Finding True Love
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
WHAT IS LOVE?
There are songs about love
Estimate: over 100 million love songs
There are books about love
There are moves about love
Not just a romantic love,
we’re talking heroes (military)
we’re talking friendships (fox and the hound)
Love is one of the single greatest motivators for human action
Love is one of the most powerful emotion in human experience
Love is something we all give, it is something we all crave
Love between friends
Love between family
Love between couples
Love between church members
Love between strangers
We were created to love, and we were created with the desire to be loved
LOVE is an integral part of our lives
AND, Love is not just huge in our culture, it’s been a main theme throughout 1 John. we’ve spent lots of time talking about love and you may be sick of it ...
John has said, up to this point...
10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
I’ve preached the following sermons just on love...
We’ve had at least 4-5 sermons on the specific topic of love. Loving God and loving others.
IT’S VERY CLEAR THAT LOVE IS IMPORTANT, ESSENTIAL, COMMANDED
LOVE MUST EXIST IN THE LIVE OF A BELIEVER!!!
We should know what love is
We should know what love does
What is love, and what is its purpose?
It’s easy to see what love ISN’T
but how do we know what TRUE LOVE IS?
Self-examination to get started
Do we know what love is?
Are we practically loving in the way that we should love?
Think about these questions:
If Christ evaluated the quality of your love, what would he say?
If Christ evaluated the truthfulness of your love, what would he say?
If Christ evaluated your love as a reflection of God’s love, what would he say?
Is true biblical love present in our lives, and is it measuring up to the biblical standard?
SERMON
SERMON
Let’s look at our passage this evening:
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
This passage progresses and builds upon the text from last week;
Background
Background
LAST WEEK...
We talked about discernment, testing the spirits, BECAUSE there are two spirits at work in this world.
The Spirit of God — leads you to know, love, and serve God
The Spirit of This World, the Devil — leads you to forget, hate, and oppose God
We want to be able to discern the Spirit of God so that we can know, love, and serve God.
If we have the Spirit of God, if we’re listening to Him, He helps us to know God, and one of things we must know is that God is love.
If you know God, and listen to God, then you’ll know that God is love, and those who know God will also love.
There is an inseparable relationship between truth and love
We’ve talked about discernment, knowing the truth and protecting the truth, but you cannot be devoid of (without) love in the process.
It can be easy to devote yourself to theology and truth (KNOWING THE RIGHT ANSWERS) while being cold and loveless in the process
IF THE PURPOSE of the truth is to lead you to knowing God, you will be led to know that God is love and love is from God.
If you know, share, and protect the truth but do so without of love; you are going to misrepresent God’s character and God’s actions because God is love
Think of examples of the truth without love:
Arguments (with AJ) and holiness/sin but lacking love
judgmental/hostile churches dogmatic about truth but lacking love
Jesus showed us a better way; he brought us the truth in love (This is what we’re looking at tonight)
Followers of God must have both truth and love; both will be present in true children of God
WHY IS THIS?
WHY IS IT THAT TRUTH AND LOVE ARE INSEPARABLE
WHY IS IT THAT CHILDREN OF GOD MUST HAVE BOTH?
The Spirit of God leads you to know God (in truth)
The God that you are lead to know in truth is the God who IS love; is the perfection of love.
If you have the Spirit of God, who helps you to know the truth, who helps you to know God, HE WILL GUIDE YOU to know that GOD. IS. LOVE.
If you don’t have love then you don’t know the God of true love and you haven’t experienced the true love of God.
It is impossible to know God (in the relational sense) and not have love.
1. View God as the source and standard of true love (vv. 7-10).
1. View God as the source and standard of true love (vv. 7-10).
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
View God as the source of true love — Love is from God — THE SOURCE
Whoever loves has been born of God (experiential source of love)
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
You want to know how you can love others, why you should love others? It’s because God predestined you in love, for love
Explain Predestination briefly
All of us have sin nature
All of us commit sin
All of us are running full speed away from God, towards hell, willingly
BUT GOD, IN LOVE,
Chose to predestine, to save some people from themselves, from their sin
He stopped us in our tracks and turned us around in love
That is love from God, that is why we can love
If you are able to love like you should, it’s because you are born again
Not born again? Unable to love God on your own
Not born again? Unable to love others on your own
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
You were created to love God and others, but your love has turned to self-love.
Whoever loves knows God (exemplary source of love)
You want to know how and why you should love others? God has shown us how and why.
If you know God, you know how to love
If you know God, you know why you love
God is love.
