Christian Love
1 John 3:16-3:24
Prayer-
Introduction-
We begin a new series this week looking at holiness. Every time you mention holiness, people automatically think of perfection. We serve a holy and perfect God.
We as God’s children strive to be holy by being more Christ-like.
With this being Pentecost Sunday, I think it is appropriate to talk about how our lives are impacted by the Holy Spirit of God working in our lives and the only way we can be holy is being more Christ-like and less of our own sinful nature. A part of the Holy Spirit interaction with us is in how we love God and how we love others.
Tina Turner sang the song “What’s love got to do with it”
Her words-love is second hand emotion.
Her words-Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken.
That is not God’s view of love and how we love God and others.
In the Greek language are four words for love.
(1) (Storge’)There is the kind of love that you have for family. A child’s love for parents and parents natural love for their children.
(2) (Eros)There is the kind of love that is between lovers. . A sexual erotic love that involves intimacy and passion.
(3) (Phileo)There is deep friendship love that does not involve intimacy but great love for the person. Tender affection.
(4) (Agape love)- God’s love. It is to not allow bitterness to invade your heart and that you have the person’s best interest above your own revenge. You by choice seek out their goodwill though they hurt or try to destroy you.
I want for a moment to talk about Agape love- God’s love that He has for us and how we are to love as God loves.
As I looked at all the passages on love, I have to tell you I was over whelmed.
I was overwhelmed in that without God’s help, I cannot love like God loves.
God’s love goes outside the realm of human sense.
It does what does not come natural to us because we are selfish and want our own needs met before we love others.
Our love usually involves loving someone that loves you back, not loving someone without having an ulterior motive.
1 John 3:16-3:24
God loves because that is His nature and the expression of His being.
He loves the unlovable and the unlovely, not because we deserve to be loved or because of any excellence we possess, but because it is His nature to love and He must be true to His nature.
Agape love is always shown by what it does. God’s love is displayed most clearly at the cross.
“God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4–5, ESV).
We did not deserve such a sacrifice, “but God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
God’s agape love is unmerited.
We are to love others with agape love, whether they are fellow believers (John 13:34) or bitter enemies (Matthew 5:44).
Agape love does not come naturally to us. Because of our fallen nature, we are incapable of producing such a love.
If we are to love as God loves, that love—that agape—can only come from its Source.
This is the love that “has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” when we became His children (Romans 5:5; cf. Galatians 5:22).
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). Because of God’s love toward us, we are able to love one another.
We are to love by the Spirit of God and we are to live by the Spirit of God working in our lives.
The only way that we can love and live for God is by God’s help daily.
Love is the fruit of the Spirit working in your life. It goes along with joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always hopes, always preserves. Love never fails.
Are you just as overwhelmed as I was? You cannot possibly love like that without God working in you.
This verse (love chapter) is in almost every wedding- truth is most should not use it because it is describing God’s love not human love. If you have no intention of loving like God loves, you should not use that verse.
Illustration-
D.L. Moody upset the people back in the 1800’s on his view of Christian love because it was not the fuzzy feeling, you can do anything definition of love- “Well, there is another class of people who say, “I don’t see if God really loves me and I love him, why am I called upon to have so many afflictions and troubles.” Just turn a moment to the 8th chapter of Romans, the 28th verse: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose.” It is not a few things; not a part of them, but all things work together for good. Give a man constant prosperity and he quickly he turns away from God, and so it is a little trouble here, and a little reverse here, and some prosperity there, and taken all together it is the very thing that we need.
Is there a greater example of God’s love for us than to send His only Son to die for us- “While we were yet sinners” is there anything more than laying down His life for His enemies.
Moody added- “How men with an open Bible can say that God don’t love them is more than I can understand.”
Christian love is shown by our actions- (Repeat)
Christ showed His love at the cross-we show our love back to Him in all we do, all we say. It is intentional. He laid his life down for us and we are to lay our lives down and submit back to Him. Because of the love shown to us, we are to love back to others with the same kind of love.
This does not come naturally- because it is not geared toward what is in it for us. It is geared toward God and geared toward those that God loves unconditionally.
Because of our fallen nature, we cannot love like that without God’s Spirit directing us.
It has to come from the source, it was God’s love given to us, it is God who shows His love through us.
It is your determined will to please God that will allow His Spirit to flow through you.
Unlike Tina Turner not wanting a heart because it can be broken- we as God’s agent of love to this world unfortunately put our heart on the table and at times get it broken by the people we are trying to love as God loves them.
Agape love is sacrificial love- Jesus put his heart out for us and we must put our heart out there for others.
Illustration
An example of Christian love is shown in the Good Samaritan Luke chapter 10.
Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans hated the Jews for hating them.
They were taught to hate each other.
Jews mixed with other nationalities and the Jewish people thought they had polluted the Jewish race.
The hated Samaritan went to help when others found reasons that they could not or would not help.
He showed love not because of nationality, not because he had anything to gain, in fact ,he offered his own money and took a loss by helping this stranger.
He put himself in danger.
He risked being seen and shunned by his own people.
HE SHOWED GOD’S LOVE BECAUSE IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT.
I WANT YOU TO SEE SOMETHING- Turn to 1 Corinthians 12:27-31 (Read)
“And yet I will show you the most excellent way”
The most excellent way is loving people like God loves us.
You cannot be bitter at someone that you are praying for and desiring for God to reach.
People are trying to do all these any things without God’s love and it is not working for the church, for our families, for this country.
Love is a way that all these things come into perspective with God’s will.
Love is the way the Holy Spirit of God works through us to minister to others.
Jonathan Edwards said
“Love appears to be the sum of all the virtue and duty that God requires of us, and therefore must undoubtedly be the most essential thing- the sum of all the virtue that is essential and distinguishing in real Christianity.”
Without God’s love working in our lives, we are not living up to the name “Christian.”
The most excellent way is not a pathway to do whatever you want- God doesn’t love us and tell us we can do whatever we want- there is consequence for not taking God up on His love and wanting relationship with us. That is not His desire but will be our choice.
We as Christians are not to allow everything and believe for nothing, but we are to love them enough to show tough love when needed and leave an open door of love for them to return onto the things of God.
Discipline not with revenge but with a heart wanting them to experience God and His love. It is love divinely received and divinely given.
Lastly, as I pull this all together-
God’s love is needed today!
So many people doing their own thing!
So many looking for love in all the wrong places
People hating each other for no other reason but that they were taught it as they grew up.
Lust is not love- love un-shown by action is just a feeling that will fade quickly.
There were prayer cards given you this morning- who would you put on those cards that you will be praying for and believing God to do something amazing. What part are you going to play in showing that person God’s love?
Loving as God loves is a blessing! It is a privilege given us by God Himself by His Spirit dwelling in us to direct us to love as He loves.
It is a blessing beyond compare to see the sanctifying work of His Spirit in our lives and to be used to love others.
Consider your steps so you can follow in His footsteps!
If you are a Christian this morning, God’s love should be flowing from your heart to the heart of those that you are around. If that is not happening, take a moment to ask God what is needed in your life to make that happen.
The challenge for all of us this morning is to allow God’s love to be expressed through us to others, that our lives are not made up of just thinking of ourselves or just our families.
Jonathan Edwards again,
“When a fountain abounds in water, it will send forth streams.”
We must all be streams flowing with God’s love.
Amen.
