all. Why? Many people think this story means that the man
was ungrateful. They believe that he really did not appreciate the forgiveness
of the king therefore he was not forgiving. The moral of the story then is about
gratitude. But this kind of interpretation completely misses the story. This
implies that when the servant looks back at the king he see this great example
of love and forgiveness, but then says, “Well, I don’t care if he forgave me or
not, I want my money!” That would be ingratitude, but that is not at all what
happened. When the servant looked back at the action of the king, he saw
nothing. He didn’t actually believe he was forgiven at all. His plan was to
choke a few dollars out of this guy and then choke a few dollars out of the next
guy and keep doing that until he had a little money to pay back to the king. You
see, the forgiveness of the king was so great that he didn’t even believe it was
true. He was convinced that the king would come after him again, so was going to
choke enough dollars out of his debtors in the hopes of keeping the king off of
his back for a little while. He just didn’t get it.
And this is our problem as well. Why do we have so much
trouble showing love to that difficult family member? Because like that
unforgiving servant, we just don’t get it. We don’t see the cross for what it
truly is—the supreme act of love. We love very little because we perceive that
we have been loved very little. Little love to us equals little love through us.
Why does it seem that there is so little love in your marriage? Because we don’t
understand the cross. Little love to us equals little love through us. This is
true for every relationship in our life. If we want our love to grow then our
perception and understanding of the cross must grow first.
I would guess that some of you are thinking, “Now wait a
minute. I know of some non-Christians who are very loving people. How can they
show love without understanding or experiencing the cross?” Through his common
grace, God has granted all people a certain capacity to show love. Many loving
people who are not Christians have grown up in a loving household. They have
experienced love and can therefore give love. Others show love because they have
grasped the basic idea of forgiveness. Again, by God’s common grace, they
realize that their lives are better if they can forgive others and love other
people. Obviously it is possible to love others without being a Christian or
understanding anything about the cross. Many of you are very loving in your
natural state. But no one here has arrived at love. Each of us struggles to love
others, and if you want to grow in your capacity to love, the solution is to
increase your understanding of God’s love. This is why we study the Scriptures.
This is why we study theology. We should never study Scriptures and theology for
purely academic reasons. Here’s is how that would sound. “Did you know that
there are actually five different nuanced theories of the vicarious,
substitutionary atonement in our overall doctrine of soteriology?” Does anyone
know that that means? We study theology so we can love others. The apostle John
wants us to know that we are adopted children of God so that we can love one
another. John taught about propitiation, the atonement for our sins, so that we
can love one another better. If you want to increase your love for your wife,
you must study the cross. Our love can only increase in accordance with our
perception of God’s love for us. Are you struggling to love someone? John
summarized the answer in chapter four. We love because he first loved us. Love
is action, and any love we might show begins with the supreme act of love at the
cross.
Rich Maurer
July 22, 2007