Love Does: Love Does Selflessness

Selfish.  What do you think of when you hear that word?  I often think of someone who is self-absorbed or self-serving; someone who has no time for you, isn’t really interested in your life, and never cares about or even notices the needs around them.   So to be selfish is not an attractive quality. In fact, I don’t know anyone who wants to admit they’re selfish.  But if we are honest, all of us have grown up in a culture that has discipled us over the years… to look out for number one, to have it your way, to follow your heart, to seek your best life now – to be self-seeking!  After all, we all want to win, we all want things to go our way and we all want what’s best for us.  So yes, in some sense we are all selfish…  Well, maybe you’re not, but I know I struggle with being selfish.

How do I know this?  Well, when I’m being selfish I don’t listen very well.  In the midst of a conversation I find myself thinking about what I want to say next rather then trying to hear where the other person is coming from…  When I’m being selfish I get frustrated when things don’t go my way.  This past weekend Austin and Courtney came down for the weekend to celebrate Becky’s birthday with us.  Over the weekend we played a lot of games together.  In one particular game nothing was going my way; I mean nothing.  Rather than laugh it off, I was so focused on winning that I threw my cards down in disgust. And what made matters worse, was that I knew my little temper tantrum was selfish.  It wasn’t just an ugly display of selfishness, it was un-loving.

You see the basic definition for God’s love is this:  To seek what is best for another regardless of the cost or consequences to yourself.  So self-seeking is not compatible with seeking what is best for another.  In other words, when we are being selfish we cannot love like God loves us.  And yet that is precisely what Jesus commanded us to do when He said: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34

So if you’ve ever struggled with being selfish, then what God’s Word has for you today should not only encourage you, but help you learn to love more like Jesus.  For today, we are going to unpack what God’s Word says about taking self out of the equation when it comes to loving others – as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:5, “Love is not self-seeking”

In other words we are going to look at Selfless love.  In fact, we are going to look at two sides of selfless love.  The first side deals with this self-seeking aspect of our lives that suffocates our ability to love.  I want to say it this way:  1) LOVE does NOT SEEK its own good  That’s just not the nature of love.  Love does not seek its own, it does not believe that “finding oneself” is the highest good,’ it is not enamored with self-gain, self-justification, self-worth or self-promotion.  You see, someone who is selfless is not looking for personal benefits by loving someone.  Someone who gives selfless love is not looking for applause, affirmation, or anything in return. There are no-strings attached to selfless love. Love does not seek its own good. Which really poses a question for us this morning: If selfishness stifles our ability to love, how did we get so preoccupied with self?   How is it that we are always looking to get something in return when we love?And how did we come to this place where we’ve become so invested seeking personal fulfillment rather than seeking what is best for others?  Well, our popular culture shouts the answer for us. As Lady Gaga championed a few years back when she sang, We were born this way!

You ever wonder why you feel like a desire factory? It’s because you were born with a self-serving nature – what the Bible calls our sin nature. Our sinful nature seeks to control our passions and desires.  Our sinful nature is always telling us to satisfy our cravings, “have that extra scoop of ice cream,” “pour yourself another drink,” “watch another episode or two or eight” “purchase whatever will make you happy.”  We live in a world that caters to our cravings.  But the more we live to satisfy our earthly desires, the harder it is to live in a way that pleases God. The Apostle Paul nailed it on the head when he wrote these words:  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.Romans 7:18

And the reason we struggle with loving others is right here.  We know we should love others, but we love our comfort more.  Loving like Jesus loved us is hard, it can be messy and it’s definitely inconvenient.  And it’s costly.  It takes time, energy, resources and emotional capital.  And I think this is especially difficult for us living in an active living community.  “We’ve earned this time, we don’t have as much energy, we gave it all at the office.” Everything we have here is good to enjoy, but it can and it often does feed into this self-serving nature we are born with.  We were born this way.

But it’s not just our sinful nature that makes us selfish; we also live everyday in a world that wants to influence our thinking and living in ways that will keep us from living for God. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:1-2 As for you, you were dead in your sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  In other words, the ways of the world are opposed to God.  So then,

Our world seeks to shape and dictate our identity  We all live and breath in the American Dream world.  My friend Bill Clem wrote a book describing the effects of our world on us in this way:  “Legion are the number of assaults mounted upon us from media and advertising.  The sloganeering of America has left us believing there is a “my way” to fast-food preparation, a percentage of an insurance premium that just fifteen minutes of time will save me, and that cosmetic companies design products because “you are worth it.”  Do a quick assessment: Do you find the common denominator in the marketing strategy? Surprise!  It is you.  You are led to believe that products and companies orbit around your rights, comforts, and desires. The bombardment of such subtle messages of self-centeredness takes a toll, and we start to believe that our pleasure is not an indulgence but an entitlement. Thoughts start to cascade: “I should have a car, house, clothes, food, spouse, and faith that please me.”

And so we’ve all bought into a sense of entitlement thinking that the good life is owed us… “I-want-my-own-I-want-it-now-I-want-it-big-and-I-want-it-the way-I-want-it.”is the spirit of the age. And so the consumer philosophy of our age continues to try to shape and dictate your identity around self.  And we’ve drunk deep at that well.

But consumerism has its cost.  It has a hold on us in ways God never intended.  Certainly God wants us to enjoy the things of life. He’s given us all things to enjoy with thanksgiving.  But when our lives are so bent on seeking our comfort on our own terms and in our own way… do we even need The Comforter?  Do we even need God? Ronald Sider says it this way: “Possessions are positively dangerous because they often encourage unconcern for the poor… and because they seduce people into forsaking God.” There is a reason why we are becoming more preoccupied with self in our time – the evil ones knows that if he can get us consumed in pursuing a good life: we’ll have no time, no energy, and no desire to love others like God has loved us. Love does not seek it’s own good.  We cannot be self-seeking and seeking what is best for another at the same time.  So if love does not seek its own good, what does love do?

