Who Loves You, Baby?, by Pastor Ed Evans

Who Loves You, Baby?

by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: John 15:9-17

9.  Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 

10.  If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 

11.  These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

12.  This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

13.  Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

14.  You are My friends if you do what I command you. 

15.  No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

16.  You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

17.  This I command you, that you love one another.

                                

          You may recognize the title of today's sermon from something that movie actor Telly Savalas used to say when he played the TV detective Kojak, with a lollipop in the corner of his mouth: "Who loves ya, baby?"

          But love is what I want to talk about this morning.  We have a lot of churches who preach only the God of love, when there are so many other facets to Him.  It is not for nothing it says in Proverbs 9:10, "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  So yes, God is more than love, but that's my focus this morning.  It's my focus partly because much of the world seems to have lost the idea of love for one another, and it's partly my focus because as we come down to what many of us believe is one of the most important elections in our nation's history, there is a great deal of hate being splashed around.  So I'm going to talk just about love this morning. 

          And the need for love I'm going to talk about has nothing to do with politics, or how the clerk treats you at the grocery store, or how your next door neighbor talks to you about your barking dog.  It's so very much more important than any of that.

          There's the story of the old Pastor, now retired but still very well known, and he was visiting a very large church, and the resident Pastor there asked if the elderly gentleman would bring the message that evening.  The elderly Pastor agreed.

          That night the church's Pastor went into a long introduction of how educated this man was, how many degrees he had, how many of the famous and well-known people sought him out for counsel, and on and on, finally ending with, "Now please welcome and pay rapt attention to this famous man of God."

          The congregation of several thousand people stood and applauded.  The old Pastor shuffled to the podium, signaled for them to please sit down.  They did.  It was so quiet you could have heard a church mouse squeak.

          The old Pastor looked out over that great congregation and he intoned, "It is true I have spent the best years of my life in study of our God, and in service to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And out of all of that, I want to share with you this evening the very most important essence of what I have learned, and what I have lived.  And that is this ..."

          There was a brief rustle as pens and notebooks came out to take notes.

          "It is this...." he said, "Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so."

          And he sat down.

          Friends, if you remember nothing else of what I say to you this morning, I would rejoice to know you remember those words: "Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so."

          Those words actually began as the lines of a novel in 1860 by Norma Lee Liles, just as the nation was entering into the War Between the States.  In the book, a Mr. Linden, the book's principal character, looks into the eyes of a dying child and recites those word, moving thousands of readers to tears.  I'm certain Norma Lee Liles could never have known how many times those words have been repeated, at a child's bedside, on the battlefield, in hospital rooms.  They still have the power to move a loving person to tears.

          It is probably true that most of us learned those words at the knee of a children's Sunday School teacher; some loving man or woman who felt a mission to introduce children to the very God who loved them first, and introduce them just as soon as possible.

          I didn't hear about Jesus Christ -- other than as a swear word -- until I was about 10 years old.  In a little white Baptist Church in Fresno, California, a dear woman who not only told us of Jesus, but lived and modeled Jesus, made an indelible impression on us.

          As a teenager, an Army Major and his wife opened their home to the teenagers the church I attended in Seattle, Washington.  It became a second home, a loving home, for many of us who came from homes full of anger and alcohol and divorce.  We could see Jesus in them; we knew where we could go when we were in trouble; we knew where the love was.

          "Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so."

          All of us at some point in our lives have learned that life is hard, and it's even harder without Christ.

          To know, from the very beginning of our life, that there is someone who will always love us, this will often give us pause when we are faced with temptation, simply because we don't want to disappoint that person.  And that tag line, how do I know?  Because the Bible tells me so.  Therein lies an assumption that there is truth in the Word of God.

          We know from throughout the Bible and particularly from John 14:6, where Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life..." that God is truth.  So if He is truth, and He is, then His word which He has guided to us down through the ages -- regardless of what all the learned skeptics may say, despite all those who on the basis of either emotion or logic would rewrite history -- despite all that, His word is truth. 

