TEXT: JOHN 13:34-35 (CSB) – ““I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
We will begin to look at three characteristics of Jesus’ love. First of all, His love is characterized by ACTION not FEELING. Another characteristic of Jesus' love is that it is INCLUSIVE…not SELECTIVE.
Jesus acts in love toward EVERYONE…He doesn’t pick and choose whom He loves.
· John 3:16 says, “For God so loved THE [WHOLE] WORLD.”
· II Peter 3:9 says that God, “…is not willing for ANY to perish but for ALL to come to repentance.”
William Barclay tells the story of a group of soldiers during WWII who had lost a friend in battle and wanted to give their fallen comrade a decent burial. So they found a church in a nearby village with a graveyard behind it surrounded by a white fence. They asked the parish priest if their friend could be buried there in the church graveyard. “Was he Catholic?” the priest inquired. The soldiers answered, “No, he was not…. He was Protestant.” “I’m sorry then,” said the priest, “Our graveyard is reserved for members of the holy church. But you can bury your friend outside of the fence. I will see that the gravesite is cared for.”
“Thank you, Father,” said the soldiers, and they proceeded to bury their friend on the other side of the fence. When the war had finally ended, before the soldiers returned home, they decided to visit the gravesite of their friend. They remembered the location of the church and the grave, just outside the fence. But when they searched for it, they couldn’t find it.
Finally, they went to the priest to inquire as to its location. “Sir, we cannot find our friend’s grave,” said the soldiers to the priest. “Well,” answered the priest, “After you buried your fallen friend, it just didn’t seem right to me that he should be buried there, outside the fence.” “So, you moved the grave?” asked the soldiers. “No,” said the priest, “I moved the fence.”
And that is exactly what God has done for us. None of us deserves a place “inside the fence” of His love. But that doesn’t keep God from acting in love toward us. I don’t know about you but I am so glad that this is true because if I had to deserve God’s love I would be in big trouble.
We say that “Love is blind.” But this is not true of God’s love. HIS love is open-eyed. It acts in love in spite of what it sees. It is a love that is for all people. As Paul writes in Romans 2:11, “He is no respecter of persons.” ….God does not show favoritism.
Martin Niemoller was a pastor in Germany during WWII. He was so outspoken in his opposition to Hitler, that they placed Him in a concentration camp and finally hanged him. Before his death, he wrote, “It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies. He is not even the enemy of His enemies.” His words remind me of Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount when He said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven…..if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors and pagans doing that?”
Jesus calls us here to an inclusive love of all people for there is no one in the world who stands OUTSIDE of the circle of His love.
Now, most of us have a hard time drawing a circle as large as God does. We’re not sure God loves drunks, drug addicts, fornicators, homosexuals, thieves, and people who abuse others. Well, to help yourself grasp just how all-encompassing God’s love is….DRAW a circle in your mind, and imagine yourself standing in it and then say to yourself. “There’s not anybody in the whole world that God loves more than He does me.” And then before you begin to feel self-righteous add: “And there’s no anybody in the whole world that God loves LESS than He does me.”
God loves all people….EVEN PEOPLE WHOM WE FEEL JUSTIFIED TO HATE. In his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey tells the story of Will Campbell, a minister in Mississippi in the 1960’s who was very involved in the civil rights movement. His stand against the evils of racism cost him his job at Old Miss and turned many of his friends against him but he was determined to do all he could to put an end to legalized segregation.
So, he moved into the thick of that battle, leading voter registration drives and supervising the idealistic young Northerners who migrated south to join in the civil rights crusade. He often found himself verbally criticized by “Christians” who refused to let people of other races into their churches and who resented anyone tampering with laws favoring white people.
One day a renegade newspaper editor who viewed all Christians as “the enemy” and could not understand Will’s stubborn commitment to religious faith asked him, “In ten words of less, what’s the Christian message?”
Campbell thought a second and then blurted out something like, “We are all scum but God loves us anyway.”
Perhaps the darkest day of Campbell’s life was the day an Alabama deputy sheriff named Thomas Coleman gunned down a young man named Jonathan Daniels…who had come south to assist Campbell in his work. After this happened the same reporter, cornered Campbell, and asked, “Does your definition still work? Do you still believe God loves ALL of us? Who does God love more…..that murderer, Thomas Coleman, or the innocent victim, Jonathan Daniels?”
Campbell said, “When he posed this question, everything suddenly became clear. I agreed that the notion that God would love a man who walked up to an innocent young man who was selflessly giving of his time and talents to help others…..and fire a shotgun blast into him, tearing his lungs and heart and bowels from his body…the thought that God would love such a person was more than I could stand. But unless that is precisely the case then there is no Gospel, there is no Good News.”
What Will Campbell received that night was a new insight into grace. The free offer of God’s love extends not just to the undeserving but to those who in fact deserve the opposite.
Consider today, the great depth and breadth of the love of God. Consider how vital that is to your personal relationship with such a Holy God.
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