"Love One Another" ...Do We Have To?!

Hi everyone. My name's John Lynch and this is John Lynch Speaks.

Well, these come out about a month or so after I record these. So history has moved on and I am guessing at where we are right now and it almost doesn't matter. This last Wednesday was the breach of the Capitol and it has caused me to... There's my lights that I haven't taken down for Christmas yet. And I'm sorry, you can hear the dryer in the background. I just can't let the dryer stop.

Anyway, it's caused me to ask about love. Christian love. What does that look like in the world's chaos? And I think about John 13:34, and He says, “I want you to love one another with the love that I've had for you.” And I wrote in a message and I want to do a two-part kind of series that kind of reflects these thoughts that I gave at my own church, Open Door Fellowship, a while back by the time you get this, and I wrote this, when Jesus says love one another, do I have to? Could I just love some of them some of the time, like the ones who like me? Could we make the evidence of loving you about something else? Something I could give up or promise? Humans are hard. They're fine in concept or from a distance but when one hurts me, I get all inflamed and I don't trust the person. I never want to see them again. Even if I make an attempt at forgiveness, sometimes if I'm honest, I'm thinking I don't like you. I'm just doing this because I don't want the Holy Spirit waking me up in the middle of the night.

And I think of Ephesians with its incredible statement in there. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Wow. And do you hear that? But everything of diligence is all about, in this body, that we would preserve the unity of peace. And why the same person in 1st John writes in the Gospel, I in them, Jesus says, and You in Me, Father, that they may be perfected in unity… there it is again, unity and perfected... so that the world may know… ah, okay…  that You sent Me and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

This unity has a purpose. It's not just so that we can do well at potlucks. God doesn't use our Christian values to draw others to Jesus. God doesn't use our political rightness to draw others to Jesus. God doesn't use our yelling at sinners to draw others to Jesus. God uses our love of each other to draw others to Jesus. It's crazy. It's so unbelievable what Jesus has chosen to do. And He…  let me see if I can find it…  Colossians…  let's see if I can find it, I've got it in paperclip, I prepared for this. But in there He talks about the rabble and the discordant, divisive crowd that Jesus brought together. This is a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek or Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all and in all. Wow. These were sworn enemies who humbly knelt under the authority of the King of Kings and suddenly they had a higher value, a higher allegiance.

I remember as a brand new believer showing up in 1980 to this place that I'm still at, Open Door Fellowship, and I remember seeing all these people who had zero in common, had such different lives that normally would resent or be divided or hate the other, and here they were together, playing like school kids, just loving each other, not being able to get enough of each other. And I thought in that moment at the very earliest stage of my faith, okay, this is for real. This is so for real.

Alright, that's enough for today. We'll come back in two weeks and we'll have some social bites on the internet and talk about it. But in a couple of weeks, I'll be back and we'll continue this thought about what is unique in Christian love. Thanks. I'm John Lynch and this is John Lynch Speaks.