Bud was a factory worker with more than a slight resemblance to Archie Bunker. Every single day he'd come home sweaty and dirty. He'd go in the back door, grab a beer from the frig, and plop himself down in front of the TV until his wife brought him supper. One day as he was driving to work he happened across a Christian psychologist on the radio. And something the commentator said stuck in his mind - that love and marriage are about sacrifice. And it hit him - no, convicted him - that he'd been expecting his wife to sacrifice for him but he'd never really sacrificed for her. As if a light bulb came on, he knew he had to do something about it.

So he decided that he was going to surprise her the next day. Before coming home, he showered and shaved. He went to the florist and bought flowers, and instead of going through the back door, he went to the front and rang the bell. When she answered the door, he held out the flowers and said, "Honey, they're for you! I love you!" She looked at him, her mouth dropped open. Tears filled her eyes. And she said, "I've had a terrible day. Billy broke his leg and I had to take him to the hospital. No sooner had I got home than the phone rang. It was your mother and she's coming to visit for two weeks. I tried to do the wash but the machine broke and there's water all over the basement floor. And now, you come home drunk!"

Poor Bud. It's hard to win at love. But he'd finally gotten the right idea! He was on the right path, because true love shows itself in sacrificial action. It shows itself in selflessness. It shows itself in putting the interests of others before our own. Love = UB4ME! Love means putting someone else - you, before me! It seems so simple, doesn't it? Yet we fail so miserably!

Consider the following love letter: "Dearest Jimmy, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I've felt since breaking off our engagement. Please say you'll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Marie. PS. And congratulations on winning the lottery!"

In our failure to love, we are SELFISH. We too often love others because of their beauty, worth, or value. Because of what they can do for us! The same way we love a fancy car, fine meal, or favorite movie. This isn't the kind of love that builds a marriage or family, though. It is selfish when it comes to people. It is opposite of the kind of love that God loves us with, the love that puts UB4ME! It is so easy to think of ourselves first! And to be concerned first with what we will get out of the relationship.

In our failure to love, we are also UNSUCCESSFUL! That's right, the more we worry about our own success, our own good, and what we will get out of things in relationships and careers, we will not be as successful at life as we could be. How about this? According to an insurance company survey, a husband who kisses his wife each day before they leave for work will probably live 5 years longer, earn 20% more money, lose up to 50% less time because of illness, and be involved in fewer automobile accidents than the husband who doesn't kiss his wife each day. You see this? When we display the kind of love in our lives that puts others before us, it benefits us in the end anyway! But we never learn that lesson.

In our failure to love, we are DEAD. Now, don't get me wrong. We haven't physically stopped breathing with every failure to put others before us. Our marriages and families still limp along with us selfish people bungling them up from time to time. But God's law for all people is to Love! Love God. And love people. Loving God means putting Him before you, putting Him first in your life above all else. Loving people means putting them before you and your needs. God tells us, "Do this, Love Me and love people perfectly in your thoughts, words and actions, and you will LIVE. Your soul will LIVE with me eternally!" Loving God and people perfectly would bring us a great LIFE here on earth and a LIFE with God forever! But we failed. Completely. And even if we only failed a little bit, even once, we lose that LIFE. We are dead! Without love, there is no life with God forever!

In the book, "Children's Letters to God: The New Collection," a little girl named Nan writes this letter: "Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in our family and I have trouble loving them!" Is it hard for you, too? It's hard to try to love people who don't deserve it, isn't it? It is hard to love those who fight against us. But look at our lives - we have not loved God. We have not always loved others. We are spiritually dead. We fight and rebel against God. How could He love us? Finally, in our failure to love, we are UNDESERVING!

But here we get to what real love is all about. Real love is determined by the heart of the lover, and not the worthiness of the object being loved. The love God gave to you and me was in spite of the fact that we didn't deserve it! I heard a definition of the contrast between infatuation and love. It said: "Infatuation is when you think your husband is as handsome as Tom Cruise, as amusing as Rodney Dangerfield, as intellectual as Albert Einstein, as devout as Billy Graham, and as athletic as Hulk Hogan." That is infatuation. "Love is realizing that your husband is as handsome as Albert Einstein, as intellectual as Hulk Hogan, as devout as Tom Cruise, as athletic as Rodney Dangerfield, and as amusing as Billy Graham. But you love him anyway." There is a big difference between love and infatuation - the selfish feeling we pass off as love!

In our failure to love, we are selfish, unsuccessful, undeserving, and dead! But Jesus came and loved us to life! Jesus showed us real love! Our text says that "…Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Love means giving yourself up for another person. It means putting someone else's life before yours! Love = UB4ME! And that is exactly what Jesus did - He put us before Himself! He willingly took the walk to that cross to pay the penalty our failure to love brought about. In exchange, He gave us the credit for the perfect love He showed in his life here! The sacrifice He gave made a fragrant aroma that replaced the stench of our sin in God's nostrils. This poem explains it so well…

He could hear the crowds screaming "Crucify, crucify!" He could hear the hatred in their voices, These were his chosen people. He loved them, And they were going to crucify Him. He was beaten, bleeding and weakened…his heart was broken, But still He walked.