2) LOVE seeks the good of OTHERS Paul gives us a picture of what that looks like in his letter to the Romans.  He writes: We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.  Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up, for even Christ did not please himself. Romans 15:2-3

This is how Paul lived. Paul had a servant spirit. He lived to seek the good of others. His identity was not shaped or dictated by his culture, but by Jesus. These are his words:  “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone…”  1 Corinthians 9:19.  This is an astonishing statement when you understand where Paul was coming from. Paul was at the top of the pecking order in his day.  Furthermore, as a Pharisee Paul had daily prayed the traditional Jewish prayer that went something like this:  “Dear God, thank you for not making me a Gentile, a slave or a woman.”  Before he met Jesus, Paul spent everyday of his life thanking God that he was Superior to others; thanking God he wasn’t a SLAVE.  But now he relishes in his new identity – that of a selfless servant of others.Where did Paul get this selfless spirit?  Where did Paul learn to forget about himself and gladly see himself as a slave?  Where did he get this selfless mindset? From two things:

From Encountering Jesus If we look at Paul’s life before he met Jesus, Paul was an expert at seeking his own good. He had every advantage in the book: He had the highest racialstanding: He was a Jew.  He had the highest socialstanding:  He was a Roman citizen.  He had reached the highest religious status:  He was a Pharisee.  He’d even reached the top of the heap when it came to morality.  His behavior was considered faultless.  He was about as “good a person” as one could be.  But once he met Jesus, he saw all of his human advantages for what they were: as nothing.  Listen to what he says about his advantages:  “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ…” Philippians 3:7-8 Something happened inside of Paul when he met Jesus.  There was something so wonderful, so meaningful, so soul satisfying about knowing Jesus, that all this stuff that we think we need – no longer had a hold on him.  It no longer held any value for Him.  He let it all go.  He was free. And because he was free, it changed His identity. Instead of Lording it over everyone for his benefit, he saw himself now as a servant of others.

Let me ask you, do you see yourself in the same way? Has meeting Jesus changed how you view yourself?   Do you see yourself as a servant of others or as someone to be served?Do you know how Jesus saw himself? Here are his words, “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45   This is who Paul met – He encountered the Servant of all.  And a servant by nature is free to meet the needs of anyone.  A servant is not self-seeking.  This was the mindset of Paul.  He could seek the good of others because meeting Jesus changed him.

So let me ask you: Has meeting Jesus changed you?  Do you see yourself as a servant of others? Here’s how you can tell: If you no longer looking for approval from your achievements; if you are no longer seeking the applause of your peers; and if you find yourself looking for ways to serve your neighbor to do her good – then yes, the world no longer has a hold on you, Jesus does.  And you are free to love like him.  That’s the first thing that gave Paul a servant’s mindset.  Here’s the second:

Paul got his servant’s mindset From Following Jesus  You see, once Paul met Jesus he STOPPED following Paul. He died to his old way of life. Now he followed hard after Jesus. In the same passage where Paul considered his advantages as garbage, this is what he said: Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:12-14  Did you see what Paul did?  He changed directions. He forgot what was behind. He left his past behind. He let go of all his old earthly ambitions and went all in with Jesus.

This is the same call given to you by Jesus when he says: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”  Mark 8:34-36

Here’s where we must choose. Do you love your life more than you love Jesus? Or do you want the life Jesus offers? The trouble with us is that we want the best of both worlds, and so we’ve got one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom.  But Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” These are Jesus’ terms: You want real life? Then forget yourself and follow Jesus.  As C.S. Lewis said, “Give up yourself, and you’ll find your real self.  Lose your life and you’ll save it.  Keep nothing back.  Nothing that you have not given away will ever really be yours.  Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look to yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look to Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

You want your sin nature to cease calling the shots? You want to know what it’s like to be fully alive?  You want to love like Jesus? Then give up yourself.  Quit holding onto the empty ways of the world, forget what lies behind and press on toward the goal to win the prize which God has called you heavenward in Christ.  Deny yourself and follow Jesus.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Frank Laubach.  Frank devoted the latter half of his to truly following Jesus.  He was a sociologist, educator and missionary to the Philippines in the early 20^thcentury.  But his career fell apart when he was in his forties.  As a missionary in the Philippines, his plans for the Maranao people were utterly rejected.  He and his wife lost three children to malaria, so she took their remaining child and moved a thousand miles away, leaving him desperately lonely.  In deep despair Laubach took his dog Tip and went to the top of Signal Hill, overlooking Lake Lanao where he wrote these words, “Tip had his nose up under my arm and was trying to lick the tears off my cheeks.  My lips began to move and it seemed to me that God was speaking: “my child… you have failed because you do not really love these Maranaos.  You feel superior to them because you are white.  If you forget you are an American and think only how I love them, they will respond.” That day Frank left that hill and devoted the rest of his life seeking to live each moment in conscious awareness of God’s presence and learned to FORGET HIMSELF…   to forget himself and see others as God does.

That’s what love does. Love is not self-seeking.  Love forgets about pursuing the good life for ourselves and pursues what’s good for others. For that’s the way of Jesus – And that’s what it means to follow Jesus.  It’s not about being a better person, but a new and different person – a person who’s on mission with Jesus – not to be served but to serve others… with love.

May God help us forget ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.