Loving Like Jesus

Christ-followers talk a lot about love, and well we should. Love was the main thing Jesus talked about. It was the hallmark of His life, as well as His death and resurrection. If you know any Greek words you probably know the word Jesus used for love: agape. Agape was an interesting choice because there are at least three ancient Greek words that are translated into the English word love. Eros is the word for love between a man and a woman from which we get the word erotic. Eros shows itself in the desire to possess the love object. Phileo is what we call brotherly love. Phileo loves the love object because of the given relationship, like brother to brother. It shows itself in loyalty. Agape is God’s unselfish kind of love. This word is seldom found in other ancient Greek writings, but it is by far the most used word to be translated love in the New Testament. Agape is love that shows itself in the desire to help the love object. It gives whether or not the giving is returned. Agape is shown in the way God loved the rebellious Israelites and the sinful you and I. It is “the love that will not let me go.” Agape says “I love you.” There is no “if”, “and”, “until”, “unless”, “or”, “as long as” added on … simply, “I love you.”

Jesus’ command to follow Him includes loving as He loves. The incarnation of Jesus and His death on the cross are examples of God’s agape for us. We can’t die on the cross as a sacrifice for mankind, but we can love people the way He loved others. Agape must become the hallmark of our lives as we imitate Him. We can put the needs of others ahead of our own wants and preferences. How did Jesus do it? How did He live out His own commandment to love one another?

First of all Jesus took initiative to make friends, often with unlikely people.
He still chooses to love people, not because He needs them, but because they need Him. When He chose His disciples, He didn’t choose the intellectuals or the most religious people. Instead, He chose simple working men (Peter, Andrew, James and John), a radical (Simon Zelotes), and an outcast (Matthew, the tax collector). If we are going to love like Jesus, we must think of prospective friends the same way. The friends that God wants to give you to influence for Him may not have the right looks, wear the right clothes, or use the right language.

I learned this lesson when we started a congregation several years ago. Our son was a little leaguer and I was a coach. My wife and I saw his baseball team as a great opportunity for us to meet unchurched people who could become prospective members of our new church. Little league baseball parents are notorious for getting into heated arguments. I don’t remember what exactly happened, but one of the mothers on the other team and a grandmother from our team got into a profane shouting match in front of the kids. My wife and I had a habit of speculating about which team families might wind up as part of our church. We were sure that that cussing grandma would not be one of them. She didn’t seem too interested anyway. The next Sunday, to my surprise, as people were arriving before church, I saw that grandma crushing out her cigarette with her foot to bring her grandson to worship. She was a rough one, but she had a tender heart and within a few months I had the privilege of baptizing her. I had written her off as a prospect, but God had not. This showed me that I needed to go beyond being friendly and take the challenge of being a friend even to those who I don’t think would be interested in the church or knowing Jesus.

Jesus demonstrated His love in tangible ways.
How do your friends know you care deeply for them? If you are going to love like Jesus your must be willing to do more than what is expected. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to help your friend? Jesus talked about going the second mile and He washed the disciple’s feet as an example of how they (and we) should treat each other.

One Sunday I preached loudly that, in the light of Jesus’ teaching on footwashing, we must be willing to do anything, for each other and for the world. I pounded the pulpit and challenged the church. The very next day the Lord required me to practice what I had ranted about. The police dispatcher called me (I was a volunteer police chaplain.) and asked me to go to the scene of a teen suicide. I joined several of the officers there a few minutes later. The coroner was in the boy’s bedroom to pronounce him dead. Apparently, one of our high school football players had skipped practice that day, gone home, put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I called the family together, had prayer with them and did my best to comfort them. Since they were Catholic, I called their priest who came a few minutes later. A suicide, especially when it is one so young, is tough for the cops too, so I milled around with them until the body was taken out. The police began leaving and I was ready to go back to the church when Sgt. Thornberry walked up to me. He was one of the department tough guys. He said to me. “Rev., I hate to see that mother have to clean up that mess.” I said, “Me too.” I thought he was talking hypothetically. The next thing I knew, he had found a bucket, some liquid soap, a few towels and some sponges and recruited a neighbor lady to help “us” clean the boy’s bedroom floor. I wasn’t sure how bad I wanted to be part of “us”, but I couldn’t refuse. The tough cop had taken initiative to do a loving act, because the chaplain (me) was oblivious. Not only did I not want to wienie out on Thornberry, more importantly, I had my own words from my sermon pounding in my head, “You have to be willing to do anything.” As I scrubbed that poor boy’s blood and brains off the floor, it was like God way saying to me, “Now you know what you were preaching about and what Jesus meant when he told His followers to wash one another’s feet.”

