Third Secret: Become Love

Three: Become Love
(Phil 2:1-11; 1 John 4:9-11, 19; John 3:16)

A. Introduction
1. You might call today John 3:16 day in the church. Today is the day it is being read from pulpits all around the world, “16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” in the words of the King James Version that we learned as children. It is the quintessential Bible verse, the one we probably learned first, the one everyone knows churched or unchurched, the one that is sometimes called the whole Bible in miniature. Everybody’s text, the essence of the Bible. “For God so loved the world.”

2. It is the essence of who God is. God is love. It is also who we are in response to God’s love:
9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another....19 We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:9-11, 19)

3. God is love. And that was manifested in the Passion and suffering of Jesus Christ for us. It was manifested in betrayal, denial, humiliation, thorns, nails, pain and death. It was manifested in the cross of Christ—for you, for me. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

4. The love of God, manifested in the cross of Christ. The cross--that picture ought to dispel any romantic, erotic notion of what love is. Love is not a feeling. Love is a choice. God chose to love you. God chose to love me. God chose to love the world and everyone in it. God chose the cross to manifest that love, to show us that there was no length, there was no limit to where he would go or what he would do to demonstrate his love for us, to save us. For God so loved the world.

B. Body
1. We are in the middle of a five part sermon series, “The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die,” and today’s secret is “Become Love,” not just love, but become love.
a. Author John Izzo asked 15,000 people who were the wise elders in their lives? Who was it that had something to teach us about living a full and complete life? From those recommendations he interviewed 235 people from all walks of life and faith from ages 60 to 106. You could have guessed one of the outcomes, that they would say that the secret to a happy and fulfilling life is to give and receive love.
b. But the wise elders went further than that. The secret to a life filled with happiness and purpose was not just to love, but to become a loving person. In other words, become love. Become love.
c. The first thing we need to know to become love is what love is. We learned a moment ago that love is not a feeling. Love is a choice. Stephen Covey says that love is a verb. Scott Peck takes it a step further and says that love is an act of work or courage. Love is not a feeling, it is an act of work or courage.
d. God chose to send his Son into the world. The courage was the cross. The work was our salvation. “For God so loved the world…”

2. Become love. When we become love, we are emulating God and God in Christ. John tells us in his little companion letter to the Gospel of John, 1st John, “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we ought to love one another.” And Paul, writing in Philippians tells us part of what we are to do when he says, “5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God (existed as God) did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (a servant), being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.”
a. Obedient. Christ was obedient to God, love of God. Love is not a feeling. Love is an act of courage or work. For Christ his love of God was the work of obedience. His love for us was the courage of the cross. In the same way, Christ says to us. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Obedience, our love of Christ is also the work of obedience.
b. Let the same mind be in you. God loves us and we love God in return.
c. God created us to become love. And when we become love, we are loved in return. It is hand and glove. Love becomes vital to us. Love is one of the secrets to a fulfilling and purposeful life.

3. Author Izzo tells of the interview with David (p 63). David, now in his seventies, reflected on his father’s last days. Family had gathered from all over the world. His father had been a successful man, had accumulated many things, but as he talked, there was no discussion of business or possessions or things that he had acquired during his lifetime. Rather, he surrounded himself with photos of special times in his life—weddings, births, family trips, times with family and friends. Watching his father die, David concluded, “At the end of our lives, when we only have a short time left, love is really the only thing we care about.” Love is really the only thing we care about. God created us to love, to become love. To have the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus. Become love.

4. So how is it that we become love? I would suggest that what Izzo is going to tell us now is a practice, something we do over and over again throughout our lives to deepen and habituate our ability to love. Izzo suggests three things, three practices. I would begin with another, and that is remembering daily that God is love and that he first loved us. When we do that, we are prepared for the practices that Izzo suggests.

5. Izzo suggests that we first must love ourselves. That’s biblical, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Yourself. We’re not talking of unhealthy narcissism here, but before we can be of value to others, we have to choose to see ourselves as worthy. Choice. We have to choose to see ourselves, to believe ourselves, to think of ourselves as worthy. How we think of ourselves matters.
a. Psychologists say that we have as many as 50,000 thoughts each and every day (p 67). Each of us are in a non-stop, feverish conversation with ourselves. Most of our thoughts are benign, have little impact on our self-image, but some have the power to damage us. How we chose to think about ourselves is a matter of love, a matter of healthy self-love.
b. Our thoughts can be weeds that choke out the good, or they can be flowers that give beauty to our lives, our self-worth. Noxious weeds, nettles that sting us, or tulips and daffodils that give sparkle in spring. Nettles that sting, flowers in spring (There, a poet and didn’t know it.). But you get the idea. What we think about, what we think of ourselves is a matter of love. What we think about is a choice.
c. Izzo tells a wonderful story from the Navajo tradition (p 69). The Navajo elders say that there is a fight going on within them, like a fight between two wolves, one wolf that is evil and one that is good. The evil wolf personifies anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, fear. The good wolf personifies all that is good in life, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, hope, forgiveness, charity. As the elders tell the story of the wolves fighting within them, the children of the village eyes would widen and they would ask, “But grandfather, which wolf wins?” To which the elders reply, “The one that we feed.”
d. The first practice of becoming love is to feed the right wolves within us, to choose to love ourselves.

