God's love through me

We are continuing our series, / / UnConditional: Experiencing the Love of God this morning.

Last week we talked about the Holy Spirit, the fact that when we talk about the love of God we aren’t just talking about the Father’s love, or about Jesus, or about God in general - even though we are talking about all of those things, we are also talking about the specific ways in which God, as a trinitarian entity loves humanity. Each individually, and also, collectively.

Scripture talks in a way that really clearly says God, as the Godhead, or the Trinity as the One True God, loves people.

We read John 3:16 last week, / / “For this is how God [theos] loved the world:”

That word, theos, is speaking to the Godhead, or the Trinity, not specifically of God the Father, God the Son or God the Holy Spirit, but as God, the one true God.

The Old Testament Hebrew language used the word Yahweh, which more specifically means the One True God. But we know through scripture that although He is the One True God, he is also three in that one, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

Lamentations 3:22-23, from the Old Testament, says, / / The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

Lord in that scripture, just like the verse from Isaiah 55 we read last week, is Yahweh, which is considered the proper name of the One True God!

We also talked about the fact that our life situations, our experiences, what we have learned and been taught, but also what’s been shown to us through other people and how they have interacted with us influences what we believe about things in our lives. We are impacted either positively or negatively by the actions of others. Very rarely have I heard someone say, “Ya, I’m good. That didn’t really effect me.” and actually believe them. Especially when it’s a child.

I was reading this week about some research that’s been done on the effect of negative experiences vs. positive experiences. And there is anywhere from a 3 - 1 and up to a 6 - 1 ratio of positive interactions, or experiences to offset just 1 negative experience.

Now, think about that with our kids in school all day. Our children our out of our immediate influence for more time than they are in our immediate influence. We were reminded again through a couple situations with ourselves and friends of ours that this is the truth, no one will advocate or protect your child MORE than you will. We can’t sit back and wait for someone to go to bat for our kids.

If it takes, let’s say on average 5 good experiences to offset just 1 negative experience, and some days our daughter comes home and has had multiple negative experiences, how important does that make it for our home to be a home of love and peace and positivity?

And this is super important for what we’re going to talk about today. Because in talking about the UnConditional love of God, we are also led by His Spirit to be a part of that process in the lives of others, to relay the love of God to the people around us.

Last week we talked about one of the functions of the Holy Spirit. We read from Romans 5:5 which says, / / For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Or the ESV says it this way, / / …God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

And if we take scriptures like Romans 5:5, that / / God’s love is being poured into us, and Psalm 46:10 which says, Be still and know that I am God, and Psalm 23:5 which says, …my cup overflows - if we put all of that together we can be confident in saying:

/ / God loves me, and gave me His Holy Spirit when I believed in Jesus Christ, and is now pouring his love into me, and all I need to do is stop and receive at any moment, any time, any place.

Here’s the thing, there is truth and then there is experiencing that truth. That’s what this whole thing is about, and that is the journey we are on.

Do you know the truth, but also, are you experiencing that truth in your life?

/ / It’s one thing to know God loves you, it’s another thing to stop long enough to allow him to pour that love into you!

The truth itself is absolutely important. This is why the first week we simply talked about the fact that God IS a Father, Jesus said so, and not only is he Jesus’ Father but he brings us into that relationship. Second week. God, as OUR Father, LOVES us - regardless of what we’ve experienced in this life, through our relationships or whatever, God is a perfect father and loves perfectly, and we are simply catching up to that. The more we allow Him to love us, the more of His love we experience.

And some people get a bit bent out of shape over that because it can sound like a condition is being put on God’s love. But that’s not the case.

Let’s talk about what it means to / / love UnConditionally.

To do that we need to look at what Scripture says love is. Now of course this is Paul’s writing on the subject, but it’s a really great start to defining love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says this about love.

/ / Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

So, let’s just look at that from the perspective of God’s love for us.

