Rightly Ordered Loves

Psalm 97:10

Introduction

One of the most frustrating subjects to hear discussed in our culture is the subject of love.

What can be even more frustrating is when the cultural conversation dominates and defines teaching among brethren about love.

The world represents love as an overriding (yet undefined) guide to everything.

God has not simply said “love” with no guidance. Rather, He has shown us how and who and to what degrees we ought to love.

In other words, God has shown us how to order our love.

The Problem with Love

“All you need is love” (1 Cor. 13; Lk. 10:25-37; Jn. 15:12; Matt. 22:37-39).

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” - Dalai Lama

How does that religion help us to “do justice”?

How does it help us answer difficult questions of enforcing law in general?

How does kindness answer questions of what is morally right and wrong?

And kindness to whom? To everyone equally at all times? Is that possible?

“It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor ten yards away or a Bengali whose name I shall never know.” - Peter Singer

That may sound legitimate but is it Biblical?

Does proximity make a moral difference in terms of responsibility?

What about relationships? Do I owe more love to some than to others?

“Love is love” popular slogan.

Any love is still love and therefore has equal value.

Is this true? Are all loves of equal moral goodness?

This is the ultimate flattening of love.

“The modern imagination assumes that love must be equally distributed, or it ceases to be love at all.” - Alex Kocman

That is to say that love must be infinitely universal, infinitely equal, and infinitely unconditional or it is not love.

None of this is even possible much less Biblical.

Demonic love (Jas. 3:13-18; Matt. 16:22-23; 1 Sam. 2:29; 2 Sam. 13-18).

“Affection becomes a demon when it becomes a god.” - C. S. Lewis

“There is no safeguard against the corruption of Affection except the total renunciation of it, or its total submission to the will of God.” - C. S. Lewis

Competing Loves

Love of God overshadows all other loves (Lk. 14:26; Gen. 29:31).

Love always competes.

Everyone will choose when loves compete.

The thing you choose is the thing you cherish most.

When two things compete, and you choose one over the other, you love one and hate the other.

We must prefer one to another (Gen. 2:24; Prov. 5:18-20).

A man should prefer his wife in a way that forsakes everyone else.

He should HATE all advances from other women.

This is why men have rules about meeting with women alone, because of his ordered love for his wife.

Someone complains that this hurts those other women (opportunities in the workplace, chance to be close with that man). WHO CARES. I prefer my wife to all of those consequences.

This plays out in particular responsibilities (1 Tim. 5:8; Gal. 6:10; 2 Cor. 9).

I owe my family a particular responsibility.

I don’t owe that same responsibility to others.

I am not guilty if there are people starving in the world. I AM guilty if my parents or my children are starving.

I am not guilty if there are orphans in the world, I am guilty if my sibling dies and my nieces and nephews are left orphans.

The same distinctions apply to the church. The church is not guilty because people in the world are suffering without care. The church is guilty when people in the church suffer without care.

Do you hate orphans? Only in comparison to my own children. I will not take from the care of my own children to care for children that are not my own. I would, in fact, sin if I neglect my children to prefer the children that are not mine.

What about loving our enemies (Matt. 5:44; Rom. 12:17-21; 2 Thess. 3:14-15; Psa. 10:15; 35:6; 58:6; Rev. 6:10; Ex. 22:2-3).

Enemy is a real and distinct category.

The order is to treat them with love, not to treat them like family.

They are in a worse category than an erring brother with whom we are not to associate.

We can pray for their destruction while treating them with kindness and care.

Our problem is that we think of love in flattened terms. If I must love, then I must treat them like they are my brother…no. I treat them like I am someone who knows all will be set right by a more wise and more powerful judge than me.

If someone breaks into my home (an enemy) then I cannot love my family and the intruder equally. Preferring the enemy is hatred for my family and preferring my family is hatred of the enemy. I know where my ordered love lies and that there is no bloodguilt in hating the intruder in comparison to the preference I owe my family. I would take his life in love. Pious love of the family God has put under my protection. My hatred of him in that moment is driven by rightly ordered love of my family. That would NOT justify on going vengeful hatred to hunt him down the next day after the threat to my family has passed.

Love always makes choices.

God’s Order of Loves

God’s love is not flat (Mal. 1:1-2; Rom. 9:13).

God loved Israel in a way He did not love the other nations (though he loved the other nations)

God loves His people today in a way that He does not love all people (though He loves all people).

This is not inconsistent but inevitable. Otherwise what is the point of being His people.

His judgment is about justice and deliverance (1 Pet. 3:18-22; Psa 5; 97:10).

Judgment is seen as hatred (and it is).

But it hatred that has a context. It is hatred rooted in a protection of and preference for the innocent. The righteous are being delivered. Judgment is about salvation.

God does not take pleasure in violence for its own sake but He does not hate violence so much that He would sit idly by and refuse to use violence against the evildoer. That would ultimately be hatred of the righteous. There is a choice that must be made.

God loves His enemies as proved by giving them opportunity to repent (Mal. 1:1-3; Lk. 23:34; Acts 2:34-35; Psa. 2).

This is seen in His appeal to Israel.

Jesus prays for the forgiveness of His enemies at the cross.

But when Peter preaches about the cross he points to the triumphant claims of Psa. 2.

And who will bring the judgment but the very one who prayed for their repentance.

Does that mean He does not love? Of course not. It means love is ordered and responsive.

Conclusion

We live in a world full of disordered loves.

People are willing to love in the abstract people from all over the world. Meanwhile they are hateful and vindictive to the people who live next door or even in their own house.

They love the idea of people, but not actual people.

The love God calls us to is real and it is near and it ordered.

Everyone chooses who and what to love first. And that defines all of the other loves.

Some think they are choosing to love God first (like the Pharisees). But what they actually love first is their own ego and so they hate God because He shows them who they really are.

Some thing that are choose to love everyone equally but what they really love is their cultural reputation and so they hate what God says about sin.

We all choose what to love first. That choice will then define all of our other loves. If we choose unwisely (or think we can keep from choosing) then we will surely end up hating what ought to be loved and we will end up loving what ought to be hated.

Are your loves disordered? Then put God first this morning and let Him guide you into ordering all of your other loves rightly.