When we stop seeking you, God, we start serving ourselves.

I’ve seen it again and again. 

Person after person marginalizes you.  And before long, they marginalize those around them.

We simply do not love neighbor when we do not first love you.

When we write you out of our Story everyone suffers.

Especially you.

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 A life without you God

is like a tree without roots.

Trusting in possessions and power

is like trusting in a dry and dusty creek.

 But a life with you God

is like a tree with deep roots.

Trusting in your constant and steady love

is like trusting in a cold and steady stream.

[images]

I’m going to read some words out loud.  As I read these words, picture in your mind the person who first spoke them.  Try to imagine his face.  Picture the forehead, the eyebrows, the eyes, the lips, the teeth, and the skin color.  Is he happy?  Is he sad?  Is he mad?  Here are his words:

“…woe to you…hypocrites!  For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”

“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools!…”

“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”

“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence….First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

When you picture the person who first spoke those words, what do you see?  Do you see a forehead creased in frustration?  Eyebrows bent in anger?  Eyes narrowed in wrath?  Lips stretched thin and teeth clenched with fury?  Skin bright red with rage?

I wouldn’t blame you if that’s the image that came to mind.  Because these are hard words aren’t they?  They hurt.  They cut.  And when we hear hard words, we picture them coming from a hard person.  We assume that radical words like these must come from a wrathful and raging individual.

I saw this in a humorous way over Spring Break.  We were staying at my niece’s house in Tempe, Arizona.  My niece is a six year old girl named Brianna.  One night I watched Brianna walk into the kitchen, get a prepackaged cup of applesauce, rip the top off, and then walk back into the living room with the applesauce.  Having sat down on the couch, she proceeded to lap the applesauce like a dog.  Her grandmother took her by the arm into the kitchen and said, “No, Brianna.  You are not going to lap applesauce like a dog.  No.”  To a six year old, “No” is a hard word, isn’t it?  It’s a cutting word.  And Brianna responded in this way: with arms crossed, eyebrows down, eyes tearing, and lips pouting, she said, “Why is everyone always so mean to me?”

When we hear hard words we assume they are coming from a hard person.  And that can be the case with the words I read earlier.  Those words come from Jesus in Matt. 23.  They’ve been the topic of our five week series called Masquerade.  And when we hear these hard words, it’s tempting to imagine that they come from a hard Savior.  We may wonder, “Why is Jesus being so mean to me?”

And what is our response to hard words from hard people?  Recent events in the Middle East illustrate what we humans tend to do in the face of hard words.[1] What do we do?  We revolt.  We protest.  Hard words from hard people lead to passionate protest.

• For example, in Yemen protestors are calling for the ouster of their President who has ruled since 1978.  The protestors cite government corruption and lack of political freedom.
• In Libya, protestors have run a defiant Gadhafi out of power because of high unemployment and a lack of freedom.
• Citizens of Tunisia recently removed their President from power due to corruption and political repression.
• In Egypt, demonstrators forced President Mubarak from office.  They were angry over lack of free elections, high food prices, low wages, and high unemployment.

Again and again, people living in the Middle East have faced hard word from hard Presidents, hard Prime Ministers, hard dictators and hard leaders.  The response has been revolt.  The response has been insurrection.  Hard words from hard people often lead to passionate protest.

That is exactly how some of Jesus’ original listeners responded to him.  When they heard Jesus’ hard words, they rioted and revolted against Jesus.  Here’s how Jesus describes it: “29Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. 37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (Matt. 23:29-37 ESV).

Jesus gives a little history lesson here.  It’s called “React 101: How Religious People Respond to Hard Words.”  Jesus starts way back in the Old Testament with what his listeners would call “the days of our fathers.”  Their forefathers were faced with some teachers called prophets.  Prophets typically come with challenging words from God.  And how did those forefathers react to those prophets?  Jesus says they shed the blood of the prophets.  They murdered the prophets.  That’s how violently they reacted to the hard words coming from the prophets.  They revolted. They ignored the message and they killed the messengers.  Historically, hard words from hard people lead to passionate protest.

Then, based on this little history lesson, Jesus makes a prediction.  Jesus talks about how he and God are going to send people whom he calls “prophets and wise men and scribes.”  Jesus is probably referring her to his own followers.  Jesus is going to send his followers to preach his message after he dies and is raised from the dead.  Some of those followers will carry some pretty hard words.  And Jesus predicts how his current audience will react to those hard words.  Jesus says some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. The people who will soon hear the hard words of Jesus’ followers will repeat history.  They will do exactly what their own forefathers did when God sent prophets to them.  They will riot and revolt against those hard words.