How about you? Are you willing to do what needs to be done for others to God’s glory? Do you really want to serve others, or do you just want to talk about it? God had to force me to find out what it means to say yes to serving others in His love.

Jesus backed up His words with actions. His friends knew He loved them because of the way He treated them. Words by themselves are hollow, but Jesus preceded and surrounded His words with actions. To love like Jesus we must both live love and speak love. Love must become the thing for which the church is known. For too many people the church is known for making people feel guilty. The church gets a reputation of love only when her members learn to love like Jesus

John 15:9-17 (NIV)

Sharing Naturally

In a meeting the other day some pastors were talking about the place of evangelism programs in the church today. Usually, evangelism programs have consisted of classes that teach people to share the gospel. They entail memorizing scriptures that have to do with the God's love and his plan for people to be saved from hell by the death and resurrection of his son, Jesus. An outline of the steps to salvation is also committed to memory. There are many programs available for this. Among them are, "The Four Spiritual Laws", "The Roman Road", and "Evangelism Explosion." As the people are being trained, they are given the opportunity to practice what they are learning among themselves. When they have some degree of proficiency, they go out to try to bring people to Jesus, often going in groups of two or three to visit people who have visited their church. Sometimes they go door to door in the neighborhood of the church, or strike up a conversation at a coffee house or similar place. The idea is to learn how to share the Gospel with people who need it - definitely a grand and necessary idea.

Early in my ministry I was involved in several of these efforts. In fact, I was a trainer in an Evangelism Explosion program. Christians ought to learn those scriptures and know how to lead someone to the Lord. More than that they ought to actually be involved in helping people understand the Gospel and come to a saving faith in Jesus. Praise God that people are sometimes reached in this way.

However, I have a few problems with this kind of evangelism program. The training is very helpful, but most of these programs also encourage the learners to target complete strangers. In some ways, it is very hard to share the Gospel with a stranger, mostly because a majority of people find it difficult to talk to strangers about anything, much less the most important thing in life. On the other hand, if the stranger reacts badly, or simply rejects the Gospel, while it hurts, he is a stranger, and there is not much invested in the relationship. When I worked in E.E. I shared the Gospel with a lot of people that I didn't know. I was not even aware that I had anything in common with most of them. Some prayed with me to accept Christ, I am happy to say, but following up with them was tough. I can't remember any of them who became disciples. It felt like I was getting people to make decisions, but I was unsuccessful in doing what Jesus commissioned us to do "make disciples" (Matt. 28:19-20).

I began to wonder if wouldn't be better, though perhaps riskier, to share with people that are friends. Of course, that is not easy for many long-time Christians, because they have no non-Christian friends. How can a church program friendships? I don't think it can be done. As a young pastor, I didn't have time to make friends with non-Christians, because I was always at a church meeting or a training session. I decided to make time to make some friends that didn't know Jesus. So, I found a way out of some of those meetings, and began playing on a softball team that was sponsored by a local furniture store, joined a service club, and became a volunteer police chaplain. Pretty soon I made some new friends, and I was able to earn the right to talk about Jesus. I found that the Gospel just came out naturally as the relationship grew. It didn't feel forced, as it had when I shared with strangers. My friends liked me, and wanted to know what made me tick. I also found that the Gospel outline, while helpful, was not the main instrument that Jesus used. Instead, God used my life, and my sharing what Jesus had done, and was continuing to do in my life that seemed to move my friends closer to the him. Didn't Jesus tell the disciples to "be witnesses" (Acts 1:8)? Seems to me that is simply telling what He is doing in ones personal life. Some of my new friends started showing up in church. Some received Jesus, and I had the privilege of baptizing some. Following up with them came naturally because it was part of our friendship.

Now, this is important: I didn't set out to make a friend to add a notch to my Gospel gun. I simply went out to make friends and the Lord used that friendship to speak to the hearts of some of them. I had some friends who hadn't chosen to follow Jesus by the time I relocated to another part of the country, but I know that the Lord planted seed by means of the friendship. I trust that someone else may have been used by God to later pick the ripened fruit.

