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 1John 3:16



How well do you know your "3:16's"?
Most people know John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever believes in Him will not die but have eternal life.
And there is 2Timothy 3:16, All scripture is inspired and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in holiness.
And now we have 1John 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.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the words to their song All You Need is Love

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.


And they are quite correct.
Deuteronomy says it, "You shall love the . . .
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    1John 3:16


How well do you know your "3:16's"?
Most people know John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever believes in Him will not die but have eternal life.
And there is 2Timothy 3:16, All scripture is inspired and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in holiness.
And now we have 1John 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.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the words to their song All You Need is Love
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

And they are quite correct.
Deuteronomy says it, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might, and your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus confirmed that by saying, "do these things and you have done it all."

The problem comes however with our natures.
Billie Holliday sang:

You don't know what love is
Until you've learned the meaning of the blues
Until you've loved a love you've had to lose
You don't know what love is

The problem is that Billie Holliday was partly correct. We often do not know what love is. We have a great capacity for self deception and being very ego-centric in our belief about love. We often have a very narrow definition of love and believe its what comes to us, rather than the other way around.

John says, this is what love is... it is that Jesus laid down his life for us and it is when we do that for others. That is love.
He goes on to say that we cannot say we love God if we do not love one another, and that loving one another means being of practical help. Specifically he says that if we have this worlds goods and will not help one another, then we are deceiving ourselves to say that we love one another or that we love God.

Having this worlds goods means more than just money.
It means that if you have the means to help someone, then that is what we are expected to do.

There is a modern heresy that says faith is primarily just between you and God, and that its essentially a personal and private matter. That is a heresy pure and simple.
Our faith does not begin just with us and God. The very fact that we even have the opportunity of knowing God is something that has come to us from many faithful generations and is sustained by many others who have nurtured and taught us.
When we come to faith, that is just the beginning.
Our faith is not real and genuine, says John if it does not find its expression in reaching out to others.
Reaching out can take many forms, but it always involves us extending ourselves beyond ourselves for the benefit of those who need what we can do.

One of my favorite Christian authors is Jim Wallis, the founder of Soujourners.
He wrote the book I wish I had written. It is called The Call to Conversion.
Wallis was raised in a faith that had no sense of social responsibility and rebelled against his faith because of  its narrowness and bigotry. But he came back to God in a personal conversion which brought him to see that real faith is faith that has compassion for others at its center and is active in social compassion.
He would say there is no other kind of authentic faith than that which is involved in the wider world.
Our conversion then, cannot be an end in itself; it is the first step of entry into the kingdom. Conversion marks the birth of the movement out of a merely private existence into a public consciousness. Conversion is the beginning of active solidarity with the purposes of the kingdom of God in the world.3

Our faith is part of a covenant between God and humanity. For God so loved the (whole) world that he gave his only son.
We cannot enter into that covenant with God without embracing what God embraces. And God embraces the whole world, especially the poor, the imprisoned, the naked the hungry and the oppressed.

In this context it is a heresy to say that faith and politics do not mix. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not embracing the narrow vision that wants to use the state to impose a particular faith on others. I am saying that history is full of people like Shaftsbury who battled child labor, Wilberforce who battled slavery, John Howard who tried to help prisoners, William Booth who fought for the poor. These were all Christians acting on their deeply held faith in the political and social world.

How many of you know that Tommy Douglas, the father of medicare in Canada, was a Baptist preacher before he went into politics. His faith compelled him to try to make a difference in the larger world.

West Shore Presbyterian Church must be a community of faith for the wider world or we have no reason to exist.
If we believe the church is primarily for us, we have lost our mandate for being.
We are either for the world or we are not for Christ, because Jesus was for the world.
Solidarity with Jesus means solidarity with those in need.

It means laying down our life for those in need.
It means using the resources we have to make a difference.
If we have resources and are not using them, we are not fully embracing Christ.
It is that simple.

This is what love is. It is laying down our life for those who need it.
It is doing whatever it takes to tell the good news.
It means giving what we have for God to use in the world.
It means turning our eyes outward to the world of hurt and the world of need and doing what we can, and then doing a bit more beside.

It is conversion from an essentially self-centered approach that believes all I have to do is get my relationship right with God and all is well.
I suppose in one way, that is true, because getting our relationship right with God means showing compassion outward to the waiting world.

The world waits to see if our faith is authentic.
This is how they will judge. Whether or not the church has the same love for the world that Christ does.
The world waits to see if it is true.
God waits to see if we will obey.
But time moves on. We must not wait.
The question is only where and how, and how soon will we act.

In his book Dad the Family Coach, Dave Simmons describes the shape love took in the life of his daughter.

I took Helen (8-years-old) and Brandon (5-years-old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt 18-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?"
"Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. A petting zoo consists of a portable fence erected in the mall with about six inches of sawdust and a hundred little furry baby animals of all kinds. Kids pay their money and stay in the enclosure enraptured with the squirmy little critters while their moms and dads shop.
A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong.
She looked up at me with those giant, limpid, brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost 50 cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto. The family motto is, "Love is action!"
She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, "Love is action!" She had watched both of us do and say "Love is action!" for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen "Love is action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her.
What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had 50 cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it.
Because she knew the whole family motto. It's not, "Love is action." It's, "Love is sacrificial action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.4

We know about the needs in Africa. We donate for the Aids campaign.
We know the people in the Cariboo need our help.
But God wants to see if we will lay down our life, not just make a donation.

This week I am asking that we all look out at our world and ask the question, "where do you want us to serve you , Lord?"
God will answer if we really care.

Preached  March 12, 2006
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian Church
Victoria, British Columbia

Notes
1.Lennon/McCartney, "All You Need is Love"
2.Don Raye / Gene DePaul , "You Don't Know What Love is"
3. Jim Wallis, The Call to Conversion, Harper and Row, 1981. p.9
4. Dave Simmons, Dad the Family Coach (Victor Books, 1991), pp. 123, 124;