Finally, Jesus turns from just the scribes and Pharisees whom he has been addressing and looks over the entire city of Jerusalem.  And Jesus laments, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” The city of Jerusalem is caught up in the same violent response.  Every time God sends messengers to that city with hard words, the people of that city kill them and stone them.  Hard words from hard people often spark passionate protest.

Timothy Keller writes that the Bible is filled with hard words, no matter what culture you are from.[2] Many of us read a certain passage of Scripture and say, “That’s so regressive, so offensive.” But we ought to entertain the idea that maybe we feel that way because in our particular culture that text is a problem. In other cultures that passage might not come across as regressive or offensive.  Let’s look at just one example. In individualistic, Western societies, we read the Bible, and we have a problem with what it says about sex. But then we read what the Bible says about forgiveness—”forgive your enemy;” “forgive your brother seventy times seven;” “turn the other cheek;” “when your enemy asks for your shirt, give him your cloak as well”—and we say, “How wonderful!” It’s because we are driven by a culture of guilt. But if you were to go to the Middle East, they would think that what the Bible has to say about sex is pretty good. (Actually, they might feel it’s not strict enough!) But when they would read what the Bible says about forgiving your enemies, it would strike them as absolutely crazy. It’s because their culture is…more of a shame culture than a guilt culture…If the Bible really was the revelation of God, and therefore it wasn’t the product of any one culture, wouldn’t it contradict every culture at some point?…Therefore when you read the Bible, and you find some part of it outrageous and offensive, that’s proof that it’s probably true…”

No matter what culture you live in, you will be offended by some words in the Bible.  You will find some of those words hard to hear.  And that often leads us to engage in our own little revolution.  Our own little protest.  We don’t go around murdering and stoning the Bible’s messengers as Jesus’ audience did.  But we have our own ways of protesting the tough words of Scripture.

One of our most common strategies of protest is to simply ignore Scripture.  When the Bible becomes too offensive or too cutting or too regressive and backwards, we protest by simply ignoring it.  We shut its cover and refuse to open it.   In her book Amazing Grace, the writer and poet Kathleen Norris shares what she calls “the scariest story” she’s ever heard about a Bible.[3] Norris and her husband were visiting a man named Arlo.  Arlo started talking about his grandfather, a sincere Christian. The grandfather gave Arlo and his bride a wedding present.  It was an expensive leather Bible with their names printed in gold lettering.  But Arlo had no use for Scripture.  He didn’t care for the Bible.  He either found its words irrelevant or offensive.  But either way, Arlo left that wedding present in the box and never opened it.  For months afterwards his grandfather kept asking Arlo if he liked the Bible. Eventually Arlo got tired of the grandfather asking.  So, strictly out of curiosity one day, he opened that Bible.  Arlo said, “I finally took that Bible out of the closet and I found that granddad had placed a twenty-dollar bill at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, and at the beginning of every book … over thirteen hundred dollars in all. And he knew I’d never find it.”  Sometimes our strongest response to the hardness and sharpness of Scripture is to just keep the covers shut.  But ironically, when we do, we miss what is truly meant as a gift from someone who loves us.

And that’s where Jesus seeks to lead us this morning.  When we first hear these words from Matt. 23 their hardness makes us assume that Jesus is hard.  And our gut response is to revolt.  To protest.  To shut the cover and listen no more.  But Jesus seeks to move us far beyond that initial reaction.  Notice the end of our text this morning.  37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Matt. 23:37 ESV).  Jesus does something remarkable here.  He transforms our image of him.  If we imagined him vengeful and raging and hate-filled, he paints just the opposite image.  His paint comes from the songs and poetry of ancient Israel.  Jesus dips his brush in the book of Psalms.  One of the favorite images of God in the Psalms is God as a bird who protects his people under his strong wings:

• Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings… (Psalm 17:8 ESV)
• How precious is your steadfast love, O God!  The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 36:7 ESV)
• Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. (Psalm 57:1 ESV)
• Let me dwell in your tent forever!  Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! (Psalm 61:4 ESV).
• for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. (Psalm 63:7 ESV)

Jesus tosses out the stern portrait we may have in our minds as a result of his hard words.  And he dips his brush in the book of Psalms and paints us a newer and truer portrait of himself.  Jesus describes himself as a hen or bird protecting her chicks with her outstretched wings.  Even though Jesus knows that his listeners will respond to his hard words by killing him, he nonetheless shows himself to be the loving and tender mother who only wants to protect her chicks from all harm and all evil.

