Many of us have been following the events in Pine Creek, Alberta in the wake of last week’s tornado. One of the items that caught my eye was an interview with a reporter who has covered a number of such natural disasters. She said:
        Do you know what weather event made the biggest impact on me? It was the Manitoba floods of 1997. There was more water than I had ever seen before. In places, covering the land as far as the eye could see.
        There was fear and anxiety. But also some incredible stuff. Unexpected support, sharing and love.

        I remember going over to St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg. The first thing that I noticed was the patients in their hospital rooms. Many were peering out of their windows at people who had made a line, shoulder to shoulder right across the front of the hospital. The line started at a big pile of sand that had been dumped on the front lawn of the hospital. Half a dozen people were filling bags that were then passed hand by hand down the line. At the end of the line, other people were building a wall that would be high enough and thick enough to protect the power supply to the hospital.
        The people in the sandbag line came from all different walks of life. There were labourers, accountants, off duty police officers, unemployed, parents, teenagers, grandparents - all working hard to try to make a difference.
        When I asked them why they were doing it, most of them simply looked up at the people gazing out at them from the hospital windows.

Nearby, I saw another line of people. They were walking up and down a small hill, carrying things. VCR's, stereos, photo albums, chairs, lamps, books, bikes. Some of the stuff was being carried by one person or two people. The heavier items were being moved on dollies.
        "Where are you taking all of this stuff?" I asked one of the women.
        "We're taking it up the hill," she answered.
        "But why?" I asked her.
        "Because there’s little chance of the houses on the hill being flooded out. But the lower ones are in great danger if the Red River rises too high. People at the top of the hill have opened up their garages and homes to low lying residents to store their valuables until the danger has passed."

The account of the reporter – That account stuck with me.
Lines of people sweating, supporting, sacrificing, caring for each other.
They were lines of love.
Lines beginning with one person who passes something to the next, and the next and the next...... all the way to the end.
        For the well being of others.

I want you to picture a line this morning, a line of which you’re a part, a line that stretches down through time and history.
        It’s a line of sweat, support, sacrifice and caring. A line of love.
        From one person to another and another and another.
        And who do you suppose is at the beginning of the line?
                Right at the beginning of the line of love that passes over the face of the entire earth, there is God.

That 's what the Bible says. 1 John 4:19 reads: "We love because God first loved us." If we could look down to the end of the line of love, we would see God showing love to us. That love has been passed on to us by families and friends, neighbours and co-workers, young and old. Because we have experienced that love, we can pass it on to others.

In it, starting it, right at the beginning...... is God.
In fact, and here’s where the opening story breaks down, God isn’t just the first one in the line - He’s constantly moving along the line with encouragement, infusion of new energy and beginnings, hope and affirmation, focus, courage.
Where there is love at work in this world,
        where there is love at work in your life and mine -
                - somewhere, somehow, there is God.

The Bible describes God in many ways, with many attributes:
        Light, purity, justice, holiness, righteousness, faithfulness, truth.......
        God IS many things;
                but somewhere deep in His core, right at the very centre is Love.

Consider this - a golf ball. On the outside is a plastic cover of some sort. Underneath you’ve got what seems like miles and miles of elastic would tightly around it. Then at the centre is a core made out of hard rubber.
        If it were ever possible to unwind God, to dig right to the essential core of who He is and what He’s about, we’d find......love.

Today is part 2 of our series "WORDS TO LIVE BY" –
        – this week considering the word.... "love."
Whatever else you say about our holy Lord, say this, 1 John 4:8 –
        "God is..... love."
                Not - He is loving. He pictures love. He lives lovingly.
                That’s not what the Bible says. It says - He IS love.

Which could lead us in a whole bunch of different directions because English has only one word to cover a whole range of meanings for love. "I love my wife," or"he loves chocolate," or "she loves the beach" or "they made love".
        Are they the same? Of course not.
        And if we say, "God is love" or "We love because He first loved us"
                what do we mean?

The Greek language is much more clear than English in this regard.
So - time for some language lessons.
There are four words in Greek for love; three of them most significant.
        The first of the big three words for love is philia - that’s the sort of love you have for friends, brothers and sisters. It’s a social caring kind of love. Where the city of Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love" gets its name.
        Then there’s eros, the sort of love you have for a wife or husband, sexually charged love. What’s it tell you that this is the one word that most people in our culture recognize..... the word at the core of "erotic"?

        Both of these words have in them an idea of give and take. Each person involved in the love gets something from it, and gives something to it. There is a mutuality. Common willingness. These loves – friendship love and erotic love – serve both parties involved. Your needs and desires are met just as you are meeting and gratifying the desires of another. There is give... and take.

        There is still one more word. This word for love comes out with a whole new idea. It is concerned with give.... not take. It is concerned with the needs and desires of the other.... and not your own. It is not worried about how deserving the other person is..... just your desire to give. It desires to lift up the other person..... and isn’t concerned with how much that may drag you down.         It is a love that is rooted in sacrifice.
        It is love given with an open hand; generous, free.
        No score keeping.
We call this - "agape".
It is the sort of love that leads people to stand in sandbag lines or lug furniture up a hill for others.

