15d) Love's Example
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at the 5 different areas of Timothy’s life that Paul instructed him to be an example for the believers. These were areas that he was to exhibit in his own personal life in his service to the Lord and in his leading of the church in Ephesus.
12 Don’t let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.
So far we have looked at speech and conduct. We looked at how God says that our speech and conduct are an overflow of that which is stored up inside a person’s heart.
45 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
The bible teaches much about good speech and good conduct and that these are both fruit of what is being built up inside of a person. These are both external results of the work of the flesh of man or the work of the spirit of God that dwells in each believer.
The next one that Paul list is love. A little four letter word that seems so simple and yet so complex at the same time. Some thing we are all looking for. We say that we fall in love and fall out of love. It seems like a phantom to some and to some a blessing or a curse. It is a word that means different things to different people. Is it an emotion or a feeling? Is it an action or a motivation?
Paul tells Timothy to be an example of love for the church and for the believers. So what is Paul instructing Timothy to do or be? What is his example to look like? In Jesus’ own words the greatest commandments are
36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Jesus stated that all of the prophets and the law depend on these two commands. Love God and Love your neighbor.
Timothy is to be an example of living out these two commands in the context of a church that is struggling with false teachers, worldly worship, angry arguments, and many other issues at the time. But he is to be an example of loving God and Loving his neighbor.
Love the Lord Your God
Love the Lord Your God
Love the Lord Your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind. Other places in scripture will add your strength to the list. The list is to convey that the entire person is to love the Lord. The deepest parts of us, our minds, what we spend our time thinking about. Our hearts and soul that part of each person that is the source of emotions, feelings, wants, desires, the conscience. Our strength, the work of our hands in the labor of this life.
God has always desired for his people to love him. When he gave Moses the 10 commandments to give to the Israelites the 1st and 2nd commandments state.
Exodus 20:4–6 (CSB)
4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. 5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 6 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.
The covenant with the people commanded that God’s people are to worship him and him alone and to serve God alone. God is worthy of all love and devotion but he will show his faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love him. Different numbers show that there has been between 100 and 200 generations since Adam to us today? God will show his faithful love forever to the generations that love him.
And keep his commands. Love God and obedience to his commands are consistently tied together in the word.
10 times in Moses will use the phrase “Love the Lord you God” or a very close form of it. And each and every time obedience is involved.
Dt 6:1–9 (CSB)
1 “This is the command—the statutes and ordinances—the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, so that you may follow them in the land you are about to enter and possess. 2 Do this so that you may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life by keeping all his statutes and commands I am giving you, your son, and your grandson, and so that you may have a long life. 3 Listen, Israel, and be careful to follow them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly, because the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. 7 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.
Moses teaches the people of God the statutes and ordinances to the people so that they can teach them to their children and grandchildren. They were to live lives that were saturated in the commands of God. They were to be in their heart, they were to be repeated to their children. They were to be talked about and to be seen in the daily life of the people.
After 40 years of wandering in the desert he will remind them of this promise.
9 Know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps his gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commands.
In Chapter 10 he ask the question.
12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you except to fear the Lord your God by walking in all his ways, to love him, and to worship the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul? 13 Keep the Lord’s commands and statutes I am giving you today, for your own good.
Moses will tell them “Love the Lord your Go and always keep his mandates and his statutes, ordinances, and commands.”
God will tell them to Carefully obey them and God will bless them.
13 “If you carefully obey my commands I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and worship him with all your heart and all your soul, 14 I will provide rain for your land in the proper time, the autumn and spring rains, and you will harvest your grain, new wine, and fresh oil.
In chapter 13 he will warn them that their love will be tested to see if they truly Love the lord.
1 “If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, 2 and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let’s follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let’s worship them,’ 3 do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.
In the final days of his ministry he give the nation this final warning and encouragement.
16 For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led astray to bow in worship to other gods and serve them, 18 I tell you today that you will certainly perish and will not prolong your days in the land you are entering to possess across the Jordan. 19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 love the Lord your God, obey him, and remain faithful to him. For he is your life, and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
This would be the primary instruction that Moses gave to Joshua as he takes the place of Moses in leading the nation and leading them into the promised land. Joshua will continue with the same phrase “love the Lord your God” multiple times as well.
