What Is the One Thing That Changes Everything, including you?

I love it.  I love the fact that we’re No. 1.   Now, in the United States, we’re not always number one at everything.   In fact, it won’t take you long to find some story bemoaning how far behind we are in some way or another.    But in one place, nobody can touch us.    And last year right around this time, we showed that again.

Here it is; the glory that was Rio. We snared 121 medals in those games, almost twice as many as anyone else.   And those Russians, forget about it.  They’re down at 4th.  Over the years, we’ve won more medals at the Olympics than any other country by a lot.   We are number one. 

And if it gives you any consolation, in spite of all our problems, we’re number one in a lot of other places.   We have six of the top ten universities, 83 of the top 400.   We have the largest gold reserves in the world.  We have the largest economy.   We even produce more beef and cheese than anyone.  And of course, we are the nation where Chuck Norris chose to be born.   

Yeah baby.   Do not mess with Chuck.

But as much as all that gives me consolation, I read a painful projection that well, disturbs me a bit.   You see, we Christians, we’re number one too.   When it comes to Christianity nearly one out of every 3 people on earth profess faith in Jesus.   That’s over two billion people, way more than any other religion.    But that is changing.  By 2050, we’ll be barely clinging on to number one.   Islam will have almost caught us.   And by 2070, at current projections, they’ll move past us.   

      

What will make that happen?  It’s all sort of things from birth rates to ages of population.   But one thing will make a significant difference.    Lots of folks will leave Christianity not to become Muslim but to become nothing at all.   Globally, researchers expect that for every person that switches into Christianity between 2 or 3 more will leave.    As someone who believes that no better news exists than the good news in Jesus, that makes me sad.  But what researchers project doesn’t need to be.

Still, how do those projections change?  How does Christianity stay number one?   Well, it sure won’t happen if Christians do it simply because they want to be, well number one.   No, it will happen only when Christians realize the one thing that moved a small Jewish sect to number one to begin with.   This one thing changed the world because this one thing changed people like nothing else.    That means, this one thing changes you like nothing else either.   What is the one thing that enabled Christianity to change the world?  What is the one thing that profoundly changes you?   In the words that you’re about to hear, God shows you the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.

I John 2:7-14

What made it number one?   What enabled Christianity to change the world?   It’s the same thing that will change you.   John talks about here, and throughout this whole letter.   What changes you is knowing the love.   When you know the love, really know the love, it changes everything, how you view yourself, how you view others.  It changes how you see everything.

But what makes Christian love different then well, any other kind of love?   Every religion calls you to love, even Islam.  Heck, you don’t have to even be that religious to believe in love.  Don’t you remember the Beatles song?  

All you need is love,

all you need is love,

all you need is love, love

Love is all you need.       

And, John knows that too.  John knows that in Judaism, loving your neighbor goes back almost to the beginning.   God first calls people to love their neighbor in Leviticus, one of the first books in the Bible.   John knows too pagans love love too. After all, the Greeks didn’t have just one word for love, they had four!   That’s why John gives that whole confusing riff on this command being old and yet also new.   

John knows that love has always been around.  But he knows that with Jesus, what love means now has changed forever.  In Jesus, this old command has become radically new.   That’s why Christians took the obscurest of all the Greek words for love, agape, and used that word to radically transform what love means.  So, what makes Christian love different?      

Jesus does.   The love God shows in Jesus, blows away every other idea of love, before or since.  Why?   It’s because this Christian God loves like no other.  In Jesus, God loves so deeply, so intensely, that God endures all the trials of becoming human.   Then God goes further.  This God gives up everything for love, even life.   In Jesus, this God, takes on all the pain, all the heartbreak of human evil and human brokenness.  And God does it because nothing is too great for God to bear for the sake of love.   And out of this love, God defeats everything that separates you from God, from each other.  God defeats even death.  

Nobody had ever imagined love could be that.   But in Jesus, love became that.   And that’s why John calls it a new commandment.   And it was this love, this radical self-sacrificing love that made Christians profoundly different than anyone else.    And it also made them astoundingly attractive.

So when a third of the Roman Empire became overrun with plague, who cared for the sick?   Christians did. They cared for everyone, even at the cost of their own lives.   And why did Christians do that.  They did it because Jesus loved them so much that he had given his life for them.   How could they not do that for others.      

