True Love
Notes
Transcript
True Love
True Love
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.
What is true love? That elusive feeling that we are all looking for someone else to fulfill within our lives.
True love has been the theme of many songs, the plot of every fairy tale and the story that resonates with people from around the world no matter what language they speak. True love has become a the white whale we chase in search of finding our true identity and purpose in life.
True love that alludes jaded lovers and causes them to think it is nothing but vain imagination that weak people look for, it doesn’t really exist. True love not being found becomes the cause of people immersing themselves in a fantasy world where sinful desires become more attractive than real life relationships.
True love causes people to search out the perfect match, compelling them to go to the ends of the earth in some cases, to find that special someone who will be their perfect soul-mate that will never let them down.
True love seems to always be the tension behind the cheesy hallmark stories; where the young professional woman who has sacrificed her life for the senior position in her firm, now has to return to her hometown to help her aging parents self off the Christmas tree farm, only to run into her old boyfriend who was too immature at the time to be man enough to marry her, and now she will find he is her true love...
In contrast listen to what Paul Washer said about True Love that is Biblical Love:
“Biblical Love is not poetic or theoretical, but real and practical. It is a love that dies to self and risks all for the sake of the name and for those who are called by it. It is evidence of regeneration and conversion because it is an impossibility apart from them.”
Let’s bring this understanding of love into the modern church arena for a moment and hear a quote from Costi Hinn:
“You can be gracious and kind towards someone with whom you have a major theological disagreement and that does not mean you agree with or endorse their theology.
Same goes for those with whom you have a minor theological disagreement.
It is this wildly controversial concept that the Bible calls LOVE!”
And finally from Paul David Tripp
“If God is not at the center of your longings, your longings will never be satisfied”
Well how does that last one fit in with the others? Because in verse 8 we learn that God is Love… So if you are searching for true love, why not go get it straight from the source????
I would submit to you it is because the world has a teaching close to the biblical understand of Love, yet it is slightly backwards, but close enough to pass for good teaching. I will show how in just a moment, but for now let’s get 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.
Again the greater context of this letter is written in light of 3 major themes here…
1 - That genuine believers hold to certain truths about Jesus, Specifically that he is the Christ, the divine Lord, from God.
2 - That genuine believers hold to Christ’s commands, as opposed to heretic who were once part of the church but have left, and this is obvious by their disobedience.
3 - That genuine believers are characterized by transparent and practical love for one another.
And that last one is where we are again… Love for one another.
But love is not like other subjects that we can study.It cannot be understood and then practiced. Love can only be understood BY Practice. One commentator said, “It is more like measles than math.”
Love is a word that involves your emotions, yet it is more than that when we understand it biblically. IN the greek it is the word AGAPE, which is an unconditional love, a love that seeks the highest good for the one who is loved, a love of total committment.
Agape love is the god kind of love that doesn’t say, “I love you if...” or “I love you because...”
Rather, God’s love for us is motivated by who he is and not by who we are. Hold that thought for a moment, but first look to the verse here and see that we who are exhorted to love are already loved by God. We who love have been born of God and know God.
This is the groundwork for our actions… Because we are loved by God we should love one another. It is and imperative - something we should do, that is based on an indicative - who God is. Because of who God is and how he has loved us, we then ought to love one another. Our love is not in word only but in deed and truth John already said in the last chapter.
Our love is not imitation because of information, it is participation because of transformation
Our love is not imitation because of information, it is participation because of transformation
Our love is not an imitation from a distance but participation from within.
I love how David Allen put it, “We love FROM God’s fullness and not FOR it as some ideal to achieve, or to quench the thirst of our emptiness.”
This is the primary difference in the feelings of love and the AGAPE love within a believer.
Feelings come to us. Agape comes from us. Feelings are passive and receptive. Agape is active and creative. Feelings are instinctive. Agape is chosen… We fall in love but we do not fall into Agape. It is a kind of love that comes from being born of God only, and it emanates from within those who are born of God and know God.
So for Christians who practice and participate in love we know this, they are “born of God’ and they know God. The presence of love - AGAPE; in your life is an evidence of your christian experience.
If you have children they have your DNA. They have your looks and your nature. My poor kids have my looks, thank God for a beautiful wife to balance out those genetics. We know that usually children look like and act like their parents. It is pretty rare to see really tall kids come from really short people. Though it happens there are still identifying markers that upon closer inspection will show that they are related to their parents. I am taller than both my parents but I have my dads nose and my mothers eyes. And my wife reminds me all the time that I act a lot like my father… I am working on it though, lol…
Well what John is saying here is similar to that thought when it comes to God’s children who have been born of him and know him. If God in his nature IS love, then everyone who has really been born of him partakes of his nature of Love. It becomes an identifying marker of his children. And not just those who are born of him, but those who know him, which is to imply a real relationship with him because we act like him in his nature.
To know God is different than to know about God. To study him, and try to imitate him, because of information; looks very different from those who because of a transformation in them, now have a participation that resembles his nature. But what is his nature and how do we know, that we know him?
