Love Letters

A sermon preached by Rev. Lynn Turner
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, August 10, 2003

During the time that Dr. Flamming has been away, we have heard some powerful sermons.  It occurred to me this week, that although it wasn’t planned that there has been a recurring theme these past three weeks.   Lewis Myers spoke on taking down the walls that we build between us and God and others.  Drexel Rayford spoke on the power of being a spiritual tree for others.  And last week Joe Womack brought a message of living by faith in our relationship with God. 

All of these have a common thread, and according to a seminary professor at Southwestern it is the most important word in the English language other than proper nouns.  Do you know what the word is?  Most of us would think of “love.” But the word is “relationship”.  Oscar Thompson, a seminary professor of evangelism taught that the deepest longing in all of us is to connect in relationship with someone. 

A little reflection will lead you to some amazing conclusions:  Think about all the crisis times in your life:

·        A child separated from parents

·        A child angry with parents or parents angry with a child

·        A teenager breaking up with your girlfriend/boyfriend

·        Resentment that separated you from a friend

·        Perhaps the loss of a parent, spouse or child

·        The arguments with spouses or maybe even divorce

·        Distress in business

Take a look at the unhappy times in your life and you will almost always connect them to a broken relationship.

On the other hand consider all the happy, joyful times in your life:

·        The warm caress of a parent

·        The giggles and laughter with friends siblings and children

      ·        All the special days: birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, those occasions that are surrounded by warm, wonderful relationships.

We were born to be in relationship!

To love is to be in relationship. 

Do you remember the first time you received a love letter?

Probably it was in elementary school.

It was delivered by someone other than the person sending it… a piece of lined notebook paper, folded over many times with your name on the outside panel.  When you opened it up it said:

Dear So and So,

I like you, do you like me?  And then there were three choices:  yes, no, maybe

Do you remember how you felt to get it?  Odds are depending on who the note was from, you were either repulsed by the idea, or you felt very special.

Sometimes love letters can have ulterior motives, like the letter Marie wrote to her fiancé:

My Dearest Jimmie,

No words could ever express the deepest unhappiness I have felt since breaking our engagement. Please say that you will take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart.  Please forgive me.  I love you, I love you, I love you. Love forever, Marie

PS. And congratulations on winning the state lottery

Well most love letters are intended to make us feel special and loved.  God has sent a love letter to us tucked away in a book of the Bible that we seldom read.  I would ask you to turn to Zephaniah 3: 17.

Someone told me recently that they don’t like reading the OT. I said “Why?”

She said, “Because God was mean in the OT.”  I said, “O, but you are missing many of the great blessings and promises of God if you only read the NT.”

To which she replied, “But those aren’t meant for us today, are they?”

GREAT QUESTION!

I don’t have time to turn to it today, but take some time to read Ephesians 3: 6 where it says that we Gentiles (Christians) are heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise of Abraham in Christ Jesus. Jesus…is our connector to claim all the blessings of God to the believing Jews of the Old Testament.

So this promise we are about to read, we can claim as our own!

Just to give you some background on this verse, Zephaniah was a prophet sent to shake the people of Judah out of their complacency and urge them to return to God.  He starts out in Chapter 1 by painting a very grim picture of the judgment of God that would come down on the people of Judah if they did not return to God. Then in Chapter 2 he tells them to change and God may listen.  In chapter 3 he describes in detail the judgment for Jerusalem, but for those who turn their hearts toward God ..he gives this spectacular blessing.

Let’s begin with verse 16. “Cheer Up, Zion!  Don’t be afraid!”

And then his love letter in verse 17:

“The Lord Himself is with you.  He is mighty to save.  He delights in you and quiets you with his love.  He  rejoices over you with singing.”

Can you imagine what it would be like if you could hear God sing?  What would His voice sound like? Can you feel the wonder that the God of the heavens delights in you, and rejoices over you with loud singing?  The Lord himself is committed to quieting your noisy heart with his love, because he has set his affection on you, he will never stop dancing and singing over you.

Do you see this picture?  Nothing is more important than the image of God you carry around in your heart. It shapes everything you do. 

This is a true love letter from God.  But let’s not stop here.  What do you do when you get a love letter?

You respond…in some way you let the person you know that you received it.  So how do we respond to this amazing promise of God?

1.    We love God back.  Drexel quoted a few weeks ago that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.. We keep our eyes and hearts turned toward Him.  We worship Him, we desire to be in relationship with him.

2.    We in turn become “love letters” to those around us…the second great commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself.

Turn to 2 Corinthians 3: 2-3.