Christians cared for the poor, even the pagan poor.  The Emperor Julian, who persecuted them, admitted – “The impious Galileans support not only their poor.  They support ours as well.”   And why did Christians do it?  They did it because Jesus who though he was rich, became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.    They did it because God had loved them like that.  

In fact, that’s how hospitals began.  In every town, that Christians built a cathedral, they always built a hospital.  Why? They got it.   No way could you love Jesus, unless you loved others the way Jesus did too.  And as people saw that love, they came by the thousands, even the millions.

That means when John talks about loving others here, that love goes beyond anything anyone else had ever thought love meant before.   How far beyond?   To get an idea, look at Jesus said, not about love, not even about hate, but about murder.  Jesus said in Matthew.

 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you say raca to a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

Do you get what Jesus is telling you?   In these words on murder, Jesus is saying not hating someone means more than not harming them.  It means more than even than not cherishing anger towards them.   No, Jesus says, it means not saying raca to them either.   What does raca mean?   People used this word, as a way of dismissing someone, of saying that person is a nobody, not worth your time.   

In saying that, Jesus is making an astute point.   Rejecting someone can be even more violent than any abuse you send in their direction.   That’s why shunning can be such a painful punishment.  And then Jesus caps it off by saying that you can’t belittle them either.  

Do you see what Jesus’ words mean?   If doing all of this just gets you to not hating someone, can you imagine how further you need to go to get to loving them?  

But John doesn’t only talk about loving others.  John also talks about not getting tripped up when others don’t love you.    That’s what John means when he says: Whoever loves a brother or sister, lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. 

In other words, John is saying you don’t let others’ lack of love trip you up.  What does that look like?    If you’re complaining or thinking to yourself how nobody loves you or even this person doesn’t, then you’re getting tripped up.    If you’re getting bent out of shape over how someone is treating you, then you’re getting tripped up.  Now, God isn’t telling you to become a doormat.  But God is saying, learning to love means learn to not let others’ lack of love rent space in your head, not letting it trip you up.

But how does this sort of love even happen, this love that sacrifices everything, this love that doesn’t get tripped up?   Sure, Jesus did it.   But that’s Jesus.   How do regular people do it?   How do you do it?   How do you love or even begin to love as Jesus did?  It happens as Jesus more and more brings you from the realm of darkness into the realm of his light.

When I was in college, I learned about beer goggles.   Have you ever heard that phrase?    It describes what happens when you’ve had too much alcohol to drink.   Under the influence of that alcohol, you see things very differently.  You get beer goggles.   So, you may see yourself as far more witty and charming than you actually are.   You may see that person you met just an hour ago as your long-lost love.    And tragically, you may see your ability to drive as far greater than it actually is.  When you are under the influence of alcohol, it can change your perception of well everything.     

Why do I bring that up here?   It’s because, that’s what it means when you live under the realm of someone or something.  You are living under their influence.  When you drink too much, you live under the realm of alcohol.  And that influence can lead you to embarrassing, even deadly places.   

But in a far deeper way, when you let the love of Jesus grasp you, it does the same thing.  God rescues you from the realm of darkness, and transfers you into the realm of his beloved Son, into light.    And as Jesus’ love takes you deeper into that realm, the deeper his influence becomes.   As you see how God in Jesus so radically loved you, you start to see everyone around you in that same way.   You start living under the realm, under the influence of that love.  And it changes you.  It changes you as radically as moving from darkness into light. 

There's an old Jewish story in which a rabbi asked his followers, “How do you know when the night is giving way and the morning is coming?”

One of the students said, “Won't you know that the dawn is coming when you can see an animal well enough in the dim light that you can tell if it is a sheep or a dog?”

“No,” answered the rabbi.

Another student spoke. “Won't you know that the dawn is coming when you can see well enough to distinguish between a fig tree and an olive tree?”

“No,” answered the rabbi.

The students pressed their teacher for the answer. Finally, with a little smile, the rabbi said, “You'll know that the night has passed and morning is coming when you can look at any man and any woman and know that you are looking at a brother or a sister. Until you can see that well, the night will always be with us.”

That’s the light that Jesus brings.  And how does Jesus bring it?  He brings it as you realize how Jesus entered utter and complete darkness so that you might never have to, so you might have light forever. God brings it as you realize how in Jesus, God gave up everything, even love, so you might have love forever.    And when you know love like that, it moves you from darkness into light.  It bring you under the influence of a love that not only changes you.  It changes the world.