“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1Jn 3:16 NIV).
Back in 1984, the guys from Foreigner were searching for an answer. In a classic power ballad, they sang…
I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
If you’re my age, you’re singing along at the top of your lungs and waving your hands back in forth.
Foreigner’s Mick Jones wrote this number one tune that rocketed to the top of just about every chart around the world. In an interview for Classic Rock Magazine about the song’s success, Jones said, “I don’t know where it came from. I consider it a gift that was sent through me. I think there was something bigger than me behind it. I’d say it was probably written entirely by a higher force.”
There certainly was Someone bigger behind it all. WAY bigger! The sad thing is that Jones didn’t realize that a certain Someone DID show them. Two thousand years before Foreigner recorded one of their greatest songs, Jesus demonstrated pure love. His best friend John says it this way. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (v16).
Real love is a life laid down.
The problem is that society has sold us a counterfeit version of love for centuries. You know the kind of garbage I’m talking about. Remember the infamous tag line from the movie “Love Story”? “Love means never having to say your sorry.” WHAT?!?! Talk about a lie straight from the pit of hell!! We’ve fallen for a phony love that’s all feeling and no substance. It’s not that love has no emotion. It certainly does but it certainly does NOT stop there.
If we want a legit definition of love, let’s go to someone who was an eyewitness. Someone who was right there and saw it for himself. His name is John. Specifically, the Apostle John. He’s a former commercial fisherman who chucked the family business in order to follow the radical Carpenter/Rabbi from Galilee. If being one of the Twelve wasn’t cool enough, John actually became Jesus’ best friend. I can’t think of a better guy to tell us all exactly what love really looks like.
In a little letter we call First John, he defines it like this: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1Jn 3:16). Our Savior sacrificed Himself for you and me. We’re to sacrifice for those around us.
Real love is a life laid down.
In this verse, John does two things. First, he defines what true love really is. Second, he tells us how to respond. Fact then action. Explanation then application. You see, when we understand the expression of Jesus’ love-in-action, we can’t sit still and can’t sit down. We get moving. We get doing. We get going. Not for us. But for others. We give because of what we’ve been given.
the kind of agape love Jesus showed you and me wasn’t just a warm fuzzy feeling. Real love is sacrifice. It’s love that does. Love with hands. Love with feet. Love that goes. It’s love in action. Jesus showed the universe that love is a verb.
So what exactly did Christ do? How did He lay down His life for us? Long before He left heaven to come to our rescue, God loved you and me. That love goes back a LONG way. So let’s go back. I mean WAY back! Back even before creation. Did you realize God loved you before He created the universe (Eph 1:4-5). But He didn’t just think good thoughts about us with a long distance love. Jesus didn’t just feel something for us. He did something for us. When we needed a Savior, the Son of God left the comforts of the heavenly palace and served us.
Real love is a life laid down.
Paul tells his friends in Philippi the kind of sacrifice Jesus made for us. He took “the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross (Phil 2:7-8). Think about that for just a minute. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords became the Servant of Servants.
The classic example is the incredible picture in the Bible of the Sovereign Lord of the universe sitting on the floor washing the filthy feet of His followers (Jn 13:3-17). That’s what love looks like. As a matter of fact, Jesus told His now clean-footed posse how we’re to follow His sacrificial example. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35).
Real love is a life laid down.
Just to be sure, godly love is a whole lot more than washing feet. There’s no greater example than what Jesus did for us on a cross one Friday at a place called Calvary. But His service to us is much more than a bloody spectacle of Roman torture and execution. Christ laid down His ENTIRE life as an act of love. He spent 33 years doing for us what we could never do for ourselves. He lived the perfectly obedient life that we failed to live. He died the death for our sin that we should have died. He rose to a spectacular new life that we don’t deserve.
Christ put our needs ahead of His own right to be called God (Phil 2:6). And in doing so, He lived out His own definition of living large and loving large. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). Jesus didn’t just say He loved. He lived His love. He put His life on the line as a practical demonstration of how He felt.
Real love is a life laid down.
Back in 1st John, the apostle explains what the best love looks like and then goes on to tell us what we should do about it. “And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (v16). In doing so, John uses a word (Gr. opheilo) that’s translated here as “ought” but carries a LOT more weight than that. John doesn’t just suggest something to do in response to Jesus sacrifice. “Hey, here’s something you might try…” No, the original Greek term means to owe. To be in significant debt. To be obligated after receiving something of considerable value. The Son of God gave His very life for us. THAT is certainly of considerable value (1Pet 1:18-19)!
So what do we do about this massive debt we owe our Savior? There’s absolutely no way we can pay Him back. But we can pay it forward. We lay down our lives in sacrificial service of others as an act of worship to Jesus. That’s exactly the kind of debt repayment plan Paul wrote about to the church in Rome. “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (Rom 13:8). Declare spiritual bankruptcy and file Chapter 13. And by Chapter 13, I mean 1st Corinthians 13, the so-called “Love Chapter.” See what I did there?
Jesus laid down His life in order to pay our massive debt of sin. You think you’re six-figure student loan looks large? Not even Dave Ramsey is getting us out of hole our own sin. There’s only one answer. Christ. When we place our trust in Jesus, we’re trusting in what He did that we could never do. We can never repay Him for what He’s done for us. We can never earn our way into eternal life.
Salvation is an undeserved gift. We have no reason to brag or boast about it. We’re not saved BY our good works but to DO good works (Eph 2:8-10). Just in case you were wondering, God doesn’t need your good works. But your neighbor does. I can’t pay Jesus back. But I can pay it forward. I can do that by laying down my life for others. Because I have received real love, I can give real love. Or as John likes to say, “We love because He first loved us” (1Jn 4:19).
Real love is a life laid down.
While I do own my fair share of Foreigner tunes, I’ve never had the privilege meeting Mick Jones and the boys. If any of us ever do, let’s make a point of telling them there’s no reason to look any further. Wanna know what love is? Take it from His buddy John
and check out Jesus. He’s happy to show you.
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