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November 4, 2007
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Relationship
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"LOVING LIKE JESUS"
1 JOHN 2:7-17
- In the early days of the founding of a community in North Philadelphia called The Simple Way, Shane Claiborne and a founding partner, Michelle, were headed out to walk to the store to get a loaf of bread. Following is what he describes of this journey:
"We walked underneath the El tracks just a block from our house, a strip notorious for its prostitution and drug trafficking, where the air is thick with tears and struggle. We walked past an alley, and tucked inside was a woman, tattered, cold and on crutches. She approached me, asking if I wanted her services. Our hearts sank, but we scurried on to get our bread. Then we headed quickly home, nodding at the woman as we passed.
When we got home and opened the bread, we noticed the bag had a large gash in the side and the bread had gone bad. We would have to go back, and we both knew what that meant. We would have to walk by that woman again. We walked by the alley and saw her in there crying, shivering. We got our bread and as we saw her yet again, we could not just pass by. We stopped and told her we cared for her, that she was precious, worth more than a few bucks for tricks on the avenue. We explained that we had a home that was a safe place to get warm and have a snack. So she stumbled onto her crutches and came home with us.
As soon as we entered the house, she started weeping hysterically. Michelle held her as she wept. When she had gained her composure, she said, "you are all Christians, aren't you?" Michelle and I looked at each other startled. We had said nothing about God or Jesus, and our house doesn't have a cross on the window, a neon "Jesus saves" sign, or even a little Christian fish on the wall. She said, "I know that you are Christians because you shine. I used to be in love with Jesus like that, and when I was, I shined like diamonds in the sky, like the stars. But it's a cold dark world, and I lost my shine a little while back. I lost my shine on those streets." At that point, we were all weeping. She asked us to pray with her that she might shine again. We did, we prayed that this dark world would not take away our shine." (Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publ, c. 2006, The Simple Way, p. 258-259, ubp)
- John the apostle knew 2000 years ago as he declared his message that God is Light, in him is no darkness at all, that Christians were meant to shine. We are meant to shine - and do so as long as we don't let this dark world steal our light.
It is hatred that will dim our light, or rather prove that we have no light! If we claim fellowship with the Lord, with light, and yet hate our brother - then we have no light. You cannot live as the Lord's while hating others. John says that: "whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness, he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him" (2:11).
John writes this thinking of those false teachers I was talking about last Sunday - the people who were saying that Jesus did not have a real body, who were preaching that Jesus never really suffered, who believed that the body is so evil you had to practice rigorous, extreme discipline to punish the evil in the body. Such people believed they were spiritually more enlightened than ordinary people. They claimed to have special knowledge, special fellowship with God yet walked without any love for others. They had contempt for ordinary people. They were in the darkness and had been blinded by it. Like the Pharisees of Jesus' day they claimed to have sight yet were blind. Yes, hatred will put out our light!
Our light is shown to be gone when we replace God with the worldly stuff around us - so John warns his readers and us not to love this world nor the things of this world.
The type of love here is not just a friendship with the things of this world-which also we ought to avoid- but a sacrificial love for the world - a willingness to die for the things of the world…
When John in v 15 speaks of the "world" he is not speaking of creation - for the "earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof". But he is using the word world to refer to the whole "world system" - and uses three pictures to describe this world:
1. The desire of the flesh - not just sexual lust but everything in me that is without God and without Grace, the parts of me that are motivated by ambition and selfish aims. This could be defined as a sense-dominated life - giving into everything my senses crave whether food, sex, drugs, material possessions all this fits into this desires of the flesh. Don't love this, John says. Hate it in order to love God.
2. Next he says it is the desire of the eyes - This is to be caught up with the temporary, the things you can "see" around you, all the outward show while forgetting the Unseen Real. John says not to live by sight but by faith with this. This is the realm of pleasure that men often seek in the entrance into pornography! It is the realm of the "seen" and the imagined life of fantasy.
3. Third, John says this world is a place of empty pride -- the boasting about what a man has or does, it says in the NIV, translating the term referring to the routine of life being lived, the foolish boasting about the daily grind. This is the one who boasts even about another's wealth or achievements or belongings as if it was their own.
John again is speaking because of those teachers who say that since the body is evil they don't need to discipline it at all but can just INDULGE IT! Give into its desires-THEY WOULD SAY. There are not limits. To which John says, they are demonstrating by their behavior that the love of the Father is not in them.
- So, what is John's message in this passage? That the relationship with God must be expressed in love for others, something expressed tangibly in how we live. We cannot claim Jesus and not love our neighbors!
John writes that he is not giving a new command but an old one - meaning that it was the same command God gave to Israel years before. It was a command rooted in history!
Yet it was a new command as well, for it was made new by Jesus. He took love to new levels by how he lived love with others - how he demonstrated that love must be lived and that love takes sacrifice. We'll be talking more about that in future weeks.
But for today - look at this love written of here- This is the agape love of God most fully expressed in Jesus' life and death and experienced by us as we say YES to God's invitation into relationship with Himself. John writes of this relational reality in the poetry he places in chapter two with his statements of who he has written to, to the young children, fathers and young men.
These categories of life do not represent age groups as much as maturity levels in Christ - for all of us at all stages of life are still children, still young adults and growing mature in aspects of who we are. We are all experiencing what is written here, if we have said "Yes" to the Father in Christ; we are experiencing forgiveness, knowledge of God and the strength to resist the great personal affronts of the enemy.
It is love that is then expressed - it is lived out day by day.
Perhaps not many of us will be living that love in the way described by Shane Claiborne as he and Michelle embrace this miserable prostitute on the street!
How has this love looked in your life? Like an email conversation, like a note written to a friend, like a phone call, like time given to a family in need, like a meal taken to someone else, like time given to repair a problem? How has loved looked as God has expressed His life through your life?
- To love like Jesus, to walk like Him, we need to be aware of three things, John says:
1- Am I hating someone?
2- Am I growing in my relationship to Him - have I matured past where I was yesterday?
3- Am I serving the world in any way? Has the things about me captured my heart where God ought to have captured me?
As we are aware, we can then repent for where we have not been and ask for God to move in our hearts to bring us into the place He has for us.
Shane finished the story about the prostitute they helped writing:
"Days, weeks went by, and we did not see her. One day, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it. On the steps there was a lovely lady with a contagious ear-to-ear smile. We stared at each other. We see a lot of people, so I was going to try to fake recognizing her, but she called my bluff and beat me to it. "Of courts you don't recognize me, because I'm shining again. I'm shining." Then I knew. She went on to explain how deeply she had fallen in love with God again. She said she wanted to give us something to thank us for our hospitality but sadly confessed, "while I was on the streets, I lost everything I owned. Except this." She pulled out a box and apologetically confessed that she smoked a lot and always collected the Marlboro Mile points from the cigarette packs. So this is all I have but I want you to have it."
My love, your love must be lived out in our daily lives. It is not a feeling but an action often involving sacrifice. As Mother Teresa said, we cannot do great things but only little things with great love. May that be true of us.
When we love, our actions of love become an offering to God.
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