From Love Commanded to Love Lived Out

Bible college professor Yohanna Katanacho, who pastors a small church in Jerusalem, is subjected to much persecution. Israeli soldiers who patrol the city looking for potential terrorists impose spontaneous curfews on Palestinians and have the legal right to shoot at a Palestinian who does not respond quickly enough to their summons.

Yohanna tried and failed in his attempts to love his enemies. The Israeli soldiers’ random daily checks for Palestinian identification cards—sometimes stopping them for hours—fed Yohanna’s fear and anger. As he confessed his inability to God, Yohanna realized something significant. The radical love of Christ is not an emotion, but a decision. He decided to show love, however reluctantly, by sharing the gospel message with the soldiers on the street. With new resolution, Yohanna began to carry copies of a flyer with him, written in Hebrew and English, with a quotation from Isaiah 53 and the words “Real Love” printed across the top. Every time a soldier stopped him, he handed him his ID card and the flyer. Because the quote came from the Hebrew Scriptures, the soldier usually asked him about it before letting him go.

After several months, Yohanna realized his feelings toward the soldiers had changed. “I was surprised, you know?” he says. “It was a process, but I didn’t pay attention to that process. My older feelings were not there anymore. I would pass in the same street, see the same soldiers as before, but now find myself praying, ‘Lord, let them stop me so that I can share with them the love of Christ.’ ”

—“When Love Is Impossible,” Trinity Magazine (Fall 2005)

This morning I hope I can give you a taste of what it means to love God and love others. Truthfully I have been working on this for nearly a year and half and I still believe I have much more to learn about Love. The likelihood that I will be able to condense all there is to know about practically living out love in a 30 minute sermon is nil. If I were to preach on the what the Bible teaches about love every Sunday it would take nearly 4 years to deal with every passage that the Bible mentions love. There is no way possible to accomplish that task in a few sermons. So my hope is to highlight a few things and then encourage you to do some exploring on your own.

God’s Faithful Love

In God’s word we read that God is love.

1 John 4:7–21 CSB

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

God is love. We look to the life of Christ as the manifestation of God with us. He is our Emmanuel which means God with us. In this passage I just read Jesus demonstrates His love by pursuing us and ultimately sacrificing His life for our salvation. He was willing to give all for you and for me for our ultimate well being. That we might be able to be saved from sin and destruction.

In the Old Testament we learn about “Faithful Love.” The Hebrew word is hesed (Hay-sayd). This word is most often translated “faithful love.” It also is translated “Kindness” “Loyalty” “Gracious” “Faithfulness” and “Constant Love.” When we say God is love it is this love that we are referencing. God’s love is faithful, God’s love is kindness, God’s love is gracious, God’s love is constant!

The first time this word is used in the Bible it is in a prayer by a servant of Abraham while seeking a bride for Abraham’s son Issac. Genesis 24:12-14

Genesis 24:12–14 CSB

“Lord, God of my master Abraham,” he prayed, “make this happen for me today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. I am standing here at the spring where the daughters of the men of the town are coming out to draw water. Let the girl to whom I say, ‘Please lower your water jug so that I may drink,’ and who responds, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels also’—let her be the one you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”

As he finishes the prayer Rebekah arrives. She is beautiful and full of hospitality and grace. She invites the servant of Abraham back to her father’s house. She was a perfect match for Issac. So the Servant praises God saying: Genesis 24:27 “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld his kindness (hesed) and faithfulness from my master.”

Prayer as it relates to love

Prayer as it Relates to Love

Know something about God’s Faithful Love

Pray that God’s Faithful Love will be made Reality

When it comes to pass Praise God for His faithful love

Before moving on I want to note something about prayer as it relates to love. This servant knew something about God’s faithful love. He prayed that God’s faithful love would be made reality. When it came to pass then He worshiped and praised God for His faithful love. This seems to me a good pattern for us to follow. We seek to learn about God’s faithful love, we pray that God’s faithful love be a reality in our lives, and praise God when His faithful love is manifest in our lives.

There are many other occasions that God’s people praise God’s faithful love. One such instance is in the song the Israelites sang after crossing the Red Sea on Dry land. The whole event was evidence of God’s mighty hand at work. The protection from the Egyptians pursuing them, the parting of waters, the crossing all of it was God’s hand. They sang a song of praise. One stanza of this song says

Exodus 15:13 CSB

With your faithful love, you will lead the people you have redeemed; you will guide them to your holy dwelling with your strength.

300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon The Love of God Burns in Our Hearts (1 John 4:7, 19; Jude 21)

You have a magnifying glass and hold it up before the sun until you focus the rays on a piece of dry wood and set it on fire. Now, while you see the wood burning to ashes, will you tell me what it is that burns? Does the heat of the sun burn the wood or does the wood burn? The heat that you feel while the wood is burning, is it due to the sun or to the wood? Of course at first the fire is purely and simply the flame of the sun, but afterwards the wood itself begins to burn; the sun burns the wood and then the wood itself burns.