          Jesus love me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so.

          In those words are multiple sermons for those who would share the gospel message.

          For me, aside from the feeling of safety and fulfillment that is promised -- for no one keeps promises like our God -- aside from that warm, fuzzy  feeling, those words lead me to so many scriptures that undergird my faith in Jesus Christ.

          I am reminded of God's love of children.  There is the verse in Matthew 18:6, "But whoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."  I've often thought I should start a millstone business.  There ought to be a real market for them in this age!           

          Matthew 18 goes on to say in verse 10, “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven."  They are never out of His presence.

          Then there is the issue that, if Jesus loved me first -- and He did -- how can I not love Him?  And in loving Him we come upon John 14:15, where Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will do the things I say."  Oh, yes Lord Jesus, yes Lord.

          There is another story, not a Bible story, but a story of our own time about the love of God, and I want to wrap up by sharing it with you.  Anyone who has spent time in hospitals holding hands with the aged and dying, anyone who has comforted and prayed with distraught parents when their child is under a doctor's care, will identify with this story.

          On March 10, 1991, Diana Blessing, after only 24 weeks of pregnancy, had to undergo a Caesarian operation to save the life of her tiny premature daughter, Danae Lu Blessing.  The baby was 12 inches long and weight only one pound, nine ounces.  The doctors told Diana and her husband that there was little chance the child would survive, and if it did, she would never walk, never talk, and be blind.

          To make matters worse, for two months the child was kept in isolation.  Having been taken early from her mother's womb, for two months she totally alone.  Her under-developed nervous system meant any touch, even a kiss would cause extreme pain.  So the child never knew a mother's touch for two months.  All they could do was pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl.

          Now jump ahead five years, 1996.  Danae Lu Blessing was seen to be - quote - "A petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life.  She shows no signs, whatsoever, of any of the mental or physical impairments of which the doctors warned her parents."  Unquote.

          One afternoon in 1996, on a blistering hot day at her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap watching her big brother Dustin practice baseball and chattering away.  Suddenly she became very quiet, and hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked her mother, "Do you smell that?"

          Sensing the approach of a thunderstorm, her mother said, "Yes, smells like rain.  I think we're about to get wet."

          Danae, with her eyes closed, shook her head and patted her thin shoulders, saying, "No, it smells like Him.  It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

          Tears filled Diana Blessings eyes, as Danae hopped down to go play with the other children.  Danae had confirmed what her family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.  That during those long days and nights of her first two months of life, when her nervous system was too sensitive for them to even touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest, and it was His loving scent she remembered so well.

          We serve such a great, loving God.

          Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so.

          There is so much more to loving our God, to knowing Jesus Christ, to learning from the leading of the Holy Spirit.  But if you start here, you can't go wrong.

          Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so.  Amen.

Week of Worship

September 2, 2012

Invocation:  Good Teacher, help me in this hour to hear Your clear call to discipleship.  By the power of your Spirit grant me wisdom, courage and strength to live as Your disciple all day long.  Amen.

Read: Psalm 1

Daily Scripture Readings

Monday                Philippians 2:1-8

Tuesday               Galatians 5:16-24

Wednesday          Matthew 5:1-11
Thursday              Matthew 5:12-16

Friday                   Matthew 7:21-28

Saturday               Matthew 5:43-48

Sunday                 1st Kings 2:1-4, 10-12; Ephesians 6:10-20; Psalm 121;

                             Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 

Reflection: (silent and written)

Prayers for the church, for others, for yourself.

Hymn: "O Jesus, I Have Promised"

Benediction:  O my God, since You are with me, and I must now, in obedience to Your commands, apply my mind to these outward things, I beg You to grant me the grace to continue in Your presence.  To this end, prepare me with Your assistance, receive all my works, and possess all my affections.  Amen.