Barbara Brown Taylor explains the tenderness of this image:[4] “On the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, sits a small chapel…According to tradition, it was here that Jesus wept over the city that had refused his ministrations…Down below, on the front of the altar…is a mosaic medallion of a white hen with a golden halo around her head. Her…wings are spread wide to shelter the pale yellow chicks that crowd around her feet…The medallion is rimmed with red words in Latin. Translated into English they read, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Brown then imagines the rest of this scene: “In the absence of a mother hen, some of the chicks have taken to following the fox around. Others are huddled out in the open where anything with claws can get to them. Across the valley, a white hen with a gold halo around her head is clucking for all she is worth. Most of the chicks cannot hear her, and the ones that do make no response. They no longer recognize her voice. They have forgotten who they are.  If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world –wings spread, breast exposed… Given the number of animals available, it is curious that Jesus chooses a hen…What about the mighty eagle of Exodus, or Hosea’s stealthy leopard? What about the proud lion of Judah, mowing down his enemies with a roar? Compared to any of those, a mother hen does not inspire much confidence….But a hen is what Jesus chooses…What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first.  Which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her — wings spread, breast exposed — without a single chick beneath her feathers.”

That’s a very different image isn’t it?  Nothing hard.  Nothing stern.  This is a tender, loving, self-giving, compassionate and vulnerable image.  That’s who is speaking these hard words.  That’s who has delivered this sermon of Matt. 23.  Not a raging lunatic.  But a devoted mother ready to die for those to whom he speaks.  Hard words from a loving Lord.

And that image of Jesus ought to impact what we do with these hard words.  That image of Jesus ought to keep us from passionate protest.  Instead, it ought to lead us to passionate practice.  Hard words from a loving Lord lead to passionate practice. Jesus delivers this agonizing sermon because he adores us.  He longs for us to experience real religion.  He wants to keep us from the fox of fraudulent faith.  He knows that fox is out to get us.  That fox looks harmless.  But the faith of the frauds has sharp teeth and a ravenous appetite.  And Jesus speaks these words because he wants to keep us from that fox.

This section of Matt. 23 is like the end of Matt. 7.  In Matt. 7 Jesus ends his Sermon on the Mount by urging us to not just hear his words, but to put them into practice.  Jesus says if you do that you are like a wise man who builds his house on the rock.  Storms come but the rock and the house stand.  Jesus ends his sermon on the religion of the real by urging us to practice his words.  And Jesus ends his sermon on the faith of the frauds in Matt. 23 in the same way.  He is urging us to practice these words.  But he wants to make sure we understand who’s issuing the invitation.  It’s not a dictator.  It’s not a tyrant.  It’s a loving Lord with arms open wide ready to protect even if it means dying.

In his book The Bible Jesus Read Philip Yancey writes that in Jesus’ day sometimes fires would sweep through the land and destroy farms.[5] In the aftermath the farmer would find the scorched bodies of hens, wings outstretched.  As the farmer kicked the corpse aside, chicks would scurry out, alive.  The mother had sacrificed herself to save the chicks.  That’s the one who’s spoken these hard words.  These words are his attempt to save our life.  These words are his attempt to rescue us from the fox and the fire.  They are words of love.  So do not protest against them.  Rather, practice them.  Embrace them.  Go and live them out.

[2] Tim Keller, in the sermon Literalism: Isn’t the Bible Historically Unreliable and Regressive?, PreachingToday.com.

[3] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (Riverhead Books, 1998), 95.

[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, “As a Hen Gathers Her Brood,” The Christian Century (February 25, 1986), 201; http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=638.

[5] Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Zondervan), 210.

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Sometimes, Lord, I am expected to sing praises.  But all I can manage are the blues.

Sometimes I am expected to forgive.  But all I want is revenge.

Sometimes I am expected to bloom where I’m planted.  But all I want is to be uprooted and planted somewhere else.

Most of the time I fall short of your expectations.

But even then, I know your presence remains and your love abides.

You are more than I could ever expect.

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 One thing I know for sure, Lord–your passion for people perseveres.

It was your passion for people that drove you to craft humankind and create our home.

It was your passion for people that compelled you choose and champion a nation that would bless all nations.

It is your passion for people that led you to put food on my plate this morning.

