TO LOVE IS TO GIVE

INTRODUCTION--

Many find it easy to say, "I love you," without making it practical.
1. Marriages fail because husbands and wives are unwilling to pay the price of love in critical situations.
2. Brethren in troubled churches sometimes speak of loving their brethren, but without true conviction.
  1. 1 John 4:20 "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?"
  2. 1 John 5:2 "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments."
We are to love God with full conviction.
1. Deuteronomy 6:5 "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." (Jesus said this was the greatest commandment of all.)
2. 1 John 5:3 "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."
When Christians are commanded to love God, they need to take into account that love is expressed by giving.
1. God loved by giving.
  1. John 3:16 "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
  2. 1 John 4:9-11 "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
2. Christ loved by giving. John 15:12-13 "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."
3. To honor this principle, Christians need to show their love to God by giving. 1 John 3:18 "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth."

LESSON-- The Old Testament example of Mephibosheth is good.

Who was Mephibosheth? 2 Samuel 4:4 "Jonathan, Saul's son, (And David's friend,) had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news about (the deaths of) Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel; and his nurse took him up and fled. And it happened, as she made haste to flee, that he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth."
What was the relationship between David and Mephibosheth?
1. Saul was king, but his disobedience regarding the destruction of the Amalekites caused God to look for a better king. In 1 Samuel 15:26, Samuel said to Saul, "...You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel."
2. David was anointed by Samuel to be the next king, but he willingly served Saul, until his death.
3. Jonathan, Saul's firstborn son, and the presumed heir to the throne, befriended David after he killed Goliath. 1 Samuel 18:1 "....The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul."
4. Toward the end of Saul's reign, Jonathan accepts the fact that David would be the next king, and he made David swear to protect his family. 1 Samuel 20:14-16 "And you shall not only show me the kindness of the LORD while I still live, that I may not die; but you shall not cut off your kindness from my house forever, no, not when the LORD has cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth." So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David. (Later, Jonathan confirmed this covenant with David.)
5. After Jonathan died in battle with his father, David became king, and tried to fulfil his promise. 2 Samuel 9:1-13 Now David said, "Is there still anyone who is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" 2 And there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba. So when they had called him to David, the king said to him, "Are you Ziba?" And he said, "At your service!" 3 Then the king said, "Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, to whom I may show the kindness of God?" And Ziba said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet." 4 So the king said to him, "Where is he?" And Ziba said to the king, "Indeed he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo Debar." 5 Then King David sent and brought him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo Debar. 6 Now when Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, he fell on his face and prostrated himself. Then David said, "Me-phibosheth?" And he answered, "Here is your servant!" 7 So David said to him, "Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually." 8 Then he bowed himself, and said, "What is your servant, that you should look upon such a dead dog as I?" 9 And the king called to Ziba, Saul's servant, and said to him, "I have given to your master's son all that belonged to Saul and to all his house. 10 "You therefore, and your sons and your servants, shall work the land for him, and you shall bring in the harvest, that your master's son may have food to eat. But Mephibosheth your master's son shall eat bread at my table always." Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. 11 Then Ziba said to the king, "According to all that my lord the king has commanded his servant, so will your servant do." "As for Mephibosheth," said the king, "he shall eat at my table like one of the king's sons." 12 Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micha. And all who dwelt in the house of Ziba were servants of Mephibosheth. 13 So Mephi-bosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king's table. And he was lame in both his feet.
The rebellion of David's son, Absalom, caused a rift between David and Mephibosheth.
1. Because he was lame, he did not go with David when he and his supporters left Jerusalem.
  1. His servant Ziba told David that Mephibosheth had ulterior motives for remaining in Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 16:1-4 When David was a little past the top of the mountain, there was Ziba the servant of Mephibo-sheth, who met him with a couple of saddled donkeys, and on them two hundred loaves of bread, one hundred clusters of raisins, one hundred summer fruits, and a skin of wine. 2 And the king said to Ziba, "What do you mean to do with these?" So Ziba said, "The don-keys are for the king's household to ride on, the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine for those who are faint in the wilderness to drink." 3 Then the king said, "And where is your master's son?" And Ziba said to the king, "Indeed he is staying in Jerusalem, for he said, `Today the house of Israel will restore the kingdom of my father to me.'" 4 So the king said to Ziba, "Here, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours." And Ziba said, "I humbly bow before you, that I may find favor in your sight, my lord, O king!"
  2. But, when David returned to Jerusalem after victory against the forces of Absalom, Mephibosheth met him, and showed that Ziba had lied about him. 2 Samuel 19:24-28 Now Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king. And he had not cared for his feet, nor trimmed his mustache, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he returned in peace. 25 So it was, when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to him, "Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth?" 26 And he answered, "My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said, `I will saddle a donkey for myself, that I may ride on it and go to the king,' because your servant is lame. 27 And he has slandered your servant to my lord the king, but my lord the king is like the angel of God. Therefore do what is good in your eyes. 28 For all my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king. Yet you set your servant among those who eat at your own table. Therefore what right have I still to cry out anymore to the king?"
Mephibosheth showed his love by offering to give up all his possessions.
1. David did not know which man to believe, so he offered them a compromise. 2 Samuel 19:29 So the king said to him, "Why do you speak anymore of your matters? I have said, `You and Ziba divide the land.'"
2. Mephibosheth responded, "Rather, let him take it all, inasmuch as my lord the king has come back in peace to his own house" (2 Samuel 19:30).

CONCLUSIONS---

God did not tell us the "rest of the story," a Paul Harvey does, but we can certainly draw the conclusion that giving validates expressions of love.
The Bible has many other examples of giving out of love.
1. Paul gave up all for Christ. Philippians 3:7-11 "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righ-teousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."
2. The poor widow gave "all her living." Mark 12:41-44 Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. 42 Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. 43 So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; 44 for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."
3. The Corinthians showed the "proof of their love" by sending relief to the poor saints in Jerusalem. 2 Corinthians 8:24 "Therefore show to them, and before the churches the proof of your love and of our boasting on your behalf."
4. God and Christ showed their love for sinners. Romans 5:6-8 "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
If love is the supreme commandment, what are we to give.....

---To God?
---To Christ?
---To neighbors?
---To the church?