You Can’t Give What You Don’t Have…
I John 4: 7-19
CHCC: September 14, 2008
INTRODUCTION:
“All you need is love…”
Do you know that old Beatles song? It’s easy … sing it with me …All you need is love… oo ooo oo oo ooo
All you need is love… oo ooo oo oo ooo
All you need is love… love
Love is all you need.
Wouldn’t it be nice if it was as easy to LIVE that song as it is to sing it?
It may be true that all you need is love --- but really loving others ---- especially loving for a lifetime --- is a lot harder than singing about it!
We’re doing a series of sermons this fall about marriage. Today we’re going to talk about the SOURCE of all love --- because You Can’t Give What You Don’t Have… Turn with me to I John chapter 4. vs.7, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8, Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1. Love comes from God
God is love. Not God is POWER or PERFECTION or CREATIVITY or JUSTICE or BEAUTY … even though God has all of those attributes and more. God is LOVE. God in His essence is a Relationship … a relationship of Three who live in perfect unity and love. When you connect with God, you have plugged into LOVE in its purest form.
By the time John wrote this, he was an old man. John was the youngest of Jesus’ twelve apostles. He was probably in his early 20’s when he walked with Jesus. Jesus gave John and his brother James the nickname “Sons of Thunder.” By the time John wrote this short book called First John, he was probably 65 or 70 years old, and he had a new nickname: “The Disciple of Love.” John was obsessed with Love because he war totally obsessed with God. All through the letter, John calls his readers, “my dear children,” and “my dear friends.” John had learned what really matters in life.
Erma Bombeck once said, “If I had my life to live over again…”
• “I would have talked less and listened more.
• “I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained.
• “I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
• “I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.
• “I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more while watching life.
• “When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.”
• “There would have been more “I love you’s.” More “I’m sorry’s.”
• “But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute… look at it and really see it… live it… and love it.
You don’t have to wait until you’re old to live that kind of life. If you KNOW God, your live will just naturally overflow with love … because God is love.
Verse 7 says, Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The word used here for “know” is the same word used to describe the intimate union between husband and wife in Genesis 4:1 where it says “And Adam knew his wife, and they conceived …” Knowing God is much more than knowing ABOUT God … it means knowing Him in a deep and personal way. Jesus came to demonstrate that God is love … and to make the way for us to connect with God.
Our relationship with God is a lot like the relationship of marriage. Both are lifelong commitments, and both are CHOSEN relationships. Most life-long relationships here on earth are not chosen. After all, you can’t choose your parents or siblings … or even special order your children. But marriage is the exception. Marriage is the one lifelong commitment we enter into by our own free choice.
That’s why the Bible compares the relationship of Jesus and his Church to a Groom and his Bride. Jesus will make good on his promise to love His Church. When HIS love lives in us, we can make good on our marriage commitment.
We’re in a 6-week series on Marriage right now, and you’re going to be hearing sermons on marriage from Ronnie and from Jesus Castillo and from me. The series is tied to a movie called FIREPROOF that’s coming out … I hope you’ll plan to get together with friends and see the movie. I hope you’ll attend one of our Pueblo groups. You’re going to hear a lot of good, practical ideas about how to strengthen your marriage.
But today I want to give this warning: don’t try to do it on your own --- because I can guarantee you one thing --- on your own you don’t have what it takes. None of us do because you can’t give what you don’t have.
That’s why these next verses are such good news: 15, If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16, And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
2. God’s love lives in you
Everyone needs love. From the day you’re born until the day you die, you have a need to love and be loved. This is because we were created in God’s image … and God is love. But none of us are able to love others the way we need to love them. Take the most basic love of all. Almost all parents LOVE their infant child. The desire to care for and protect that little one is instinctive. Parents naturally have strong feelings of love from the minute they see that wrinkled up little squalling newborn. But just wait a few weeks and that same parent is going to have that love tested when they are walking a crying baby at 3 am after two weeks of almost no sleep.
The fact is, on our own no one has what it takes to love anyone the way we need to love. Whether it’s your child or your parent or your friend, or especially your wife or husband. Now, it comes natural to “fall in love.” Nobody has to teach young people how to do it. In fact, they can’t help it (that’s why they call it “falling” in love.) And loving is EASY for quite a while. That person is so incredibly WONDERFUL, how could you help but love them, want to be with them, and want to do everything you can for them?
But give it a few years and that love will go through a few tests --- right?