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
It is kind of like John is saying the same thing as the last verse but this one is just saying it from the negative rather than positive. We should love one another because that is how we know we are from God and know God, yet if we do not love then we do not know him… Because he IS love.
Now this is huge… John is revealing to us divine understanding of God. And in all his writings this is the 3 thing we learn about God.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
God IS Spirit
First thing John tells us about God. We are not allowed to make up our own God, but we need to know who God is and how to worship him. In spirit and truth.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Next we learn that God IS Light
There is no darkness in God and he sees everything, so to be of Him means to walk in the light. We talked about this last year.
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
And now we learn that God IS love.
this is something that has huge implications for us and we should stop and think deeply about this. This is the single most confused understanding about God.
Remember I said - I would submit to you… the world has a teaching close to the biblical understand of Love, yet it is slightly backwards, but close enough to pass for good teaching.
Here is what I mean. The bible tells us the God IS Love, the world tells us the love is god. It sounds like word play but it is the difference between heaven and hell, saved and damned, right and wrong…
The world is trying to say, if A=B then the reverse is also true, B=A as well…
The Bible does not teach that God = love, rather God IS love. So, A IS B which is different from A = B. To say A IS B does not mean that B IS A. It is to say B comes from A and Cannot exist with A. IF there is no A then there is no B.
In other words Love comes from God because it is only truly found in its origin from God, because God IS Love. If God does not exist, then neither does love. So…
God IS love, love is not God
God IS love, love is not God
Love doesn’t define God. God defines love. God cannot fall in love, God IS love. You cannot know true love if you do not know God. And version of love you think you know apart from knowing God is just hype and emotions that can come or go based on subjective things that happen to you.
Human love is different from God love AGAPE… Love is part of his divine nature and more than a mere attribute. It is a part of God that is never absent from him because he IS love. His wrath and judgement never diminish his being love. God being love is a state of being that does not change based on circumstances.
C.H. Dodd said it this way,
“God loves us might stand alongside other statements like, ‘God creates’ or ‘God rules’ or ‘God judges’; That is to say, it means that love is one of His activities. But to say ‘God is love’ implies ALL his activity is loving activity, even his judgement. If he creates, he creates in love; if he rules, he rules in love; if he judges, he judges in love. ALL he does is to the expression of hHis nature, which is to love.”
This should help us to understand something about who God is, and what his love is.
“God’s love is more than a mere emotion or good will. It is his settled disposition toward us that flows from his being, nature, and divine attributes.” David Allen
This is different from human love which tends to come in response to something else first, or in reaction to an object or person. “I love her because she is beautiful” or “I love him because he is smart and funny”… Human love is response love, but AGAPE love comes first.
God love, agape love; creates value in its object whether there is any value in it already or not.
The Sun shines on the earth not because the earth is the earth, but because the sun is the sun. And so God loves me because he is he, not because I am I. God IS Love!
But to make sense of all this is in context of what John is trying to get us to understand, that we ought to love one another because we are of God who IS love.
C.S. Lewis said, “This kind of love IN us enables us to love those who to us are naturally unlovable.”
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.
Notice God SENT… stop right there. If there is to be reconciliation between God and man you would think that the offender would initiate it… Isn’t the one who did wrong the one who should be making an effort to bring reconciliation? If I have caused physical harm to you, wouldn’t you want me to come back and apologize and make things right? That is not what we see here. We see that God sent his only Son in the world, so that we might live through him.
Think about it with me - That our God who is perfect in nature, sovereignly ruling over all, never needing anything to exist, with no ambitions to attain or goals to achieve and yet chose to create is a marvel! And he not only created the universe sand everything that ever is and was, he chose to create human beings and he love them! And then when they rebelled against him and deserved eternal death and punishment, he chose to love them still and provide a way for their salvation. God became man in the person of Jesus Christ and paid for the sins of the world. What Love! God IS love!
Have you seen it? Do you know it? Have you experienced it? Do you live in it?
Do you think that Love comes from you for God without him first proving it to you, and filling you with it? It is only after regeneration that we could even begin to love God. And So God needs to bring our dead spirit to life first in order for us to know true love. But it had cost him something to do so.
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 word may seem foreign to us. We do not use it in the english language often. If we did it would have to be in a scenario like this...
You and your brother sneak out of the house and steal dads brand new sports car to go joyriding. You end up getting in to a small accident and scrap the the whole drivers side up. There will be no way to fix this and you will surely be busted. You turn to your brother and say, “Dad is gonna be so mad that he might kill us. We better find a way to make propitiation.”
Does that help you get the meaning of this word?
Propitiation means, “To appease someone’s wrath - specifically the wrath of God”
Propitiation means ‘to appease the wrath of God’
Propitiation means ‘to appease the wrath of God’
If we are to understand this important teaching, we might want to ask a couple questions.
Why is it necessary that there be “propitiation’ for our sins? Why doesn’t God just wave a magic wand and forgive everyone for their sins?
Let’s see if this helps - Why doesn’t the state of Oklahoma wave a magic wand and forgive Timothy McVeigh for bombing the federal building in downtown Oklahoma City in April of 1995? To even ask such a question is to answer it. To do so would be an egregious violation of justice.
