Leading an Effective Life: Godliness and Love

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

 Sunday, September 30, 2007

[Video–Restaurant] “Is this okay with you?” “Sure.” “Where’s our waitress?” “Hi, guys. Sorry about the wait. One of the girls called in sick today so we’re a little short-handed. I’m really sorry about that.” “We did have to wait awhile.” “I know. I’m really sorry. Can I go ahead and get you something to drink?” “I’ll just have water.” “Okay, water?” “What do you want?” “I’ll have a Dr. Pepper.” “Dr. Pepper.” “Large tea, please.” “Large tea. Okay, great. I’ll go get these for you guys. Sorry about that again.”

“Are you all ready to order?” “Yes.” “Great.” “Yes. Um, I think I’ll take the Dijon Pecan Salad. Will that take very long?” “No.” “Yeah, we’re kind of in a hurry. We’ve got to be somewhere pretty soon.” “Okay.”

“Excuse me, do you know how much longer it’s going to be on our food?” “I can go check right now.” “We have to be somewhere.” “Okay, I’ll go check for you.” “You forgot these.” “Oh, sorry about that. Thank you.” “Oh my goodness, we are never going to get our food.” “Okay, guys, it’s going to be a couple more minutes. I’m really sorry. I brought you some fresh bread, though, so enjoy it.” [Water spilled.] “I’m so sorry. I’ll go grab you a towel.” “I cannot believe she did that.”

“Alright, guys, here we go. There’s a Dijon Pecan Salad and a ham sandwich and some ribs.’ “How long will it take to get some ketchup?” “I can get it right now. One second.” “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this beautiful day that you’ve given us. We just pray that you would give us the true faith that the pastor talked about today in church for we love you and thank you for this food you’ve given us. In your name, Amen.”

“Can I get you guys anything else?” “Enjoy your meal.” “I put it on there because you ordered a large ice tea, Sir.” “Ma’am, I didn’t order a large tea. I’m not paying for a large ice tea.” “Sir, I’m David Fox, Manager of the café.” “Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you, Sir. Is there a problem here?” “Well, there have been many problems today actually.” “Okay.” “I don’t know if it was lack of experience or just laziness but the service was very poor.” “Well, I’m very sorry about that. That’s not representative of our café. I’ll tell you what. How about if I take this and I’ll take care of that for tonight. This will be on the house. You take care of that for me. Thank you. And next time, I hope your experience is a little bit better.” “Thank you very much.” “I appreciate it.” “Did you say David Fox?” “David Fox, that’s right.” “Do you know Jerry Fox?” “That’s my brother.” “Ha, ha, ha. I work with him. He’s a crack up.” “Really?” “He’s the guy at the Christmas party. You remember him?” “Oh, yeah.”

[Waitress crying in the back room.] “Stupid hypocrites.”

Jesus said, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” Paul wrote, “Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrong.” Peter tells us, “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.”

Where’s the disconnect? Where’s the disconnect between what we talk about in here and what happens in reality out there? The love that God tells us that we’re to have, the same love He’s shown to us, Jesus says we’re to show that same love to others. It’s not just a novel notion for us to banter around in church services or talk about in bible class and then the moment we hit the threshold, we forget all about it by the time we make it down to Hy-Vee or maybe down to Perkins for lunch after service this morning. Where’s the disconnect? I mean, the question I’m asking is are we really making every effort to add to our faith?

As we finish up our messages about having an effective life, as we learn from Peter as he tells us that an effective life is one which is led in response to all that God has done for us, after having experienced God’s love and forgiveness, after He has called us to faith, He says now make every effort to put that faith into action, to make that faith real, for when we make that faith real, we have a life which is meaningful, a life that has purpose, an effective life. And this morning, He says, the ultimate way in which we put our faith into action is love. When we demonstrate the same love God has had for us, we demonstrate that to those around us.

This morning, as we finish up, let’s really think about making every effort to show that love. It’s a special kind of love. It’s a unique kind of love. Unfortunately, in the English language, we only have one word love but actually, in the original language of the New Testament, there were three words and we translate them all just to one word, love. Whenever it talks about God’s love, whenever it talks about this special love, maybe you’ve heard the term before, agape love. It’s a deep love. It’s a special love. In fact, it’s the love that has three characteristics, three characteristics that our love is supposed to have. It is a love which is unconditional. It’s a love which is intentional. And it’s a love which is forgiving.

