LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE, # 3
Warsaw Christian Church, Richard M. Bowman, Pastor
Text: Romans 6:11-18
We continue our focus on the meaning of divine love. Let’s quickly review the territory covered thus far:
1. Divine love (agape) is primarily goodwill in action toward friends and foe alike.
2. Love is from God. We become capable of receiving and giving God’s love only through faith in Jesus Christ, who is love incarnate.
3. Love resides primarily in the will as informed by the commandments of God. It is choosing to express goodwill despite thoughts and emotions pulling us in another direction.
4. Love refrains from behavior designed to hurt others.
5. Our entire duty toward God and man is summed up in the word “love.” Paul writes, “The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:9,19).
Our concern today is with a single issue. Divine love (agape) is always opposed to sin. It does not tolerate sin. Sin is anything opposed to God’s will, and since God is love we can define sin as any action contrary to the love of God. If we are truly in a relationship with the living God, we will feel strong opposition to anything and everything contrary to Him and His love.
This is not to say we can practice love unerringly. Only God is pure love. It is to say that Christians do not make excuses for their loveless behavior. Rather, sin (lovelessness) leads to confession and repentance. Paul said, “Make love your aim” (1 Cor, 14:1 RSV). Love is the target we aim at. While we sometimes miss the target, we are always aiming to manifest love, or we are repenting for our failures. Once you settle down and become comfortable with sin you have abandoned love, and those who abandon love abandon God.
We are like a boxer who takes punches from our opponent, sin. Sometimes we stagger and even fall to the canvas, but we are never knocked out. When the final bell rings and the fight of life is over, we are victorious, because love is stronger than sin.
Love's opposition to sin can be broken down into three categories. Love opposes sin in our own lives; love opposes sin in the lives of others; love opposes sin in society. When God’s love gets inside of us, we are very uncomfortable with sin in any manner, shape, or form.
Our battle against sin is not easy. In Hebrews 12:3, it is described as a struggle. The same author described sin as a weight that weighs us down (Heb. 12:1). Sin comes easily and naturally to us. Manifesting divine love at times seems so difficult. The Christian life involves struggle, tears, and much repentance. I recall a conversation years ago with a man who made what I thought was a strange statement. He said, “I sin deliberately every day. It is not a big deal because I know God forgives me.” I hope he misspoke. No Christian sins deliberately every day. Yes, we fall into sin, but we do not casually declare that we disobey God knowingly and openly daily.
Yes, God is forgiving, but remember the words of Paul when he spoke about this matter of willful sin. “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (Romans 6:1). Some who heard Paul’s message that we are justified by faith alone apart from the works of the law concluded that since God wants to forgive, the more we sin the more God’s grace can shine through. Like my friend of many years ago, they assumed their sins were unimportant since they could always ask for forgiveness.
Notice the radical manner in which Paul describes the Christian’s relationship to sin. We are dead to sin. This is a common Greek idiom. To die to a thing or a person is to have nothing to do with it or him. We see this in the parable of the Prodigal Son. When the son left home, the father thought of him as “dead.” He was not physically dead, but their relationship had ended. When Paul said we are dead to sin he was saying that we no longer have a relationship with it. The love of God has so taken hold of us that we abhor that which is contrary to God’s will. John says in 1 John 3:17 that a Christian who has the means to help a needy person but refuses to do so is void of divine love. If a sin of omission means that the love of God is absent from our lives, what shall we say about willful sins of commission, like gossip, adultery, lying, hatred, and the like?
The bottom line here is simple. If the love of God truly dwells in us, we will fight against sin in our own lives. We will not be casual about disobedience to God. When we know we have fallen into disobedience we will quickly repent. This is simply the nature of agape love. Remember, love has to do with how we act than how we feel. (1 John 3:18).
When divine love is present not only do we oppose sin in our own lives, but also in the lives of fellow believers. This can get tricky and many stumble at this point. We hesitate to confront others about their bad behavior for fear of offending them. Frankly, I am glad I do not know of any overt sins going on in this church because I must admit it would be hard for me to confront any of you. I hope I would have the courage to confront it, but it is never easy. Consider this; if we wink at the bad behavior of others what message does that send? We are saying to others and ourselves “Sin is no big deal. Let’s just all agree to hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.” If the love of God is in my heart I must confront your sins for your sake, and you must confront mine for my sake.
Jesus’ directions in Matthew 18:15-17 would surely top the list of Scriptures most often ignored in the church. "If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Jesus offers a step-by-step process for dealing with disobedient church members. The idea is to lead them to repentance, but if they will not repent they are to be removed from the church. I have never seen this process followed. I hope it is because the churches I have served have not had open and rebellious sinners in the membership.
You may recall a church in the news a few years ago which did follow this procedure and removed a woman guilty of adultery from the church. When her sin was “told to the church” in harmony with the words of Jesus, she sued and won! However, churches that turn a blind eye to sinning members will be spiritually weakened. While we must obey the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 18 with great care and compassion, we ignore His words at our peril. There is more to say here but I must move on.
The third and final place where love confronts sin is in society at large. While there is a sense in which church and state are separate, that separation evaporates when the state takes up positions in conflict with biblical revelation. As Peter expressed it, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). In that case, the state was seeking to silence the proclamation of the Gospel. Peter and the others refused to obey such a request.
In our day the state (the Supreme Court) has said that it is okay to kill unborn children via abortion. Our love for human life, created in God’s image, compels us to speak out against this blatant violation of the will of God. I suspect that the judgment of God will fall upon this nation unless there is widespread repentance and a policy change. How any Christian can see abortion as being compatible with divine love is beyond me. I agree that rape, incest, and the life of the mother are mitigating circumstances, but most abortions performed in this country do not meet those criteria. I am thankful that this church supports our local crisis pregnancy center, a pro-life ministry to women who struggle with an unwanted pregnancy.
There are sins in society that are not the fault of the state, but of the church itself. When the denomination in which I grew up, The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), began to reject the truth that Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world, some of us felt that love required us to speak out. Jesus Christ as the world’s only Savior is the cornerstone doctrine of our faith, and to deny His unique role as Savior is to overthrow the entire Christian religion. Again, I am thankful that this church joined with this movement to keep Jesus Christ at the center of our faith.
I must bring this message to a close. I realize I have skimmed over some very important issues rather quickly. I am always willing to discuss these issues with you further if you have questions. Our Wednesday Bible study is also a good time to discuss things in greater detail.
I cannot leave this topic without raising one more important issue. While love must always stand in opposition to sin, we must never allow anger against the sinner to control us. We stand in opposition to sin in others because of our love for them. I admit that confronting sin in self, in others, or in the wider society can be challenging, but Christian love (agape) has no choice. We must either confront sin or deny love. When we deny divine love, we deny God, for God is love.
Our expanding definition of Christian love can now be stated as follows: Christian love is the voluntary expression of goodwill toward all, friend and foe alike. It is motivated by our love for Christ and acts in harmony with His commandments. Love is always opposed to sin while maintaining good will toward persons who are living in rebellion against God. May such love abound in our church.