I once read a great article in "Campus Life", the magazine of the Youth for Christ ministry, on sharing faith. The first suggestion it gave was "Don't be weird." Sounds easy, but often Christians seem weird to non-Christians. As we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, he changes us. We are not the same as we used to be. Our values and priorities are changed and they are not the same as those of the "world." However, we don't have to be strange just because we are different. Jesus was very different from everyone he met, but he must have had a winsomeness about him that made people flock to him and want to know him. Too often we Christians have succeeded in becoming different, but somehow we have lost out on being winsome. If we ask the Lord to make us winsome, perhaps we will win some. Paul was very explicit about this in I Cor. 9:22b: "I have become all things to all men so that I might by all possible means save some." What makes this kind of evangelism possible is a real and desperate desire to do whatever it takes to see people find the love, hope and salvation that we have found in Jesus.

Next week's I will share what I think a church can do to help this kind of evangelism happen.

My Admiration for Ed

Last week Ed Hostetler was killed in a car accident. I miss my friend because I have a great deal of admiration for him. I know he knew that, but I wish I had taken an opportunity to share just how much his friendship and his approach to life meant to me. He was a leader at the church I used to serve.

I have had a lot of church friends, but Ed was a little different. It is hard for people who are not in ministry to understand some of the dynamics of being the pastor, but because Ed had two brothers who were pastors, he had a more accurate idea of what being a pastor feels like. Beyond that, he wanted to understand. From watching his brothers he knew that pastoring is a lonely business. Pastors know lots of people and a lot people know them, but, often, their close friends are not nearby.

Ed was also aware that it is hard for pastors to know who their friends are. Sometimes a pastor finds that church members, which he thought were friends and supporters, suddenly find a reason to not like him anymore. Early in my ministry an old pastor told me, "Be careful of the people who meet you at the train, because they will be the ones that put you on it." Unfortunately, as years passed I saw that happen. Too often, the people who were the most excited about a new pastor's arrival, later became the people who made it difficult for him to stay. Sometimes they went as far as to openly oppose him and try to ruin his ministry. Ed saw that happen to at least one of his brothers, so he was determined to be his pastor's true friend. I was glad to be the beneficiary of that determination.

Ed would stop by my office to see how I was doing. Whenever difficult things happened, or hurtful things were said about me in the church, he always had a word of encouragement, and a prayer for me. In fact, Ed stopped by my house on the night before he left for what turned out to be his last vacation, just to make sure I was all right.

Another thing I admired about Ed was the way he used his retirement. A lot of people can't wait to retire from work so they can play golf, sit on a beach, pick flowers, or watch soap operas, but Ed was very different. When he retired, it was like the Lord unleashed a warrior for His Kingdom. Ed remained highly involved in the life and leadership of the church, but he also became vitally interested in other ways he could take help build God's Kingdom. These included:
- He helped get the church's Missions Task Force off the ground, and participated in both local efforts and mission trips.
- He was very important to the prison ministry, Chairos, which takes Christians into prisons to spend four days sharing the love and message of Christ with men and women who hve been cut off from society, the church, and their families.
- Ed loved being part of the local Christian Motorcyclist Association, even though health concerns forced him to quit riding a year or two ago.

The day he retired from Delphi Electronics was a bad day for the forces of Satan. His life is a wonderful example to anyone who is a retiree, or hopes to be one someday. Ed gave himself to Christ, not only for the promise of heaven, but also to be used by him in anyway God saw fit.

Also, I admired the fact that Ed "got it." Too many people in his generation have forgotten, or, perhaps, never knew what the church is supposed to be about. He realized that Jesus gave us specific instructions: love God, love others, and make disciples. Ed dedicated himself to do those three things, and he was all for anything the church did to fulfill its mission. He was willing to put his preferences, and his comfort aside if that was what was needed to spread the message of God's love, hope, and salvation.

Finally, and most importantly, I admired Ed as a grandpa. His son-in-law died tragicly four years ago leaving Ed's daughter with two sons, a four year-old and an infant. Ed stepped up to try to fill the void for those two boys. Though in his late 60's and not in the best of health, Ed could be found playing little kids' games, chasing the boys around, and, this year, coaching sports teams. What a great example to me, and to others.

I think Ed's epitaph would have to be something like this. "He put God first, others second and himself a distant third." I'm going to miss you Ed, but don't worry, except for missing you, I am doing just fine.