First and foremost, it’s an unconditional love. This is the kind of love that God has for us. He puts no stipulations on how much he loves us. He doesn’t say to us that we have to do thus and so and then He’ll love us. He doesn’t make any requirements of us for us to earn or deserve His love. God simply loves us. It’s an unconditional love. We took a look at Romans 5. It puts it so clearly, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Have you ever let that sink in? While we were still sinners, while we were still rebelling against God, while we were still living a life opposite of God, Christ died for us. That means for the man who had the hammer and was nailing Him to the cross, Christ knew He would die for him even though he wasn’t sorry for what he was doing. For those who spit upon Him and mocked upon Him, Christ willingly died for them although they enjoyed what they were doing. For those who mocked Him and taunted Him, He died for them. For you and I, before we ever committed the sin, before we ever even felt guilty about the sin, Christ died for us. You can’t earn that kind of love. It’s pretty clear that we don’t deserve that kind of love but that’s the kind of love God has for us. It’s an unconditional love. And Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you are to love one another.” If we’re going to put our faith into action, if we’re going to make every effort to do that, then we are to love unconditionally and we can’t be selective with whom we love unconditionally but our relationship with other people whether it’s casual or whether it’s close, it’s a loving relationship which doesn’t put any stipulations on the other person. In other words, it’s not reciprocal. It’s not, “Well, I’ll show love towards you as soon as you show love towards me.” And, “I’ll be nice and kind to you as long as you’re nice and kind to me back. But, by golly, if you’re nasty to me, I’m going to be nasty and rude back to you.” Unconditional love says no.

You know, Jesus says that His joy is in the Father and if we follow His command to love one another, He says our joy is complete. Now why would He say that? What makes our joy complete? Well, consider for one moment the freedom if we could truly love unconditionally, if we could truly love unconditionally all those who are around us, the freedom that says we will not let other people define our mood and our reactions. What I mean by that is tomorrow morning, you go into the office, tomorrow you go to school or you head down to the grocery store, over to Target, you will not let the attitude, the mood, how other people treat you define your mood and your actions. They may be nice to you. They may be nasty to you. They may be rude to you. They may get angry at you but unconditional love says, “I will not let you define my mood and my reaction. Instead, I will respond the same. If you’re nice to me, I will be nice to you. If you’re rude to me, I’m still going to be nice to you. If you’re angry with me, I’m still going to be compassionate with you and gentle with you.” You will not let the other person define what you’re going to do but above that, what are we conveying to that other person? Because sooner or later, if they’ve been nasty, if they’ve been rude, if they’ve been angry and they stop and think about it and you didn’t react in kind but instead you react with respect, with compassion, kindness, think about the scene in the restaurant how differently that could have turned out. They were in a hurry. They had to wait too long. They were probably worried about their appointment. She gets water spilled all over her. As far as I know, the meal probably tasted lousy, too. It seems like the whole thing’s a disaster. But if they would have treated that server with kindness and grace and she’d have caught them in prayer, what message would have been sent then instead of the message that was actually delivered?

Love is unconditional. Think about unconditional love in your relationships, your close relationships between your spouse and your children or your parents or your close friends. If you could demonstrate unconditional love, unconditional love says that I’m going to love somebody even when they’re unlovable. You know what I mean by that, right? There are times when all of us are unlovable. I know it’s hard to believe, but even I on rare occasions, cough, am unlovable. Maybe you have a rough day. Maybe you’re stressed. Maybe you’re sick. Maybe you’re tired. But the other person doesn’t love you based on what you do for them. And so they love you even when you’re unlovable. How much does that mean to you to know that even when you’re in a bad mood, somebody loves you besides God? You can give that same gift to somebody else. Even when they’re in a bad mood, even when they’re unlovable, you can show them love. That’s unconditional love.

The love Jesus says we’re to have for one another is an intentional love. It doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by intention. What I mean by that is that we put the needs and the interests of the other person above our own. Is that not exactly what God did? God put our needs, our interests above His own. That means that sometimes, God doesn’t give us what we want but God gives us exactly what we need. A classic example: John 3:16 means so much to us. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.” That means everything to us. It talks about the salvation God has given to us. I’m pretty certain the first century people, they didn’t like that verse. “What do you mean God gave His Son?” That’s not what they were looking for. That’s not what they were asking for. How many times did they try to make Jesus king? What they wanted was a warrior. What they wanted was a king. What they wanted was a military power. They wanted to drive out the Romans. They wanted to restore the kingdom back to the days of David and Solomon. That’s what they wanted but that’s not what they needed. So God gave them what they needed. He gave His one and only Son so they couldn’t just have an earthly king but an eternal king. How many times has God given you what you needed and not what you wanted? You’ve prayed to Him earnestly asking for something, pleading with Him. You thought it was the best thing in the world that could happen to you and God says no and you look back in retrospect and you think it would have been a disaster if God had said yes because God delivers not what you want but what you need.

