The cross is a reminder of God's radical love

October 22, 2001

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November 11 Lesson

The cross is a reminder of God's radical love
___1 John 4:7-21
___⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
___¹³We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. ¹⁶And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
___God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ¹⁷In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. ¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
___¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰If 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. ²¹And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

___By Wesley Shotwell
___A popular song a few decades ago summed it up: "What the world needs now is love, sweet love." Looking around at the world of 2001, the world still needs love, sweet love as much as it did 30 years ago. Maybe even more.
___A glance at the newspaper tells the story. A Ukranian immigrant in California has killed his family. Drug lords profit from poisoning school children. Terrorists hijack planes and mail poison in letters.
___Or go down to the emergency room of a local hospital some night. Wade through the blood of gunshot victims. Listen to the cries of battered women and children. Not much evidence of love to be seen.
___Then, of course, there was the terror of September 11. Maybe the song was right, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love." I guess that's why God inspired John to write this lengthy passage about love. The world needed love back in the first century just like it does in 2001. Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.
___So John begins his discussion on love with, "Dear friends, let us love one another."
___Love one another
___Love one another. It's a phrase that doesn't surprise us terribly much. We have come to expect the Bible to admonish Christians to love one another, and in fact to love all people. Now, of course, the Bible is not talking about the same kind of love we usually hear in the lyrics of popular songs.
___Popular songs usually concern themselves with that emotional, feel-good kind of love. You know, the kind of love we have for that special person in our lives. The kind of love Oprah talks about so much. Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with that kind of love. God created us as emotional creatures, designed to "fall in love" with that special person. It is not a flaw in the design of human beings.
___But when the Bible says, "love one another" it's not talking about that kind of love. The kind of love the Bible is talking about is not a strong emotion we feel for someone we like. The kind of love the Bible is talking about is something that seeks the best for another person whether we like them or not. The love the Bible speaks about is action that seeks the best for the other person regardless of our emotions at the time. It's a love whose focus is totally on the other person and without regard for self.
___This kind of love is not always emotionally fulfilling. It is not hand-holding, feel-good stuff that makes us tingle all over. After all, it doesn't always make us feel good to look out for the best of someone we don't especially like. But there it is: "Love one another." It does not say love people who love you back.
___Radical love
___And look what the next verse says. Those who don't love don't know God! Now that's pretty radical. In fact, it surprises us a little. In other words, if we do not love one another, it proves we don't know God at all. The words are hard, but they are clear and without room for misunderstanding.
___I'm always kind of amused at Hollywood's mobster movies. These mobsters always are so religious, going to church all the time. But then, as soon as they get out of church, they order their enemies snuffed out with a wire around the neck, or pushed off the Brooklyn Bridge wearing cement shoes. Of course we know they don't really know God the way they think they do. If they did, they wouldn't be in the mobster business.
___And I truly doubt anyone in your Sunday School class is going to leave church and then go fit someone with a pair of cement cowboy boots. Our lack of love is more subtle than that. Our lack of love is evident with that well-placed word of criticism that tears down the reputation of a brother or sister. Our lack of love is evident in prejudicial attitudes toward people who are different than we are. More subtle, perhaps, but many times the results are almost as tragic.
___Then when we read the words of the Bible, we are shocked. "Whoever does not love does not know God." That surprises us. That is somewhat radical. It calls us to a different level of commitment to God--a radical level evidenced by reacting to those who don't like us in a way that even other Christians may not understand. It may mean giving a second chance to someone who has done nothing to deserve it. Sometimes a third and fourth chance.
___But, of course, God's kind of love is somewhat radical. The cross proves God's love is a radical 1ove. John quoted Jesus in the Gospel of John saying, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." That's pretty radical love for one to be willing to sacrifice one's own son for others. God's love is so radical he did the very best for us, even when it meant the death of his own Son for a world of sinners.
