Loving People
God created mankind in His own image (Latin: “Imago Dei”) and made them to multiply and have dominion over the earth. As “image bearers” no human is “ordinary” or “without purpose,” every person is either going to one day be revealed as the most hideous of all creatures (uglier than a demon) or more glorious than the most beautiful of angels. At the resurrection all mankind will live forever for the glory of God- either in punishment as rebels against the King or as sons and daughters of their Heavenly Father.
Today we will learn why we should love all people and how Jesus commanded us to love them. God is love thus we are the closest to God when we love and the closest to love when we are with God (1 John 4:8). In other words, the more we know God- the more we will love people. Therefore, let us learn from God’s Word how to love others like Jesus has loved us!
SERIES TEXT
John 15:12-17, “12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit— fruit that will last— and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.”
HOW VS. WHY
WHY WE SHOULD LOVE PEOPLE
Great video on the Trinity!
HOW GOD MADE MAN IN HIS IMAGE
HOW TO LOVE PEOPLE
Mark 12:28-31, “28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel:The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
- HELP PEOPLE IN THEIR TIMES OF NEED: We love people by doing all the good we can for them, Luke 10:25-37 & 1 John 3:16-18.
- PREACH THE GOSPEL TO PEOPLE: We love people by preaching the gospel to them so that their soul might be saved, Mark 8:34-38 & Romans 1:16-17.
DIVINE FRIENDSHIPS
- C.S. Lewis, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible [divine sons and daughters of the God Most High], to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
- Timothy Keller, “Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.”
- Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, “And yet I will show you the most excellent way. 1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self- seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
We should love others like Jesus loved us because we are all made in the image of God!