Love in Action

1. Love in Action

2. I wonder why it’s such a compliment to tell a woman she looks like a breath of spring, but not to tell her she looks like the end of hard winter?

3. I wonder why it pleases her to say time stands still when you look into her face, but not to say her face would stop a clock?

4. I wonder why, when the preacher says, "In closing...," he doesn’t.

5. I wonder why a speaker who "needs no introduction" gets one anyway.

6. Many things in this world could cause us to wonder. But one of the strangest to me is why God would love us.

7. The word love is hard to define today because we use it so loosely. We say, "I love ice cream.“ "I love America’s Got Talent.” We know what we mean. But is that really love?The confusion is compounded by Hollywood who spells love LUST. That isn't love. Physical attraction that drives you to jump in bed with someone doesn't mean you are 'in love', it means you are 'in heat.'

8. 1 John 4:7-12 7My loved ones, let us devote ourselves to loving one another. Love comes straight from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and truly knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 Because of this, the love of God is a reality among us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we could find true life through Him. 10 This is the embodiment of true love: not that we have loved God first, but that He loved us and sent His unique Son on a special mission to become an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 So, my loved ones, if God loved us so sacrificially, surely we should love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God with human eyes; but if we love one another, God truly lives in us. Consequently God’s love has accomplished its mission among us.

9. There are two distinguishing birthmarks of a true believer: 1. A love for God, demonstrated in the way we obey Him. John 14:15 (VOICE) 15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. John 14:23 (NLT) 23 Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.

10. 2. A love for one another, demonstrated in the way we treat each other. John 13:34 (VOICE) 34 So I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways. John 15:12-13 (NLT) 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

11. Love is not a suggestion, it is a command. Love isn't something that we feel or say...it is something that we do. Love is action. Sometimes we have no control over our feelings. God is not commanding us to feel love, but to show it. What does love, as God meant it, look like?

12. Most of us have heard of or seen the film “Bridge over the River Kwai”. The film portrayed the brutal treatment of Prisoners of War forced by the Japanese to construct a railway through the Thai jungle.

13. BACKGROUNDErnest Gordon wrote a book called, Miracle on the River Kwai, in which he tells of how POW’s in WWII came to know and show God’s love. Gordonwas a British Army officer captured at sea by the Japanese at the age of twenty-four. Gordon was sent to work on the Burma-Siam railway line that the Japanese were constructing though the dense Thai jungle for possible use in an invasion of India. For labor, they conscripted prisoners of war they had captured from occupied countries in Asia and from the British Army itself. Against international law, the Japanese forced even officers to work at manual labor, and each day Gordon would join a work detail of thousands of prisoners who hacked their way through the jungle and built up a track bed through low-lying swamp land.

14. Naked except for loincloths, the men worked in 120-degree heat, their bodies stung by insects, their bare feet cut and bruised by sharp stones. Death was commonplace. If a prisoner appeared to be lagging, a Japanese guard would beat him to death, bayonet him, or decapitate him in full view of the other prisoners.

15. POW camp duty was considered by the Japanese to be very low duty, given to those officers who did not measure up in “real” battle positions.  As a result, alcohol and super sadism compensated some of the officers for their sense of failure.

16. Many more men simply dropped dead from exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease. Under these severe conditions, with such inadequate care for prisoners, 80,000 men ultimately died building the railway, 393 fatalities for every mile of track.

17. For most of the war, the law of the jungle had ruled in the prison camp. As starvation, exhaustion and disease took an ever-increasing toll, the atmosphere became poisoned by selfishness, hate and fear. Existence had become so miserable, the odds so heavy against survival, that, to most of the prisoners, nothing mattered except to survive. It was a case of “I’ll look out for myself and to hell with everyone else”.

18. “For most of us, little acts of meanness, suspicion and favoritism permeated our daily lives. In the food line, prisoners fought over the few scraps of vegetables or grains of rice floating in the greasy broth. Officers refused to share any of their special rations. Theft was common in the barracks. Men lived like animals and hate was the main motivation to stay alive.”

19. “We had no church, no chaplain, no services. We were forsaken men ~ forsaken by our friends, our families, by our Government. Now even God seemed to have left us.”

20. But something was astir in the prison camp. Stories began to circulate around the camp, stories of self-sacrifice, heroism, faith and love.

21. It was the custom among the Scottish for every man to have a “mucker” ~ a pal or friend with whom he shared or “mucked in” everything he had. Angus had a mucker who became very ill. It seemed pretty certain to everyone that he was going to die. When someone stole his mucker’s blanket Angus gave him his own. Every mealtime Angus would draw his ration only to give them to his friend. The mucker got better. But Angus collapsed, and died caused by starvation and exhaustion. All for his friend.

22. John 15:12-13 (NLT) 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. The story of Angus’s sacrifice spread through the camp firing the imagination of everyone. He had given a shining example of the way we ought to live and love, as Christ has loved us.

