Love and Hate

Open your Bibles back up to John 15:9, which is page 958 in the Bibles that are in the back of the pew.

I know that Valentine’s Day was a few weeks ago, but we want to talk today about love.

As challenging as it may be for some of us to face, love is at the core of who we are as Christians.

Some of the men in the room who have been raised to be more stoic may have tuned me out completely when they saw the title of the message flash onto the screen.

We sometimes see love as softness or weakness, a mushy trait reserved for softer and weaker people than we are.

The biblical picture of love is much more than sentimentality and roses. It is about sacrifice and action, not simply emotion.

As we pick back up in John 15, we see that Jesus takes time in his last night with the disciples to remind them of the centrality of sacrificial love.

He does so by pointing back to his incredible love and then challenging the disciples to live in light of that love.

In fact, this morning, if you catch nothing else from this message, I want to challenge you to recognize and reflect God’s love, even when you are hated.

Let’s dive right in this morning in verse 9-11...

Before we can reflect God’s love to other people, we need to be clear on what Jesus is saying.

We begin by...

1) Remain in God’s love.

God’s love forms the foundation for the way we love others.

Stop and go back to verse 9 and read it more slowly.

If you have grown up in church, you have heard “God loves you” so much that you may not even bat an eye when you read this verse.

Think about what Jesus is saying here, though.

Do you remember when we talked about the Trinity the other week? We talked about the fact that God is three persons in one, and that there is complete unity within the members of the Godhead.

We said that all three members of the Godhead are equal and eternal, even though they have different roles.

Throughout John, we have been seeing Jesus talk about the Father and their relationship. Here are just a couple:

John 3:35 CSB

The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands.

John 10:30 CSB

I and the Father are one.”

What must the love look like between the Father and the Son? A love between perfect equals, a love that has existed from eternity past—a love that is so intimate that Jesus and the Father are one.

It is the highest expression of love imaginable, because the love the Father and Son share is rooted in the very fabric of who God is. He doesn’t just act in a loving way toward the Son; he is love.

Think about the love shared between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before anything else existed.

Authors like Michael Reeves make the case that it was this very love that overflowed into God making the universe and this world and us!

How powerful, how beautiful is that love?

It is really difficult for us to fathom that kind of love because no relationship we have on earth can measure up to the love that exists within God himself.

As good as we strive to be, and as much as we try to love our spouses or our kids or our parents well, our love will never be perfect.

The way we love each other is important, as we will see in a few minutes, but it is never perfect.

Although I can help my kids or my wife or those around me understand God’s love for them and love them in a way that makes it easy to believe that God can love them like that, I will always fall short, and so will you.

However, fix this picture in your mind…the Father loving the Son from eternity past in perfect union, without selfishness or arrogance or jealousy or anything that stains the relationships we have with other people.

Do you have that idea in mind yet?

Good. Now, go back to verse 9 again...

Jesus loves us with the same kind of love, in a similar manner, to the way that the Father and Son love each other.

That permanent love, that union, that selflessness, that beauty that we have been talking about—that is the very same kind of love that Jesus not only shows you, but actually gives you.

Remember, he told the disciples that they had been watching this union between him and the Father.

Now, he says that he has actually loved them with that same kind of love.

Sally Lloyd Jones, in her book The Jesus Storybook Bible, has a unique way of describing God’s love. She says:

“God would love his children — with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” (Sally Lloyd Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible)

That reminder isn’t just for children. This is the kind of love Jesus has shown to us — Never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.

However, it is worth noting that only God’s children fully experience this kind of love.

There is a general way in which God loves the world, but the full experience of God’s love, this kind of unbreaking fellowship and unity and comfort is only found when we place our faith and trust in Jesus alone and are drawn into God’s family.

We can’t earn or deserve God’s love; he loves us before we love him.

1 John 4:19 CSB

We love because he first loved us.

As those who have been drawn to Christ and responded to his sacrifice and leadership, we enjoy the fullness of the same kind of love that exists between Jesus and his Father!

What does Jesus tell the disciples to do with that love?

First, he simply tells them to remain in his love.

Last week, we saw that he is telling them to root their lives in his love.

This is why we said at the beginning that love is central to who we are as Christians.

Our relationship with God is based on his love that he extended to us through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross on our behalf.

Before we talk about what else Jesus calls us to do with this love, can we just pause here for a minute?

When was the last time you stopped and rested in the fact that Jesus loves you?

Like really loves you—loves you with the same kind of love that existed between him and the Father for all eternity.

He loves you with a love that is like a good dad. You see, when a dad is at his best, he loves his kids simply because they are his. He doesn’t love them because they are attractive or athletic or smart or funny; he loves them and delights in them simply because they are his children.

When is the last time you realized that God loves you that way? He loved you first, while you were still his enemy, and his love for you hasn’t changed.

That doesn’t give us an excuse to keep doing what we know is wrong. In fact, this kind of love gives us all the more reason to do what God says. After all, why would I want to keep hurting someone who loves me like that?

This Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love frees me to live like I should because I know that no matter what else happens, there is someone out there who knows me completely and loves me fully.

Are you remaining in his love this morning?

Are you resting in the fact that no matter what happens at home or in Ukraine or in your body or anywhere else, you are loved by God?

What is keeping you from believing that he loves you like that? Look back to the cross and settle the issue of his love for you right now.

Look back at verse 10 - are you doing what he says? That’s part of remaining in his love—obeying the God you know has your best interest at heart.

If we are remaining in his love, resting in it and obeying him, then we are going to follow through on his next command.

We are called to...

2) Reflect that love to others.

Read verse 12 with me…Now jump to verse 17...

Here’s where it gets tricky, doesn’t it?