/ / God is patient toward us. Unbelievably patient. In fact, He is so patient that He gave us free will, knowing full well what is best for us in every situation, and yet, does not ever force it on us. He allows US to choose our own fate by the free will we’ve been given. Imagine that. Constantly knowing what is best for someone, constantly seeing them make the wrong choices, and sit back and allowing them to do it because to do anything else would simply being controlling them and control is never love.

/ / God is kind. That’s a simple one, isn’t it? The definition of kindness is having or showing a friendly, generous and considerate nature.

/ / Love is not jealous. This might be confusing when you know that Exodus 20:5 says, / / You must not bow down to [idols] or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God… Different Jealous. Love is not jealous is more in line with the word envy, which is a discontented or resentful longing for something that someone else has. When the bible talks about God being jealous it is talking about his passion toward us. God desires to be the only God in your life. He wants you all to himself, and wants you to have all of himself. That is very different from I want your things. Love doesn’t envy you for what you have, that’s a very human thing.

/ / Love is not boastful, or proud or rude - I would say God is none of those things. Another word for proud there would be arrogant, or puffed up. Full of themselves. God became human and died on a cross… He is none of those things.

/ / Not irritable - nope, Psalm 145:8-9 says, / / The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger and filled with unfailing love. The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation.

/ / Keeps no record of being wronged. Imagine if God held a grudge… Psalm 103:8-12 says, and the first part will sound familiar, / / The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to anger and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

/ / Love doesn’t rejoice in injustice but rejoices in the truth.

We could simply swap God in for Love in all of these statements, couldn’t we?

God is patient, God is kind. God is not jealous or boastful, God is not proud or rude. God is not irritable and doesn’t hold a grudge. God doesn’t rejoice when there is injustice, but rejoices when people accept and live by the truth!

And then the last part of this passage of scripture is beautiful when we swap love for God. / / God never gives up, God never loses faith, God is always hopeful, God endures through every circumstance.

Now, I’ve gone through all of this for one very simple reason, but I need it to stick in my life - I need to remember this fact.

All of that can happen without experiencing any of it.

God can be 100% kind, but I may never experience his kindness.

God can be 100% patient, but I may never experience his patience.

Why? Because / / love being unconditional from the one who is giving that love does not mean I have removed the conditions from my life to accept that love.

Love does not require relationship. I can love you without ever getting to know you. BUT, love is meant to be experienced in relationship. I can love you all I want, but if you want nothing to do with me or what I can or cannot do for you, then you won’t ever experience my love for you.

And sure, we could argue, if you experience the Sun shining on your face you’re experiencing the love of God expressed through his creation. Sure, I’ll give you that. But if you never acknowledge that it’s God, then you’ll never live like it was God loving you, and you will miss out on the true experience of God’s love.

God’s love is 100% unconditional. He puts no demands on you to love you. He loves you 100%. So much so that he’s provided the best of the best, freedom and life through Jesus Christ. But if we aren’t willing to accept it, receive it, live by it, how will we ever experience it?

Have you ever watched a YouTube video where someone walks up to someone with something and asks them if they want it, but the person doesn’t know what it is, and doesn’t know who the person is, so they don’t trust the person and they don’t trust what they are going to give them?

I watched one the other night, it was just this stupid little video, but it had me hooked for some reason. This guy is walking around with a bojangles box, asks the first person, “I’ve got 1 chicken tender in here, do you want it, or pass and I’ll double it for the next person.”

And the person looked at him like, “I don’t know you, why would I trust your gift of a chicken tender?”

Second was actually 2 people, “I’ve got 2 chicken tenders, you can have them, one each, or pass and I’ll double it for the next person.” “pass...”

next person, 4 chicken tenders …“pass”

next person, 8 chicken tenders ...“pass”

Finally, a guy is walking by, “I’ve got 16 chicken tenders. You can have them, or pass and I’ll double for the next person...”

The guy grabs the box and walks of with 16 chicken tenders…I would have too.

My point is this. For whatever reason, and I wouldn’t say a single one of them was to bless the next person. I would say every one of them was based on a mistrust for the person asking. Either, “Why are you asking me this? I don’t know you” or “What is wrong with the chicken tenders” or simply “Why are you trying to give me something for free?”