Paul is writing to the Christians in the church in Corinth.  There had arisen “false” teachers in Corinth and this led to the need for letters of recommendation by believers to prove that they in fact were true teachers of the truth of the Gospel.  But Paul writes to these believers that he doesn’t need a letter from them:

Vs. 2 -3“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.”

The new living translations says,

“Your lives are a letter written on human hearts.”

The Message paraphrase that we read earlier says:

“Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you.  Christ Himself wrote it----not with ink, but with God’s living spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives.”

If the spirit of God lives in you, your life is a love letter of Christ to others!

I tell our youth all the time that whether they like it or realize it…they are ALWAYS a witness.  For the truth is that everyday,  by the things we say and do, we are either leading those around us TO Christ or AWAY from Christ!

“YOUR VERY LIVES ARE A LETTER that anyone can read just by looking at you.”

What does your life letter say?  What should it say?  The Bible is full of passages telling us how to live the Christian life.  But maybe today we can take our clue from God’s love letter to us in Zephaniah.  What did it say?

God takes great delight in you, he will quiet you with love, He will rejoice over you with singing.

This is a picture of sheer JOY!  God’s joy in you and in turn, our joy in others. Phil sang the words, “There is a joy in the journey, there’s a light we can love on the way.”

What would it look like for us to delight and rejoice in others and to quiet others with our love?

Oscar Thompson says that “Love is meeting needs”.  What would happen if you were to take inventory of all the people that are in your life on a regular basis and began praying that God would make known to you their needs and make you available to meet them?

My guess is that your life would become a love letter.

When I was in college, I was given a book written by Ann Keimel, the title, I’m out to change my world.  Ann Keimel describes herself as an ordinary girl out to change her world, one person at a time. In the book, she describes how she set out with God in her everyday life, whether at the office, in her neighborhood, on an airplane or in a taxi cab, to just be available to God.  She wanted to show people, one at a time, love in ordinary ways that exhibited the love of Jesus in her life.  So she began praying that God would make her open and available to just love those people around her.

She writes:

“O God, it’s so ironic that the people living the closest to us are almost always the ones we overlook and fail to love. I am out to love my neighbors to Jesus…and everyday I pray, Jesus, what can I do to share you with them?”    

It was a Saturday night and it had been several months of praying for my neighbors when I looked up in my cabinet and saw a package of chocolate chips.

Now I’m not a great cook, but I can make pretty good toll house cookies, so I said to myself, “I’ll bake them some tollhouse cookies.”

So I threw everything together, put them in the oven and when they were done, I threw them on a plate and ran downstairs.

“Sir, Hi, my name is Ann.  I baked some cookies for you and your wife.  I’m your neighbor from upstairs. Well, I baked them for you sir, because I love you and I--- Well what I mean sir, I love you because Jesus loves me and I don’t know why, He just makes me want to love you and your wife.”

He looked blank and shocked and sort of helpless.

And suddenly I couldn’t think of anything else to say and I felt foolish and stupid and sort of helpless too. And I kind of shoved the cookies into his hand and said goodnight and tripped up the stairs and ran in my apartment and burst into tears.

  “O God, I blew it…I really blew it. What a ridiculous thing for a twenty six year old girl to do. Take homemade cookies to the man downstairs and tell him I love him. He’ll think I’m weird. But God, you know what my motive was. I was trying to tell him, Jesus, that he is a part of my world, and his wife is and I wanted to befriend them and to love them to You. Jesus, can you make something out of this mess? If you do God, I promise that I will never do anything irrational again.  I will think it through clearly.

Well for three days I was heartsick.  I mean they didn’t tell me they liked the cookies. They didn’t return the plate. They didn’t do anything. But at the end of the third day I was running up the stairs to my apartment when, there on the carpet in front of my door was an empty plate with a note taped to it. I have never been so happy to see a plate in my life! I ran in the door dropped my books, and picked up the note and began to read:

          “Dear Ann--- Thanks a lot for the cookies. We never heard anyone talk about God the way you did.  Mike and I have wandered from God. Could you come down and have coffee with us sometime and share your God with us?  Thanks a lot. Mike and Kay”

Anne writes:

"You just can’t stop love. It crushes barriers, it breaks and builds bridges.  It finds a way through.  It never gives up.  It’s hard work sometimes.  It listens. It walks ten extra miles.  It is something you do.  Jesus did it for me, and I go to His and my people...and love wins."

You can do one of two things in this world, you can build a wall, or you can build a bridge to every person you meet.

Being a love letter…requires that we be open and available…that we realize that God is at work inside us to show his love to everyone…whether that be family, neighbors, friends, co-workers…everyone around us is DESPERATE FOR LOVE AND RELATIONSHIP!

