First Love
Love Without Limits, prt. 4
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
January 24, 2010
Sing with me if you know this:
Oh how I love Jesus
Oh how I love Jesus
Oh how I love Jesus
Because he first loved me
1 John 4:9-12 (NIV)
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us.
I am concerned about the direction the church is going, my friends. I don’t necessarily mean this church, I mean the church in general. Our churches are being filled more and more with drums and guitars and jeans and t-shirts, and this is fine. But I’m not sure they are being filled with people who know who they are – who understand their identities as the beloved of God. We are trying newer, hipper, cooler, snazzier and jazzier ways of reaching the people we call “the lost,” but I can’t help but be hugely concerned about the people who call themselves “the found.” One of the biggest-selling books in the Christian marketplace in the past few years purports to be a book about the relentless, incredible, amazing, unfathomable, fantastic love of God, and it does that very well for the first few chapters. Then it goes into talking about how apathetic the church is, and how we need to pull it together and – in effect – all the ways we are letting God down with our bad behavior. In one chapter we are even provided with a list of the qualities of effective and passionate Christians, and we are exhorted to be that way. I’m convinced that the reason the author sees as much hypocrisy in the church and in his own life as he sees is because that’s the message people have been trying to follow all their lives. “Here’s what a good Christian does – now do it.” So we try to do all these things, and they are good things. But they are not flowing out of who we actually are. And anything you do that doesn’t flow out of who you actually are is, at best, a bad fit, and, at worst, hypocrisy. The church subscribes to these ideas about how “good Christians” are supposed to behave, and then there is pressure for us all to act in those ways, so the putting on of masks becomes a standard expectation. You may be struggling with all kinds of garbage and nasty stuff, but you’d at least better learn to act like you’ve got it pretty much together or people might question your faith in God.
Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV)
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.
23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
If the solutions we are offering to the problem of falsity and hypocrisy in our churches come from the same approaches that caused the problem in the first place, we are truly in a heap of trouble. And everywhere you turn, there are good people with good hearts like this author who really think the problem in the church is that we’re not trying hard enough. Therefore they think the solution is just to buckle down and try harder. Of course they won’t admit that. They’ll say that all our efforts need to flow from an understanding of the fathomless love of God. So it becomes the equivalent of, “God really loves you. Believe it, then go out and be amazing.”
But my problem, and the problem for most of you, has always been that we hear it, but we CAN’T believe it. I mean, when we say God’s love is unfathomable, aren’t we immediately presented with the problem of not being able to fathom it? And if we are truly loved in this relentless, deep, immense, infinite way, but we cannot get our arms around it – or really even begin to – then how are we to live in light of that fact? How does God’s love actually change me if I can’t believe it or understand it? This tells me this author maybe should have just stuck with the theme of the first few chapters. Just keeping telling me that I am loved. Say it to me again. Explain it in a new way. Use a new metaphor. Talk to me about the prodigal son and the love of the father for him as he wandered off. Remind me that when we were STILL SINNERS, Christ died for us. Show me the picture of the suffering God, gasping for breath on that tree not because I loved him, but because he loved me. Talk to me about Christ’s promise that God will love his children much more than we love our own.
See, one of two things is true about those who are passionate for God. Either they were possessed of superhuman discipline and willpower which the majority of people religious and otherwise will never possess, or else they were possessed with an understanding not merely of who they were but of WHOSE they were, and they saw themselves living every moment in the center of this immense love and because they could see it, they knew they were safe no matter what happened to them, and because they knew they were safe they were willing to take huge risks and because they took huge risks, they accomplished great things. So if I’m not already out there doing amazing things for God and in God and through God and because of God, then it’s because I either lack the willpower, or because I lack the experience of the steadfast love of God and therefore do not really understand that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Either way, simply telling me to act better, to take more risks, to get out there, to pull it together, isn’t going to work, and it’s not going to work whether the person telling me these things is a friend, a family member, a pastor, or a gazillion-selling author. And this is true even when just before you tell me how bad I am and how far I’m missing the mark, you remind me that God loves me. I don’t need to be reminded of God’s love, I need to be re-created and re-formed in it.