23. Another event shook the prisoners. Japanese guards carefully counted tools at the end of day’s work, and one day the guard shouted that a shovel was missing. He walked up and down the ranks demanding to know who had stolen it. When no one confessed, he screamed, “All die! All die!” and raised his rifle to fire at the first man in the line. A soldier innocent of the deed stepped up, stood at attention, and said, “I did it.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p6mEeosT6Y

24. That anonymous soldier sacrificed his life so that his companions could live. That evening, when the tools were counted again, the work crew discovered a mistake had been make; no shovel was missing. John 15:12-13 (NLT) 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

25. These acts of self-sacrifice shone like beacons causing a transformation in the camp. Prisoners started treating the dying with respect. Prisoners began looking out for each other rather than themselves. Men started thinking less of themselves finding ways to help others. “Love, heroism, self-sacrifice, sympathy, mercy, integrity and creative faith were the gifts of God to men … True, there was hatred. But there was also love. There was death. But there was also life. God had not left us. He was with us.”

26. Ernest Gordon could feel himself gradually wasting away from a combination of beriberi, worms, malaria, dysentery, and typhoid. Then a virulent case of diphtheria ravaged his throat so severely that when he tried to drink or eat, the rice or water would come gushing out through his nose. As a side effect of the disease, his legs lost all sensation. Paralyzed and unable to eat, Gordon was in the Death House, where prisoners on the verge of death were laid out in rows until they stopped breathing. The stench was unbearable. He had no energy to fight off the bedbugs, lice and swarming flies. He propped himself up on one elbow long enough to write a final letter to his parents and then lay back to await the inevitable.

27. Gordon’s friends built a new bamboo addition onto their hut on high ground, away from the swamp. They carried his shriveled body on a stretcher from the contaminated earth floor of the Death House to a new bed of split bamboo, installing him in clean quarters for the first time in months.Lying alone there in the silence Gordon was approached by Dusty “Good evening, sir. I heard you needed a hand and I wondered if you’d care to let me help you.”

28. Dusty Miller was a simple gardener from London, whose only wish was to get back there to continue working with flowers with his dad. He was firm in his conviction, and taught others in camp the gospel of Christ— forgiveness and love and turning the other cheek. He lived what he taught.

29. Dusty was one of two fellow Scots who volunteered to come each day and care for Ernest. Dusty faithfully dressed the ulcers on his legs and massaged his useless, atrophied muscles. They brought him food and cleaned his shack. After weeks of such tender care, Gordon put on a little weight and regained partial use of his legs. Ernest--At the beginning Ernest-- of the war POW 6’3” less than 100 lbs.

30. Because Ernest wanted to be a teacher before the war, an Australian sergeant, approached him and asked if he would lead a discussion group about Christianity. He said, his lads wouldn’t stand for any “Sunday School Stuff” ~ they wanted “the real dingo” about Christianity. They had seen the absolute worst there is, but believed there’s got to be something better.

31. At the camp “university,” their conversations kept circling around the issue of how to prepare for death. Seeking answers, Ernest returned to fragments of faith recalled from his childhood. He knew they had to find out as much as they could about Jesus and through their readings and discussions they gradually came to know Him, and to understand that the love expressed so supremely in Jesus was God’s love.

32. Ernest began to see change in his comrades when some wounded Japanese soldiers from a neighboring outpost come to the POW camp seeking aid. This action violated the Japanese Bushido Code, which calls for wounded soldiers to suffer silently or commit suicide rather than become a burden to their fellow soldiers. http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/to-end-all-wars/human-beings

33. One man in the prison camp had continually ridiculed Dusty Miller for his views, but Dusty continued to love him. Two weeks before the end of the war, after a failed escape the guards began systematically killing all who were involved, including the man who had ridiculed Dusty Miller. Just as this man was about to be shot, Dusty Miller stepped forward and asked to take the place of the condemned man. (The condemned man was not a Christian—Dusty was trying to buy him some time to find Christ.) http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/to-end-all-wars/you-are-free?play=1

34. Because Dusty Miller had preached about the crucified Christ, to ridicule his Christian faith, the Japanese Warrant Officer nailed him to a cross and hung him to die in full view of the camp. This Japanese guard hated this good man of deep faith and warm heart, incapable of a mean act, even against a brutal tormentor. He was flustered because Dusty would never break, and never anger. This made the Japanese guard "loose face". As Ernest Gordon confessed “It is hard to be a disciple, Lord”. But love conquers all.

35. Gordon’s book tells that when liberation finally came the prisoners treated their guards with kindness and not revenge. The liberators were so infuriated by what they saw that they wanted to shoot the Japanese on the spot. Only the intervention of the victims prevented them. Captors were spared by their captives. “Let mercy take the place of bloodshed,” said these exhausted but forgiving men. “Not an eye for an eye, a limb for a limb”.

36. Because of the witness of others in the camp attitudes changed dramatically. We may not be in such extreme circumstances but we can still influence others by loving like Jesus wherever we are. John 13:34 (VOICE) 34 So I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways.

37. Putting love in action

38. Dave Simpson told this story: One day, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?"

39. "Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. A petting zoo consists of a portable fence erected in the mall with about six inches of sawdust and a hundred little furry baby animals of all kinds. Kids pay their money and stay in the enclosure enraptured with the squirmy little critters while their moms and dads shop.

40. A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong. She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto, "Love is Action!"

41. She had given Brandon her quarter. She had heard and seen "Love is Action" at home and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon.

42. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it. Because she knew love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for another, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson-- Love is sacrificial action.

43. http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/to-end-all-wars/trailer

44. God wants to show His love and power in the darkest places on earth. He can use us to paint His light on this world’s dark canvas. Lets think differently. Lets live differently. Let’s be love in action.

45. Love Means What?--Neil Partington No Greater Love--Jerry Shirley