JESUS WAS MOTIVATED BY LOVE
In this series, I’m making the appeal to followers of Christ to set aside dependences. For all of us to “lay down our gods” – the attachments that entangle our souls and obscure our vision of Christ and His mission through us here in America. Yesterday’s introduction was scathing. It was meant to be…not because I like to inflict pain, but because I often need it, and I know you do too. The jolt causes me to take stock of the direction my thoughts & feelings & behaviors…and call me back to God’s ways. His Word is filled with all kinds of examples of God disciplining His people through leaders who were also on-journey toward Him.
Hebrews 12:5-6, 11
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son…No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
Today the tone changes and we begin looking at solutions…at VISION
We get stuck all the time, and God miraculously draws us into His future blessings by giving us visions of hope and new definitions to live by. He enables us to be what we cannot be. The best vision of hope, the most perfect model by far, is to look carefully at the character & teachings of Jesus the Christ. Today, I think it’s appropriate to look at His main motivation: LOVE.
In John 3, Jesus was teaching a respected religious leader named Nicodemus. The prevalent belief of the faithful in those days was that God blessed those who were the most perfect and blameless according to the “Law of Moses”…what we now know as the first 5 books of the Old Testament. If you ever look carefully through all those hundreds of laws, you’ll get an eyeful for sure! They’re not just God’s unchanging moral laws, there are also ceremonial/religious laws that pertain specifically to the people of Israel at that time in history before Christ. There were specific groups of teachers/leaders called the “Pharisees” and “Teachers of the Law” who were totally dedicated to understanding & teaching all the laws, and making sure that everyone else did too. They were the “moral police” who believed it was their job to tell others everything they did that was wrong and make them follow the rules. They were the models of society. They were the ultimate control freaks. They were also totally misrepresenting God’s motives, and they became the primary enemies of Jesus and the chief villains of the Gospels.
Jesus’ message of love was totally revolutionary and disruptive to the popular teachings and ways of His culture. There was a very real belief that God’s love and approval was conditional upon peoples’ ability to keep all of God’s rules…and any lapse in this would bring about judgement. There were those who accepted the Law but were a bit more flexible and inquisitive…they were essentially squashed under the heavy tide of legalism, and often jettisoned from communities of faith. Jesus came into sharp controversy with these people:
Matthew 23:13“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”
Luke 20:45-47“While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.’”
Does this sound familiar? There are Pharisees among us today, aren’t there? Are you one? Am I? Is this how we’re seen by our society?
Here are some glimpses of the way of love, promoted and modeled by Jesus and His followers:
John 3:16-17“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Luke 6:27-31“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Romans 5:6-8“At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Now, does all this mean that God’s Law, His moral mandates, are unimportant and irrelevant and we should all just skip around loving everything without boundaries? No. Jesus didn’t do that either, we’ll look at that later. What it does mean is that Jesus, who was God’s presence in the world, demonstrated His nature and His motive…put it on display as a model for us to follow. God is not a demanding tyrant, He’s a loving Father. God is not standing up there glaring at you, waiting for you to screw-up so he can yell at you…He’s cheering you on from the sidelines with tears in His eyes. He remembers all the messes you’ve made of yourself that He’s helped clean up for you. He’s the one who knows your inability to love Him and obey Him perfectly…that’s why He willingly paid the penalty for you in order that His perfection can clothe you in majesty you do not deserve.
“God issues an undeserved invitation to undeserving people, and in addition provides the righteousness the invitation demands!” (NIV Commentary)
1 John 3:1“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”
