How to Know what Love Is

Not long ago, I remember watching one of those celebrity rock concerts on the tube. I don’t remember what the occasion was. But I do remember the closing number. It was one of those deals where everyone comes up onto the stage and they’re singing ninety-nine choruses of a popular song. The song was “I want to know what love is.” Over and over they sang it: “I want to know what love is… I want you to show me.”

Now whatever kind of love they were singing about, they did hit the nail on the head in one way. The only way to understand love is to see it. The only way that anybody is going to know what love is, is if somebody shows them.

That is ironic! Love is the one subject that people talk about and think about and dream about more than any other. More stories have been written about love than anything else. More poems have been composed about love than anything else. More songs have been sung about love than anything else. And ultimately, people still aren’t really sure what love is unless they are shown it.

Today, I’m going to embark on a fool’s errand. I am going to try to preach a sermon on love. But if we already know that you can’t really understand love unless you see it in action, then preaching a sermon about it is a waste of time. Better I should just get busy and show love, not just talk about it.

When Jesus wanted to teach his disciples about love what did he do? He took off his cloak, he tied a towel around his waist, he took a basin and filled it with water, and then he washed their feet. And it was only after he had shown them what love is that he could talk to them about it. Love needed a living example.

Now we’ve come about halfway through the book of 1 John. We have discovered that John, in this brief little book tucked away near the end of our Bibles, is teaching us about authentic Christianity. How do you know who is a real Christian and who is just a phoney? We’ve learned the distinguishing marks of a real Christian:

1. A person who recognizes he’s a sinner and confesses his sin to God is a real Christian.

2. A person who seeks to do God’s will is a real Christian.

3. A person who loves God more than anything else in this world is a real Christian.

4. A person who believes that Jesus Christ is God is a real Christian.

5. A person who remains in fellowship with Christ is a real Christian.

6. A person who does not make sin a way of life is a real Christian.

7. A person who loves other believers is a real Christian.

Now today John wants to tell us a little bit more about the nature of that love that we’re to have for one another as real Christians. What’s it like? What’s it do?

If you look back a few verses in 1 John 3, you’ll see that there was a man who was an example of hatred. His name was Cain. His hatred came from the devil. Cain had disobeyed God. He hated his brother because his brother had obeyed God. So Cain murdered Abel. Today, the world hates real Christians, because real Christians remind the children of the world that they have disobeyed God. And their hatred, like Cain’s, is an evidence that they are spiritually dead.

But now, in 1 John 3:16-18, we see a man who is an example of love. His name is Jesus Christ. The contrast between these two men: Cain and Christ could not be greater. And the contrast between them boils down to the contrast between two little words that describe what they did. In Genesis 4:8, we read that Cain rose up against his brother and killed him. But in 1 John 3:16, we read that Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

This is what love is. The greatest living example of love is when Jesus Christ hung up there on the cross and died for you and me. Although he was blameless, he took the blame for our sins, so that he might bring us to God. Christmas is all about the love of God. But Easter is even more so.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He was wounded for our transgressions

He bore our sins in His body on the tree;

For our guilt He gave us peace, from our bondage gave release,

And with his stripes our souls are healed.

He was numbered among transgressors

We did esteem him forsaken by His God

As our sacrifice He died, that the Law be satisfied

And all our sin was laid on Him.

We had wandered, we all had wandered

Far from the fold of the Shepherd of the sheep.

But he sought us where we were, on the mountains bleak and bare

And brought us safely home to God.

If you know Jesus Christ, then you know what love is. And if you know Jesus Christ, the mark of it is that you will love the same way that he did. Look at these verses:

1 John 3:16-18 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. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

When the Bible speaks of laying down your life here, it uses an expression that actually means to lay it aside, as one would lay aside his clothes. As a matter of fact, when Jesus washed his disciples feet, it says that he laid aside his outer garments. The same expression was used there as here.