Look at the Trinity relationship
Look at Creation
Look at God’s character throughout Scripture
If you are able to love, it’s because you know (in a relational sense) God
Not born again? Unfamiliar with what love is
Not born again? Unfamiliar with how to love
Not born again? Unfamiliar with why to love
God is Love — THE STANDARD
God is love means that love is part of God’s character.
God is the perfection of love
So, when defining love, when learning to love, we must look at the embodiment of love, the perfection of love:
ILLUSTRATION: Think of learning something by observing the perfection of it
Learning a skill
Finding the “ideal”
No one has seen God at any time, so how can we see the perfection of love?
Here’s how...
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
This is the perfection of love, God’s love, on display:
God sent His one and only Son into the world
So that we might live through Him
God loved us, when we hated Him
God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin
This is the perfection of love.
So for us, when John says “let us love one another,” what does that look like?
We could define true biblical love this way:
True Biblical Love: the desire for others to know, love, and serve God; and sacrificially devoting your whole self to that mission.
God desires for us to know Him (experiencing his love for us), to love and serve Him (expressing our love for Him); and He sacrificially gave of Himself to make that happen.
So, if God is love, and that is how he expressed that love, that is the standard for us as we pursue a life of love.
2. Live a life defined by the true love of God (vv. 10-11).
2. Live a life defined by the true love of God (vv. 10-11).
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Your life is defined by the true love of God in two ways:
ONE: Life defined as a recipient of the true love of God
This means: God’s love at work in redeeming you
This means: recipient of the gospel
WHAT DID LOVE COST FOR CHRIST?
Taking on Flesh (laying aside his glory, taking on frail, feeble flesh)
Have you ever humbled or made yourself weak for someone else?
Lowly life
Suffered the hatred of others who HE CREATED
Sadness
Hunger
Mocking
Betrayal
Poor compared to riches of heaven
Painful death
Bearing the wrath of God
Jesus, who exists in the loving triune Godhead, suffered the wrath of God
Propitiation
Propitiation means “averting the wrath of God by the offering of a gift.” It refers to the turning away of the wrath of God as the just judgment of our sin by God’s own provision of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. (Ligon Duncan; Gospel Coalition)
Different from pagan propitiation, God is just, and holy, in his wrath
Pagan: giving something in hopes of turning away the anger of an angry god
Giving cookies to your angry parent?
God was righteously angry and wrathful
God provided a sacrifice for his anger
God gave of Himself (His Son) to turn away that anger, for us.
He provided propitiation
He is the propitiation
THE MEANS OF FORGIVENESS
It wasn’t whimsical
It wasn’t cheap
It wasn’t contradictory to God’s nature
God’s Love:
He wants you to experience joy
He wants you to experience peace
He wants you to experience life
He wants you to know Him
God is the ultimate, the greatest, and He wants you to know and experience Him
TWO: Life defined as an ambassador of the true love of God
If you have received God’s love and known God’s love, you are now able to love like He created you to love
Your life has been defined by love because now you have life
BUT ALSO, now your live is defined by love because you give love to others
You get to join in the work of helping people to know God, what an amazing work!
The Love we have been shown propels us to live in love
14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Love for others is possible because of God’s Love for us
God’s Love for us provides a template of love for others
We are the ambassadors of God’s love on earth
Love reflects God Character
Children of God are redeemed to know God and imitate God which means to love like God
If you are not loving like God, do you know God? If you do not know God, are you a child of God?
APPLICATION:
Experience the gospel
For believers:
Share the gospel
Model God’s love to others
Through sacrifice
Through sharing the truth
Through the fruit of the Spirit
Through living God’s way (holiness)
JUSTIFYING FOR UNBELIEVERS
SANCTIFYING FOR BELIEVERS (picture of marriage)
Not only is God’s character love and our life marked by love, but love is our way of testifying to the world about God and the gospel
3. Testify to the true love of God through your life (vv.12-14).
3. Testify to the true love of God through your life (vv.12-14).
12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
TESTIFY: give evidence as a witness in a law court.
TESTIFY: serve as evidence or proof of something's existing or being the case.
TESTIFY: BEAR WITNESS/to offer firsthand authentication in favor or in affirmation of someone
Love bears witness to God’s existence
Love bears witness to God’s character
The love of the world is not love
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
THE OPPOSITE:
selfless
generous
humble
gentle
honoring/obedient
thankful
holy
compassionate
content
edifying
self-controlled
loving good
thoughtful
Loving God rather than loving self (pleasure
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
Love bears witness to God’s work
in the world
in your life
Love bears witness to God’s worthiness and God’s glory
Closing
Closing
1–3 John 1. Origin and Effect of God’s Love (4:7)
Love, John seems to be saying, is to be sought, hallowed, nurtured, and guarded simply by virtue of its inherent God-rootedness.