Love is to be expressed in a variety of ways. Mature love, responsible love, learns to distinguish what's the right way.
Should I rebuke this person or give this person a hug? What is the best expression of love? That's why Jesus could heal in one instance and overturn tables in another instance. He could say, blessed are you one day and then say, woe are you the next day to someone else.
And why is that? Because love, authentic love, according to 1 Corinthians 13 is this, love does not rejoice in iniquity, it rejoices in truth. Love will always be honest. The Holy Spirit illuminates God's love in your life, opening your eyes to God's complete love for you. Today on Connect with Skip Heiteck, Skip shows you how you can love others the same way. At the end of the program, Skip and his wife, Lenya, share how you can tap into Jesus' love in order to love others extraordinarily. Like the rich young ruler when he came to Jesus and they had that encounter, it says Jesus looked at him and loved him. I've always been attracted to that scripture. Jesus just loved this man, presented as he was. God loves you if you're rich, but he also loved Mary, who was a prostitute. You know, he looked on her with love. So that's a beautiful thing that Jesus can love someone no matter where they're at. Thank you, Skip and Lenya.
Be sure to stay with us after today's message to hear the full discussion. Right now, we want to tell you about a special resource that will help you know God's love more intimately. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus loves the devout and the doubters, priests and prostitutes, the diseased and the depressed. Jesus just loves people, all people, no matter what's their past or their present. Sadly, sometimes it's the people who need love the most, who feel the most rejected, even by the church.
But if Jesus loves all people, shouldn't we? We want to help you grasp God's relentless love for people by sending you the complete four-booklet Jesus Loves People collection by Skip Heitzig. These booklets look to scripture to demonstrate Jesus' love for people from every walk of life. Get all four Jesus Loves People titles, including Jesus Loves the Broken and Jesus Loves Addicts, when you give a gift of $25 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach.
To give, call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now, we're in Mark Chapter 10 and Philippians Chapter 1 as we get into the message with Skip Heitzig. Jesus had this unique ability, and of course he was God, so he could read people's minds and he knew their motives, so that was helpful.
But he knew who he was dealing with and his approach was accordingly. Example, to the woman caught in adultery, he said, Woman, where are your accusers? She said, Sir, I have none. He replied, Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.
So tender. To the man, the leper, who was ostracized from society, who said, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Now, he was a leper. Nobody was allowed to touch him. Jesus touched him, the Bible says, touched him, and said, I am willing.
Be clean. Then on the other hand, to the scribes and the Pharisees, he spoke very harshly. Words like this, Whoa, unto you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, you are whitewashed tombs filled with dead men's bones and all corruption.
Ouch. Very different than the leper, very different than the woman caught in adultery. Sometimes he called people by name, like Mary Magdalene after the resurrection with that tender tone, Mary, or Peter. At other times he didn't call people by their first names, he made up new names for them. One time he said, brood of vipers.
That's what he called them. There's another difference in the way he approached people. He walked up one day to Matthew, the tax collector, and publicly called him out and said, come and follow me as my disciple. Then on another occasion, when he cast a demon out of a young man in Gadara, who begged Jesus to let him come and follow him, Jesus said, no. You can't follow me, go back home and tell your friends the good things God has done. Very different approaches to these two.
Here's another difference. To his own disciples, Jesus spoke profusely. He instructed, we have chapter after chapter in the New Testament given directly to the disciples.
He's training them. He had a lot to say to them. But then, on another occasion, as he stands before Pontius Pilate and the religious elite at his own trial, he has nothing to say to them. And then when he finally speaks, it's just a few words, not much.
Another difference. In Capernaum, a wailing crowd at the funeral of a young girl who has died, Jesus comes in the scene and he goes, stop crying, stop weeping. On another occasion, at the funeral of his friend Lazarus, we are told that Jesus himself stood in front of the tomb and it says Jesus wept. Now he knew he was going to raise both of them from the dead, but in one sense he goes, stop your crying, and here Jesus wept.
