Love in Motion: Love Y'all!
Notes
Transcript
SERMON
How would you answer the question: What is love?
Is it a feeling?
Is it a choice?
Is it an actual thing-a-magiggy? Or is it some cerebral tail to chase knowing that we’ll never quite catch.
Does it take some of you back to the mid-90’s and say, “Baby, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more?”
Defining love is hard:
Brad Paisley: I’m Gunno miss her:
… Well I love her
And I love to fish
If I hit that fishin' hole today
She'd be packin' all her things
And she'd be gone by noon
And the chorus kicks: “Well, I’m gunna miss her”
So we can love your girlfriend and going fishing?
The chase for love is part of our culture’s ongoing narratives.
Romcoms, dramas, it’s in our music, art, and
And often times, our culture’s narratives connects love with heartbreak. The words of the 70s rock band Nazareth ring true time and time again: Love hurt, love wounds, and scars any heart!
WHAT IS IT??
SLIDE #1:
God is LoveLessons about LoveThe Command to Love
You want to know what love is? Simple:
God is Love
v. 8: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
v. 16: “God is love.”
To define love, you need to think THEOLOGICALLY!
Not an attribute, but substantial to who he is.
“That tree is tall” vs. “That tree is wood.”
“That cloud is fluffy” vs. “That cloud is water droplets”
God is love=Love is God.
Not Coincidence that John includes all three persons of the Trinity:
SPIRIT: v.13: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”
FATHER AND SON: v.14: “Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World”
v.15: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”
When we say GOD is love, we are saying that the TRINITY is love:
The Father wasn’t punishing Jesus by sending Jesus:
“See that mess down there: Guess where I’m going to put you!? See that barn!”
NO! The Father sent Jesus out of LOVE!
Jesus didn’t go to the cross looking cross at his Father:
“Dad, I don’t want to!”
No, out of loving obedience did Jesus go to the cross.
The Spirit isn’t all upset because he got left behind:
“Why did you leave me with all the rest of the work to do? Jesus only had to work for 30 years and he gets to be King forever, while I’m stuck down here just fixing sin the past 2,000 years!”
One will of love...
Father, Son, Holy Spirit: United in mission, will, desire, plan...
Perichōrēsis:
Peri=around
Choresis= To make room
John 10:38: the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
John 14:11, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”
John 15:26, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,”
SLIDE #2:
Picture of TRINITY:
Not a very loving picture...
Loving picture? A family?Three brothers?Three persons but not THREE God’s!
God is LOVE as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:
Perfect community: Three persons in as one substance being LOVE.
Application:
For my upcoming class this past week, we had to write a research paper on church revitalization, and one of the common themes spread across the board for churches looking to revitalize, or even church plants looking to succeed, are small groups.
I think one of the reason why small groups are so effective in the church is because it’s a way in which we can experience what God experiences in His eternal small group of 3 persons. Though God doesn’t exist in parts, he does exist in three persons, showing us what eternal hospitality, love, obedience, and sacrifice look like. Small groups are a way in which we can put into practice who God eternally is. When done well, when one is fully known and still loved, there is no better place to be.
I have sent out a call to prayerfully consider being a small group leader and or a small group host, and this is a call out to you: If you feel like you could prioritize a small group experience in your life, this is one more call out for that purpose.
Lessons about Love
Love is the Incarnation
v. 9: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world.”
Christmas was love! The whole gambit of his life was love!
“Didn’t consider equality with God something to be used for his own advantage, but made himself nothing...” Phil 2
KENOSIS= Emptying
Love was shown in the Father sending his Son when his Son could have been right there beside him safe and sound.
Love was Jesus obeying the Father’s will and coming alongside. Serving.
Love Lesson #1: Love is a Giving Up one’s own Rights and Privileges for the Sake of Others
Love is about living for the advantages of others over our own.
Love is about taking the time to walk in another persons shoes for the purpose of support others, lifting others up.
Do you love like that?
2. Love is the Crucifixion:
v. 10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”
Love is not merely about God just sending Jesus in general, but specifically God sending Jesus to die on our behalf.
Love is the Gospel! Jesus dying so our sins may be forgiven.
Love is sacrifice: Giving up for the sake of the other.
Konisis, this emptying, was ultimately displayed on the cross! “Obedient to death, even death on a cross!”
Emptying oneself for the sake of others is more than being able to empathize, but to do something about it!
You need more than, “We identify with the poor.” You need, “We lift up the poor.”
You need more than, “We empathize with your plight.” You need, “We desire to fix your plight.”
And not in a paternalistic, we know better than you, kind of mentality, but by walking hand-in-hand with the faithless and fainthearted...
Love is more than just identification with the poor, marginalized, sick, and suffering.
Love is also about imitation! Love is found in Jesus’ sacrifice...
Do you love like that? When was the last time you loved someone sacrificially?
3. Love Originates from God
v.7: Love One Another, for love is from God
Love that we experience is a gift from God!
Love is from God...
The love experienced within the members of a 30 year old book club: That’s from God.
The love experienced within family: That’s from God.
Love experienced in a close-knit team winning the championship; That’s from God.
Love experienced over a steak dinner with close friends: That’s from God.
Love experienced when a mom holds her newborn: That’s from God.
Love experienced when the groom watches his bride walk down the aisle: That’s from God.