We’ve stabbed you, scorned you, and saddened you.  At times we’ve given up on you.  We even tried to kill you.  But your love has lingered.

One thing I know for sure, Lord–your passion for people perseveres.

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The names and faces of my friends.  That’s one of the highest things, Lord, on my list of what’s good in life.

There’s nothing more pleasant than knowing I’m not on this journey alone.

My friends are a source of refreshment and renewal.

I count them as one of your greatest and most abundant blessings.

Thank you God for friends.

My words are few today, Lord.

Rather than speak to you, I seek only to be with you.

I calm myself.  I quiet myself. 

Like a young child sitting contentedly with his mother, I sit contentedly with you.

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Lord, I’m standing at the bottom of the sin-hole I’ve dug.  The walls of shame stretch upward forever.  The darkness of my deeds envelopes me.  I am so far from you!

And this isn’t my first visit here.  You could shove a foot-thick report in my face detailing all the other times I’ve succeeded in doing what’s wrong and failed in doing what’s right.  I’ve been in this pit more times than I can count.

But what’s more unbelievable than my mess is your mercy.  You are a God of unfailing love. Again and again you reach down and lift me out.  Even now I can see the light of your love shining in this horrible hole.

My sin is deep.  Your grace is even deeper.  Even here, way down here, your grace reaches me.

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 LORD, I’m telling everyone everywhere–”His love endures forever!”

It’s the most important thing I’m learning about you. 

It’s the most important thing I’m sharing about you.

Your love endures forever.

When I look back through the story of my life, I see this truth on every page.

When I rewind the movie of humanity, this quality appears on every frame. 

Your love is endless.

It never runs out, dries up, or winds down. 

Your love endures forever.

One of my goals in this series is to give you a reference point to guide you in each area.  Where should you be headed with your character, your spirituality, your community, and your money?  Too often, we have no specific vision for these parts of our lives.  We have no fixed reference point that we are intentionally walking toward.  And as a result, we sometimes just move aimlessly in each area.

The following video illustrates how easy it is to go in circles when we have no fixed reference point to guide our movement.  The video is based on studies which show what happens when you ask a person to move in a straight line but you also blindfold them so they cannot see where they are headed.

This video reveals that without some point to guide us we wander aimlessly in circles.  The same is true when it comes to the four areas we are exploring on Sunday mornings.  Without the right fixed point to guide us, our character, our faith, our relationships, and our stewardship get turned around and we end up in places we never imagined we would be.  What we need is a fixed point to keep us on course.

God’s vision for character, faith, relationships, and money provide a fixed point that keeps us walking straight.  So far, we’ve viewed God’s reference point for character as it’s revealed in 5 passages that paint a portrait of character contrasts.   We’ve also viewed God’s reference point for our relationship with him as it’s revealed in John 3:16. 

This morning, we consider our relationships with others.  If there is one area in which we tend to get off track, it is in our relationships.  That’s why I’m so glad we’re launching Ed Gray’s Marriage Mentoring for this year.  Our marriages need help staying on the straight and narrow.  Dr. Gray’s ministry can help them do just that.  I hope many of you will sign up today as a mentor couple or a mentee couple.

But marriage isn’t the only tricky relationship is it?  I can’t remember a time in my life when all of my major relationships were all on course.  If things between me and Kendra are straight, inevitably I’ll say the wrong thing to my daughter Jordan or my son Jacob and that relationship starts twisting in circles.  Or if I’ve got a straight record as a husband and parent at home, inevitably I’ll forget a friend’s birthday and twist that relationship up.  It’s difficult to not be going in circles in at least one of our many relationships.

This morning I want to focus on our relationship in general.  Sometimes we get so caught up in details that we lose sight of the big picture.  There are detailed principles that would help us in our marriages.  There are other detailed principles that would help us in our friendships.  There are other detailed principles that would benefit our work relationships.  But there are some principles that apply to all relationships.  That’s what I want to focus on this morning.

James Bryan Smith, in his book The Good and Beautiful Community, suggests that many of us come into contact with about 100 people a day.[1] From the members of our family we see in the morning when we wake up, to people at the gym we interact with as we exercise, to class members we speak to in the hallway, to coworkers we deal with on a project, to the people who call, text, or email during the day, to the cashier at the grocery store where we pick up a gallon of milk, to the person who takes our order as we pick up food for dinner, to the friends whose Facebook statuses we check late at night, many of us connect in some way with about 100 people every day.  Some of these interactions are short and superficial.  Some are much longer and deeper.  But the question I want to raise is this: Does God have a vision for our interactions with the 100 people we connect with each day? Does God have a fixed reference point that can keep us moving straight no matter what relationship we are considering?