Even so the love of God comes into our heart, and then our heart loves too, and in both cases “love is from God” (1 John 4:7). No man is a Christian unless he himself loves God with his own heart, but yet our love to God is nothing more or less than the reflection of God’s love to us: so that it comes to the same thing.

The point I think is to understand how to love God we must first learn to understand God’s faithful love for us, seek to have that love manifest in our lives, and praise Him for his faithful love. The foundation of our love for God is not something that we find in ourselves ultimately. It is a manifestation of God’s faithful love flowing through us back to God and toward others. God’s faithful love in us.

God’s Love Is Faithful

Our affections can ebb and flow. The things I loved as a young adult seem quite trivial to me now. And the things that seemed trivial back then have become more important to me now. Love expressed in this way is not really the type of love we are seeking to understand here. God’s love is faithful. If we are to represent and manifest God’s love then our love ought to be faithful as well. What does faithful love look like?

As a Christian we know that God highest love is the atoning work of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Jesus said before He died on a cross that

John 15:12–14 CSB

“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.

We also read that:

1 John 3:16 CSB

This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

When we look at these words of Christ and John, Christ’s sacrifice is central to the love we are discussing here today. You see our sin separates us from the faithful love that God wants to show us. So much so that left to our own ends we remain separated and unable to obey the command to love others. So is Jesus asking us to do something that is impossible then? Well yes and no. It is impossible to love as God has commanded us without some supernatural change in our hearts and lives. Jesus is more than an example of how to love others. He is the very substance of Love that enables us to love God and Love others. It is the Gospel that is the source of ultimate love that flows into our lives and redeems our souls so that we can love God and love others empowered ultimately by God’s Holy Spirit.

Now if you have obeyed the Gospel then you already know what I am talking about. However, if you are here this morning and you have never recieved the message of salvation for your soul then the rest of this sermon is unlikely to do you any good. You must settle in your heart today whether you will surrender your life to Jesus Christ and make him savior and Lord of your life. Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the dead is the most supreme and loving act of all history. He wants you to respond and follow in his loving sacrifice. That is the obedience Jesus and John are proclaiming here. To Love God is to respond favorably to this Gospel call. This is the first step of obedience that grows and matures into the fullness of loving God and loving others.

Loving God’s Truth

1 Corinthians 13:6 CSB

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.

Time and again God’s word connects obedience to loving God. Last week a shared several verses with you that stated how if we love God we obey his commands.

1 John 2:5 CSB

But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him:

Truly obedience to God’s word is our act of love. We are walking in love when we are faithful to God’s commands. This loyalty to God’s commands then is an expression of faithful love. It is this love that we are striving for. Why do we love God? Because God first loved us!

Jesus said it this way:

Matthew 22:37 CSB

He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

You see this love for God is Loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

How do we know God’s truth?

So if loving God is obeying his commands then the next logical question is how do we know God’s commands? Jesus has already answered that by quoting the verse in the Old Testament. Let’s look at that verse now:

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 CSB

“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.

So how do we know God’s commands? Well one thing you are doing correctly right now is showing up. When we come together to hear from God’s Word we are learning a bit about God’s commands. So seeking out solid Bible teaching is essential. We have life groups that meet on Sundays and some during the week. These groups spend time in God’s word learning from God’s Word and challenging one another to live out God’s commands in our lives. One thing though that is often missing is study God’s word for ourselves. Your love for God will be directly related to the amount of time that you spend in the Bible. This passage says to have God’s word in your heart repeat them to your children, talk about God’s word as you go through life, bind them to your hand write them on your forehead. God’s word is to be an intimate part of everyday life not just something you study once or twice a week. If you want to love God more, you would do well to spend more time studying and meditating on God’s word. Then as God’s will becomes more and more apparent then you will learn and live out faithful love.

I just finished reading the Bible cover to cover in 90 days. I am going through a second time and am about a third of the way through. I read about an hour a day. Now think about this how many activities during the day do you spend an hour or more that have no eternal consequence. Would you be willing to join with me this year to give an hour a day for studying God’s word. Maybe you don’t read as fast. That is OK it is not a race. Read at your pace, just get into the word. Maybe you have a short attention span. That is OK as well. Take 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes midday and 20 minutes in the evening. My challenge to you is to regularly get into God’s word. It is only by knowing God’s word that we can truly obey His word and it is only by obeying his word that we can truly love God! If you commit to this hour a day you will be able to read through the Bible easily within the next year. Even when you miss a day or two along the way.