Love experienced when a lonely patient is visited by the hospital chaplain: That’s from God.
Love is from God: Whether people recognize it or not is not the issue.
And because God is the one who IS love, he defines love. Because it originates from him, he sets the borders.
But if love comes from God, then what do we do with the love people experience within a homosexual relationship?
Two false misconceptions about love: Love isn’t sexuality
“Love is love”= Reduces love to the sexual.
I want to be sensitive here because I have people in my life who I love who are in these types of relationships. There’s no doubt in my mind that people within these relationships love one another… Is that experience not from God??
Love is not love: Love is GOD! And he’s the one who gives it, defines it, and set the parameters around it.
Love is not sexual. It’s theological: Rooted in obedience and sacrifice.
When WE start defining what is love, then we are usurping God’s authority to both BE and DEFINE LOVE. By defining love, we are rejecting WHO HE IS!
4. God’s Love Comes First
v.10: In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us...
19: We love because he first loved us
Talk about the “P” Word: Predestination...
Predestination is the biblical word found in Ephesians 1 that referring to God choosing some to experience full adoption as His sons and daughters: That God predetermined his children.
Ephesians 1:5: In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,
Predestination:
They think of this *picture of Calvin*
They don’t think of this *heart*
“IN LOVE, God predestined us for adoption...”
How to teach predestination to children?
v. 10: We didn’t love God, but he loved us!
We didn’t love God:
v. 19: He first loved us...
Predestination in 4 words: HE FIRST LOVED US.
Love is shown to us in the incarnation
Love is shown to us in the crucifixion
Love originates from God
God loved us first
3. Command to Love
v.7: Let us love one another for love is from God...
v.8: Anyone who does not love does not know God.
v.11: If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
v.21: And this commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
What does it mean to love?
It means our motivation to love comes out of the love God has given to us.
You can’t not hate others and love God. Can’t be done! Love isn’t a hypocrite!
In fact, if you don’t love, that means that you don’t know God! You can know him cognitively. Like, you can worship here and have a great worship experience and feel moved by the music or the sermon and feel warm with the world, but if you have not love, your worship is a resounding gong or a clanging symbol!
If you don’t love others, you don’t know God.
So in order to know what love means, you need to begin with believing God’s love to be true for your life. That while you were a sinner, while you were God’s enemy, God loved you and sent Jesus as a propitiation for you.
Our motivation to love comes from believing the Gospel to be true. To love is to know God and for that love of God to be expressed outwardly towards other people.
If you have a hard time loving, if you spend more of your brainpower dissecting people’s faults or judging people’s idiosyncrasies, then you probably have a lot of fear in you...
v.18: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
FEAR OF GOD:
Rather that love God, we can fear Him in an unhealthy way.
I John 3:1: See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
Love of the Father is pure, but often times understanding parental love can mess things up for us:
If you grew up with parents who practiced conditional love, then you’re going to have a hard time understanding God’s love. Fear will creep in.
If you parents showed favoritism just to create sibling rivalry, then you’re going to have a hard time understanding God’s love. Fear will creep in.
If your parents were super strict and they punished you beyond what was appropriate, then you’re going to have a hard time understanding God’s love. Fear will creep in.
If you grew up without consistent parents, or your parents divorced, or one of your parents left you, then you’re going to have a hard time understanding God’s love. Fear will creep in.
See, perfect love, the LOVE of God the Father, drives out fear...
It views God as one who disciplines rather than punishes. A loving father disciplines his children as it says in Hebrews 12. A vengeful, or flakey, or temperamental God punishes…
To love, we need to remember that God loves you unconditionally, that you are his child, and that to love means accepting and receiving that love without you having to earn it. You did nothing to receive God’s unconditional love!
FEAR OF NEIGHBOR
YODA was right: Fear leads to the darkside. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering...
Rather than love our neighbors, we can fear them in unhealthy ways:
Fear causes us to judge.
Fear causes us to see only externals, the skinny jeans, the tattoos, the amount of mascara, the way they turn their cap, or hold their Bible, or whatever!
Fear causes us to separate.
Fear causes us to miss out on life-changing relationships.
Fear causes anger in us against those who disagree with us.
Fear causes us to freeze rather than converse.
Fear paints others as enemies and listens to narratives that only reenforce their evil.
Fear presents us as the victim as opposed to victors in Christ! Like, we have nothing to fear! Even with all the redefinition of love in our culture, even with our culture highjacking symbols of love like the rainbow, and altering them to represent a spectrum of love, we’ve got nothing to fear. Rather the play the ‘woo is us card’, we can play the ‘who is Christ’ card: who sat with sinners and tax-collectors—social oddballs, misfits, traders, rebels, and the promiscuous, and he dined with them! Laughed with them, and was criticized by the socially perfect for doing so!
But fear has no place for love!
The command to love begins by asking the Holy Spirit to erode your fear...
Good example:
Tertullian (AD 155–220), in his Apologeticus,
“Look,” say those who don’t believe, “how the Christians love one another,” for those who don’t believe hate one another; “and how [the Christians] are ready to die for each other,” for those who don’t believe are readier to cut one another’s throats. . . . But we Christians look upon ourselves as one body, informed as it were by one soul; and being thus incorporated by love.”