If you want to see the ultimate of agape look to the cross. While humanity was the enemy of God, Christ came to die for us. It wasn’t that we had anything to offer. It wasn’t that we were so deserving. It wasn’t that the dispensing of love towards us would benefit God is some positive way.
        Simply - He desired to give; He desired to rescue; He desired to restore; He desire to lift us up.......
                ...... no concern over how it would drag Him down, what it would cost, how it would break His heart, or what we could give in return.

Agape love. Poured by God into your life.
Still poured into your life today, through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
        "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leads me..... He restores me.... He guides me.... Even though I go through the darkest valleys I fear no evil for He is with me....." (Ps 23).
The agape presence of God.

Agape – right at the very core, the very essence of who God is and what He’s all about.
        Yes, God is holy.
        And yes, God is just.
        Yes, God is all powerful.
        Yes, God knows all.
                But how this holiness and justice and power and knowledge are worked and directed is controlled by love. It is the rudder to all these. The controlling central force.
Hear the Bible speak – "God... is.... love."

You – each one of you here this morning –
        are awesomely privileged in that you receive this agape care and support into your life as a divine grace gift.
 

But not as something to hoard, to hold back and keep to yourself.
You get it in order to pass it on.
You are blessed with God’s sacrificing generosity in order that you can hold out an open hand to others – sacrifice for them,
        not focussed on how much you like or don’t like them,
        not worrying about what you’ll get out of it in return,
        not concerned about how deserving they are,
        not worried about what it will cost you,
        not even first of all concerned with how they’ll respond to your love.
                Just wanting the best for them;
                working for that best;
                genuinely glad when it comes.
Agape love.

Eugene Peterson, the author of "The Message" takes these words of the Bible and says it this way: "No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others."
        In other words, Love can't just be there doing nothing. It doesn't have a neutral; it never sits and idles. Love is always active.

If we’ve truly tasted God’s work in our lives; take it seriously; are grateful for it
then our only real living option is to pass on agape to those around us.

Agape love is what Jesus described when He said to a man who was his host:

"When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (Luke 14:12-14).

In fact, if someone doesn’t show love then it can be said straight up that this person doesn’t know God.
        End of story.
        She may know about God.
        But she doesn’t know him in a personal, relationship sort of way.
        She’s completely out of touch with Him.
                Blunt, but true. 1 John 4:8.

In my van I have a bunch of gauges. They tell me how much fuel is in my tank, what the electric system is doing, what the engine’s temperature is. They’re a measure of the running condition of my van.
        My faith life has a gauge, too.
        Not something with a dial and needle glued to my back. And perhaps nothing that you can measure in degrees, litres or volts. But you can tell if it’s up or down, full or empty, working well or red-lining.
        It’s the love gauge. It shows how close I’m living to Jesus. How aware I am of His friendship presence in my life. How thankful I am for His death on the cross for me. It’s a measure of the running condition of my heart.
                The agape that I pass on.
                You can see it by the effect it has on the life of those around me.
                You know it when it’s there.
                And when it’s not.

Agape - celebrate it and encourage it, my friends, as you see it in each others’ lives. Reinforce it. Be generous and lavish with it – just like Martha as she poured expensive perfume over Jesus one day while he was sitting to dinner.
        Others criticized her.
        Jesus praised her for her love gift to Him.

And if you’re in a moment of sober second thought about your own life and have, in brutal honestly, to admit that the love is gauge is reading rather low.....
        .... perhaps you need to take that as a warning sign that it’s time to check in for a fill-up or a spiritual overhaul.
        Perhaps you’re working too hard and have shoved Christ into a back room to make more room in your daytimer.
        Perhaps you’ve been distracted by wrong priorities.
        Perhaps there’s a sinful pattern – you’ll know what I’m talking about if it’s there!! – some stinky thinking or living that needs to be put out with the trash.
                They’re all things that’ll short circuit your ability to live agape.
                They’ll cut down your full experience of God’s agape to you.
                They’ll cripple your ability to share agape with others.

Agape –
        One last point. A challenge. An opportunity, really.

Check out verse 12:
        No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.

It’s not saying that God is incomplete.
Rather - it’s that when it comes to painting this world in the colours of love, God has deliberately left part of the canvas incomplete. He’s left it open because He wants those who receive His love to fill it in, to finish the picture.
        That’s us.

How you love, how you respond to others, how you sacrifice for your co-worker, how you give of yourself to your neighbour, how you support your classmate –
        that will influence and colour their understanding of Jesus Christ and what life in Him is all about more than all the sermons I can preach or the worship services they can attend. It’s more powerful than any evangelism program or bible class.

How you love paints a portrait of the love of God.
As you walk out these doors into a world that has all kinds of twisted and mistaken notions of love, the Holy Spirit is going to put a paint brush into your hand.
        Each one of us is going to leave here, whether we like it or not, as a painter. A portrait artist.
                Jesus is the subject of our brush strokes.

                Paint away - in hues of love.
                Stand in line and pass the love along.....
                        .....For His sake!

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God."