6. The second practice of becoming love is act with love toward those closest to us. Love is an act, love is verb. Our greatest happiness comes from loving those around us, but it can be the source of our greatest regrets too.
a. Studies (p 76, 142) show that in the average home we give 14 negative, critical messages to every positive one, planting weeds instead of daisies. That’s for the ones we say we care about the most. What wolves are we feeding? Too often the wrong ones I think.
b. I think we become too comfortable with those we care about the most. We forget that love is work, that love is an act, that love is a verb. Love is a positive verb.
c. The Hindu teachings of love take from the best of the Christian tradition. Ghandi, great Hindu leader of India in the last century was an admirer of Jesus, and my guess is a student of John Wesley too. In an interview (p 77) with a Hindu woman, she described of the teachings from her mother who told her that for all that she meets to do as much good as she can, but in every circumstance, always do no harm. She said, “With everyone I meet, with every word that I say, I guard that I do no harm.” Very Wesleyan.
What if we guarded ourselves to do no harm, especially with those we care for the most?
d. We have the power to change the ratio of negative to positive messages around those that we love and loving people do. Studies show that in happy marriages the ratio of positive to negative communications is 7:1 positive. Love is a positive verb. Practice love with those you care about the most. Practice.

7. The third practice of carrying out the secret to become love is to be loving to those in all our encounters. Jesus would say love your neighbor. The ripple of love is widening, from God, the source of love, the pebble of love dropped into the lake, to self, widening to those around us, then widening further to our neighbor, to the person we might encounter today. All the while remembering that we love because God first loved us. We offer love because Christ first offered it to us. We have the courage to love because of the courage of the cross.
a. Just as we choose to love ourselves, our families, we choose to become love to those we encounter. Lea, a 60 year old African American (p 79) who grew up in the segregated South with the life experiences that could have made her bitter, prays each morning before she leaves her house: Lord, make me open to love from the time I leave the house until the time I come home. Help me so that when I meet those in my path for whom a kind word, a smile, a thank you might be life changing for them, please do not let me be so busy that I will miss it. “A kind word, a smile, a thank you.. please do not let me be so busy that I will miss it.”
b. John Izzo closes his chapter (p 80) on become love with this story that is a witness to the practice of this secret. He told of a young woman whose mother passed away suddenly. On the plane to pay her final visit she tried to visualize her mother’s final moments, did she know how much she was loved? Had her mother died with a sense of deep satisfaction or was there something that caused her to regret? Tears welled up as she thought of the great love her mother had shared with her and others.
When she arrived she went straight to the funeral home where a large crowd had gathered. She had been away from home for many years so there were many there that she didn’t know. She’d ask her sisters and her father who each was. There was one woman sitting in the hall that no one knew. She went to her and asked, “How did you know my mother?”
“I’m sorry to say I didn’t know your mother.”
“Then, why are you here?”
“Many years ago I was going through a very difficult time. I was so discouraged that I was seriously thinking of taking my life that day. I happened sit on a bus next to a women who was deeply engrossed in a book. Half way through the bus ride, she closed the book, set it on her lap, turned to me and said, ‘You look like a person that needs to talk.’ I don’t know why but I opened up to her. When I got home our time together led me to a different decision.”
“But what does this have to do with my mother.”
“I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t even know the name of the woman who talked to me. I didn’t even know her name. When I saw her picture in the paper two days ago, I came here tonight because I did not know your mother. I did not know her name, but my 20 minutes with her saved my life.”
c. Her mother had practiced loving those she had encountered. She chose love as Lea had said in her prayer, to be open to love so that she would not miss the opportunity to change another’s life.
d. The third practice to become love is to choose to love those we might encounter today. To never miss the opportunity that might change their lives.

C. Close
1. Love is a choice that travels a circle with God, neighbor and self sitting on the arc. Love offered travels that circle and as Paul told us in his great love essay. “Love never ends.” It begins “4 Love is patient; love is kind;” and then closes “7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.” Love God offers, love we offer travels that circle returning to us giving life meaning and purpose. When we become love we give love and receive it in return. Love never ends.

2. Love is a choice. In fact many choices. The first is to choose to accept the love that God offers in Jesus Christ. Then the choice to let the same mind be in us that is in Christ Jesus who became a servant, who humbled himself to become obedient for our sake. Not for the sake of himself, but for others. If God in Christ so loved us we ought to love one another.

3. Choose love, practice love, to ourselves, those we care about the most, to those we might encounter who need love. The third secret we must discover before we die is to become love. So may it be in all of our lives. Amen.

**Izzo, John. The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publications, Inc., 2008.