We see it every time we do a town event, “How much for the water?” “It’s free, we have 5 signs here, very large signs, that say the water is free...” “really???” like their brain does not compute why we would give water for free. It works because we’ve got everything else going for us, now people know at least we’re a church and they can trust the free water, so they take it. But there’s an apprehension, like, what’s the catch? No catch. Just love expressed through free water.

I am convinced that Romans 1:20-25 perfectly describes where we are at in society at the moment. / / …ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each others bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.

Basically saying, God offered the world his love, but they didn’t recognize him, or want anything to do with him, so they said, “pass.” And instead of worshiping God they decided to worship themselves, science, money, sex, work, sports, nature, anything but God.

And when it says God abandoned, it doesn’t mean God stopped loving. Remember, that’s the point, God’s love is unconditional. You can’t say God is love, and love never fails, and then say “oh, but God’s no longer there for you.” No, God is always there for you, no matter what you do, what you believe, what you are worshiping, God is right there waiting for you. But what that word means, the ESV says it this way, God gave them up… it means “to surrender”.

It’s like saying, “Ok, I get it, You want to do this on your own.”

If you have children, you get this. How many times have I been sitting there trying to explain something to Kaylee and she just won’t have it. And eventually I have to allow her to just do it her own way and learn the lesson for herself through difficulty rather than through me trying to explain it so she can avoid the difficulty. It just is what it is. As she is growing up there is less and less in her life I can control. As a parent I need to be very aware of where that line is. There are still things I absolutely control. She’s only 9. She don’t know the things. But as she grows, she gains more freedom to learn and experience life for herself.

This is why last week we looked at the reality that the Holy Spirit is the felt love of God and to experience that love we must be still, put our cup under the fountain of his love and allow him to love us! I use my God given freedom to return to the place of that freedom to experience the love that freedom comes from!

And the more we get used to that, and the more we engage with Him, the more we learn to be receptive to His love no matter what we are doing. I think as we are learning to quiet our lives and our hearts enough to engage with God it is easier to literally stop the world around us. But as time goes on and you grow in this relationship you realize you don’t have to stop everything to be still and know that He is God.

/ / Brother Lawrence, who was a monk in the 1600s, wrote a little book called The Practice of the Presence of God. When he joined the monastery he was assigned to the kitchen, not a great or graceful job, yet, listen to what he says:

“Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God’s presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him? [we don’t need] great things to do… We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him and [when I am] done [that], if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up a straw from the ground for the love of God.”

That doesn’t mean it was easy. He talks about the disciplined life he led to draw his heart and his mind into a place of yielding to God’s presence. He said, “As often as I could, I placed myself as a worshiper before him, fixing my mind upon his holy presence, recalling it when I found it wandering from him. This proved to be an exercise frequently painful, yet I persisted through all difficulties.”

Ok, so we said this last week. You are a cup, and you will be filled with something. Some are filled with anger. Some are filled with anxiety. Some are filled with lust. Some are filled with drive, or purpose, so they’re always busy. And whatever you are filled with, will be what spills out of you onto others.

And as we looked at last week that we are meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit who God uses to pour His love into our hearts, where Psalms says it will overflow from our cups, I want to take a bit of time this morning and look at the role that overflow has in our lives and the lives of people around us.

I’m always preaching Healthy Community, right? That’s my desire, that what we are doing here is healthy community. It’s people who love God and are filled with His love so that out of our lives flows the love of God rather than all the other things in this world that want to fill our cups and get poured out on the people around us.

See, for us to truly have healthy community, we have to all be committed to being filled with this love so that out of our lives flows the effect of that love and that love itself.

This was, I think, the main point that Jesus was trying to make when he was here on the earth.

