A Life of Love

Introduction

Last week we discussed Paul’s teaching about the Christian’s response to civil authorities. He new shifts gears to talk about how an individual Christians should respond to the people around them.

We love as we have been loved. Young mothers love their children how their mom’s loved them. You fix many of the same foods. you sing the same lullaby’s. The way we love so often comes from how we have been loved. Father’s enjoy the same activities of sons.

Our relationship with Jesus is no different. The more we love grasp God’s love, the more God shows us his goodness.

God’s love originated all, explains all, illustrates all, and it is the interpreter of every divine mystery. There is not a circumstance of our Lord’s history which is not another form or manifestation of love. His incarnation; love stooping; his sympathy, is love weeping; his compassion is love aiding; his grace is love acting. His reaching is the voice of love. His silence is the repose of love. His patience is the restraint of love. His obedience is the labor of love. His suffering is the travail of love. His cross is the altar of love. His death is the burnt offering of love. His resurrection is the triumph of love. His ascension into heaven and his setting down at the right hand of God is the enthronement and intercession of love. // Octavius Winslow

With this radical, all powerful, glorious love, we are to love the others who are around us.

CIT: Disciples of Jesus are to love with a never-ending, self-sacrificing, and holy love.

Explanation and Application

English Standard Version Chapter 13

8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

We may have taxes and payments that we must make. Once we make that payment, the debt is satisfied. However, the debt of love is never satisfied.

You never get to give up on people. There is no Option B to loving the people around you.

“love debt” defined. We owe God love, and God tells us to love Him and others with his love. We love because Christ tells us, not because others deserve it.

2. How do we love people? A great place to start is the 10 Commandments. (We will discuss the 10 Commandments at the end of this year as we finish our series through Exodus.)

a. Adultery, murder, theft, and covetousness are all anti-love. (Side Note: It’s easy to say that adultery, murder and theft are not loving your neighbor… but covetousness is also a sin and anti-love. You cannot fully love someone when you covet what they have.)

b. Love means that you are thankful for what they have: not simply what you have.

3. Love is fulfilling the law.

English Standard Version Chapter 13

11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

The 10 Commandments are difficult, and Jesus says that we must also keep them in our hearts. What do we do?

Paul provides motivation and action steps for living this way.

We must wake from our sleep.

The Christian life is an active, not passive, life. Some Christians float through life, and they are simply a product of their environment.

Wake up and get going. Get moving.

We must remember that salvation is nearer that when we first believed.

Jesus is coming soon! Was Paul mistaken? No!

THE URGENCY OF THE GOSPEL. ETERNITY IS WAITING.

Salvation was coming soon for each of them in their passing.

Paul did not know the day of Jesus return, but Jesus said to be ready!

You will stand before the Lord soon.

We must know that night has gone and day is at hand.

We need to work. Just as daylight brings forth another day for us to love, God so loves us.

We must cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. A clothing metaphor is depicted.

Works of darkness

Armor of light

3. Ultimately, we put on Jesus Christ and do not make provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

a. Do not allow the enemy to have a seat at your table.

b. New life looks radically different from the old life. In a Bible Belt kind of world, we might not struggle with much of verse 13, but materialism, envy, gossip, fighting and quarrelling will make you look radically different.

c. Many people use the word “love” to justify their sexual immorality. Notice that Paul uses the word love, yet he continually speaks against sexual immorality. God’s good design gave us guardrails for all of the Christian life - including sex. We love by living the way he desires for us to living.

d. We are the in between of what was and what is yet to come. Therefore, we have appetites for God and appetites for the world. We starve those worldly appetites, and we enjoy the things of God.

Conclusion

We love well, because Jesus loved us well.