Sermon Tone Analysis
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/July 25, 2004/
/by J. David Hoke/
I heard a story recently of guy marooned on a deserted island.
He had been there for years and finally saw a helicopter in the area.
He built a fire and signaled the helicopter to land.
The pilot gladly offered to take him off the island and said, “Go get the others and we all can leave together.”
The marooned guy said, “You don’t understand, this island is deserted except for me.”
The pilot inquired, “Well, what are those three huts over there for?”
The marooned guy replied, “The first hut is my house and the one beside that is where I go to church.”
The pilot asked, “What’s the other hut for?”
The guy said, “That’s where I used to go to church.”
I’ve heard of church members who can’t get along with one another, but you ought to be able to get along with yourself!
Apparently this guy could not even do that.
Unfortunately, one of the sad consequences of living in our fast paced society is that we are losing the ability to develop meaningful and lasting relationships with others.
We live far too often on the superficial level.
And as a result we are finding ourselves more empty and less loved than ever before.
As Christians we should know all about how to love.
We claim to follow a God of love.
And He has told us to reach out to everyone with the love of Jesus.
It doesn’t matter whether they are in the church or outside of the church.
Love is a mark of genuine Christianity.
It is the evidence that we are authentic followers of Jesus.
And it not only is the basis for fulfilling and caring relationships within the church, it is also the basis for effective outreach to those who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior.
People respond to genuine love.
We have been talking, in this series, about developing a healthy Christian life, and we have been looking at the quality characteristics that are evident in healthy Christians.
Today we look at */Developing a Heart for Others/*.
A healthy spiritual life will be found in those who reach out in love both to one another and to those who are without Christ.
We must have loving relationships in the church without neglecting those outside of the church.
!
Your Love Must Reach In
God calls us to love one another.
In fact, the Bible has so much to say on this topic that we could spend the entire day today just reading the verses on love.
Let me share just a few:
*This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
— 1 John 3:11 (NIV)*
*We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.
— 1 John 3:14 (NIV)*
*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.
— 1 John 3:16 (NIV)*
*Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
— 1 John 3:18 (NIV)*
*A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
— John 13:34-35 (NIV)*
Healthy loving relationships must be built within the church.
This is the proving ground for us as Christians.
Those outside the church are watching what happens inside the church to see if we really are who we claim to be — followers of Jesus.
And all too often we fail at this point.
You see, we don’t get to choose who is in the church.
If the church were our idea, we would have made it full of people who were just like us, who thought like us, agreed with us in everything, and did not irritate us in any way.
But like our own family, the church family is not like that.
Just as we didn’t choose our earthly family, we don’t choose our spiritual family either.
But we are called to learn to love our earthly and spiritual families.
In fact, Jesus said that our love would be the evidence that we are truly following Him.
The supreme example of true love is Jesus Christ.
Christ is our example of how to really love.
As we read in 1 John 3:16: *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.
*God is love.
And God sent His Son Jesus Christ because He loved us.
Jesus came and died because of love.
He gave the supreme sacrifice – the sacrifice of His own life.
And now He calls us to love one another with the same kind of love.
Let’s look again at Jesus’ statement in John 13:34: *“A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”*
Here is the key.
We are not to love just as we love ourselves, but as Jesus loved us.
In the old commandment, we were to love our neighbor as ourselves.
In the new commandment, we are to love one another as Jesus demonstrated He loved us.
This is the new extent, or the new degree of love we are to demonstrate.
The question then becomes, “How did He love us?”
The answer to that question is simple when we look at Jesus’ life.
Jesus loved us when we didn’t deserve His love, when we weren’t too lovable, because we needed His love.
And He loved us sacrificially.
Listen to John 15:13 (NCV): *“**The greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends.”/
/*And this is what John is telling us in our text today.
He says that we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.*
*Jesus loved us enough to lay down His life for us.
And what makes this love even more incredible is that He did it while we were still in our sin.
Consider Romans 5:8 (NIV): *“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”*
So, how do we manifest the kind of love Jesus manifested in His sacrificial death?
How do we show this love to the world?
What is the evidence of this love?
The evidence of love is good deeds.
Love is not only an attitude; it is an action as well.
We are told to love */with actions/*, which are good deeds, and we are told to love */in truth/*, which is a right attitude.
In these ways we can demonstrate the love of God in practical ways.
Now all of us want to love.
But sometimes we just don’t know where to begin.
There are, however, some practical ways we can demonstrate our love to one another.
First, we can show our love for one another by how we think about one another.
The thought is the father of the deed.
It says in Proverbs that a person */is/* how he thinks in his heart.
If we have critical and judgmental thoughts concerning one another, we can be sure that the love of God will not be manifested by our lives.
Loving actions must first begin by loving attitudes.
We must give one another the benefit of the doubt.
We must see one another through the eyes of faith and hope.
In Romans 15:7 (NIV) we read, *“Accept one another, then just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”*
We are to receive one another as Jesus received us.
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