Love: A Matter of Truth and Action - 1st John 3:11-24

Valentine’s Day!  Friday was a day where more “I Love You’s” were probably exchanged than any other day during the year.  It is a day when many people are “in-love” with the idea of being “in-love” and so some folks easily say “I love you” to keep from being alone on  that day.  Now before you accuse me of just being cynical about “Valentine’s Day,” and believe me, I used to be cynical—there were many Valentine’s Days where I intentionally wore all-black in protest of the day (and no, I don’t have a picture of that to show you—thankfully there were none for my niece to get a hold of and share with the world of Facebook, as we shared a couple of weeks ago when considering “labels”), I don’t really have anything against Valentine’s Day or it’s cards, candy, flowers, or, if you’ve been to Papa John’s this weekend, pizza.  In fact, Anita and I wished each other Happy Valentine’s Friday, watched a couple of romantic movies (Marriage Retreat and Fireproof—I highly recommend these for any couples), shared some heart-shaped pizza, and told each other that we loved one another several times through the day.

My concern is that in the midst of “being ‘in-love’” with the idea of “being in-love” and freely tossing around “I love you”’s that many in our society have lost an understanding of what love is.  I mean, think of how easily we use the word “love.”

I love my house…I love my car…I love pizza…I love snow…I love the beach.

And at the same time we say:

I love my spouse…I love my children…I love my friends …I love my neighbor…I love God.

Some of you may be saying, “Preacher, that’s no big deal.  What’s your point?”

The point is, I think in the midst of it all, we have lost an understanding of what love is when we can use the same words about our car, snow, our spouse, and God.  Why?  Look at it this way.

We love our house because it provides us shelter from the weather.  It provides us a safe place to sleep, eat, and relax.  How, though, might we feel about that house if it all of a sudden started having troubles.  If it became a money pit, with repair after repair being required?  If, all of a sudden, the neighborhood it was located in became unsafe?  Or, if it is a big house, on the days where it was time to do all the spring cleaning?  Suddenly we may no longer love our house.

The same could be said for our car.  We may love the car because it gets us where we need go, because we look good in it, or because, depending on the car, it gives us the appearance of being among the more elite in our community.  However, let the car break down on us, maybe when we are already late trying to get to work or somewhere important, or sustain major damage to the vehicle, and suddenly our feelings toward that car change.

We may love pizza because of how it tastes or how it satisfies our hunger.  However, once it is gone, or if the leftovers go bad in the fridge, or once we step on the scales or have the doctor tell us our cholesterol is through the roof—suddenly our feelings change toward the pizza.

We may love the snow because of its beauty falling or covering our yard.  We may even love the snow because of being able to play and have fun with the kids, or simply, like kids.  However, if you are having to get somewhere, especially here in NC when it snows, or if your power goes out, suddenly you’re feelings change.

The same could be said of the beach—we love the beach because of the beauty of God’s creation, or the opportunity to play in the sand and surf, or simply lie out and get a tan.  However, for many folks (myself not included) let a beach trip be plagued by constant wind and rain, and feelings about being at the beach change.

What’s the significance of all of this?  The significance is that our “love” for each of these is based on their usefulness to us.  Our feelings toward them, our being “in-love” with them, are based wholly and completely on their usefulness to us or them making us happy.  Unfortunately, we have come to transfer that same mentality of functional love toward our spouses, children, parents, friends, neighbors, and God.

A couple begins dating, and as time moves forward they begin discussing marriage, they have told one another they love them time and again, suddenly she becomes sick and it looks as if it will be for the rest of her life.  He realizes that taking care of her will hamper all the plans he has made for his future and the “I love you’s” turn into “I have no use of you.”

A married couple separates and divorces because day to day routine has replace the “warm fuzzy ‘in-love’” feelings, and a new person has come along and brought those feelings out in one of them.

This mentality starts pretty early as a young child loves his parents as long as she gets whatever she wants—however, when they suddenly have to tell her “no.”  She retaliates with, “you don’t love me” or even “I hate you.”

I’ve listened to conversations about friends over the years where all is wonderful until you ask a favor of that friend and they can’t do what you want—give  you a ride, loan you some money, lie for you—and when they refuse, it is suddenly, “what kind of friend are you”?  The love is suddenly gone.

There are even situations where express a true love of God while blessings are flowing into their lives, but let tragedy hit, and they do not just get angry with God, they hate God, or they dismiss God all together from their lives, maybe even encouraging others to do the same.

The problem has become, my friends, is that all of our love has become based not on care and compassion, and a deep commitment toward the other person but completely on what that other person can do or has done for us.  That may be okay for folks out in the world, for those who have had no encounter with True Love, but it cannot be for those of us who have encountered the love of God in our lives.  Our understanding of love has to come from our encounter with the love found in God.

God’s love for us is not based on what we can do for Him, what we can provide for Him.  We do not say, “we know that God loves us because we have pleased Him and served Him faithfully.”  Paul tells us, “…God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  God didn’t share and shower us with love in the midst of our pleasing Him, but in the midst of our sin, God loved us enough that He sent His Son to die for us.  Jesus loved us so much that He lay down His life for us, all in the midst of our own rebellion against Him.

That is love in truth and action.  Love in the truth of a deep concern not for what God could get out of us, but that we could truly be who we are created to be.  Love in the action of not simply Jesus saying He loves us, but sacrificing Himself for us.

With the understanding of Christ laying down His life for us, John confronts us with the call to just to say that we love, but to truly show it…not to love with mere words, but in truth and action.  When we say that we love, it should be with the same heart out of which Christ loved…the heart of God—a heart that is willing to sacrifice everything for the good of the one we say we love.

I could go into detail about how this would mean that loving our spouse would entail giving up a night out with the guys to help care for a sick wife, that attending our child’s recital is more important than a business meeting, that listening to and offering encouragement for a friend in crisis is more important than whether or not our supper gets cold or we lose an hour or two of sleep, but you can fill in all the rest of those blanks.

The author of John emphasizes that the same kind of sacrificial love that Christ offered for us, and that we might consider offering for our spouse, our children, or our friends needs to be the same kind of love that we would offer to one another.  Last week’s reading told us that we cannot claim to love God while hating a brother or sister in Christ…that if we hate our brothers and sisters that we still walk in the darkness apart from God.  This week’s reading picks up John taking it a step further.  He says that if we hate a brother or sister, then we are murderers, we are no better than Cain who killed Abel.  John challenges us though, that we cannot simply say that we love our brothers or sisters in Christ, that our actions have to reflect it.  Just as God’s words of love took on the flesh of Jesus Christ, our love for one another must take on flesh…we cannot simply say that we love one another, but it should be seen in the way we treat one another—that means that we put the needs of our brothers and sisters ahead of our own.

Our love for our brothers in sisters in Christ and our love for neighbor, remembering Christ’s definition of who our neighbor is, is experienced when we feed someone who is hungry, even if it means that we have to settle for a peanut butter sandwich instead of a T-bone steak.  It is experienced when we spend time visiting someone sick in the hospital, even if it means giving up time watching the Olympics.  It is experienced when we stop shoveling our own snow so we can get to the store to help shovel out someone who needs to get to their chemo treatment.  It may even mean risking our lives going into a dangerous neighborhood to help free someone from slavery to drug addiction.

My brothers and sisters, it is when we live our love in truth and action, when we live out Christ-like love in how we treat our family, including our brothers and sisters in Christ, and how we love our neighbors, that the world begins to see what love truly is…that it is far more than candy and flowers…it is a life given for the sake of another.

As Christ has loved us…let us love one another…and the world…

In the Name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit…Amen.