Here's what I want to point out. The love of Jesus Christ was tailor-made for every individual that he met. Every expression was unique. Each encounter was a one-off.
It wasn't canned. Love has different expressions, and I'll expand on that in a moment, but we even do this. We'll give our children gifts for their birthday for Christmas or just because, but then on another occasion we might spank them. We love them, but those are two very different expressions, are they not? Or we have spouses and we will say to our spouse, I love you. On another occasion we will argue with our spouse because we want to resolve conflict. Both can be expressions of love. By the way, I've learned how to end every argument. Two words, yes, dear.
It works every time. Jesus loves people. Jesus loves people individually.
Here's the third foundational cornerstone for this series. Jesus loves people through us, his people. He loves people through us, his people. Jesus came, taught, lived, loved, died, rose, ascended, and now how does he reach people?
Through us. We are called in the Bible the body of Christ. Have you ever thought through the implications of that metaphor? We are the body of Christ. Simply put, we are his hands reaching out to people. We are his feet going to where people are. We are his ears listening to people's hurts. We are his voice giving counsel and encouragement or even confrontation in his name.
We are the body of Christ. Jesus loves people through us. He said to his disciples, as I have loved you, so you must love one another.
I've loved you, now you love one another. What I've done for you, do to one another. Now, the critical Bible student will hear what I just quoted and say, well, you know, Skip, technically Jesus was referring to other believers when he said love one another. He was saying literally to his apostles, his disciples, as I have loved you, my disciples, you are to love one another, disciples.
That's true. However, on another occasion, when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he said this, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment.
And before they could get any word in edgewise, he said, but the second one is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these. Now, again, somebody listening to that might want to pick it apart a little more and say, well, he said you're to love your neighbor.
He didn't say anything about loving drunks or prostitutes or homosexuals. Yeah, but you know, eventually you still have to deal with that one troublesome text in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verse 43, where our Lord said, You have heard that it was said, You will love your neighbor and hate your enemies. But I say unto you, love your enemies. So we get the picture in what Jesus commanded his followers to do.
Here it is. It is a divine mandate to love people with the love of Jesus Christ, even, even what you might consider to be the worst. By the way, you'll be surprised who Jesus considers to be the worst. It's a divine mandate to love people with the love of Christ, even those you consider to be the worst. So you can be a good doctor and not love your patients. You could be a good lawyer and not love your clients. You could be a good geologist and not love science, but you cannot be a good Christian without love.
You can't be. In Romans 5, verse 5, we're told the love of God has been shed abroad into our hearts, or it has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Now, we love that idea, but we don't love it enough. We love the idea that he loves me. He loves me. Jesus loves me.
This I know, for the Bible tells me so, but don't stop. It's been poured out into our hearts, and if it's been poured out into our hearts, it should be poured out from our hearts. We're to be a conduit, not just a receptacle.
We're to be a channel of it. In the early part of Christian history, when the church was scattered throughout the Roman Empire, the last Roman Empire, the last pagan Roman Emperor, Julian was his name, Julian the Apostate, said something very intriguing. He wrote, Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans, his term for Christians, devote themselves to works of charity. They not only feed their own, but ours also, welcoming them with their agape, they attract them.
That's noteworthy. This pagan Emperor noted there's a huge difference between Christians and the rest of the citizens of the Roman Empire, and that is they love people and not just their own. They love all people.
Now, I'm not naive. I know that church history is a history of the church's failure to love in many cases. We have to deal with that in conversations with people all the time. We could go all the way back to the original apostles. They argued about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God, and they did it a lot. Then there were two disciples of Jesus who Jesus nicknamed Sons of Thunder.
Remember that? He called them Sons of Thunder. It was an inside joke, really, because on one occasion they said, Lord, do you want us to nuke this village in Jesus' name? Do you want us to call down fire from heaven like Elijah did and consume them because they didn't receive Christ, so let's just get rid of them? Jesus said, you don't even know what manner of spirit you are, and he nicknamed them Sons of Thunder because of their nuclear capabilities.