The proud part of us is totally fine with God loving us…I mean, after all, have you seen us?

In spite of everything we have said about God’s unconditional love that isn’t dependent on us, there is a part of many of us that still feels like that’s the thing we are somehow the exception and we deserve God’s love.

It is kinda like when the teacher told the class that “everyone’s a winner at this game,” but you were absolutely keeping score and know you did better than everyone else.

Sure…God loves everyone, but of course he loves me. I have done this or that or don’t do this or that. For all I have done for him, I deserve a piece of that pie.

Let me again remind you: The clear teaching of Scripture is that you and I were God’s enemies and couldn’t do a single thing to deserve God’s love on our own, which means his love is purely based off his incredible character and nothing you or I have done.

You and I never have deserved God’s love for what we have done, and we never will. He is just that good.

If that’s true, then our perspective on other people has to change as well, doesn’t it?

If God loved me while I was his enemy, then what am I supposed to do? We just read it...

I am supposed to love others just like Jesus has loved me, especially those who are my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Remember what we read a few minutes ago from 1 John, where John said that we love God because he loved us first?

Here’s the very next verse after that:

1 John 4:20 CSB

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.

I cannot say that I love God and not love my brother or sister in Christ.

We may not always get along perfectly, and we may not always see eye to eye, but I should be able to love my brothers and sisters in Christ with the same kind of love that Jesus has shown me!

“Sean, that’s impossible…If you knew what they did to me, or what they said, or what happened...”

Remember several weeks ago, I gave you this statement I have heard from others: “I am a sinner first before I am sinned against?”

That doesn’t mean you deserve to have someone do mean things to you; rather, it is a call to this very reality. You sinned against God, and he responded by loving you. If that’s the case, then I need to respond in love to those who sin against me!

What does that love look like? Keep going to verse 13...

If I am going to love my brothers and sisters in Christ, then I must be willing to lay my own life down for them.

That means I need to be willing to set aside what I want for what is best for you. That means that, in love, I may be called to set aside what I want to do or spend money or time on and do what is best for you to grow in Christ-likeness.

Think about what Jesus is getting ready to do when he utters these words. In a matter of hours, he is literally going to give up his own life so that you and I could have our sins forgiven and live.

He is preparing the disciples for the fact that he will be arrested, beaten, and nailed to a cross to die in their place!

If Jesus did that for us, and we are resting in his love, then we should want to love others the same way he has loved us!

It isn’t always easy, and sometimes it means getting out of our comfort zones to love someone we would rather avoid, but what could it possibly cost that is more than what Jesus paid?

Can you imagine what it would look like if we loved each other like that?

Maybe it would be something like this:

Acts 2:44–47 CSB

Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Two chapters over, it explains that there wasn’t anyone in the church who was left in poverty because of their overwhelming generosity toward each other.

We have a great church family here, but can you imagine what it would look like if we all loved each other the way Jesus has loved us?

We would pray together more, fellowship together more, challenge each other more, strengthen and encourage each other more, weep with each other, celebrate more, and ultimately exalt Jesus more.

Can you imagine what it would look like if we lived like Jesus in this area and led others to do the same?

The love we have in Christ, coupled with the love we share with each other, then enables us to face the final section we look at this morning...

3) Expect to be hated.

Rather quickly, Jesus turns from comforting truths to challenging predictions.

We are going to go through several verses here, so let’s read verses 18-25...

One of the reasons it is so critical to understand God’s love for you and to live out that love in relationships with other believers is because there is a world out there who is going to hate you for following Jesus.

This isn’t talking about those who disagree with you or me because of a stance we hold on masks or on vaccines or the like—this is talking about people genuinely hating us because we follow Jesus and love like he loves.

There are people out there who hate you for following Jesus. We may not feel it as much as those who are in other parts of the world, but the opposition is there.

When we uphold biblical standards, such as the right to life for every human being from the moment of conception through natural death or that marriage is designed by God to be between one man and one woman for one lifetime; or when we hold to biblical teachings like the bodily resurrection of Christ and his physical return, we will face opposition.

When you stand up to your boss and refuse to comply with orders that would compromise your integrity, or when your friends don’t understand why won’t just let them give you the answers to the test, there will be people who hate you.

Here, Jesus gives us a heads up to tell us to expect to be treated like this.

If people hate you because you follow Jesus, it is really because they hate him!

As we will see in the weeks to come, they hated Jesus so much they killed him.

We are blessed to live in a nation where the overwhelming majority of Christ followers are not being persecuted actively at this moment. There are people who speak out against Christians and the Savior we stand for, but we can openly proclaim Jesus this morning without fear of reprisals.

However, if that were become reality for us, they would only be treating us like they treated Jesus.

That is something that the early church celebrated, by the way. Here’s how the apostles responded after having been arrested by the Jewish high court, the Sanhedrin, and beaten for preaching about Jesus:

Acts 5:41 CSB

Then they went out from the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to be treated shamefully on behalf of the Name.

The Name is referring to Jesus.

How could they respond like that? How could they rejoice in being beaten and losing face?

Because they were representing the God who loves with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.

They were so certain of his love for them that it didn’t matter what anyone did. The worst their opponents could do to the apostles is give them a taste of the way Jesus loved them and suffered for him.

In the same way, you and I should expect opposition.

We aren’t going around trying to pick a fight, but if opposed, we can stand firm in the love God has shown us, the same kind of love that exists between the Father and the Son. The world may hate us, but as we love each other well, we can encourage each other all the more while we wait for Jesus to come back and set it all straight.

Which of these do you need to focus on this week?

Resting in his love?

Showing that love to others?

Standing up and enduring the hatred that comes from following Jesus?

Remember that all of this comes back to what Jesus has already done for us on the cross...