If God was to do the same, it would be a denial of seriousness of sin and a gross violation of his justice. It would be to make a mockery of his perfect holiness and the laws he established. Sin is so bad that it leads to the circumstances where the Son of God himself must be crucified. Justice must be served.
In David Allen’s commentary on 1 John he say that Propitiation has 6 things in its definition. It contains God’s holiness, wrath, justice, mercy, love and grace. Why does there need to be ‘propitiation’ in the first place? Because all sin is an affront to the holiness of God. God’s wrath is a settled disposition against all sin.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
So God is angry with sin and sinners. His wrath is coming for them because of their sin.
Now we just got done talking about how God is love. Can we really say that God loves us but he is angry with us because of our sin? Yes we can. It is totally possible for God to be angry with sinners and love them at the same time. Let me show you how…
Sin violates God’s law and his law demands that justice be done. God is Just. He must punish sin. But God is also merciful. God is willing that sinners not receive all that their sin rightfully deserves. Beyond that God is love. His would extend to all people. God desires the salvation of all people. Yet there is nothing sinners can do to earn forgiveness for their sins. This is where the grace of God comes into play. God does something for us that we could never do for ourselves. He pays for our sins. The Price?
Jesus dies on the cross, as our substitute, taking the wrath of God against our sins upon himself, and therefore satisfying God’s justice in a payment for our sin. In Jesus’ death on the cross, God’s holiness, wrath, justice, mercy, love and grace all converge.
Only a God who IS love, would appease his own wrath, to show us this love that he is.
As Anselm of Canterbury said in his “ontological” theology argument in the 11th century -
“Only man SHOULD make the sacrifice for his sins because he is the offender. But only God COULD make the sacrifice for sins since he has demanded it. Jesus, as God and man, is the only Savior in whom the “SHOULD” and the “COULD” are united. The Father gave the son; the Son gave himself. The Father sent the Son; the Son came. The Father did not lay on the Son a cross he was reluctant to bear. The Son did not extract from the Father a salvation he was reluctant to bestow.”
What is Propitiation all about? God giving himself in his Son for our sins. God himself in his holy wrath needs to be propitiated. God himself in his holy love undertook propitiation. God himself in the person of Jesus died to make propitiation for our sins, and not only for us, but for all who would believe.
The initiation is from God, and the response is from us. This is the good news… God went first and did the heavy lifting that we could never do. But we must be awakened by the Spirit in order to believe this.
“The gospel shows us a God that is far more Holy than a legalist can bear and yet far more Merciful than a humanist can conceive.” Tim Keller
We must be born again to understand this. God first loved us so that we might be able to love him. And when we know this it will change us dramatically and our lives will look different.
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.
Here we are again, with our older brother, the apostle John speaking tenderly to us, but saying the same thing over and over again… Are we going to hear him this time?
If God so loved us… So much that he was the propitiation of his own wrath, we also OUGHT to love one another.
Think about that little word OUGHT… What does it me? I can tell you what it doesn’t mean. It does not mean that loving each other is optional. It doesn’t mean that you can take them or leave them that are now in the family with you… that little word ought is obligatory. Meaning in Christ’ church...
In the church we are under moral obligation to love one another
In the church we are under moral obligation to love one another
This is not a suggestion or a good practice that will serve your best interests. It is a command from scripture and it is rooted in you knowing that God did this for you when you absolutely did not deserve it. It is found only in the source of true love, GOD!
Because God is Love, and he sent the Son to be the propitiation for our sins, we ought to love one another so as to show our DNA as his children. There is just one problem… Some Christians are difficult to love.
“To dwell above with saints I love, that will be glory. But to dwell below with saints I know, that is a different story.”
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Think about who was in this room as they were hearing this.
Peter looks at John and thinks - You mean I have to love the guy who runs around calling himself the disciple that Jesus loved???
John look at Peter and thinks - You mean I have to love that loudmouth that think he represents the rest of us?
Matthew looks at Thomas and thinks - I have to love the guy that is always skeptical?
Thomas looks at Matthew and thinks - I have to love the Tax Collector?
Yet after the Cross and the resurrection, these men are found loving each other and every new believers that would come to Christ through the preaching of the gospel. The early church is marked by an obvious love they have for each other. In fact Tertullian, an early church father and theologian, tells us that he was brought to Christ not because he studied the scriptures but because he had seen Christians’ lives and coveted what they possessed that caused them to live the way they lived.
Do we understand that the world is watching always? Do we know that even in all this God is allowing us to see what we really believe within the church? Do we desire for this love to be perfected in us?
I like to leave us with a quote that got me thinking the other day. Since I started with quote from famous preacher s on twitter i thought I’d close with one… This is from Burk Parsons
“If you are tired of hearing the gospel proclaimed, then you’ve never actually heard the gospel...
If you get bored with hearing the Word of God preached, you’ve never actually heard the Word of God preached...
If you don’t really care for the church, you’ve never actually become part of the church...”
And I would add -
“And if you are sick of hearing love one another, you’ve never actually tasted the love of God”