Matthew writes about this encounter between Jesus and some of the Pharisees. They had heard Jesus talking to some other people, got upset about what he was saying, as they normally did, got together and tried to figure out how they could question him and trap him in some sort of awkward situation, which Jesus never fell for. Matthew 22:35-40 tells the story, / / One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

In Luke 10 someone asked Jesus about the Greatest commandment, and when he said to love your neighbor the guy tried to get wise with him and said, “Ya, but who’s my neighbor?” and Jesus responds by telling the story of the Good Samaritan - and you can read that on your own time, it’s Luke 10:25-37, but, the result of the story is this, everyone is your neighbor, you’re meant to love everyone.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. In classic Jesus style, he takes it one giant step further in John 13:34-35, he says to his disciples. / / “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Just as I have loved you!

Oh man, talk about a tall order, right?

Now, let’s take a brief pause here and look at this. If you want to talk about evangelism, which is the outreaching of Christians to those who do not yet follow Jesus to invite them into a relationship with Jesus, this verse right here, John 13:34, is the greatest form of evangelism you will EVER have.

After Jesus has been crucified, buried, raised from the dead and had spent 40 days with his disciples, he’s about to ascend into heaven, and in Acts 1:8, after telling them to wait in Jerusalem until they receive the Holy Spirit, he says, / / “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere - in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This is obviously a very literal statement, they’re going to be in Jerusalem, so they’re going to start in Jerusalem, but I think this is also a very figurative statement and also a descriptive statement about what their lives should look like.

Jerusalem is the heart of Jewish culture. Start there. With your family, with those you already know.

What did Jesus say in John 13:35, that by our love for each other, people will know that you are followers of Jesus. Not by your facebook posts. Not by you voting a particular party, or holding a particular belief, or judging people’s sin, but by your love for the other disciples of Jesus.

That’s where it starts. Jesus says, / / Just as I have loved you… 1 John 4:19 says, We love each other because he loved us first.

I think that’s Jerusalem in Acts 1:8, love each other. And love each other well. Once you’ve got that figured out, you’re ready to love the next group, Judea.

What’s Judea, it’s the place that didn’t believe in Jesus, they rejected his ministry. Can you love the people who are religious, or spiritual but don’t believe in Jesus? That reject the ministry of Jesus?

What about Samaria? If you know the tension between the Samaritans and the Jews, it was intense. There was a lot of animosity there. Jews would literally take a longer route to get to where they were going just so they could avoid walking through Samaria. And now Jesus is telling them that’s one of the places they’re going to go and love people and share the gospel. Why? Remember, who is your neighbor?

So, that group of people is the ones who are diametrically opposed to you. I mean, just 100% opposite. They think they are right and you are wrong.

And then, to the ends of the earth, where there are people who have never heard about Jesus or anything he’s done. They may not even know there’s a God, let alone he sent his Son to die for them and set them free from all sin and death.

But where does it start? Can you love each other?

And if you don’t have that down, forget trying to get anything else done.

I’ll say this, and this might be a bold statement, but that’s no so bad.

/ / Our love for each other is our greatest witness that God is at work in our midst.

BUT, Christian tension and infighting, bickering and backstabbing, disagreeing and animosity, judgement and even things like loneliness, or people feeling not accepted, not included, not loved.... that’s the greatest detriment to any witness we might ever have.

If someone looking in to the church doesn’t see something worth living for, why would they ever join it?

If our community is not something that looks like what Jesus said, “By your love for each other it will be obvious that you are my disciples...” Then why would anyone want to be a part of it.

Now, that means two things.

/ / You have to want it.

You have to want others to want it.

If you can’t give yourself to community. If you can’t give yourself to receiving the love of people and giving your love to people, then you won’t ever be in a place where you feel like you have something to invite people in to. If you go to church because the music is good, or the preaching is good, or it’s small and that’s comfortable for you, or it’s big and that’s comfortable for you, or the kids program is great… and none of those things are bad, but if you aren’t going because you want to fall in love with God, and let God’s love be poured into your heart so that it overflows onto the people around you, then you’re missing this new commandment that Jesus gave his disciples.

I’ve actually heard people say, “I find it easier to be around non-christians than christians. I find it easier to love non-christians than christians.”

Ouch. And let me tell you, that’s not a diss on the people who are hard to love, that’s a diss on them and their inability to love.

