The Blueprint - 4 - The Design For Our Love

Today is the final part of our “The Blueprint” series. So far, we have looked at God’s design for our time, our talents and our money. Today we are going to look at God’s design for our love. We will be discovering how we are designed to care for each other.

So before we start thinking about the design for love in our lives we are going to play a game called “Do you love your neighbour”

As Christians we are designed to love all people. However, it is very easy like the game for us to add our own exclusions into our minds.

For example we might start thinking I love all people… except those who are mean to me. Or maybe I love everyone… except those who cut in line at the chippy. Or I love everyone… except for criminals.

When we add these exceptions, we are watering down the original design for love in our lives. We can turn from a universal, unconditional love of all people to just those we think deserve it, those who agree with us, or those we like and get along with.

Loving people we like is easy, but showing love and compassion to people we don’t know and especially people we don’t like is much, much harder.

Jesus spoke about this in a parable, Luke 10 : 25 - 37.

The two key figures that we see in this passage are a Jew and a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans hated each other. The hostility between these two nations had existed for hundreds of years. At this time many cultural and historical differences would have continued to exist between these two nations.

A Samaritan helping a Jew would have seemed completely crazy to the people who Jesus was speaking to. Then on top of this the people they would have expected to be the “good guys”, a priest and a Levite (who was a member of the priestly tribe of Israel) did nothing to help the dying man who had been mugged.

This story aims to show us that our love, compassion and kindness is designed to be shared with whoever we encounter who is in need, not just those we might normally hang out and spend time with.

The Samaritan in this story would have been seen as an outsider, and not trusted by the Jewish people. Can you think of any examples of people in our society that may face the same sort of isolation, feeling like they our outsiders or who feel untrusted by their community around them.

We saw in the passage that there was a cost to the Samaritan for his kindness. When he took the man to the inn and paid for him to be looked after. The amount he paid wasn’t cheap, we saw in the passage that he paid 2 denarius, which would have been the equivalent of two days wages. On top of that he was willing to settle up any additional costs the injured man occurred during his time at the inn, demonstrating his love in a practical way.

We can see here that Gods design for our love is a natural continuation from everything that we have seen over the past few weeks when we have been looking at how we use our time and money.

So knowing that there are many people in our society who are in need of our love and kindness, including those we have just spoken about. Can you think of any ways that we could share love and compassion to them?

The design for love and compassion in our lives is for all people, including those we don’t know or might otherwise not think to help.

So we have looked at loving strangers, but of course we are also designed to love and care for our friends. We are going to watch a short video now retelling the story in the book of Mark where we see a group of friends so desperate for their paralysed mate to be healed by Jesus that they go to unusual lengths to make sure that it happens.

There are a couple of things going on in this passage that are worth thinking about.

Firstly these friends clearly loved and cared about their friend, they wanted to help to make him well again. Once they heard that Jesus was around they were willing to put themselves out to carry him through the streets to bring him to the man they knew could heal him.

Secondly once they faced an obstacle, their faith in Jesus and their love and compassion for their friend was great enough that they were willing to go to extreme lengths to get their friend in front of the man who could change his life, even if that did mean smashing a hole into some un-expecting persons house.

We are designed to demonstrate our love for others though action, taking positive steps to help others in their time of need.

As we have seen over the past few weeks with our time, talents and money there are many opportunities where you can use the love and compassion that God has designed for your life.

Maybe you would like to help the poor in our city, by supporting FEED (or your local foodbank), it could start with something as small a bringing in a can of beans.

It might be that you would like to pray for people, inviting God to bring healing on those who are sick, either as part of the ministry team or at any opportunity that you get.

It could be coming alongside any newcomers when they come to church, and making sure that they feel welcome and have a friendly face to talk to.

Or you might have something radically new that you think could help to change the lives of people, make them feel valued and bring them to know Jesus.

If anything over the past four weeks has spurred you on to try something new speak to me or anyone else on the youth team. We would love to help support you with this. If you are not sure at the moment maybe spend some time this week asking God what you can do to make the most of the design for your life.

Lord Jesus,

We thank you that you have a design for all aspects of our lives.

A design that is filled with great things, for both ourselves and our church and community.

We ask that you will help us to have wisdom to use our time, talents, money and love wisely in a way that will build up your kingdom.

Give us the confidence to love our friends, and to love our enemies. Help us to step in and turn bad situations into good ones through your love.

Keep us safe until we meet again,

Amen