Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen. Well, as you came in, you should have received like a little handout that looks like this. It'll help you as we follow along.
[00:00:09] If you weren't here last week, I just wanted to briefly kind of introduce the class again. Just to remind us of what we're doing and where we're going.
[00:00:18] If you are looking for the Biblical productivity class, you've come to the wrong class. It's right across Heritage. And. And the new member class is over in Chisholm. So just as a heads up, this is the Fruit of the Spirit class. The fruit of the Spirit and the life of the Savior. And this morning we're thinking about the fruit of the Spirit is love.
[00:00:41] And so where do we get this? You all know this.
[00:00:45] Excuse me. Galatians, chapter 5. The Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control.
[00:00:54] And so last week when we talked about the fruit of the Spirit, the main kind of governing idea of this class is pretty simple. We don't want to think about the fruit of the Spirit. Kind of abstract, like what is love or what is gentleness or what is goodness. We want us to connect in scripture. We saw from scripture, from Galatians as well as from Isaiah that God's word wants us to understand that the fruitful spiritual life is the life of Christlikeness.
[00:01:24] And so when we think about the Spirit bearing fruit in our lives in all of these different ways, we want us to understand that that's Christ likeness being produced in us. He's conforming us to the image of Christ. And so what we are not doing in this class is we're not fruit inspectors, right? We're not on an assembly line in this class. And we're just taking a piece of fruit like love, and we're just going to look at it abstract from the other fruit. We're not this. So not this. If you're a fruit inspector. I'm sorry, that's not what we're doing. What we're doing in this class is this. And I don't even think this is a real picture. I think this is AI because it looks fake. But you can see there's a diamond here. You see that? You can see the diamond. And so what we're doing is we want to think of the fruit of the Spirit not as nine separate jewels, but nine, but rather as nine separate facets or sides of one single shimmering diamond.
[00:02:27] So in other words, this class, you came to hear about the fruit of the Spirit.
[00:02:32] You came to hear about the work of the Holy Spirit. But really, this is a class about the character of Christ.
[00:02:39] Christ is the diamond. We're going to stare at the beauty of Christ from the Gospels because that's what's so clever about this book. We got this idea from this book. It's called the Character of Christ.
[00:02:51] If you like the class, you want something more, the character of Christ. It's really short. And what we're doing in this class is we're going to think about each facet of the fruit of the Spirit through the lens of the life of Christ.
[00:03:05] So if we want to know what gentleness looks like, we should look at Christ in the Gospels. If we want to know what, what, what faith, if we want to look like what goodness, we can go through all of them. So this morning we're going to do that and we're going to look at the facet called love, which you probably can't read that, sorry. Okay, so the fruit of the spirit is love. Now this is hard.
[00:03:29] Imagine the task of. I'm going to show you how love shows up in Jesus life. Okay? One of my favorite dead guy, he invented the beanie. There it is. He was the first person to wear a beanie and has beautiful hair, right?
[00:03:45] Has a goatee. I mean, so we think the Puritans were uptight. Look at this guy. He would fit right in on the U of A right now. Okay.
[00:03:52] He's my favorite dead theologian. His name's Thomas Goodwin. I owe him more than I can ever put into words. And he said this. God is. Well, John said this, but God is love, as John says in 1st John 4:8. So God is love. And listen, this. Christ is love covered over with flesh.
[00:04:11] Yes, our flesh.
[00:04:13] In other words, Christ is love incarnate.
[00:04:16] God is love. The Son of God is love incarnate. And so as we look at the Gospels, we're going to see a narrative of the heart of Christ.
[00:04:24] We're going to see love lived out in the flesh.
[00:04:29] Divine love. What does it look like to love God? What does it look like to love your neighbor? What does it look like to see the fruit of love towards saints, towards sinners, towards those who are suffering?
[00:04:43] How do we know what that looks like? We look at Christ and we. We want to expend our energies admiring him and exploring him and expositing him and extolling him.
[00:04:53] Okay, now the reason this is so important is in English, if I say the word love. I can use the word love in a lot of. In different ways, but it kind of gets confusing because we don't have a lot of words for it. So I could say I love Jesus Christ.
[00:05:11] I could say I love Alison Roark.
[00:05:14] Hey, guess what? This last week, it was our 25th meetiversary.
[00:05:20] Great. All right, September 9th. Right. Our dateversary is coming up on the 25th anyway, so that's free. That's not in the notes. But think about this. I could say I love. I love Jesus Christ. I love Alison Roark. I. I love Onyx Coffee.
[00:05:35] I love Ripper sometimes. Right. My dog Ripper. I love the Tennessee Vols.
[00:05:42] But think about the word love in all of those. I mean, I love coffee and I love Jesus. You see how that it's like, huh? Well, in the New Testament, there's different words for love, and I'm not going to go through all of those. But there's. There's. In the Greek language, there's words that give a little bit more nuance to love. There's some overlap between them.
[00:06:03] Right. Some of you talk about agape love. We're not going to do sloppy agape this morning and talk about all the different, you know what agape is. But there's words in the New Testament that describe love as affection.
[00:06:14] There's words in the New Testament that love as kind of friendship.
[00:06:17] There's words in love that speak more romantic love and then more love, that sacrificial love. So there's a greater variety of love described in the New Testament than maybe English lets us do.