Loving Others

I would like to now turn our focus on to loving people. I will not be able to adequately cover the breadth of this subject. I only hope that we can get a taste of what it means and that you would as you dig into God’s word to get the depth of how we are to love each other.

Without rehashing last weeks sermon let’s makes some quick observations and then dig into a couple points. When we think about love for others there are multiple categories of people that this applies to. Each group we will experience and express love differently. This is mainly the nature of the relationships that we have. For example the love I express toward my wife Amy is going to be different in experience and expression than the love I generally express to all of you. Some key groups then we see in scripture are spouses, family, elders (family and church), friends, fellow Christians, enemies, and the people world in general. Quickly then in a marriage love is to be demonstrated in the way that a husband lays down his life for his wife (Ephesians 5:25-33; Colossians 3:19; 1 Peter 3:7). This also is demonstrated in the way that a wife in turn respects her husband’s loving sacrifice toward her and submits to him. The Bible is unambiguous on this: A loving marriage is between a man and a woman. Our culture is working hard to redefine the nature of marital relationships. We cannot compromise on this to disobey God is to say we really do not love Him. That being said Husbands if you want to learn love, learn to lay your life down for your wife. This is not an either or. This love only works when both husband and wife are doing their part in relationship. With family we are to raise our children not in anger but to love and honor God (Ephesians 6:4). With our parents we are to honor them (Ephesians 6:1-3).

With fellow believers we love each other by building one another up, encouraging, meeting together, seeking unity, seeking peace, and provoking loving works (Ephesians 4:1-3,Colossians 3:14, Hebrews 10:24). With our elders we are to care for them (1 Timothy 5:3-4, 8). With church elders we are to honor them and make sure they are adequately compensated for their work (1 Timothy 5:17-20).

With friends we tell them the good news of Christ and serve them where we are able; we love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:31; John 15:12-13). With our enemies we love them by providing for their basic needs, treating them with kindness, and praying for them (Luke 6:27-36). I have included the references to these verses so that you in your personal Bible Study time can get into God’s Word and write upon your heart the reality of God’s faithful love, our love for God, and our love for others. This week and in the last sermon I referenced about 70 passages about this subject. There are so many more I could have referenced. Someone joked after the last sermon “I hope you don’t run out of verses to use in your sermon.” This is not possible. In fact God’s word mentions love over 752 times. To put this into perspective the Bible (The numbers vary a bit depending on the English translation) mentions the word doctrine 6 times, Discernment 36 times, Teach and teaching 231 times, learn 82 times, truth 170 times, and Holy 653 times. God’s overwhelming message to is in His Word is Love! The word love is found throughout the Bible. Here is a graph that shows the frequency of the word Love.

I will make all the Bible references in the last two sermons available on the RBC website and a paper copy is on the table in the back. I encourage you to dig into Gods word.

What does love look like?

I would like to spend these closing moments highlighting a few things from the love chapter.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 CSB

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

Love is long-suffering. The word patient is defined as suffering long for the one that you love. It is interesting to me that the very first characteristic of love is suffering. It seems strange, but as you meditate on in it ultimately becomes a profound truth. When we suffer long for the the person we love it becomes the ultimate expression of love.

Love is kind. Kindness is greatly missing from our lives in our culture. We are more likely to experience contempt and rejection that kindness and love. We can all work at being more kind to one another and those around us.

Love is not self-seeking. When we use relationships for selfish ends we cannot claim to be loving.

Romans 12:10 CSB

Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.

The goal is to take the lead in the race of loving and honoring each other. Further:

Acts 20:35 CSB

In every way I’ve shown you that it is necessary to help the weak by laboring like this and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, because he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

Giving is a blessing. In fact Jesus says the blessing that comes from giving is greater than the blessing from receiving. Giving Love is greater than receiving love from others! Showing Kindness is greater than receiving Kindness. This is the mark of the Christian faith, “that we love one another.”

Conclusion

What can we say then? First Love is a reflection of God’s faithful love. It is this loyal, kind, gracious, and steadfast love that God has for us that is the foundation of the love that we have for God and others. It is only by having this love in us through faith in Jesus Christ that this love is possible. Second, To obey God is to love God. The only way we can know and obey God is to saturate ourselves lives in His teachings. We do the through sermons, study groups, and most importantly individual study of His word. Third, we know that God has commanded us to love others. This takes many forms depending on the nature of the relationship. That being said it is unquestionable that we are to love in all these relationships whether the inmate relationship of a spouse to the challenge of those that persecute and hate you and everything in between. In all things persevere in love. Finally we need to recognize the love is long-suffering, kind, and self-sacrificing. When we commit to this type of love, which by is ultimately is expressed in Christ’s laying his life down for our salvation our souls, then we will be revived, our church will flourish, and our world will be transformed by the powerful faithful love of God. Let us pray.