Uncommon Love

I like to think of myself as the kind of person that if I am ever put into a home, the staff will have to keep an eye on me for fear of what I might be up to

Kind of like the church board does now

But you can relax because when it comes to preaching I don’t really subscribe to the shock and awe school of preaching

It makes for a good show but it usually doesn’t bring out the power of the Word

So when I refer to it as An Uncommon Series it’s because of the subject matter of what I am preaching and has nothing to do with how I am preaching it

You see we have just gotten through the Christmas season a time of the year when we celebrate the incarnation

We celebrate how in an a very low key manner, except perhaps a star and a few announcing angels, the Son of God humbly became a small baby

Not really the way that we would write the story if it were left up to one of us

In the barn of a small insignificant town away from any sort of pomp and circumstance that you might expect

Now consider that the prophet Isaiah said of the Christ that,

Isaiah 53:2 NIV

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

Isaiah

In other words there was nothing particularly special not only about His birth but also about His childhood and His teenage years for that matter

Jesus was nothing more than a common Jew, growing up in a common Jewish household with a common Jewish family doing common Jewish things

Ya he had a better than average understanding of the scriptures but even that didn’t draw a lot of attention to Him other than that one time when His parents lost Him on a trip

Yet in spite of all of this commonness there was something different about this man

So much so that when He began His public ministry at the age of 30, He instantly began to draw huge crowds in the thousands, and He quickly got the attention of people in important places

Religious leaders were spying on Him and trying to trap Him while political leaders were keeping their own eyes on Him as well

How did this unassuming common Jewish carpenter from the rather inconspicuous area of Galilee come to warrant such attention?

Well the reason is simple, because there was something uncommon about this common Jew

Or more specifically there were several things about Him that were uncommon and that is what this series is about

I’m only planning on doing this series for the 3 weeks after which time Liane and I will be away for a couple of Sundays as we attend a Pastoral retreat out in Calgary and then visit with Liane’s family in B.C. but don’t be surprised if it pops up again from time to time in the coming months

For a bunch of reasons that we won’t get into this morning I am going to begin this series with the thought that one of the things that was most uncommon about Jesus was the way that He loved

To one degree or another and in one way or another everybody loves

Even the most hardened criminal in their own way loves something

But the way that Jesus loved was different

The command to love others had always been a part of the Jewish law and at one point () Jesus even told an expert in the law that this is what the rest of the law hung on

In spite of all of that Jesus told His disciples this in

John 13:34 NIV

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John 13

How could Jesus possibly say that this was a NEW command when He had already said the command to love was and is the most important commandment

Simple, because this time Jesus qualified it by saying “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” and His love was an uncommon love

A kind of love that the world had never experienced before

So how can we tell if we are obeying this command to love like Jesus?

Well let’s turn to one of the greatest scriptures about love in all the Bible

It was written by John and if you’re thinking that it’s you’re close

It’s actually which says,

1 John 3:16 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 and sisters.

If you want to know what uncommon love looks like in order to be able to live in at, there is only one place to look, at the cross of Jesus

There’s 3 things about the love of Jesus that made it uncommon not only for His day but also in our time

The first thing is that we see that the love of Jesus displayed on the cross was a selfless love

Jesus explained this to His disciples when He said to them,

John 15:

John 15:12–13 NIV

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

As I said earlier, it is common for people to have and experience some form of love in their lives but when you break it down you will almost always find that somehow the person doing the “loving” is receiving something in return

It may be something as simple as a good feeling or a form of love in return but rarely will you ever find someone who loves just for the sake of loving

Yet that’s exactly what Jesus did and it’s what He calls us to do as well

It’s not “I will love you if” or “I will love you because of” but simply “I will love you”

Now I am not suggesting that because now you know, it will be easy

If it was easy it would be common but this type of love is uncommon, even among Christians

We have to love when it is inconvenient for us to do so, we have to love when there is absolutely nothing in it for us, we have to love when it goes against our nature to do so, that’s Jesus kind of love, that’s uncommon love

We also see that the love of Jesus displayed on the cross was a sacrificial love

In other words, it cost Him something, in fact it cost him everything

in order to follow through on His love for you, Jesus Christ faced the most horrible death imaginable

Now there may be those who would think, although they would never say out loud, ‘Yes but He was God and He was going to rise again in 3 days so it really wasn’t a huge sacrifice.’

If that were true I would love to have that person explain to me the Garden of Gethsemane

Matthew 26:36–39 NIV

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Matthew 26:36-39

Luke records,

Luke 22:43–44 NIV

An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

Luke 22:

Jesus was fully human and the prospect of what was about to befall Him terrified Him almost to death so please don’t let anyone ever tell you it wasn’t that big of a deal

And even though He didn’t have to go through with it and even though He could have stopped it at any point, His love for us demanded a sacrificial form of giving

Let me ask you a really tough question, ‘Have you ever failed to demonstrate love to someone because to do so was going to be an inconvenience to you?’

I say it’s a hard question because if we are honest with ourselves we all have to answer yes knowing that we have come up short in this area

Of course we have come up short, that’s what is common about common love but Christ is calling us to a greater type of love, an uncommon, sacrificial type of love

The third thing that made the love of Jesus as displayed on the cross uncommon is that it was a saving love

Romans 5:6-

Romans 5:6–10 NIV

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Now hopefully your initial response to this point is, ‘But Pastor. Jesus was the spotless lamb of God. Apart from Him there is nothing that I can do to accomplish my own salvation no matter provide salvation for anyone else’

If that’s what you were thinking…you are absolutely correct, for as Peter responded when being questioned by the religious leaders,

Acts 4:12 NIV

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Acts 4:

It is only through the death of Jesus Christ that mankind can be reconciled to God

That was His job and that’s what He accomplished through His love

Now let me ask you, what is your job?

Ephesians 2:8–10 NIV

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:8-

As much as it was God’s plan for Jesus to provide salvation for mankind it is God’s plan to use you to do good works in love

You can’t save someone from Hell but you can save them from the cold by giving them a warm coat, or save them from hunger by providing them with food, or save them from loneliness by sitting with them for a couple of hours

I once read the story of a young man who was constantly being bullied at school. One day as he walked home with an armload of books some older kids tripped him and knocked him to the ground scattering his books

As they stood there laughing another student came up and helped the young man up, helped him pick up his books and even helped him carry them home

The 2 boys realized they had a lot in common and became instant friends

Years later as they reminisced about their friendship the second guy asked the first one why it was that he had so many books with him that day instead of leaving them in his locker

The first guy with tears in his eyes explained that all those years ago he had made the decision to end his life on that very day and that he had cleaned out his locker so that his mother wouldn’t have to

It was the loving act of someone who didn’t know him or anything he was going through that saved him that day

You may never know the saving impact your love based actions may have for someone

Love is a pretty common thing in our world today, people love their favourite team, they love their favourite food, they love their spouse, they love their country and so on and so on

But Jesus offered something different, He offered an uncommon sort of love

A love that is characterized by selflessness, sacrifice, and saving

And that’s exactly the kind of love that He has called us to as well

Let’s pray

This Is Love VIDEO (Communion)

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