If we’re going to love as Jesus loves, we love intentionally. That means we put the needs and the interests of others above our own. That means sometimes we don’t give people what they want but we give them what they need. Parents, don’t we do this all the time with our children? I mean, what they want and what we give them are two different things. We do things like set curfews and we tell them there are consequences to actions and we make them do their homework and we make them do their chores. Now they believe that our sole purpose is to make their life miserable. That’s not the sole purpose. It’s an added benefit but it’s not the sole purpose. We do it because we love them, because it’s what they need. Now let’s transfer that into all of our relationships. We put the needs and the interests of others above our own.

I’ll give you an example. You see, I’ve always considered a really, really good friend is a friend who will tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear, to tell them they’re doing a great job, to tell them you agree with everything that’s happening, to tell them that nothing is wrong. It’s easy to agree with people and to tell them what they want to hear but a real friend, a true friend will speak the truth to you. They’ll speak it in love and they’ll tell you what you need to hear because sometimes, sometimes you need to hear the truth. Sometimes you need to be shook at your very core to say, “Hey, what you’re doing isn’t right,” or “Hey, you’re going in the wrong direction.” You see, a person who really loves you will tell you that even though they know you’ll probably be angry with them, that you’ll probably be hurt by what they say. But because they care enough about you, they love you enough, they’ll say it anyway. We love intentionally, not by accident.

And love is forgiving. And a complete and total forgiveness. It’s the kind of forgiveness that God has for us, which is complete and total. Scripture talks about it all over the place but I love it when I read it in Psalms 103, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far He has removed our transgressions from us.” As far as the east is from the west, He’s removed our sin. Scripture says when God declares you to be forgiven, as He did just a few moments ago, He says it’s complete and total. Scripture says He chooses not to remember your sins anymore. It isn’t that He’s forgetful. He’s not absentminded. God makes a conscious decision. He says, “Once they have been forgiven, I will remember them no more.” He will never throw it back in your face. He’ll never bring it up again because as far as He’s concerned, it’s gone. You may remember but God chooses not to remember.

If we are to love one another as Jesus has loved us, then we are to forgive one another as God has forgiven us. Colossians 3 puts it succinctly, “Bear with each other. Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you and over all these virtues, put on love which binds them together in perfect unity.” We show love when we forgive one another and a true forgiveness, a deep forgiveness. The way it works is this: In a relationship where there is forgiveness, when conflict arises, that conflict is dealt with. So first of all, you have to be honest with yourself. Conflict is going to arise. Living this side of heaven, you will do something or you’ll say something or fail to do something which will hurt the people who are the closest to you. You’ve all experienced that. You know that to be true. This kind of love says we’re not just going to ignore it and hope it goes away because it doesn’t go away. It may go away for awhile but it just builds up and builds up until finally the thing explodes. We’re not going to get angry with one another. We’re not going to have a shouting match with one another. We’re not going to have a history lesson reminding you of everything bad that you’ve done to me in the past. This kind of love says that I’m going to have the courage to swallow my pride and to say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” This kind of love says, “I do forgive you.” But what that means is, “I’m going to choose not to remember this anymore.” When you truly forgive someone, even though you may not be able to forget it because the next time you see them, it might remind you of this thing they’ve done or the words you’ve had, but what you do is you make a conscious decision to say, “I’m not going to think about that because I have forgiven this person. It is in the past. It is gone. I will never bring it up again. I will never throw it in their face again.” It’s a total and complete forgiveness, the same kind of forgiveness God has given you. That’s true love.

Love is the ultimate way that we put our faith into action. Peter says if we want to have an effective life, we live that life in response to everything God has done for us. It always starts with God. God comes and He calls us to faith. He puts us in a saving relationship with Jesus and He gives us a new life. And now scripture says that new life, we’re to make every effort to add to our faith, that is, every effort to put that faith into action. And so we’ve talked about the various ways in which they do that but the ultimate way is to love as God has loved you. It’s a love which is unconditional, a love which is intentional and a love which is forgiving. Amen.

Copyright 2007 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church