So there were problems even in the original bunch. We go on through church history. We see the Church of Corinth. Paul writes two letters to them. Well, one thing we notice as we go through those letters is that this was a very troubled group of Christians. There were divisions among them. There were lawsuits among them.
There was immorality among them. And then we have to move on through church history and account for the Crusades in the 11th, 12th, and 13th century, the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, and I know you're going to say, well, that's not real Christians who did that, but you still have to answer the questions and deal with that blotch on church history and give an answer for why the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland have blown each other up for decades, generations. I'd love to say that church history is replete with Christians showing love to the world and to one another, but I can't do that.
I can't even say that even we've gotten better at it in these days because, as you have seen, there's a church in Topeka, Kansas that has websites that announce God hates America. Boy, what do you do with John 3.16 and other groups that are listed? Jesus loves people. Jesus loves people individually. Jesus loves people through us, his people.
That's the third, now the fourth and final foundational pillar that we're going to build this series on. Jesus loves people through us responsibly. Now hear me, responsibly. Go back to our text in Mark chapter 10 and you'll notice something, that even though we are told in this biblical text that Jesus looked at that young man and that he loved him, that love was not some kind of a sappy love, sentimental love. It wasn't sloppy agape. It was a mature love. It was a responsible love. Notice in verse 21 that Jesus confronts him with his failure. Listen to the words of love.
One thing you lack. He confronted him. Love will confront. Notice also Jesus told him what was keeping this young man from God. He had an idol in his life, materialism. Go sell what you have and give it to the poor. And then notice that Jesus told him what he needed to do.
Come, take up your cross and follow me. See, this is responsible love. And I'm hoping that we're going to see this in this series, that love doesn't turn a blind eye to every kind of behavior in the name of tolerance. Well, if you love people, you just let them do whatever they want as long as they want to do it. That's not mature love. That's not responsible love. Sure, sometimes love will embrace and encourage. Other times it will confront and rebuke.
That's responsible love. There's a passage that I thought about for the last two weeks. I wanted to include in this opening message. It's in Philippians chapter 1. You can turn there or I'll just put the verses up on the screen for you to see. Paul is writing a letter to the Philippian church. He's in prison when he writes this.
He's in a Roman jail. He loves this group of people. You can hear it in the tones of the words that he uses.
Philippians 1 verse 8. For God is my witness how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. You hear that love in his voice? You hear the love in those words? But now he turns to a prayer that he makes for them.
And get this. He's praying for their love. And I want you to see what he prays. And this I pray. That your love may abound. Still more and more in knowledge and in all discernment. That you may approve the things that are excellent. That you may be sincere and without offense until the day of Christ. First of all, notice the word abound. I pray that your love would abound more and more. The word abound means to overflow.
Or to exceed a fixed mark or a fixed number. It means to flow freely. Maybe that's a better translation. I pray that your love would flow freely. That sounds ideal, doesn't it? To be around a group of people where love is freely flowing?
Hold that thought. If anything flows too much, there can be a problem. It's like a river. A river is meant to carry water from one place to the other. It takes a circuitous route to get there. But on either side of the river are banks, boundaries.
As long as the water stays within the boundaries, no problem. If it exceeds the mark, uncontrolled, it can destroy. I was in Honduras a few years back and villages were wiped out. Churches, homes, thousands of people. Their homes were wiped out because it rained. It's a blessing. Rain is always a blessing.
But in this particular part of the world, it rained so much, the rivers overflowed and destroyed lives. So Paul says, I want your love to flow freely like a river, abound more and more, but it needs boundaries. It needs a bank on either side. The bank on one side is called knowledge, he says in the text.
The bank on the other side is called discernment. I pray that your love will abound more and more in knowledge and all discernment. The word knowledge he uses here means full knowledge, complete knowledge.