I heard about a young single preacher who took his first part-time church while he was still in seminary. He preached a message one Sunday called, “10 Facts on How to Have the Perfect Marriage and raise Perfect Children.” A few years later he got married. He pulled out the old sermon to preach it again, but decided to re-title it “10 Suggestions on How to have a Good Marriage and raise Healthy Children.”
After his second child was born a few years later, it was time to preach it again. This time he called it, “10 Possibilities for Marriage and Child Rearing.” After his third child, he revised the whole sermon and called it “10 Prayers for Parents.” Several years later, when he and his wife had three teen-agers, he burned the message and wrote a new one that was simply called, “Help me Jesus!”
Now, I got to thinking about this marriage series. For the next 4 weeks you’re going to hear Ronnie and Jesus and I preach about marriage. And that’s good because you’ll get different perspectives. I like that about our staff here.
But there is something missing and that’s the perspective from ½ of any marriage – the wife! So I asked my wife if she had something she’d like to say and --- guess what --- she does.
SUSAN: (5 minutes)
• We had everything going for us
• Didn’t take long to realize we couldn’t make it on our own
• Importance of inviting God into marriage
Marriage is under attack in our society. The very definition of marriage is being questioned. And you can’t even bring up the topic of marriage without thinking about divorce. When a marriage breaks up, people give all kinds of reasons. But the bottom line is this: both made a promise to love for a lifetime, and then one or both made a choice to stop loving.
The truth is that --- even though it takes TWO people to make a marriage --- it only takes ONE to make a divorce. If the husband or wife is abusive … or addicted to drugs or alcohol … or continually unfaithful … then it wouldn’t matter if they were married to Mother Theresa … (well, I guess that’s not a good example, but you know what I mean.) It wouldn’t matter if they were married to the most perfect person on the planet, the marriage can’t work.
I’ve had the sad experience of being on the inside track of many marriages that were coming apart because the husband or wife was unfaithful. Nine times out of ten in my experience it was the husband. And every single time, the unfaithful one would come up with a long list of why it was his wife’s fault that he had to stray. Let me tell you, no one can make someone unfaithful. The unfaithful mate CHOSE to stop loving his or her spouse. First they chose to be unfaithful in thought and eventually they chose to be unfaithful in deed.
Now days more and more young couples --- and not-so-young couples --- are bypassing marriage and just living together. There may be all kinds of reasons for this, but I personally think it’s a direct result of past divorces. Young people who had their hearts ripped in two by divorce between their parents are understandably AFRAID of the same thing happening in their own marriages. They are afraid of committing to love anyone for a lifetime.
The last verse we’re going to look at today is the answer to that fear. I John 4:18 says this: 18, There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
3. Love casts out fear
Fear and insecurity cripples a marriage. You can tell there’s insecurity when we’re hiding things from each other. When we’re afraid to be transparent and open. When we spend more time protecting ourselves than loving our spouse.
But if you take it seriously, marriage IS kind of scary. I mean, listen to what you are promising when you get married:
(Quote wedding VOWS.)
Who can keep those kind of vows? The answer is: no one. No one has, on his own, what it takes to love someone else for a lifetime. But if you will let God’s Spirit live inside of you, you will be able to love your husband or wife with a supernatural kind of love … with God’s love.
Pastor Erwin Lutzer tells about a woman in his congregation who went to see an attorney and told him,
“I want a divorce. My husband is horrible. I want more than just a divorce. I hate him and I want to really hurt him. How can I do that?”
The attorney was a Christian --- and he thought it over a few minutes, then said, “This is my advice. Go home and be kind to your husband for the next three months. Don’t criticize him at all. In fact, only speak well of him. Build him up. Every time he does anything the least bit nice, compliment him. Tell him what a great guy he is. And after three months of being nice, then hit him with the news that you want a divorce. That will hurt him bad.”
The woman thought it made sense, so for three months she treated her husband with respect and kindness. Day after day she told him what a great guy he was. Lutzer told this end to the story. “You know what happened to that marriage? After three months, she had forgotten she wanted the divorce and they went on a second honeymoon.”
CONCLUSION:
Our youngest daughter, Kimberly, had only been married a year when she told us, “I don’t know why people say the first year is so hard. All you have to do is be nice to each other.” We laughed, of course, because … after all … they were still just newlyweds. But really, what she said is true. The secret of a happy marriage is just about that simple. All you need is love.
It may be simple, but you can’t do it on your own. I John 4:19 says we love because he first loved us. None of us has what it takes on our own. But when the Love of God lives in you, you CAN love for a lifetime.
ACTION POINT: Think of something you can do this week to express your love to your wife and then go ahead and do it.
