Chico Alliance Church
“A Worthy Overcoat”
Today we look at one more piece from the wardrobe and then finish off this wardrobe with a glorious overcoat.
Wear Forgiveness (More complete notes available previously)
A heart of forgiveness denies the inclination to extract payment from the debtor and decides to bless instead. This definition comes from a study of the two words translated forgiveness.
One “to send away” (the debt)
Two “to bless, to give grace” (our present passage).
This unnatural (for the flesh) response to offenses is based on a deep, heart felt realization of Christ’s response to my offenses against Him and the vast supernatural resources He provides to respond in the same way to others. Failure to perceive or realize forgiveness results in destructive guilt and inability to forgive others. Failure to practice or reciprocate forgiveness toward others results in bitterness and an inability to properly relate to God and others.
The parable shared in Matthew 18 clearly outlines all of the necessary elements involved in the process both demonstrated by Jesus and required of us. The point of this parable is that when we fail to perceive forgiveness we will struggle to practice forgiveness. When we fail to practice forgiveness, we will fail to perceive forgiveness and struggle against the tormentors of guilt and bitterness. So get out of the imprisoning business and set all the debtors free.
Forgiveness Is…
1. Forgiveness Is communicative
2. Forgiveness is Character Based
3. Forgiveness is costly
4. Forgiveness is complete
We must completely release people from repayment.
History cannot be re-lived
A broken vase cannot be replaced
We must give up the demand for repayment.
We must give up the demand for changing history.
We must give up the desire to punish.
We must fully release everyone from our prison.
5. Forgiveness is continual
Open the doors release the prisoners.
Do you fully realize and appreciate your own forgiveness before God?
No debt Nothing to repay Nothing to re-live Nothing to fix. Nothing to block us from restored community with God.
Have you offered that kind of forgiveness to those who have given cause to blame?
APPLICATION
Listen to the Holy Spirit’s prompting regarding this piece from the divine wardrobe.
Next Paul says “above all” or “over all”.
Put on or wear LOVE
The action connected to this instruction is the same verb we observed earlier in the passage. Put on, wear, sink into, slip on, manifest. Paul calls for a settled action on the part of the church. Put on, or wear love just as I have commanded you to wear each of the other heart attitudes.
“And beyond all these things love, which is the perfect bond of completeness.”
First Thought
This is the ultimate. Beyond all the other things this is it. It is the pinacle. It is the supreme outerwear for a kingdom child. It is the very central attribute of God.God is love!
Second
This love is the glue that unites and holds the body together.
The word "put on" is the “middle thing” that serves as a “link,” “joint,” “loop,” or “bond,” and in grammar “conjunction.” Special meanings are “chain,” “cable,” or “halter.” In Plato the term takes on special significance as the mediation or union that overcomes cosmic dualism. Figuratively for Aristotle it refers to “children” as the bond between father and mother. In rhetoric it may be a “connecting word,” and physiologically it is the “joint” or “muscle.”
Love links the body together. It is the ultimate link. There are many other things that bond us, but love is the completing link; the link of completion. The bond of completeness.
It is a complete bond in that when you love you fulfill all the laws governing relationships.
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Romans 13:8-9
For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Galatians 5:14
If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law, according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well. James 2:8
Books have been written on this subject. Paul longs that we understand how vast is this love of Christ. This love is the very core of God’s nature. This love is the very core of God’s church. They will know we are children of the kingdom by our LOVE for one another.
We must not only properly perceive this love, but also powerfully practice it.
We know that this love is others focused. “God so loved the world that He gave.”
We know that this love is sacrificial.
We know that this love is unconditional.
But there is a vital aspect of this love implied in 1 Corinthians that we often overlook or miss. What element seems to be missing here? If we can do all of the things mentioned here and yet not love, what is missing? I believe it is the aspect of acceptance and the pursuit of community and relationship. You can do all of those things without and face to face relationship with the one you “minister” to.
Definition “Love”
Love is a character based drive (implanted and developed by God Himself to pursue and engage in meaningful relationships expressed by unconditional acceptance and observable selfless service.
Just as the flesh radiates drives that destroy and hurt, our new core was designed to radiate the love of Christ that develop and help others. God so longed to engage in meaningful relationship with those He created in His own image that He willingly sacrificed His own Son and Christ willingly endured whatever was necessary in order to restore that fellowship. We live in a culture that substitutes activity for genuine intimacy.
We have learned to do the winter dance of the porcupine. We long for the warmth of relationship and try to engage in meaningful relationship but find the experience somewhat painful the closer we get so we back off until the cold once again drives us toward relationship again.
Can we really love like God?
Can we really love like Christ?
1. God is love.
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8
And we have come to know and have believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1 John 4:16
This is the core of God’s nature to engage in meaningful relationship expressed by unconditional acceptance and observable selfless service and engaging acts of kindness.
2. God made us in His own image.
Therefore, God built within us the capacity to love like He loves.
3. We are able to love, because God first loved us.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:10
We love, because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19
Because God is love, it is also a capacity of ours to love.
4. God deposited His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. and not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:1-5
The fruit of the Spirit is love Gal 5
God put a vast reservoir of His love right within our heart. All that the Bible says about His love is true of us. We, as blood relations of the Father and the Son possess all the necessary capacity and resources to love like He loves. We must believe it, live it and stop blocking it. By the way, nearly all of the manifestation of the Spirit in our lives has to do with meaningful relationships. Nearly all of the deeds of the flesh listed in Gal 5 have to do with destructive relationships.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:11-12
Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. 1 Peter 1:22-23
5. God commands us to love one another.
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 1 John 3:14-18
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7
6. Love increases in personal application
9Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, 1 Thes. 4:9-10
This has to do individually and as a body of believers. The Thessalonian’s love extended to the whole area not just a small group and Paul urged an even greater application.