His urging us to go out and do this or do that or act in this way or that reminds me of the parent who says to his ten-year-old, “Look, you’ve been given lips like everybody else. Lips are for kissing, now get out there and get going. Let’s get some kissing going on up in here. After all, kissing is good, and you have the equipment, so let’s make it happen.” This of course is foolish and completely ignores the reality that though this kid like most people is meant for this, and though he has the equipment, he still thinks girls have cooties. It’s not time. It’s not who he is yet. Not only can he not do this authentically, but doing this now will damage him. He has not yet grown into this behavior.
I submit to you today that one of our greatest handicaps in the church is that we do not know the love of God, and therefore we have not grown into it. Now I realize this has been a particular problem of mine, and I realize that this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I do think it applies to the great majority of people in the church. It applies because we are taught to believe God loves us, but not how to receive that love. We are expected to act upon it, do great deeds of faith because of it, but we are not taught how to base our lives on it, to root our identities in it, so that we can be re-formed and re-created. The fact is we don’t need to worry about lists of behaviors that good Christians have and lists of behaviors bad Christians have (there’s one of those too in this book). We need to receive, to soak in the love of God. Because God IS love. When you soak in love, you’re soaking in God! We need to see ourselves at the center of this great love. Do you actually think it’s possible that we can come to see ourselves as the beloved of God and NOT become more and more passionate for him? Do you think it’s possible that those who are sincerely seeking God could actually lay eyes on him and then have no reaction? I mean, I know people often had little reaction to Jesus, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about being in a place where we recognize and experience the love of God the Father. Is it possible that we could recognize and experience the love of God the Father for us and not be moved, not be drastically changed by it? Of course not.
The Old Testament book Song of Songs is an erotic love poem. (Read it sometime in a modern translation, think about the imagery and metaphors in it, and some of you will realize it’s the most erotic thing you’ve ever read.) But the Jews have always read Song of Songs on two levels – as the erotic love poem that it is on the surface, and then – on a deeper level – as an allegory about God’s love for his people. Song of Songs is still read at the Jewish festival of Passover. I want to call your attention to a passage from Song of Songs:
Song of Songs 2:10-13 (NIV)
10 My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.
11 See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.
12 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me."
Obviously it is easier for women to relate to this passage than men. But the point is that this is the understanding of God’s love in which the Jewish people are immersed from the beginning. It’s not just an intellectual thing, just a mental thing, just a God is over there and I’m over there thing, not just a friendly kind of love, but a deep, intimate, love that desires companionship and fellowship. A kind of love that speaks with affection, that is truly based on connection. For some of you, the idea that God thinks of us and loves us in this way is just completely out of your ballpark. And I think that’s why many of us struggle in our relationship with God, because we don’t really understand the nature of that relationship. We still see God as the stern parent, or the one out to get us, or the hallway monitor demanding to see a pass every time we walk on the wrong side of the hallway. Or at the very least, kind of like an aunt or uncle who rarely comes to visit and around whom we feel a little awkward.
But we have to define ourselves according to the way God sees us. After all, this is who we actually ARE – to not see ourselves this way is to believe falsely about ourselves. And if we believe falsely about ourselves, how will we not think, feel, and act falsely as well? Like I’ve said before, if you believe you are a Labrador, you will think like a Labrador, you will feel like a Labrador, and you’ll bring me my slippers. You’ll act like a Labrador. If you believe you are better than everyone else, you will think that way, feel that way, and be despised by the people whom you will surely treat that way. If you believe you have no control over your life, you will think defeating thoughts, you will feel depressed, and you will act in ways that bring about the very things you fear. If you believe you are deeply loved by God, in a way that is personal, powerful, and practical in your everyday life, then you will think higher thoughts, feel higher feelings, and do greater deeds as a direct result of that understanding. It is a law of the universe and you cannot escape it. Thus we have to define ourselves according to the way God sees us. That means that it is worth whatever time it takes for you to come to know that you are deeply and dearly loved by God – so deeply and dearly loved that it might even make you a little uncomfortable, particularly if you are a guy, and/or particularly if you were not very close to your human father.