He could see the crowd as He came from the palace. He knew each of the faces so well. He had created them. He knew every smile, laugh, and shed tear, But now they were contorted with rage and anger…his heart broke, But still He walked.

Was He scared? You and I would have been. So his humanness would have mandated that He was. He felt alone. His disciples had left, denied, and even betrayed Him. He searched the crowd for a loving face and He saw very few. Then He turned his eyes to the only One that mattered. And He knew that He would never be alone. He looked back at the crowd, at the people who were spitting At Him, throwing rocks at Him and mocking Him and He knew That because of Him, they would never be alone. So for them, He walked.

The sounds of hammer striking the spikes echoed through The crowd. The sounds of his cries echoed even louder, The cheers of the crowd, as his hands and feet Were nailed to the cross, intensified with each blow. Loudest of all was the still small voice inside his Heart that whispered "I am with You, my Son," And God's heart broke. He had let his Son walk.

Jesus could have asked God to end his suffering, But instead He asked God to forgive. Not to forgive Him, but to forgive the ones who were persecuting Him. As He hung on that cross, dying an unimaginable death, He looked out and saw, not only the faces in the crowd, But also, the face of every person yet to be, And his heart was filled with love. As his body was dying, his heart was alive. Alive with the limitless, unconditional love He feels for each of us. That is why He walked.

When I forget how much My God loves me, I remember his walk. When I wonder if I can be forgiven, I remember his walk. When I need to be reminded of how to live like Christ, I think of his walk. And to show Him how much I love Him, I wake up each morning, turn my eyes to Him, And I walk.

Friends, Jesus loved you and me to life! His act of love brought us forgiveness and eternal life. But it also has enabled us to live a life of love here. Jesus loved us to life so that we now can Love Others to Life! We can love others to life by being Kind and Compassionate. Having a heart that is kind and compassionate is the result of kind, compassionate, and forgiving treatment from our loving God! In Christ He has forgiven us, and his forgiveness moves us to act in the same way toward others. Love others to life by Forgiving them! It is not the merit of the one who needs forgiveness that compels us. According to our human way of thinking, we would be perfectly justified in not loving a person who has sinned. No, it is the undeserving love of Christ for us that moves us to love another who does not deserve our love. Love others to life by Imitating God! Jesus Christ gave Himself into death to pay for our sins and love us to life. Loving others to life means that we will also make sacrifices for them. Love = UB4ME!

Let me close with an example of the power of selfless love to love a person to life. Teddy Stallard was an unattractive, unmotivated little boy. He was difficult to like, especially for a schoolteacher who all day long faced his deadpan, expressionless, unfocused stare. Although his grade 5 teacher said she loved all her students, Miss Thompson had to admit that deep down she wasn't being honest. She didn't like him, and she even received a certain perverse pleasure in marking his papers with red ink and writing the F's with a flair. She should have known better. As his teacher, she had his records and she knew more about him than she wanted to admit. His records read like this: Grade One - Teddy shows promise with his work and attitude, but he has a poor home situation. Grade Two - Teddy could do better. Mother is seriously ill. He receives little help at home. Grade Three - Teddy is a good boy but too serious. He is a slow learner. His mother died this year. Grade Four - Teddy is very slow but well behaved. His father shows no interest.

At Christmas, her class brought her presents in pretty wrappings and gathered around to watch her open them. She was surprised when she received a gift from Teddy. It was crudely wrapped in brown paper. When she opened it, out fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing and a bottle of cheap perfume. The children began to giggle, but she had enough sense to put on the bracelet and apply some of the perfume on her wrist. She asked the class, "Doesn't it smell lovely?" When school was over and the children had left, Teddy stayed behind. He slowly came over to her desk and said softly, "Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother. And her bracelet looks real pretty on you, too. I'm glad you liked my presents." When Teddy left, Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her.

The next day when the children came to school, they were welcomed by a new teacher. Miss Thompson had become a new person. She was no longer just a teacher; she had become an agent of God. She now had a changed perspective. She was now a person committed to loving her children and doing things for them that would live on after her. Because of Miss Thompson's loving attention, by the end of that school year, Teddy showed dramatic improvement and had caught up with most of the students.

Miss Thompson did not hear from Teddy for a long time after he left her class. Then one day she received a note that said, "Dear Miss Thompson: I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating second in my high school class. Love, Teddy Stallard." Four years later, Miss Thompson received another note. It read: "Dear Miss Thompson: They just told me I would be graduating first in my class. I wanted you to be the first to know. The university has not been easy, but I liked it. Love, Teddy Stallard." Finally, Miss Thompson received another note: "Dear Miss Thompson: As of today, I am Theodore Stallard, MD. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact. I want you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You are the only family I have now; Dad died last year. Love, Teddy Stallard."

Miss Thompson went to that wedding. In Teddy's eyes, she deserved to sit where his mother would have sat. She had done something for Teddy that he could never forget. By a small act of love and kindness, she had changed the course of his life. Because God loved her back to life, she loved him to life. Or, did Teddy start it by loving her back to life? Friends, Jesus has loved you to life! He put you before Himself! Now, let's go out and love others to life! Let's put them first and share with them the love Jesus shared with us! Amen.

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