Caring Christians Walk Lovingly
By Woodrow Kroll
Love as it is defined in the Bible is not simply an affection based on admiration. It's not just a warm attachment to someone or something. Biblical love is more like commitment; it's an emotional bond based on biblical values. Actually, love in the Bible is the virtue of God; it's lived out in our life every day. So if you want to have a good biblical understanding of love, our love has to be like God's love. It has to be giving. It has to be sacrificial. It has to be constant. The world will know that we belong to the Lord Jesus when they see our constant love one for another.
Oh, it sure is, Don. Folks, my goal today is to encourage you to think about the bottom line of belief and practice. As Don says, this is where the rubber meets the road. If we are to walk differently and prove that we're a caring Christian, if we are to walk spiritually and prove that we're a caring Christian, we cannot prove anything unless we walk lovingly.
Now when people look at you, who do they see? When your coworkers see you in the office or in a room or in the shop or in the plant, what do they see? Do they see someone who reflects new life in Christ? Can they tell the players without a scorecard? Do they know that you are a new creature? "Old things have passed away; all things have become new?" And if they do, how do they know that? What do your neighbors see when they see you? Do they see a common Christian, or do they see a genuine, caring Christian?
This week we've been focusing on how our friends and our neighbors can see the way we walk, and that shows that we are a caring Christian. We walk in newness of life; we walk in the Spirit. Today, we walk in love, and tomorrow we walk circumspectly. We are interested in what the Bible says, what the Bible means, and how it applies to your life and my life.
Let's find out first of all what the Bible says about walking lovingly. I want to take you today to Ephesians 5. Listen to this. Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus. In chapter 5, verse one, he says, "Therefore be followers of God as dear children. And walk in love." Now, put that on the sticky side of your mind, friends, because that's the whole tenure of what we want to talk about today.
"Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light."
That's a pretty tough passage. Paul gives two positive commands in verses 1 and 2, and then he gives two negative commands in verses 3 and 4. Then the rest of this passage is simply an explanation of those commands. I'm going to look at the two positive commands so that you can clearly understand what it means to be a caring Christian, so that our neighbors can look at us and know that caring Christians walk lovingly.
The first positive command is in verse one. "Therefore be followers of God as dear children." Now the word be followers of God, is an interesting word. In the original language, this word is mimeomai. And you might see in that word that root of our word mimic in the English language, or mime. Or remember the good old days when we used to use a mimeograph? See that's the point of this word. We are to be imitators of God, followers of God. We are to mime God; we are to mimic God. We are to let God take us and use an old mimeograph and make us just like Him.
I have to tell you that's a pretty scary thought. It's a pretty scary thought that we are told to imitate God. We're to mimic God, in the very purest sense of that word. Now, how hard must that be? Remember the words of Scripture: "Be still and know that I am God." I think we feel a little like Zophar, one of Job's friends. We're likely to want to say, "Can you by searching find out God? Can you find out the Almighty to perfection? It is high as heaven; what can you do? It's deeper than Sheol; what can you know?" (Job 11:7-8).
Maybe you're a little like Isaiah the prophet who had a vision of God, and he said, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim, each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!' And the posts of the door were shaken by voice of him who cried out. And the house was filled with smoke." Pretty amazing passage, isn't it?
Now if you and I are to imitate God, just think about what that means. How can we do that? There are some people who think that's pretty easy. They don't see God as you and I do. They have a minute god. They have a god with a small g--god within themselves. But when we think of the God of the Bible, we're like Peter, who fell on his knees and said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" (Luke 5:8).
I think the same thing was true of John. In Revelation 1:17 he said, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as one dead." What an awesome responsibility it is to imitate God, to be a follower, to be just like God. The question today folks, is, "How will we do that?" How is it possible for you and me to be imitators of God? How can we take our life and mimeograph God to our neighbors?