Colossians 3:12-14 (NIV)
12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Holy and dearly loved. Holy even if you don’t feel holy. Holy even if you still mess up. Holy even if you fall short. Dearly loved whether you feel it or not. Dearly loved even when you have just done something stupid and sinful. Dearly loved even when you don’t feel loved or lovely and even when you don’t love God back. Holy and dearly loved even in, and perhaps ESPECIALLY IN, those moments where you are ashamed of yourself, embarrassed over what a jerk you’ve been, frustrated by your fallenness. Notice the text says that we are to do all these good things like clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, like bearing with each other’s fault and forgiving each other – we are to do them all AS God’s chosen people who are holy and dearly loved. In other words, we live out of this awareness – out of this identity. We don’t just grit our teeth, read some list of how we’re supposed to act, and then set out trying to act that way. No, we do those things as we come to understand who we are. For those of us who are adults, we’re going to have to do this for ourselves. But parents, we can help do this for our children so they grow up understanding it.
As a parent my highest priority is helping my girls to know who they are. Christy’s too. A few months ago Christy had me hang pictures of all three of our girls in the hallway in our home, and above their pictures she posted a sign that says, “Always carry yourself as if you are wearing an invisible crown.” In other words, you are ladies. You are people of dignity and grace. Your daddy is just a pastor, but your Father (capital F) is a king. It is not enough to tell them. They must be so immersed in it that they come to understand ourselves in light of that fact – they must be re-formed, re-created, re-born, and re-newed in it.
Last week one of my girls was really hurting, really suffering, in that way that breaks your heart as a parent. You just hurt for them and with them and want so much to say the right thing. So I texted her as she was leaving for school. Here’s what I said to her.
Special thoughts and prayers for you right now, sweet girl. You are loved beyond measure and far beyond any words that might be used to describe it...you are a divinely created spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. You are immortal! This does not alleviate your suffering, but it is a backdrop of hope and peace. I love you deeply, and I am thinking of you and praying for you today.
It is important to me that no matter what my girls are experiencing, they are experiencing it in truth and not in falsehood. The truth is that all suffering IS temporary. The truth is that hope is always right there, mixed right into our suffering and pain. The truth is that we do not go through even our darkest nights alone. We are never abandoned. And the truth is that the greatest gift we can ever be given in this life is the gift of knowing who our Father is and how much he loves us. Because from that place of complete acceptance, total security, and ultimate significance, we come to see that we actually have great power – greater than we could have ever imagined when our heads were hung low and we were submissively trying to conform to the will of this God who we thought had the whip at our back.
John 15:15-16 (NCV)
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father.
16 You did not choose me; I chose you...
So we are children of God. We are servants of God. And we are ones whom God has called friends. Instead of cowering, instead of heaping derision upon ourselves for not being sufficient, and instead of reading a list of all we are supposed to be and then going out and furiously trying to be it, we must understand who we are.
1 John 3:2 (NIV)
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
To see God is to become like him. To see God’s compassion is to become more compassionate. To see God’s patience is to become more patient with others. To see God’s love is to become more loving.
If we are not becoming more loving (towards God, towards ourselves, and towards others), this is because we have not seen him as he is. We have not seen God’s love for us. It’s not unusual to be in a certain place and simply not see it. Some of us are deeply loved by our spouses and children and we don’t see it – we constantly distance ourselves from people who love us. Opening up to love can be difficult whether it’s the love of other people or the love of God.
Finally, as you learn to see yourself for who you are, as a child of God, his friend, as one who is dearly loved by God, you will come to love yourself more and more. In fact one of the first things that will happen is that you will begin, perhaps for the first time, to see yourself with compassion and grace – perhaps even a bit of comic pity. You will start to see yourself the way God sees you, perhaps the way you see your own children, so instead of heaping derision on yourself for your imperfections, you will learn to gently and patiently love yourself through them, because God loves you through them. And in turn, you will begin to do this with others. The faults and shortcomings of others will begin to seem less annoying and frustrating and will actually in many cases take on a kind of charm. You will see people increasingly as you see yourself – creatures deeply loved by God and created and chosen by him. Clearly imperfect, but gifted by their loving Father with the same grace you’ve been given, and of which you are no more deserving than they. And no less.
Next week I want to talk to you about how to do this – how to immerse yourself in the love of God so deeply that it begins to lead to these amazing tangible results in your own life.
I ask now not that you pray with me, but that you simply pray. Regardless of where you stand spiritually at this time, you can pray. You can express your heart, your thoughts, your needs, your sins, and your pain to God and he will hear you. Let’s pray.