The nation of Isreal would struggle to love the Lord. The history of the nation as we read in the old testament is a record of God’s people turning from him to worship idols from other nations and peoples. They will continually fail to obey the commands, statutes, mandates, and ordinances that God gave them.
The promise of blessing and life was not enough to curb the appetite of men and women to go their own way.
We even see that Jesus will communicate the same truths as recorded by the apostle John.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. 21 The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.”
Jesus has instructed his disciples for 3 years and has taught them to live and tells them that those that love him will be the ones that keep his commands and that God will send his Spirit as a councilor and he will remain with those that are his.
This isn’t love by works. It is not the idea of just blindly obeying the rules for the rules sake. It is behavior that is motivated and demonstrated in the obedience to the word of God, to his instruction for our lives.
Timothy must be an example of a man who loves the Lord with all of his mind, soul, heart, and strength.
6 If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of the faith and the good teaching that you have followed.
Timothy grew up with a mother and grandmother that loved God, taught the commands of God to him. He recieved the life giving instruction that he followed in his ministry as a servant to God. Now he is to be an example of the obedience that comes from a life filled with the Holy Spirit. With a life that abides in Christ as Christ abides in him. His life is to be a testimony of a man who follows the commands of God. Not out of compulsion or from some legalism but out of a place of love for the Father and the Son.
We love him because he has demonstrated his great love for us
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
This is the way that God’s love is shown. That while we were still sinners, he would send his son to die for us.
Ephesians 2:4–9 (CSB)
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
Because of his love and his sacrificial demonstration of that love. There is no greater demonstration of love then to die for another. And as believers we love because he first loved us and that he has came to dwell in those that have been saved. His grace and mercy abound as he saved us not by our works but by his will.
In response to that great truth we come to love God and to keep his commands which are not burdensome.
3 For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden, 4 because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.
Love Your Neighbor
Love Your Neighbor
A believer’s love for God will influence their love for others. Not only are we to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul and mind likewise we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Like the greatest commandment, “love you neighbor as yourself” has been taught since the law was given.
18 Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.
Whether they were family or friend, stranger or foreigner, God has commanded his people to love their neighbors as themselves. This would have been very familiar in the Jewish culture and when Jesus speaks on it he expands the scope of who they were to love.
43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus tells believers to love even those that are persecuting them. To pray for them, to intercede for those that may be making life hard and even torturous for you. Lift them up in prayer. The Christian is to be a person of love.
Paul wrote to the church in Galatia
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself.
and then to the Romans
9 The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.
All of the commands of God that are given to his people to guide their behavior with one another are summed up in this commandment. Don’t commit adultery, or murder, or steal, don’t covet are all summed up in loving your neighbor. But this would also include do not lie, or give false witness, slander, gossip, cheat, bribe, or any other interaction that is commanded by God in relation to each others.
It is believed that in the apostle John’s later years he wrote his letters while he was in Ephesus. He is believed to be the only apostle still alive and writes his gospel, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John and revelation at this time. His writings are to believed to be the last scriptures written and he speaks much about the love of God and the love for your neighbor.
The church is still dealing with false teachings and in 1st John he gives this instruction to the church on what not to love, the world.
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.
He speaks to the church to not love the systems and temptations of this world. Worshiping the things of creation instead of the creator himself. All of this will eventually go away and the believer is to recognise that in the end only that which has eternal significance will be saved.
Love for one another is a message that has been around since the first family was created.
11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another, 12 unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
Love for one another becomes a test of a true believer. One who has recieved the love of God and recognizes that it wasn’t from his own merit but from God alone.
13 Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters. The one who does not love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
Hate is a product of the world and the schemes of the enemy. We are not to be surprised if we are hated by the world. Jesus stood as God in the flesh, performed miracles beyond explanation, cast out demons, taught with authority, raised people from the dead, told people about their lives without ever knowing them before hand. With all of the evidence that was revealed the world did not recognize him or accept him.
10 He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
This hate for God and the people of God is not new as Cain demonstrated when he killed Abel when God accepted his offering. But this hate is not to be seen in the Christian. Love has been revealed to us through Jesus.