7. God continually perfects love in us as a body
and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you; 1 Thes. 3:12
8. Love is a critical factor in both spiritual and numerical growth.
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Ephes. 4:15-16
9. Understanding God’s love for us and through us leads to divine fullness.
Ephesians 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
There are two dimensions to knowing God’s love to the point of fullness.
Knowing Christ’s love for us
This love took on the sin and guilt of the whole world in order to reconcile us and restore us to meaningful relationship with the Father.
He took on the guilt for every sin ever committed and will be committed. The guilt for every rape, murder, evil word, wicked deed, theft, abuse etc was placed on Him. He suffered for the first time in eternity the agony of broken community, relational divorce, rejection, physical and emotional pain. This self-sacrificing love did not stop at the Crucifixion. He continues to demonstrate His love by build, pursuing, praying, providing, forgiving, preparing a place.
When we begin to comprehend the full dimensions of such a love for us we will begin to know experientially divine fullness. We will not succumb to the tendency to seek to fill the emptiness and voids in our life with other people or things. God’s vast love can meet our every need and longing at its core.
Our longing for significance
Our longing for unconditional acceptance
Our longing for holiness and purity
Only in His love can we know lasting security, significance and sanctification. Only as we realize the wonder of our relationship with the Father through Christ will we know the freedom of loving like He loves.
First reciprocating His love back to Him.
Second reflecting His love to others.
Knowing Christ’s love through us
Know His love for us is only part of the stairway to divine fullness. We must experience the whole picture. Not only being loved but loving. That is the very nature of God and all those born of God. Love cannot be self-focused. Self-centeredness violates the very nature of what it means to love. Genuine love finds expression in unconditional acceptance and observable or recognizable selfless service and acts of kindness not just in words. Our self-centered culture is thrown off guard by genuine love. God calls us to become a community of people who really love one another and demonstrate love even to those who hurt us.
It is supernatural. It seems so impossible to love that way. It is possible because all of the resources come from God. You are only giving away what He has provided. That is why it is a result of walking by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
What does this love look like? What do loving communities look like? How does this love express itself in a relationship? How does this love express itself through relational storms?
1 Corinthians 13
After an extended discussion on the necessity and effectiveness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed to EVERY believer, Paul balances the teaching with the supremacy of love. The gifts of the Spirit for ministry are useless without the love of the Spirit for people. All the gifting in the world has no value without love.
Love is longsuffering not reactionary
Love is kind not cold
Love is trusting not jealous
Love keeps quiet and does not brag
Love is humble not arrogant or proud
Love acts wisely not unbecomingly
Love seeks to serve others not self-seeking
Love is self-controlled not easily provoked
Love forgives rather than keep and account of wrongs
Love rejoices in truth not in unrighteousness
Love preserves all things not
Rom 12 - Let your love be genuine and without hypocrisy.
HOW?
• Abhorring what is evil
• Cleaving to what is good
• Being devoted to one another in brotherly love
• Giving preference to one another in honor
• Not lagging behind in diligence
• Being fervent in spirit – as serving the Lord
• Rejoicing in hope
• Persevering in tribulation
• Being devoted to prayer
• Practicing hospitality
• Bless those who persecute – bless and curse not
• Rejoice with those who rejoice
• Weep with those who weep
• Be of the same mind toward one another
• Do not be high minded but associate with the lowly
• Do not be wise in your own estimation
• Never pay back evil for evil to anyone
• Respect what is right in the sight of all men
• Be at peace with all men as far as it depends on you
• Never take your own revenge but let God handle it
• Lovingly respond to your enemy’s basic needs
• Do not be overcome by evil.
Remember do not become weary in well doing for in due season you shall reap the reward.
“Well done good and faithful servant.”
This all sounds impossible doesn’t it? We must be connected to the source in order to live a life of meaningful relationships expressed by unconditional acceptance and selfless service to others.
My prayer for us is that we better understand His love for us and then yield ourselves to Him as an open channel of His love through us so that we may experience what God experiences. That we may feel as God feels. That we may love as God loves. That we may be filled with fullness of God who is love. Philip. 2:1-16
How is it possible?
Listen to Peter’s admonition regarding these issues.
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.(old desires) Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. 2 Peter 1:2-9
God processes the dirt so that His glorious gold will shine forth. These are all character traits of Christ. He taught them. He modeled them. These are manifestations of a life directed and energized by the Holy Spirit. Paul prayed that they would be energized with God’s mighty power to make it over the long haul through the violent relational storms of life.
Apathy – deep felt sympathy “Share your heart.”
Hurtful actions/words – kindness “Show you care”
Pride – Humility “Put others first.”
Harshness – gentleness “Approach gently.”
Anger/rage – longsuffering “Guard my reactions.”
Intolerance – bearing up with one another “Look for the gold.”
Bitterness – forgiveness “Set the prisoners free.”
Selfishness – love “Pursue relationship.”
Conclusion
Do we love Jesus? We will willingly and enthusiastically follow His commandments.
Are we truly a child of God? We will love and embrace His other children.
He commanded us to love one another.
He enables us to love one another.
Are we kingdom kids? They will know you are Christians by your love.
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35
• Celebrate, with God, areas where His heart is consistently reflected.
• Hold fast to Christ
• Invite the Holy Spirit to sift through the dirt and refine the gold.
• Confess areas where you have failed to appropriate His life.
• Open your heart to partnership with others.