Well, it's only possible in the spirit of awe, the spirit of reverence, the spirit of unworthiness. That's how you imitate God. The command is given, and God wants us to obey it. If we do, He's going to have to enable us to do it--it's just that simple. By transforming grace, we have become children; and now as children, we're able to imitate Him. Listen to this, here's how we imitate God. Romans 15:2-3, "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.'"
If you want to imitate God, you have to find ways to please your neighbor. This is not talking about sin; this is talking about mimeographing yourself to your neighbor in a way that pleases your neighbor. 1 John 4:10-11: "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
And Colossians 3:12: "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do."
Now, did you notice the common denominator in each of these verses? Actually, there's more than one. In each case, we are to minister to our neighbor; and in each case, the Lord Jesus had already modeled the way. He's already given us a pattern. He tells us how to mimeograph Himself to our neighbor. If we simply imitate Him, if we simply do what He would do, then we've learned how to not only glorify God, but how to show our neighbors that we're a caring Christian.
So the first command, Ephesians 5, is the command to imitate God. If it couldn't be done, Paul wouldn't have commanded it, my friends. But it can only be done by walking in the Spirit. That's what we talked about yesterday.
I want us to focus today on walking in love. That's the second command by the way. The first command, the first positive command in verse 1 is to be imitators of God. The second one, in verse 2, is "Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us." You see, it's only when we imitate God that our neighbors are going to see that you and I are caring Christians. And it's only when we imitate His love, when we walk in His love, when we treat them--our neighbors, our boss, the people we work with, our family--when we treat them in His love as He treated us. That's what the Bible says. That's being a caring Christian.
What does it mean to walk in love? Does it have something to do with our shoes or with our steps? No, I don't think so. To walk in love means that love characterizes everything that you do, every thought that you have, every word that you speak, every deed that you perform. Everything you are and everything you do will have the marks of love written all over it.
That's always been the characteristic of Christians, hasn't it? Back in the first and second century, shortly after the church was born, everybody in the world knew the Christians were caring people. In fact, Celsus was a critic of the early church. He wrote what is tantamount to a book entitled True Discourse. He is one of the oldest, if not the oldest literary critics against the Christians. He lived in the second century. And one of his criticisms of the Christians, you know what it was? Celsus in his True Discourse said, "These Christians love each other even before they know each other."
I think his criticism is well taken. Men dignify a lot of things under the name of love, but this is not what Paul's talking about in the Bible. It's not what was evident to Celsus in the second century. Paul's talking about distinctively Christian love, the love of Christ, self-sacrificing love, purposeful love--the kind of love that penetrates the hardest heart in your family, the kind of love that permeates your neighborhood when your friends and your neighbors observe your behavior.
Are your friends and neighbors and family taking note of the fact that you're a caring Christian? It will only happen, folks, when--number one--you imitate God. You mimeograph God in your life in the way that others see you. Number two: When you walk in love. Notice that our love is to be like Christ's love for us.
Think with me for a minute. What was Christ's love like? It was voluntary certainly. He laid down His life on our behalf. If you're going to show your neighbor that you are a caring Christian, you're going to have to volunteer to love him. Christ's love was sacrificial. Sometimes loving a family member takes a significant amount of sacrifice. Christ's love was personal. It's not that He said, "I love the world." He does love the world, but He loves me too. He loves you. It's personal.
Now you can say, "I love all my neighbors," but until you show that hard to get along with neighbor over the back fence that you're a caring Christian, he's never going to see the love of Christ in you. You can show your neighbor your love. You can show your family that you're a caring Christian by simply volunteering to take them to the store. Be a volunteer the way Jesus volunteered His love. Loan your lawnmower to your neighbor or cut the grass for him. If you have a widow living across the street from you, volunteer your love to that widow by mimeographing Christ to her.
You can show your neighbor sacrificial love just like Jesus did. You can do that by doing without something so that they can have. Take a meal to them. If they're sick, check in on them. Go across town for them. Pick up something at the grocery store. That is sacrificial love. That is showing your neighbors that you're a caring Christian.
