Live Love

John 14:15-21

There is a conversation that takes place at my house with great regularity.  It’s a conversation that I’ll bet most of you have had as well.  It usually takes place after one of my kids have done something wrong, and generally something that they have done wrong more than one time in the past.  As a result of their misdeed, they have also been scolded and have spent a considerable amount of time alone in their room.  NoPlaystation, no telephone, no television or laptop computer, alone. 

After a while, generally when they become sufficiently bored, the child in question decides that he or she now wants to seek forgiveness.  And so they come out of their room and say something like, “Dad, I’m sorry, and I love you.”  Moved by their emotion, and convinced of their sincerity, but still looking for something a little bit more, I generally reply to them by saying, “I’m glad that you say that you are sorry and that you love me.  But if you really mean it, what I’d like is for you to do is show me that you love me by not doing this again!”

The lesson that I am trying to communicate to my children, and one that I need to be reminded of on occasion as well, is that love and obedience go together.  Far from being a warm fuzzy emotion or a fleeting and sometimes fickle sensation of the heart; love, true love, requires not just words and feelings, but is defined and proven by the actions that it inspires.   We’ve all heard it before, and it is so true.  Actions speak louder than words.

This is the same message that Jesus was trying to communicate to his disciples in the passage that we just read from the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel a few moments ago.  In the middle of an extended teaching about His coming departure, and the relationship that he expected with and from his friends and followers afterward, Jesus said  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  Vs. 15  Like we said before, actions speak louder than words.

In his commentary on this passage, William Barclay makes two individual but connected points. “First and foremost” writes Barclay, “there is love.  For John love is the basis of everything.  God loves Jesus; Jesus loves God; God loves men; Jesus loves men; men love God through Jesus; men love each other; heaven and earth, man and God, man and man are all bound together by the bond of love.”  But then also, said Barclay, “John stresses the necessity of obedience.  Obedience is the only proof of love.”To Jesus, as recorded by John, love was everything.  And the best way to express one’s love for Jesus is to be obedient. 

Charlotte Miller of Little Rock, Arkansas tells the story of an assignment that she gave to a creative writing course that she was teaching that called for the students to create slogans for various businesses.  Her favorite of the bunch was the catchy quip written by a student for the National Dairy Council: OH HOW I LOVE CHEESES.

Like that familiar hymn that was being riffed on by the student in Charlotte’s class, I imagine that we would all agree with the words, “Oh how I love Jesus because he first loved me.”  And so if we want to express our love to Jesus, he tells us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

But that begs the question, “What are Jesus’ commandments?”  What is it that Jesus is commanding us to do in order to express to him our love?
Jesus actually began to flesh out that answer back in John 13: 35 where He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  This conversation continues right on through chapter 14 and this morning’s scripture lesson, and it reaches its zenith in the 15th chapter of John’s Gospel when Jesus said once again, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  Then he added, “Greater love has no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Vs. 12-13

We show our love for Jesus by loving each other.  And that sounds all well and good, but as anyone who has lived on this planet for any length of time can tell you, sometimes, in fact quite often, loving others as Jesus loved us is anything but an easy thing to do.

As I said in a sermon on the 23rd Psalm a couple of weeks ago, God created us to live in community.  God made Adam, and then God created Eve to keep him company.   This was the beginning of community.  Then the serpent showed up and offered Eve the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and she ate it.  Eve offered the fruit to Adam, and he ate it as well.  This was the beginning of trouble.
God showed up and asked Adam what was going on and Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake and around and around and around we have gone ever since.  Living with other people, let alone loving them as Jesus did, is hard work.  In that sermon on the Psalm I saidthat we need to come to church because there is a little bit of God inside every single one of us.  And so in order to have a as full an understanding of God as possible, we need to live and worship in community with all of these people that God created in His image. 

But what I didn’t tell you is which of these people in particular it is that God is calling you to be with.  One of the things that most of us look forward to on Sunday morning is the opportunity to spend some time with the people that we like.  We sit with our friends and we fellowship before the service.  And after the service we hang out at the coffee hour, or in the Trolley Stop Café,’ once again, with this small handful of people to whom we are uniquely suited and drawn. 

But guess what?  Those aren’t the people that God called you here to be with, at least not exclusively.  The real reason that God finds it so important for you to be here every week is in order that you have the opportunity to hang out and get to know those other people.  You knowwho I’m talking about.  Those people, the one’s that you have trouble getting along with.  It’s hard to admit but it’s true.  There are some people in the world that you don’t like.  Maybe it’s something that they said, maybe it’s something that they have done.  It might just be some little quirk in their attitude, or perhaps it’s the fact that they sing off key during the hymns.  But for whatever reason, one of the difficult realities of life together is the fact that there are some people that we just find it hard to get along with. 

Well, guess what.  Those people are the reason that God has called you here.  And not so that you can change them and make them act like you and agree with everything that you say.  God put you here with them in order that you might learn how to understand and appreciate them as he created them, just like they are.  God put you together with those people in order that you might love them as he loves you.

There’s an old saying that goes something like“You’d better learn to get along with the difficult people in your church, because you’re going to be spending eternity with them.”And it’s true.  In Matthew 5:43-44 Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, “you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  But I say to you, Love your enemies and prayer for those who persecute you.”And again, in John 14 he repeated, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Vs. 12-13

And then to show just how serious he was about those words, he did just that.  Jesus offered his life, and then raised from the dead on the 3rd day as a testimony to the depth and the power of God’s love. 

Love is the oxygen that fills the lungs and feeds the blood cells of the body of Christ.  Love is what binds us together and love was God’s motivation for breathing life into your lungs.   Love is life for the Christian.  “Because I live,” said Jesus “you will live also; he who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”  Vs. 21 

God’s desire for your life is that you receive His love and then spread it all around, especially to the people who make it hard.  Love one another as Jesus has loved you, giving your very life, offering every ounce of energy, every moment of every day to the pursuit of sharing His love with the world.  Love God, love your neighbor, love life and live love.
Amen.