___Helen Smith of Wheaton, Ill., tells of the time her 3-year-old granddaughter went to a Chinese restaurant. At the end of the meal, her parents broke open their fortune cookies and read their fortunes aloud. The little girl wanted to "read" her fortune, too. "It says," she announced proudly, "God loves me!"
___And indeed he does. He loved us even when we were at odds with him. He loves us, and demonstrated that love to us at the cross. When we look at the cross, we can see how radical God's love is--the example he has given us to reflect to the world.
___Love one another?
___If God can love us like that, we surely can learn to love one another. It may seem somewhat radical to seek the best for those who may be seeking our worst, but remember God's kind of love is quite radical. Now some Christians may be saying: "I am not God! I can't love people like God does!"
___On the contrary! The Bible is quite plain that when we become a Christian and experience God's love for us, we "live" in God and God lives in us. We are surrounded by God, we are immersed in God, we are infiltrated by God. It means we take residence in God's realm.
___So when the Bible tells us we live in God and he in us, it means that we who are believers live in God's realm. It means that we no longer are bound to the realm of sin which is characterized by hate, but are set free to live in God's world which is characterized by love. We live in a different world when we believe. We live in God's world. If God so loved us enough to give his Son to die on a cross, and we live in that kind of world, then we should be able to love one another, even when it's not the easiest thing to do. It may well be that without God it would be impossible, but God's presence is supposed to make a difference--a difference others can see and feel.
___They want to know what love is
___The world learns what true love is by the way we love. No one has actually seen God face to face, but the world can see us. We are the ones who have to show the world the love of God. Oh, I know we live in God's world, but we also dwell in this world of sin and hate, at least for the time being. If we have to live here, we ought to at least make it the best world possible. We need to make a bigger impact on the world than we allow it to make on us.
___Well, if what the world needs now is love, sweet love, how is this world of hate ever going to know what true love is? A popular song a few years back begs for the answer when it pleads, "I wanna know what love is!" Well, the only way that this world of hate can know what true love is all about is if we show them. One person at a time.
___Some missionaries to China reported they tried to visit the lepers in a leper colony at least once a month. The missionaries shared with them the way to salvation through Jesus Christ, and told them about God's love. One day one of the missionaries asked one of the lepers, "Just how do you know that Jesus loves you?" The answer: "Because I have seen how you love." Loving the unlovely will make a difference in a hurting world. Some people's wounds are on the outside, others are on the inside, but all the world's wounded are looking for a poultice only God's love can provide.
___We who know God and have experienced God's love can show the world what love is by the way we love one another. The unsaved people of the world cannot see God, but they can see us and know what love is.
___God's kind of love points two ways--it points up, and it points out. It is vertical, and it is horizontal. God's kind of love is a love between God and people, and a love between people and people. You cannot have one without the other.
___I guess that's why Jesus said all of the law and the prophets were summed up in the verse, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself." Love for God, love for one another. Isn't that the heart of the gospel?
___As has been pointed out many times before, we can even look at the symbol of the cross and see the truth. The cross points up, but it also points out. Without the stake that points up, you cannot have the bar that points out. Without the bar that points out, you do not have the cross. Love for God and love for each other. You cannot have one without the other. God's kind of love points two ways; it points up, and it points out.
___Thomas A Kempis lived from 1380 to 1471. This is what he wrote about love: "Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or on earth. ... A lover flies, runs, rejoices. ... Love often knows no limits but is fervent beyond measure. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of labors, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility. ... Though wearied, it is not tired; though pressed, it is not straitened; though alarmed, it is not confounded; but as a lively flame and burning torch, it forces its way upwards and passes securely through all."
___So, dear friends, let us love one another.

For thought and discussion
___ What do you think would be a good biblical definition of love? What are some practical ways you would live in love at home, work and church? How would that change your life?
___ Think of someone you don't like very much. Could you do an act of love toward that person? If you did, would anything change about your relationship with that person? Would anything change about your relationship to God?
___ Why is God's love so radical when compared to the kind of love we think about in our culture?
___ What do you think about when the Bible says that if you don't practice love you don't know God?

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