If we don’t figure this love thing out within our own community, then the outside world won’t ever want into this community. Because there’s plenty of communities out there having a good time. You know there’s a church called the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You can’t make this stuff up. They call themselves Pastafarians and I think the point is to rail at Christianity because of this very thing, we haven’t shown love well. My point is this. People want community. It’s how God created us. But if the community of God isn’t something people want to be a part of, they’ll find it somewhere else. In a dance studio, a baseball diamond, a bar, a spaghetti house…why? Because they feel loved and accepted. Why do other people want to join? Because they look through the window and see love and acceptance.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a message to say that we’re doing it wrong. I think we’re on a great track! I really really do. I also think that this is something we have to keep 100% front and center, always be talking about it, always be pursuing it, always be working toward a greater sense of loving each other with the love that we are receiving from God!

This is where last weeks message of learning to be filled with the love of God through the Holy Spirit is applied in our love for each other.

Let me tell you a quick story. I’ve shared in the last few weeks on my own struggle with insecurity and this unbearable belief that no one would love me or accept me. When I went to Toronto in 2001, I was going to this 6 month ministry school where the main focus was to deal with the issues in our hearts that hold us back from the love of God so that we can be fully filled, transformed and love like Jesus loves. I mean, that was the goal. To learn, like Brother Lawrence did, to live in the presence of God. In fact, the mission statement plastered on this massive banner at the back of the Sanctuary read, “To walk in God’s love and give it away.”

To receive, and let my cup overflow onto others.

Well, when I got there, my cup was full of hurt and pain and insecurity. I didn’t have anything to give.

And over the next few months as I was learning about and sitting in the love of God, working through the old so I could accept the new, one of the greatest miracles in my life was not just that God loved me, accepted me, approved of me, but that people around me loved me for me. It was absolutely transforming. It was life changing. That people would love me for me.

UnConditionally. Like, they just liked me. They just loved me. For me! They saw value and love and life inside of me. And they loved me into that.

We lived 4 hours away from Toronto, and when my parents picked me up after the school was done, and we were driving back home, I cried the entire time. Because for the first time in my life I had experienced a love that accepted me for me. Warts and all, as they say.

But it was a process. And it took me being willing to be seen so that others could see into me. Guarded hearts are hard to love.

It took allowing God to tear down the walls I had built around my heart because of the hurt and pain I had experienced.

Romans 12:2 says / / …let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. The ESV says, / / …be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

That word, renewal means a complete renovation. What’s a renovation? It’s a tearing down of the old so that you can clean the area out, and start fresh, and build in what is new. God wants to do that in each and every one of us. Tear down what we believe about ourselves that is wrong. Destroy all the lies we’ve come to believe about ourselves. All the ways we put ourselves down and think we are not worthy, and then as a result, don’t know how to love others because we ourselves don’t know how to be loved.

Here’s the amazing part. And maybe you know this, maybe you don’t. But, / / you are an integral part of the unconditional love of God transforming the lives of the people around you!

But here’s the kicker - you have to learn to allow God to love you first so that you have something to give.

Let me be honest with you. I need your love in my life. And there’s some of you that I don’t know enough yet to have that. And I want that. And guess what, I think you need my love too. I don’t just think it, I know it, because Jesus said it. And you need the love of the person sitting next to you, in front of you, on the other side of the room from you.

And let me talk to those of you on the internet with us for a moment. We need your love too. And I love that you can join us online. If that’s the capacity you have, I bless you this morning to receive as much as you possibly can. I know some of you can’t make it out to be with us in person. But let me just say, if you can, do it. Be here with us. Get to know the people who you are worshipping God with week in and week out. When we talk about Family Dinner Night, block that off on your calendar like it’s the most important thing in the world, because to be honest, it just might be.

John wrote in his first of three letters, 1 John 4:7-21 about this love working itself out in community. And I want to read part of it this morning, and I encourage you to read all of it on your own time. He writes this, / / Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love - not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

And we jump down to vs 16, God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

vs 19, We love each other because he loved us first. …if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.

