Title: Lifted by Love
Text: 1 Jn 3: 10-18

If last week's sermon was a grammar lesson today's is a history lesson. It's a different kind of sermon than I usually preach. It answers the question of what brings joy from despair other than Willy Wonka. It's the story of two men and God's transforming love. How love lifted them out of hatred and bitterness and transformed their lives.

The Bible speaks a great deal about love. John in both his gospel and his letters spends a great deal of time teaching about love. Love is a vital part of the Christian life. Not just being loved but demonstrating love as well.

There are seven things John tells us about love in this passage:  
    In verse 10 we find love reveals our true nature - whether we are a Child of God or a child of the devil. 
    Verse 11 says love is the message heard from the beginning. In other words the teaching about love is not something new. Love for God and one another was God's original message to humanity. So we find in John's gospel, ". . . God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16 NAS) And in verse one of this chapter John says, "See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God. . ." (NAS)
    We understand from verse 13 love must operate in a world of hate. Love demonstrates true transformation in the life of the believer.  
    John said, genuine love is proof we have passed from death to life according to verse 14. This is a spiritual action in our lives, just the opposite of his world where we pass from life to death.
    Verse 15 explains love and hate are mutually exclusive. Hate is equated with murder because it reflects the genuine attitude of the heart.
    The genuineness of our love, verse 16 says how we understand and realize the love of God shown towards us. We love because He first loved us John wrote in chapter 4.
    Finally verses 17-18 teach us that genuine love must be active. It's not just emotion and feeling.

This kind of love is the product of transformational faith in Jesus Christ, that brings us to our history lesson. The story of the two men and two nations and good coming from evil when love is realized.

The first man is Commander Mitsui Fuchida. The date was Dec 7, 1941 at approximately 7:49am. It was Commander Fuchida who led 360 Japanese planes in the attack on Peal Harbor. Commander Fuchida gave the command "All squadrons, plunge in to attack." His more famous words were his message back to advise his generals of the attack: "Tora, Tora, Tora."

In the hours that followed 3,622 US military personnel were killed or reported missing more than 800 wounded. Commander Fuchida later recalled, "It was the most thrilling exploit of my career." He was a Japanese hero.

The second man was Jacob DeShazer. DeShazer was on KP duty at an Army base in Oregon when he heard the news over the base loud speakers of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Like many of his fellow citizens and soldiers DeShazer became outraged. At that moment intense hatred for the Japanese was born in his heart. He hurled a potato against the wall and shouted to no one in particular, "The Japs are going to have to pay for this."

A few months later he volunteered for a secret mission and in April 1942 he flew off the flight deck of the carrier Hornet as a bombardier in one of the B25 bombers led by Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle on a raid to Tokyo.

After the completion of their mission DeShazer's plane ran out of fuel. The crew parachuted into enemy territory and for 40 months, 34 of them in solitary confinement Jacob DeShazer was a POW.

During that time he was starved and severely beaten. Three of his friends were executed by firing squad another starved to death. His hatred of the Japanese grew and became all consuming.

But he began to ponder the cause of such hatred between members of the human race. Why did the Japanese hate the Americans and why did the Americans hate the Japanese.

He recalls that he remembered hearing about Christianity and how it changed hatred into love. He longed to have a Bible and began to beg his captors for one. They finally, after 2 years allowed him to have one, but told him he could only have it for two weeks.

He began to eagerly read it chapter after chapter first the Old then the New Testament. He began to understand that sin including his hatred for the Japanese separated him from God, but that he could be reconciled through Jesus Christ.

It was Jun 8, 1944 when he read Rom 10:9 "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus {as} Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;" (NAS) He confessed and prayed and found forgiveness, he also found love. His own testimony is that even though his body was battered and bruised and he was malnourished he was filled with joy. He began to see his captors in a new way. He realized that his bitter hatred had turned to love. He said he realized they didn't know the Savior and without Him it was natural to be cruel.

On Aug 20 1945 the war ended and DeShazer was liberated. But the story doesn't end there. DeShazer entered a Christian college and made preparations to return to Japan to make Christ known to the Japanese people.

After the war, a chaplain on General MacArthur's staff wanted something to help heal the animosity between the U.S. and Japan. He approached Don Falkenberg of Bible Literature International, who had read DeShazer's testimony shortly after his release. Soon DeShazer testimony was circulating in a little pamphlet , "I Was a Prisoner of Japan."

And what about Commander Fuchida? He logged more than 10,000 hours as a Japanese combat pilot. He was in Hiroshima the day before the atomic bomb was dropped and would have been killed had he not been summoned to Tokyo.

When the war ended he returned to his farm near Osaka. It was a miserable time in his life. He was bitter and broken-hearted when summoned by General MacArthur to Tokyo to testify about war crimes. As he stepped off the a train one day in Tokyo, he was handed a copy of that little pamphlet "I was a Prisoner of Japan." The peace DeShazer found was exactly what he had been seeking. In spite of his Shinto background he thought since DeShazer found it in the Bible he thought that's where he would look.

He found the story of the crucifixion especially meaningful. IN particular he was draw to Luke 23:24 Jesus words from the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." He thought he was one of those for whom Jesus prayed. He realized the truth of the gospel that Jesus died on the cross for the sin of the world. Like DeShazer he prayed for forgiveness and asked God to change his life.

Fuchida said that from that moment his life changed the love of God released the shackles of bitterness and hatred and replaced them with love and compassion and a desire to tell others about Christ. Jacob DeShazer was there the day Mitsuo Fuchida was baptized.

They learned the truth about love - it transforms lives from death to life; it can and does operate in a world filled with hate; it reveals the true nature of Jesus Christ and our true nature; It's not just emotion it's action as well; It comes from faith in Jesus Christ.

These two men, bitter enemies, were reconciled by love. Because they called on God in faith they experienced of the love of Christ, because love lifted them out of the sinking depths of anger, hatred, despair and sin these two former enemies were able to love one another. They became good friends, both became evangelists DeShazer remained in Japan, Fuchida traveled throughout Asia sharing the love of Christ.

That same love, that great, awesome, wonderful love that has been transforming lives from the beginning can transform you, just as it did for Jacob DeShazer and Mitsuo Fuchida. Have you experienced God's love? Have you been lifted by His transforming love? Will you be lifted by it?