My Life for Yours

Laying Down Our Lives

(1 John 3:16, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, October 23, 2016)

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us,

and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Knowing the Love of Christ

What does it mean to “know love?” Someone might know the definition of love. Many don't even know this. A person may know the definition but would have to admit that they are not sure if they have ever experienced love or even observed love. There is a third way to “know” love. God is love, and Jesus is the visible manifestation of the invisible God. To know Jesus is to know the person of love. The church sees Him. We know Love. We also experience and observe Love all around us, and we have come to understand what true love is.

Love can be summarized with this resolve: “My life for yours.” Lust, which is often confused for love, is the opposite of this. It demands, “Your life for mine.”

Lust can take over a whole society. Consider what Israel was like at around 1200 BC. Life at the end of the book of Judges was severely dysfunction. It was a world of lust and not of love. The book ends with this repeated refrain: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

How do God's people live well in an age like that? The Ligonier Conference in 2017 has this title as that Christian ministry commemorates the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation: “The Next 500 Years.” That is a helpful perspective for those who may feel in a dark time like the sky is falling.

There is always a future and a hope for the people of God (Jeremiah 29:11). We just need to look in the right direction in order to find it.

Immediately after the last verse of Judges we are treated to the book of Ruth, which begins with this phrase, “In the days when the judges ruled.” In those same dark days, there was an opportunity for Boaz to do the right thing. When it seemed like a hopelessly dark time, Boaz married Ruth, and they had a baby. At the end of Ruth we read, “Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.” [Jesus is called “the son of David.” (Matthew 1:1)]

Boaz was a great man of love. “My life for yours.” He ran his farm in love. When a young woman showed up there to glean in order that she and her mother-in-law would have food for survival, he told her, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one.” Why do you suppose he told her that? Why did he instruct his young men about what they should or shouldn't do so that Ruth would be both safe and blessed by her time on Boaz's farm? Why do you think he kept on providing her with extra food to take home to her mother-in-law? When Ruth came to the threshing floor at night to propose to Boaz, why did he give his workers strict orders about what they should say to others about Ruth? Why did he bring up the matter of marriage to the elders in the public square rather than handling all this privately and then maybe apologizing later if need be? My life for yours. That's why.

Move ahead about 700 years to another dark time in history for the beloved of God. Many Jews were living in the 127 provinces ruled by Ahasuerus. Mordecai was watching over his younger relative, who would eventually be Queen Esther. Mordecai cared for her well-being before Esther became queen and he continued to care for her after she ascended to her exalted position. In Esther 8, Esther revealed to Ahasuerus the true connection between Mordecai and Esther. Mordecai had protected this orphan relation with a father's love. But his care was not only for one person, but for all of the Jews. His love caused him to write a law for the Persian empire that would allow the Jews to defend themselves against adversaries that wanted to destroy them. This too was love. In a dangerous world, “my life for yours” may involve putting oneself in the posture of defender and protector at the risk of one's own life.

Yesterday a group of people gathered together to mark the life of Walter Herold who died back in July. Walter came to the United States as a German Jew on the last boat possible. He gained his citizenship by fighting against fascism as an officer in the tenth mountain division in charge of about twenty men, all of whom survived the war. Many who went over did not survive. Why do we shed tears of admiration for that generation? They demonstrated love. They were a “my life for yours” group who were willing even to kill adversaries in order to save the weak.

Christ's Love: He Laid Down His Life for Us

The church in every dark age knows that we are citizens of a better and more lasting kingdom than anything that the world can offer. We have a King over that kingdom who is the very definition of love. He went into battle for us to defeat a very dangerous enemy, but not to kill any man. Instead, He would be the one casualty of war on the day of His most important battle. He would show His love for us by dying for us. See Isaiah 52:13-53:3.

When Jesus died on the cross for us, He defeated sin, death, Satan, and the entire realm of evil. He defeated the end of the book of Judges, and the murderous spirit of Haman the Agagite. Though He won by dying, He not only laid down His life for us, He also picked it up again by rising from the dead. In His death and resurrection, both of which had meaning only because of the perfect purity of His sinless life, He won, and we won in Him.

Christian Love: We Lay Down Our Lives for the “Brothers”

Now we have the great privilege of laying down our lives for others in the Body of Christ. If we are Boaz, we marry Ruth, and the right way. If we are Mordecai, we watch over young Esther. We thank God that we live in a worldwide community of true lovers that spans generations. We are inspired by their examples, most of all by the Captain of our Salvation. But the love of Jesus is more than an example that inspires us; He is a presence that empowers us. He accomplishes what the Law could never do. As we see Jesus in the Word as our true Love, we are changed.

What does John mean when he writes about the church “knowing” the love of Christ? It has to be more than a mere awareness of Christian doctrines. On the other hand, we don't want to reduce knowing to our awareness of “feeling” the love of Christ, or our lives will be destabilized based on the great variety of factors that can have an impact on our emotions.

Ultimately it will be very difficult for us to fathom the inner workings of how it is that through seeing Christ in the Word we truly discover and grow in God's love. We do see this: those who know Christ's sacrificial love show that knowledge best by sacrificially loving the Lord's family.

Old Testament Reading—Esther 8 – Salvation for the Jews

Gospel Reading—Matthew 5:6 – Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.