One of the best sources for an answer to that question is a man named John.  John was one of three who had the closest relationship with Jesus.  There are several occasions when Jesus invited Peter, James, and John to join him, to the exclusion of the other disciples.  Of those three, John appears to have spent the most time with Jesus.  John was known as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”  Jesus entrusted his own mother to John’s care.

In addition, John was a prolific author about Jesus.  He wrote a Gospel, three brief letters, and the stunning book of Revelation.  John “got” Jesus and life in Jesus like few people did.

And John spent a great deal of time meditating on how life in Jesus impacts our relationships.  One of his greatest teachings on this topic comes in 1 John.  Let’s walk through five statements made by John.  His first reflection is found in 1 John 3:16-18: 16By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?  18Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.  (1 John 3:16-18 ESV)  John attempts to define love.  What does real love look like?  John writes that real love looks like Jesus: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.”  Jesus is the definition of love.  He laid down his life.  And John writes that because Jesus loved us in this way, we ought to love others in the same way.  We ought to lay down our lives for others.  The whole Christian life comes down to that one thing—loving people the way Jesus loved people.  John specifically mentions loving “the brothers” or “brother”—meaning other Christians.  But this is not intended to limit our love only to Christians.  John probably mentions loving Christians because that’s the best place for love to start.  The mission to love others doesn’t end with loving the Christian next to us.  But it does begin there.

A second reflection comes in 1 John 4:7-8: 7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  (1 John 4:7-8 ESV)  In the first statement John was defining what it means to love.  Here, John is defining what it means to know God.  What does it mean to know God and be born of God?  John says it comes down to one simple thing: loving people.  “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”  If you aren’t loving people, you really don’t know God.  Because at his very core, that’s what God is—he is the supreme lover of people.  The beginning of verse 7 is striking: “Beloved, let us love.”  We are people who have been loved by God—we are beloved.  Therefore we should become people who love like God.  That’s the essence of the Christian faith: beloved, let us love.  We are people who have been loved by God.  Therefore we become people who love like God.

A third reflection comes in 1 Jn. 4:10-12 : 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.  (1 Jn. 4:10-12 ESV)  Once again, John seeks to define love.  What is love?  John says it is this: God sending his son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Love is God sacrificing his Son for sinners.  Love is God loving unlovable people.  And because we unlovable people have been loved by God, we ought to spend our lives loving others—even if they are unlovable.  John goes on to write two extraordinary things about this love.  First, John writes, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us…”  The statement “No one has ever seen God” is made by John in his Gospel in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”  In other words, “No one has ever seen God, but he did become visible in Jesus Christ.”  In Jesus, the invisible God became visible.  John says here that when we love, the invisible God becomes visible once more.  God abides or dwells in us and when we love others.  The visible manifestation of God’s presence in us is our love for people.  Second, John writes “and his love is perfected in us.”  In other words, there is something incomplete about God’s love if we just receive it but do not share it.  What we receive is meant to be shared.  John Stott writes, “God’s love for us is perfected only when it is reproduced in us…”^[2] God is love.  And his perfect love is only perfected when those of us who receive it go on to reproduce it.

A fourth statement comes in 1 John 4:19-21: 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  21And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 Jn. 4:19-21 ESV)  Once again, John writes the equation: God loved us, so we love others.  Then he illustrates the folly of someone who claims to love God but doesn’t love people.  You can see people.  You cannot see God.  Loving the visible (people) is much easier than loving the invisible (God).  So, how can you say you love God, who isn’t visible, when you don’t even love the person in the pew next to you, who is visible?  Because we are people who’ve come love an invisible God, we must therefore commit to loving the visible people around us.

One final statement is found in 1 John 5:1: 1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. (1 Jn. 5:1 ESV)  John is saying that there is a doctrinal and a social requirement to Christianity.  Doctrinally, the Christian faith demands belief in or faith in Jesus.  If you claim to be a born-again Christian, you must believe that Jesus is the Christ.  But there is also a social requirement to Christianity.  Socially, the Christian faith demands love for people.  If you love the Father, John writes, you are also compelled to love everyone who also loves the Father—those who have been born of him.  In other words, if you love the Father, you’ve got to love everyone else in his family.  Once again, John’s not limiting love, as if being a Christian means only loving other Christians.  That’s not where love ends, but it is where love begins.  And this social requirement is just as important as the doctrinal requirement.  If you have the right doctrine—you believe Jesus is the Christ, but you don’t have the right social practice—loving people, you’re not really a born-again Christian.