16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
To lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. To sacrifice the last thing and the most important thing to each person, their own life. This is what Christ did on the behalf of each and every believer.
Because of the great love for God we are to love in tangible ways for fellow believers.
17 If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
When Christians see each other in need there should be a heart of compassion that is brought forth in the mind of the believer. He didn’t say anyone who see a fellow believer in need and doesn’t give him anything. It is implied that one with compassion will share what he has with other believers.
In the bible times there were those that had no way to make any money or were fully reliant on handouts just to survive. There wasn’t credit cards and charitable organizations. There was the church and the church was to care for each other.
23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us.
Very simply put, believe in the name of Jesus and love one another. In chapter 4 he gives them 2 encouragements.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
The love that we are to have for other believers has one source and that is God’s love for us. Love is a test a believer’s conversion. That those that have a hard heart filled heart toward other believers shows a lack of God or a lack of understanding about God’s commands toward each other. It shows a pride that fails to recognize what God has done in their own life an others.
But what does that look like to love all believers. Are people always worthy of love? Do they act in ways that deserve love? No sometimes they fall into sin and they are mean, or arrogant, or insensitive, or maybe they voted for the other person.
The only requirement that John puts here is that those that live though Jesus have been made right with God by the atonement of their sins. So when others are not worthy of love due to their words or actions, we love anyways, we are filled with compassion for they are drawing away from God. We turn to the Lord in prayer that he would bring them back to him.
The second encouragement is this
11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.
God’s love is made complete in the love of his children. The world sees God’s love through his church and through his people as they live out both of these two commands to love the lord with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Conclusion
Conclusion
God’s summarizes all of his commands with these two simple statements. Love the Lord and Love your neighbor. Timothy is to be a living example in both his love for God by living our a life that is on obedience to God and to love his brothers and sisters in Christ. Even those that he is to correct and rebuke.
For Paul’s goal is love
5 Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.
and when he wrote to the Corinthians the chapter about love that we read at the beginning of service he ends that with
13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.
It is pleasing to God to be a church that follows his commands for our lives. He is not interested in showy or simple, big or small, modest or extravagant. He is pleased when his people love him and obey him. His ways are good and right and he blesses those that love him in this way.
It is our hope that we are growing more and more pleasing to God as our lives conform more and more to the image of the son who perfectly loved God by perfectly fulfilling the law and all of its commands and statutes. As a pastor this is the thing I think I get most excited about. Seeing a person take a step in obedience towards God. I know that in the end that is what is best for each and every person here.
I love the words of the author of Hebrews
23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
I love the picture here of a body of believers that is considering each other. Thinking about each other and in their minds they come up with ways to provoke or stir up love and good works. We do this together. Not just the leaders of the church but all believers. Gathering together and encouraging each other. What a wonderful picture of the church.
What do we do with this? First we hear his word today and we let is move us to obedience. 2nd. I think we need to reclaim the word love from the world. Each and every day Christians are told that they are unloving by their beliefs. We believe that there is a God and that he is the standard for right and wrong. We are told that he has a message of love that slaps in the face of sin. That is uncomfortable and shines a light on evil. We are commanded to take the message of love that we received into the world as messengers of the Gospel.
The most loving thing we can do is plead with people to be reconciled to God, but we must do it in the same way Jesus did filled with compassion and love. Caring more for the other person’s soul than our own comfort. We will be hated by the world but the hope of the gospel will be delivered by God’s messengers.
We are coming up on advent and Christmas that will provide more opportunities to tell people about the hope that has come into the world and has come into our own lives. Pray for God to show his love through you.
And among the church we need to reclaim what love means and how it is used.
Jodie Story.
Let us be a church that when some one enters they know two undeniable truths. These people love the lord. They sing to him in love, they expectantly expect to hear from him in the preaching of the word, and they gather in his name. And that there is an undeniable love amongst each other. Care, Compassion, kindness, encouragement among others is seen here. A people who get great Joy and strength being together. Dear friends let us love.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Communion
Warning
Children, Lost, Sin
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Prayer
Song
Closing
Blessing/Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