Being a caring Christian doesn't mean you stick your nose in the Bible and you never take it out. It means that you spend some time in God's Word and then your feet get the message and they go across the street and they show love to a neighbor. You can show your neighbor substitutionary love. You can show them personal love, love that gives some of you to them--a very precious commodity--your time.
I remember one time laughing at Linus in the Peanuts cartoon. Linus said, "I love mankind. It's people I can't stand." You see, that's where love becomes personal. You don't say, "I love my neighbors." You say, "I love that neighbor that's kitty-cornered across the street from me." "I love that neighbor down the street who's always walking his dog and making a stop on my lawn." Personal love, friends. If you want your neighbor to see that you're a caring Christian, you have to care about them. You have to show them your love. You have to walk in love. You have to walk in the Spirit. You have to walk in newness of life. That's the way that they will see that you love them. It's also the way that your life will demonstrate that you're a caring Christian.
One of my favorite Bible commentators and writers was William Barclay. William Barclay wrote a number of commentaries on the Scripture. He actually edited a copy of the Scriptures. Barclay once said, "If we are to accept the teaching of Jesus at all, then the only test of the reality of a man's religion is his attitude toward his fellow man. The only possible proof that a man loves God is the demonstrated fact that he loves his fellow man.
You see, if we want to prove that we are caring Christian, we're going to have to show the world we love God by loving them.
I said there were two positive commands and two negative commands. Let me take just a quick moment and talk about those two negative commands. You find them in verses 3 and 4. He says in verse 3, "But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints."
The word fornication here is the word pornea in Greek. There's no place in the Scriptures where illicit sexual activity is condoned by God. That's what Pornea means. It is condemned every time. Compare that with the newspaper or compare that with what you see TV today. You would think if you watch TV today that illicit sexual activity--that would-be sexual activity between two people who are not married, homosexual activity--you would think that's condoned and accepted in the world today. Well, in fact, it is--but it's never condoned by God. This is what the Bible says, "But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints."
What he's saying is that there is certain activity, if you're going show the world that you love the world--there is certain activity you can never be a part of, and illicit sexual activity is right at the top of the list. We are not permitted, friends, to show the world that we are mimeographing God when we are also living in a way that displeases God.
Then in verse 4 he says, "Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks." You see, the Bible is pretty clear. There is a way for you to show the world that you're a caring Christian. But nothing unfitting for Christ is to be found in your life, if you're going to tell the world that you're a caring Christian. It's a great feeling, walking in love. It's like receiving the love and forgiveness of the Lord Jesus afresh and anew every day. If you and I are to be caring Christians, my friends, we have to learn to live the life of love, to show our neighbors and our friends and our families that we love the Lord Jesus and as a result we love them.
Now what are some of the ways you can show those around you that you're a caring Christian? Today I've suggested some ways, some ways you can demonstrate your love. Take those ways to heart and don't limit yourself to those ways. Just for a few minutes, spend some time thinking, clearly thinking, biblically thinking about what God requires of you. And what He says demonstrates to the world that you care for it. Do some thinking before you fall asleep tonight. I think it will make your day tomorrow a whole lot better, both for you and for your neighbor.
This lesson certainly challenges our ideas about what love is and what it's to do in the Christian walk. And we even have a little homework that could change our day and how we operate with others. So if tomorrow morning, we wake up with the resolution to love everybody we meet, what will we need to do next? Probably go back to bed! Love really is a commitment. It's a commitment on our part. It's not necessarily a reciprocal commitment. It doesn't always flow back to us from others. I think we have to look for ways to love. We have to look for little evidences of love, even if no one ever loves back.
Is this really a possible goal, to demonstrate love to everyone we meet in a day? Well, to some degree, yes, it is possible. Obviously, it's a lot easier to demonstrate love to my grandchildren, even when they do wrong, than it is to demonstrate love to a stranger who wrongs me. But love wears blinders. It doesn't mysteriously kick in when the right people appear. If we're committed to love, we're committed to the Lord Jesus.
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