Author James Bryan Smith summarizes all of this in this way: Our daily encounters with others are the arenas in which our relationship with God becomes incarnate.[3] Think again about the 100 people with whom you may interact each day: the family members in the morning, the drivers next to you on the road, the coworkers or classmates, the person calling, texting, Facebooking, tweeting, or emailing you during the day, the attendant at the gas station where you fill up on your way home, the cashier at the grocery store where you pick up something for dinner, and the dozens you briefly connect with at the gym where you run at the end of the day.  Those encounters are the arenas in which your relationship with God becomes incarnate.  Those encounters are where your faith becomes real.  For John, the Christian faith is not most lived out in a church building, at a worship service, in a private prayer time, or in a Sunday School classroom.  That doesn’t mean these things are unimportant.  They are very important.  But where the true test of the Christian faith is encountered is among those 100 daily interactions.  How we treat people in those 100 interactions is central to our Christian faith.

Randy Harris is a friend, a professor at Abilene Christian University, an author, and a speaker.  Randy has a practice which he often recommends.  Here it is: In every encounter, speak and do only what love requires. That’s a good summary of the teaching in 1 John.  In every encounter, speak and do only what love requires.  If we could learn to do this, our lives and our world would be transformed.  We’d stop being rude in restaurants.  We’d stop cutting drivers off.  We’d stop ignoring a hurting classmate or coworker.  We’d no longer be oblivious to the needs of people in our neighborhood.  Imagine what could happen if, in every one of 100 interactions you have each day, you asked yourself this question: What does love require?  What word or deed does love require in this interaction?  We’d find that these routine interactions would become occasions for great blessings.

Lyra Samodin helps direct the Ukrainian Education Center in Kiev, Ukraine.  She came to faith in Christ largely through the routine interactions she found herself in when she started visiting the UEC as a non-Christian student.  UEC staff would talk to her in the library.  UEC students would speak with her in the kitchen.  Christians interacted with her at fun activities.  But these staff members, students, and other Christians didn’t just treat these interactions mindlessly like so many of us do as we move throughout our day.  We get busy with our own agendas and hardly pay attention to the people around us.  Instead, these staff members, students, and other Christians were intentional and used their brief encounters with Lyra to incarnate the love of God.  And as a result, she came to faith in Christ.

Highland member Doug Burris told me of a time he went out to eat with another Christian man.  When they ordered their food, the man asked the waitress, “When the food comes, we’re going to give thanks for it.  Is there anything we could pray about for you?”  Surprisingly, the waitress opened up and shared something significant and they were able to pray with her about it.  A routine interaction became a moment in which God’s love was incarnated.

A friend named Eileene told me about a time when she was hated her daughter’s husband.  The husband was having an affair and the mother detested him for it.  Eventually, the daughter and husband worked things out and the marriage was restored.  But Eileene still hated the man.  One day while she was at work, she had a brief interaction with an elderly patient.  Eileene is an assistant in a doctor’s office.  The elderly patient she was helping asked Eileene about her daughter.  For some reason, the question moved Eileene.  She confessed how much she hated her daughter’s husband.  Then this elderly patient took Eileene’s hand in her own.  She looked into Eileene’s eyes and said this: ” You aint never gonna like him. He done hurt your baby. But you have to love him in Jesus“. Eileene told me that this woman’s comment became a turning point in her life.  From that point on, Eileene said, she started hating her daughter’s husband less and loving him more.  Eileene shared the story as a testimony to how God had transformed her character in this area.  But what struck me was the way in which God triggered this transformation.  That interaction between the patient and Eileene was one of 100 interactions that patient would have that day.  This patient could have just ignored Eileene or could have been consumed with her own problems.  After all, how often do you just ignore the assistants in a doctor’s office?  But instead this elderly patient was intentional.  This patient understood that even a cursory interaction like that can be an arena in which God’s love becomes incarnate.

In every interaction we ask “What does love require?”  That’s the point of reference that can enable you to stay on the straight and narrow in every one of your 100 daily interactions.  We’ve been loved by God.  So we now love all people like God.  We no longer just cruise through our daily interactions.  Instead, we become intentional about incarnating love to each day’s 100.

^[2] Stott, J. R. W. (1988). Vol. 19: The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (145). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Stott.

[3] Smith, 19.