Do We Love?
Notes
Transcript
intro:
intro:
Well, good evening everyone my name is Zach Honnen. I am the student and young adult Director at our River Church grand Blanc location.
I am very grateful and excited to be here with you tonight…
It’s so incredible to me when we’re able to gather together as one church
we all go to different locations. We have different backgrounds, but we can come together and worship the Lord together
and that’s a beautiful thing.
Over the past few weeks and months at grand Blanc YA, we’ve been going through the book of 1 John
And an idea that Reoccurs throughout the book is love
And we see mainly three different points when it comes to love
We see God’s love for us
our love for him,
and then our love for others…
Tonight as we gather as one church as we gather as all of our young adults across our locations, I felt it was appropriate for us to look at this idea of love in 1 John
So go ahead and open up your Bibles to first John chapter 4, verses 7-11
You see on Tuesday night we opened up our growth community with the question.
What’s a memory that you have of being loved?
What’s a time that you remember that sticks out that becomes a core memory where someone loved you?
And we had a bunch of different stories some happy some funny some sad…
But I ask that question for us to be vulnerable and for us to think about what we believe love is
So what do you think?????
So what do you think?????
How would you define love?
Is it And emotion
is it just a theoretical concept
is it a action or is it just a word you say?
How would you define love?
Because when we look at our culture, Love is defined in so many different ways.
People may say the word love, but not mean the same thing…
We have terms like love is love… And we don’t know what it means anymore
People believe that if you love them, you will conform to everything That they feel and believe…
But the Bible doesn’t tell us to be conformed, but to be transformed
So tonight we’re gonna look at what love is…
We’re gonna look at what God describes love as…
And we will look at how that should change the life of a believer…
Let’s jump into our text:
Let’s jump into our text:
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.
Let’s Pray……………Amen:
Let’s Pray……………Amen:
Going back to what we talked about in the beginning
what is love?
Our culture defines it in so many different ways. It’s confusing.
If you look at Hollywood love is this overwhelming forest it’s a feeling it’s an emotion. It’s a spark.
its something you don’t control it’s something that happens to you…
But in reality, love is not just an emotion or a feeling,
It is not less than an emotion or a feeling, but it is far more than just an emotion or feeling
When we look at love, according to scripture, it falls into a few categories:
It can fall into the idea of romantic love
Brotherly or familiar love
But then there’s another category called unconditional love…
And this is the kind of love that John refers to when we look at the Greek
John is referring to unconditional love agape, This is love that is from God
This love is not dependent upon the response of the recipient, but it’s dependent upon one’s own character.
A great definition of love from a pastor that I enjoy is this
“Love is an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its a object”
Love is not An overwhelming force that we don’t control.
Love is not just this emotion that we can’t really control. It comes and goes. It’s Cupid’s arrow…
Love is a choice… It is a act of our own will… And it’s not idle, but it leads to action…
The love that we’re dealing with is unconditional…
The love that we’re dealing with is an act of the Will…
It is not only emotion, but it is not void of emotion.
And this unconditional love is not based upon the actions or merit of the recipient
But it is based upon the lover’s own character…
So why does this matter? Let’s look at verse 7-8
So why does this matter? Let’s look at verse 7-8
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.
If our concept of love is conditional, then our concept of God is skewed
If our concept of love is conditional our understanding of God is distorted
Because God is love… And God loves out of his own character
And the verse says to love one another:
And the verse says to love one another:
I want to pause right there… DO we love one another?
Again, we are multiple locations of young adults coming into one room worshiping the same God, but do we love one another?
I’m not looking at the old definition.
I’m not looking at Hollywood definition.
I’m not looking at a random podcast definition…
I’m looking at God’s definition…
Do we love unconditionally? Do we love with action?
Because the Christian loves out of the love that he has received from God
Many people can love when it comes to romantic love or brotherly affection
BUT
I have yet to meet a person who loves unconditionally who isn’t already receiving that same love from Jesus
We are called to love because we are loved
and because God is love
And John point out that if we don’t love that might mean we don’t know what love is…
That might mean, we do not know God because God is love…
Because those who Love agape unconditionally… Has been born of God
But those who do not love, have not been born of God… Because God is love…
In this room in this moment, I want you to consider have you been born of God…
Have you received his love?
OR…
Have you not been born of God?
Our definition, our understanding, and the way we love should be informed and rooted in Jesus…
In what Jesus has done for us…
And in what Jesus can do for others
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
To have relationship with Christ to have relationship with God is to understand the fullness of God…
And how do we do that?
by being rooted and grounded in love
this comes through faith, but is rooted in love.
So we’re gonna continue through our passage into verses nine all the way to 11 but we need to understand and wrestle with the question
Are we rooted in the love of Christ?
Or are we rooted in the love of this world?
Are we rooted in the reality of what Jesus has done for us PAUSE
OR rooted in the reality of what we want people to do for us?
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.
What is John saying here is that this is how the love of God was revealed to you and me
The way we understand the love of Christ
The way we understand the love of God
is by looking at his son…
We look at the real reality that God sent his only son… Into the world so that we might live through him
And we might ask, what does that mean?
What does that mean? I’m already breathing. I’m already talking. I’m alive Zach. What does this mean?
It means that you and I exist in two realities
Before Christ, I was physically alive, but spiritually dead…
And I’ll let scripture explain what it means by that…
10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
The reality is you and I are by nature sinners… And you and I are born with sin
When I was a kid, no one went up and told me Zach, that’s how you steal…
Zach, that’s how you hit that’s how you hurt that’s what you do with anger…
I didn’t have to be taught sin…
I didn’t have to be taught hatred…
I was born with it. I was born with a sin nature that separated me from God…
And apart from the mercy of God, I would’ve never Sought after God…
apart of the work of the Holy Spirit I am dead…
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
So when the passage says “that we might be made alive”… We need to understand that we once were dead…
You and I by we’re nature, our children of wrath
So why am I harping on this point?