Epinosis is the Greek word. A full and complete knowledge of what love really is and what love really is not and how to use it properly. I pray that your love would flow so freely, but within the boundaries of knowing what real love is and how it's to be used. Let me give you an example. Sometimes I'll meet a parent who believes that he should let his kid get away with anything and do whatever the kid wants because the kid is demanding it and after all, I need to show this child that I love him so I'll give him whatever he wants. You need to add knowledge to that feeling you have because knowledge will come along and say, you should know better than to do that.
If you do that, you could actually destroy your child. Here's another example. A person may say, I feel out of love with my current spouse, but I feel in love with this other person. You need to bring knowledge to your feeling that says you should know better.
You can destroy so many people following, letting that emotion overflow its banks. So the first boundary is knowledge. The second one, according to Paul, is discernment.
That's the other bank on the other side of the river. That means to distinguish. Simply put, it's this. Love is to be expressed in a variety of ways. Mature love, responsible love, learns to distinguish what's the right way.
Should I rebuke this person or give this person a hug? What is the best expression of love? That's why Jesus could heal in one instance and overturn tables in another instance. He could say blessed are you one day and then say woe are you the next day to someone else.
And why is that? Because love, authentic love, according to 1 Corinthians 13 is this. Love does not rejoice in iniquity. It rejoices in truth. Love will always be honest. And so our love, as free-flowing as it should be, should be responsible, mature, having the banks, the boundaries on either side of knowledge and discernment.
Now, back to that doctor who watched that young couple in that post-operative care and that young husband bend over to kiss his wife's lips, twisting his lips to accommodate to hers. When I read that, what touched me the most is I thought, that's a small picture of the greater picture of the love of God. He stooped so far, he came from heaven to earth in the form of Jesus Christ to show a variety of individuals his love.
He accommodated, if you will let me use the term, to our condition. Not becoming sinful like us, but becoming one of us. And as perfect God, loving us. Even to the death on the cross. That's in John's mind in 1 John 4 where he says, In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Jesus loves me, this I know.
Good to know, but no more than that. Jesus wants to love through you to other people. Responsibly, maturely, but definitely. Oh Father, thank you that we can look at a subject that is at the very heart of your character. As John said, For he who does not love, is not of God. For God is love. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Jesus Loves People. Now, here's Skip and Lenya to share how you can tap into Jesus' love in order to love others extraordinarily. Skip, we started a series called Jesus Loves People and today you pointed out that Jesus loves us individually and extends tailor-made expressions of his love to us. Parents can learn from Jesus how to demonstrate Christ-like love to their children.
How can they tailor-make their own expression of love for their kids? You know, Jesus loved people, but you know, the way he loved them, he loved them remarkably and individually. The thing about Jesus is that he loved whatever was in front of him. He wasn't like trying to remake a person's behavior instantly, like the rich young ruler when he came to Jesus and they had that encounter. It says Jesus looked at him and loved him. I've always been attracted to that scripture. Jesus just loved this man presented as he was. And so, I think as parents we need to see and discover what God puts in front of us, to study their children, to sort of open the package that is the gift of their child to them.
In fact, we called our son Nate, or Nathan, which means a gift. The idea is that God has given us a gift. And so, when it comes to loving people like Jesus, Jesus loved people, of course, sacrificially gave his life, loved them without reciprocation sometimes.
So, it was unconditional and we know that. But I just think we need to love them individually and admire the unique traits that God has put within them. And as they grow, you know, your children go through different things and loving them throughout a lifetime. It's just such a profound thought that you said when he looked at the rich young ruler, because we have this whole 99% and, you know, putting social injustice. God loves you if you're rich, but he also loved Mary, who was a prostitute. You know, he looked on her with love.
And so, that's a beautiful thing, that Jesus can love someone no matter where they're at. Thank you, Skip and Lenya. Our goal is to connect listeners like you with the truths in God's Word so you can stand on its solid foundation.
If you've been encouraged in your faith, please consider giving a gift today to keep these messages available to bless you and others around the world. Just call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares some encouragement that will help you when you struggle with doubt. You don't want to miss that. . Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