That preaches itself right there. No explanation needed, right?

Listen, we love the world. We love our neighbors. We love our community. We do events to express that love. We go to the town events to express that love. But as much as we can do to express God’s love to the world, if we don’t get this part right here, the invitation is empty. Because we are not inviting people into a relationship with Jesus only, we are inviting people into a relationship with us. And if we aren’t ready to really be healthy community, then people won’t be ready to become a part of that community.

Our mission here at this church is to be a / / Christ centered, Holy Spirit empowered, Father’s love carrying group of followers of Jesus that live life together and experience God together.

To be on mission without relationship is missing the point, and to be in relationship without mission is equally missing the point. We want to be a healthy community that gives place for people to not just experience God, but be a part of healthy community.

And that happens by making two commitments that come out of the new commandment that Jesus gave his disciples in John 13:34.

/ / Commit to engaging with and receiving the love of Jesus.

Commit to loving like Jesus does.

I want to end with this thought this morning.

1 John 4:16-19 says this, God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

That’s step one, / / Commit to engaging with and receiving the love of Jesus. God loves us, but we have to receive it. You are a cup, and the love of God is pouring out, are you positioning yourself to be filled and overflowing with that love?

Then John continues, talking about this love that is becoming more perfect in us. / / So we will not be afraid on the day of judgement, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

What’s living like Jesus in this world? He’s pointing to how we love each other, isn’t he? I mean, he was there when Jesus said this. He wrote that He had said it. Same guy who wrote John 13:34, “A new commandment I give you: love each other as I have loved you.” Is now encouraging the church to love like Jesus loves.

And then he continues. / / Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he first loved us.

I want you to see something this morning that took me a long time to see. And I had experienced it in my life, but didn’t understand it until years later.

vs 12 says this, / / …if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. The ESV says it this way, / / …if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

How is God’s love made perfect? When we love each other. Now, to quickly define / / perfect here, we are not talking about without error, we are talking about God’s love being complete. That’s why the NLT says that the love of God is brought to full expression in us when we love each other.

Ok, now, move down to vs 17, / / And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. Or more complete.

So we are on a journey of love, we abide, or make our home in God’s love. We place that cup beneath the waterfall of God’s love, asking Holy Spirit, “Pour out the love of God into me, so fully that it spills over.” And we begin to love each other out of that love, and in that, as vs 12 says, our love is perfected - that’s when we experience the full expression of God’s love, because if we can’t love each other we aren’t truly abiding in God, and we aren’t truly abiding in love.

And then we get to the power of this love working through us for each other… vs 18, / / perfect love expels all fear. I we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

For years I saw that as needing more of God’s love personally, but what happened in Toronto more than 20 years ago was the very definition of this verse. It wasn’t just that I received God’s love from Him, but that I also received His love through the community around me. It was THAT love that was perfected through the community of believers that drove out the fear of insecurity and hurt and rejection.

Could we say this, / / The love of God will not be fully expressed in the earth until the people of God learn to love like Jesus loves!

And it starts with loving other believes. With the other disciples of Jesus. See, and then we realize that in you, and in me, through the love of God poured into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit is the very power to set each other free from the bondage that is holding us back in life.

But we can’t love each other out of bondage if we’re not willing to show each other our chains.

We can’t love each other into healing if we aren’t willing to show each other our wounds.

See, we can also say this, / / You will not experience the full expression of God’s love for you until you are willing to allow the other believers around you to love you and be loved by you!

You want to know how the world will know we’re disciples of Jesus? When the power of love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit has so impacted us and spilled over onto each other that we’re all walking taller, and freer and more healed than ever before. We shine brightest when we allow the love of God to be poured into their hearts and out of our lives onto those around us.

Yes, Love needs to be UnConditional from the one giving it. But it also has to be accepted in order to experience the power of it.

In the same way we need to be open and willing for God’s love to transform us, we have to be open and willing for the love of God THROUGH others to impact us AND to be a part of the love of God for their lives. Only in that is God’s UnConditional love made complete in us. When we learn to receive love and give love from God and each other!