Many of us in this room might know the Lord,
Many of us in this room might have a relationship with Jesus so why Spend so much time talking about who we are apart from Jesus?
Because for some of us, we need to remember our sin…
Because for some of us, we need to remember our sin…
For some of us, we need to realize who we are apart from Christ
I need to realize who I am apart from Jesus
I need to sit in my brokenness so that I can marvel at his goodness
i want you Remember who you were
remember where you have been and who you have been
Just think about it for a sec
who are you apart from Christ?
Who were you or who would you be?
Think about how much you have been forgiven Because that’s what we see in verse 10
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.
Again, we’re not rooted in our love for Christ
we are rooted in his love for us…
In this is love of God is that he sent Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins..
And what does that mean what it means
in a nutshell is that he paid the penalty that we deserved?
He paid the penalty that I deserved.
He lived the life that I could not live.
He lived the life that you could not live.
And he gave us his righteousness. He has Atone to for our sins. he has paid for our sins
Propitiation is the act Of satisfying God’s wrath against sin through sacrifice, making peace between God and sinners
Jesus is our perpetuation. Jesus is the one who pays for our freedom from sin.
He is the one that paid the bill of death to give us his life
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
We must remember our sin so we can see his righteousness
There’s a reason that when we become Christians, all of a sudden the memory of our SIN doesn’t disappear…
Because by my history, I can now understand and see the value of Christ’ victory
I can see who I once was and see who I am now and Worship God for it…
We must know our history we must know our sin
not dwelling in it,
not living in it,
but recognizing it so we can recognize the goodness of God…
Go ahead and turn to Luke 7:40-47 .
In this passage, we see Jesus sitting in the house of a religious teacher eating dinner
And this woman of the streets, a prostitute comes in and sits at his feet
And she begins to weep and cry, and wipe his feet with her hair and put oil on his feet
And the Pharisees were upset with Jesus that he would let such a woman come in and sit at his feet
And then Jesus asks the host a question… Picking up in verse 40….
40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”
41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”
44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
This passage describes what it means for us to recognize our sin
For us to recognize who we would be apart from Jesus
To recognize who we are apart from Christ, who we used to be
We can only be rooted in Christ when we recognize how much we have been forgiven…
We can only understand his love when we understand his sacrifice…
Because the reality is, this isn’t a contest between who has done more evil
All sin separate us from God
No one is worse and no one is better and no one has been forgiven more or less compared to anyone else
The reality is we have all been separated from Christ all deserving hell
But because of Jesus’s love
because of God’s love for us
we have been saved if we put our trust in him for salvation…
We don’t dwell on sin to beat ourselves up
We look at it in gratitude for what Christ has done
We look at his power to take a broken sinner like you and me, and turn us in to his children
Because every single one of us who know Jesus had a BUT GOD moment;
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
The love of Christ is not something that we earn or deserve. It is something that is freely given.
Because God has unconditional love and mercy that he extends to us freely
And all we have to do is receive it
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
and all we have to do to Receive Him is to repent and believe…
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
If you were in this room and you do not have a relationship with Jesus, that is all you have to do is accept this love
And give your life to him. This isn’t just a OK you’re my master now.
This is full surrender the rest of your life and eternity you belong to him. This is true surrender.
And if you want to know, Jesus, come talk to me after or talk to Keaton. We’d love to have that conversation with you.
But for us who have been saved
For us who have received Christ as our savior
His love and sacrifice is the basis of our love for others.
His love and sacrifice is the reason we love him
Looking at 1 john 4:11.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
When we look at the love that Jesus has for us
When we look at the love that God has extended to us
How can we not extend that love to each other?
It pains me to know that in this room, they’re probably some of us who hate one another
It pains me to know that the body of Christ can be splintered over trivial earthly things
It pains me to know that we can look at the love of Christ and not extend it to other people
Who is that person that you need to forgive?
Who is that person that you need to love?
Because love is not conditional
love is based and rooted in the character of God
Love is a choice
Love is an act of the world accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object
Do you love?
And I’m not saying, we will be perfect in this.
The whole point is to realize that you and I cannot do it on our own.
And no one demonstrates this better than Corey Tenboom…
Corey Tenboom Story:
Corey Tenboom Story:
Corey Tenboom story con conclusion:
Corey Tenboom story con conclusion:
She was not able to forgive that Mann on her own. She had to root that forgiveness in Christ.
She was not able to love that man on her own. She had to dig deep into Christ, not into herself.
She had to go to Jesus and ask him to love this man through her
So I’m not asking you to be perfect. I’m asking you to be surrendered.
I’m asking you to be fully given and dependent on Jesus.
We are called to be dependent on who he is.
We are called to be dependent on his love.
We love because we have been first loved
We do not love to earn God’s love
we love because we are loved
And to close us out tonight, I want to share one more quote
It’s from a pastor talking about this brokenness
Talking about the reality of what Jesus has done in us
Recognizing that we don’t have it, but he does
He says I am not who I ought to be. Hallelujah I am not who I once was….
And
better today than yesterday and better tomorrow than today
Thoughts as we close tonight:
Thoughts as we close tonight:
Do we love?
Do we recognize that we are loved and out of that recognition love others?
Do we only love when it’s convenient or do we love when it’s hard?
Do we only love in word and talk or do we love, indeed and truth?
What is one way that we can show the love of Christ to someone around us?
Who is one person that we need to reconcile with?
Let’s pray…
Let’s pray…
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