Darryl was a 40-year-old man who loved teenagers and volunteered at his church with the youth.  The youth took on a monthly project of doing a worship service at the nursing home down the street the last Sunday night of each month.  Darryl did not like nursing homes, so he opted out of helping with this project.

One Sunday night, a flu epidemic broke out among the youth leaders and they were short leaders for the trip to the nursing home, so reluctantly Darryl agreed to drive, but he did not want to be a part of the service.

They got to the nursing home and when the service began, Darryl made his way to the back of the room and leaned against the wall.  Suddenly, he felt someone grab his hand, and he looked down and saw this very old man, sitting in a wheelchair, head down, eyes closed, mouth open, Darryl didn’t even know if he could hear or speak, and he was somewhat taken back by this man grabbing his hand, but he didn’t know what else to do, so he just held it.

When the service was over, the man was still holding Darryl’s hand  and Darryl realized that he didn’t want to let go.  Darryl had been left too many times in his own life.  Caught off guard by his feelings, he leaned over and whispered, “ uh…I have to go now, but I’ll be back…I promise.” Without notice, the old man squeezed Darryl’s hand and let go. As Darryl’s eyes filled with tears, he gathered his stuff and started to leave. Then, he heard himself say to the old man, “I love you…and he thought, where that came from? What’s the matter with me?

Darryl returned the next month and the month after that.  Each time he would do the same thing...stand at the back of the room, Oliver would grab his hand, Darryl would say he had to leave, Oliver would squeeze his hand and Darryl would say, “I love you Mister Leake.”

On Darryl’s sixth visit, the service had started and Oliver was not around.  He didn’t worry at first, because often it would take the nurses a while to wheel everyone out.  But halfway through, Darryl went over to the head nurse and asked where Oliver was.  She said follow me.

She took Darryl down the hall to room 27 and there he saw Oliver, lying in bed, his eyes closed, his breathing uneven.  Darryl had  never seen anyone dying before, but he knew that Oliver was near death.  Slowly, he walked and sat beside Oliver on the bed and held his hand.  There was no response.  Darryl’s eyes began to fill with tears.  He had so much he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out.  He just sat there for about an hour, holding his hand.  The youth minister came by and gently said that they had to leave. 

Darryl stood and squeezed Mr. Leake’s hand for the last time and said, “I’m sorry, Oliver, I have to go, I love you.”  As he unclasped his hand, he felt a squeeze.  Oliver had responded!  He had squeezed his hand!  The tears flowed…and Darryl stumbled to the door almost running into a young woman. “I’m sorry, he said, I didn’t see you.”

“It’s alright, she said, I’ve been waiting to see you.  I’m Oliver’s granddaughter...He’s dying you know.”  When the doctor called to say that he was dying, I came immediately.  I have been sitting by his bed all night.  They said that he couldn’t talk, but you know what, he’s been talking to me. 

Last night, he woke up, his eyes alert and voice clear and he said, “Tell Jesus goodbye for me.”  Then he closed his eyes.

“He caught me off guard.  As soon as I gained my composure, I said, Grandpa, I don’t need to say goodbye to Jesus…you will be with him soon and you can say hello to Him.”

Grandpa struggled to open his eyes again.  This time his face lit up with a mischievous smile, and he said, “I know, but Jesus comes to see me every month, and he might not know that I have gone.’  He closed his eyes and hasn’t spoken since.

I told the nurse what he said and she told me about you coming every month and holding grandpa’s hand.  I wanted to thank you for him, for me, and well, I never thought of Jesus as being chubby and bald as you, but I imagine Jesus is very glad to have had you been mistaken for him.  I know grandpa is…thank you…She kissed him on the cheek. Oliver died peacefully the next morning.

Whether you like it or realize it…“Your life is a letter written on human hearts.”

Our world can be a cold and indifferent place.  Everyone longs for relationship.  God offers us a love relationship with Him.  He is mighty to save.  He delights in us...he quiets us with his love, he stands over us and rejoices with singing. First…. we have to receive that love through the gift of His son Jesus.     And then….once we’ve claimed His love… We need to be sending that same message.  Whether it’s baking cookies or holding someone’s hand…Your life is a letter written on human hearts.

Is your life a love letter to others?

Do you take great delight in those around you? 

Do you quiet the noisiness and indifference of life with your love? 

Do you rejoice over your family, your loved ones, your friends, your neighbors, everyone you come into contact with the love of God in your heart?

If a stranger walked into your home, your school, your office, your neighborhood…Would you be mistaken for Jesus today?

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