We get the picture that to love the way Jesus loved means that we must set aside our own lives like discarded clothing. That is precisely what Jesus did in order to love us. Although he was the Son of God, Jesus

Philippians 2:6 …did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Mabel Shaw was a missionary to Africa many years ago. One day she made a visit, on foot, to a leper colony some distance away. She was about to return home after her visit, when the news came that the road on which she had to travel was unsafe. Apparently there was a pride of lions in the area, and to walk alone was very risky. But she was determined to go, although many of her friends in the leper colony tried to dissauade her. Finally, when they realized that she was determined to make the journey, one of the lepers asked if he could go along with her. Mabel Shaw was dubious. She knew that a man who was as weak and feeble as he was would be of little help in time of danger. She tried to talk him out of it. Finally, she asked him “Even if you came with me, what do you think you could do if I were attacked?” And the man answered her with quiet dignity “I have a life to give.”

Love is having a life to give and love is being willing to give it.

There’s an old joke about a young couple sitting in the moonlight and the boy turns to the girl and says “Gwendolyn, I love you so much, I would die for you.” And Gwendolyn says “Oh Harold, you keep saying that and you never do it.”

Fact is, very few of us will be called upon to die for love. But we need to understand this “laying aside” kind of love in more than just life and death terms. Real love means being willing to lay aside our priorities, our dreams, our agenda, and our schedule for the good of someone else. It also means being willing to lay aside our security, because love is risky business. Very few people have loved someone who haven’t been hurt in the process. Because love makes us vulnerable. There’s always the possibility of having our love rejected. If you don’t care about someone, there isn’t much that they can do to hurt you. But if you love someone very much, they can hurt you in a thousand ways. So is the answer to stop loving?

As usual, C.S. Lewis has put it well in his book “The Four Loves”. (quote p.111)

The Apostle John makes the issue even more clear in the next verse:

1 John 3:17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

I want you to notice that up until v.17, John has been speaking in the plural; now he speaks in the singular. That’s important, because it’s easy to deal with love on the general, theoretical level. It’s not so easy to love individuals.

There’s a little cartoon from the Peanuts comic strip that I will always treasure. In it, Lucy, that tough, cynical, manipulative character who is so like most of us exclaims “I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand!”

Permit me to quote Lewis again when he says:

“It is easier to be enthusiastic about Humanity with a capital “H” than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive. Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular.”

Have you ever noticed that Christianity is the most materialistic religion in the world? The Bible is always talking about the importance of what we have. And especially about what we do with what we have. Our material possessions seem to be a barometer of our spirituality.

Verse 17 is no different. Just as life does not dwell in the murderer back in v.15, neither does love dwell in the miser here in this verse. One of the characteristics of real, genuine love is giving. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. Not giving for flattery. Not giving with the hope of getting something back. Not giving to manipulate, or giving to absolve your own guilt, and make yourself feel better about yourself. But giving to meet someone’s need. That’s real love.

Sir Ernest Shackleton was a great British explorer of the Antarctic. He tells a story of one of his expeditions on which he and his group came within an ace of starving to death. They were holed up in a hut in the midst of a tremendous Antarctic blizzard. They could not travel and food was running out. Each man had received his daily ration of one biscuit, and they had all fallen asleep for the night. Shackleton heard one of them stir and get up. Thinking them all to be asleep, the man reached over to get his comrade’s biscuit bag. Shackleton’s heart pounded as he waited to see what the man would do next. He feared that he was about to witness an act of treachery. But then he saw the man reach into his own pack, take out his own biscuit and place it carefully into his friend’s bag. The man laid down and went to sleep, unaware that anyone had seen that anonymous act of love.

James 2:15-17 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Love, like faith, is something you do. It is active. It gives.

“They do not love that do not show their love.” said Shakespeare.

1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Authentic Christians love as Christ loved. If you know Christ, you know what love is. And if you know him, you will love not with your words or your tongues but with your actions and in truth.

No amount of sermons will ever convince a dying world of the love of God. They’ ve got to see that love in action in the only place on earth it exists. They’ve got to see it in the church of Jesus Christ, among us.