[00:06:31] So we need to define what love is, but the other reason we need to define it is because the way that we speak about love in this class is not the way those outside in the world who aren't Christians speak about love.
[00:06:45] So if I were to ask you, how does the world define love? Give me some definition. How would the world define love? Here's one. And we know the Beatles. This is actually theologically true. All you need is love.
[00:06:56] But not the way the Beatles meant it. Right.
[00:06:58] How do you define love in the world?
[00:07:02] Romantic love. Oh, yeah. So love equals. Yeah. Romantic love. Right.
[00:07:09] And in some ways, like who are you sleeping with? That's how you love. Right. What else?
[00:07:15] Affirmation.
[00:07:16] Yes. So love. Yeah. If you love someone, you affirm.
[00:07:22] You affirm everything about them.
[00:07:25] Remember that really profound statement several years ago? It became viral. It was this.
[00:07:31] It's really profound. Love is love.
[00:07:35] Remember that? Love is love. So you can see this idea that love is whatever you define it to be.
[00:07:42] Right. There's no. The only thing you can say Is like, that's not loving. Right. That would be out of bounds. Any other ways that we define love? Love is affirmation. Love is whatever you want it to be. Love is romantic love. What else?
[00:07:57] Yeah, love means.
[00:08:01] I can't write this morning. I'm sorry. Let's see, how do I get through to this? Sorry means.
[00:08:09] You're saying love means no sorry.
[00:08:12] Okay, what else? Anything else?
[00:08:19] I just heard multiple people talking.
[00:08:21] Dan, what did you say?
[00:08:23] Love is the feeling that I got as a teenager looking at my first attractive broker.
[00:08:31] Okay, all right. That's a very specific definition. Love is that romantic feeling I got as a teenager when I saw attractive woman. Okay, okay. Love is equal. It's a feeling. Hey, there was a banger song in the 90s or 80s, love is a feeling. Remember that song, Love is a Feeling. Okay, so we can keep going. Here's the point. Here's the point.
[00:08:53] All of this stuff, like you have to ask the question. When you talk about love with someone, this is what they're thinking. They're not thinking, probably what we're going to talk about this morning. So we need to define what, what love is. And so I'm going to start with a really simple definition that we're going to spell out a little bit more later in the class. Okay.
[00:09:15] Because what's unusual about the fruit of love is that it's different from the other fruit in this sense.
[00:09:23] Self control is self control. It's a horizontal virtue. Right. We don't practice self control towards God. Right.
[00:09:34] Goodness. We don't display goodness towards God. It's a horizontal fruit. We display goodness towards those around us. Right. What about love? Is love just horizontal?
[00:09:46] No, love is also vertical. We love God and we love our neighbor. So we have to define both. So I just put this definition in your. In your notes.
[00:09:55] Basically, Scott helped me with this. So if you want to get a footnote right here. Footnote 1. 1. It was. It was Scott. Okay.
[00:10:03] Love is the spirit given heart that wills the true good of the other.
[00:10:10] Love is the spirit given heart. It's not just mental and it's not just will. It comes out of affection. Right. It's a spirit given heart. It's from the spirit and it wills the true good of the other. And that important phrase here, the true good. Just because someone wants to be affirmed.
[00:10:29] It may not be truly good to affirm sin. I mean, it's never good to affirm sin. But we have to define what that. What that looks like. So love is the spirit given heart that Wills the true good of the other. And so what I want to do briefly is to talk a little bit about how we see love displayed in Christ's life. Okay, so we got a few minutes to think about that.
[00:10:58] He is. He is, as we said earlier, he is love incarnate.
[00:11:04] He's love in the flesh.
[00:11:06] He is God. God is love. And we're going to see this lived out.
[00:11:10] I was really encouraged when I read this quote in this book.
[00:11:14] Look at this. From the character of Christ.
[00:11:18] Christ's entire life is a great exposition of this verse. The fruit of the Spirit is love.
[00:11:28] So in other words, when you open the New Testament, you open, you go to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You could just do the whole thing where you just flipped open to any page and read that page. And you know what you're going to find?
[00:11:40] Jesus loving God and loving his neighbor.
[00:11:43] That's, that's, that's literally what you see all over the place.
[00:11:47] So we could pick a lot of places. I'm going to ask you really quickly just again, I want some interaction here.
[00:11:53] When you think of the love of Christ on display, what do you think of in his life?
[00:11:59] What passages or what events come to mind? Any thoughts?
[00:12:05] Yeah.
[00:12:06] Who said that? Yes. Washing the disciples feet. Right. Remember in John 13, the Last Supper. Right. He gets down and serves them.
[00:12:18] He loves them by serving them. What else? The cross. The cross, yes. See, that's where we're going. That's right.
[00:12:26] There's a great. The reason Ed's on the front row. You always get the good answers. Right. The cross. Yes, we're going to go there. Yes.
[00:12:36] Sorry. Meeting the Samaritan woman. Yes, meeting the Samaritan. The woman at the well. Right. The Samaritan woman. John 4. Right. He went there purposefully in the middle of the day to meet her and to minister to her. That's right. So we could keep going. Right.
[00:12:49] But I do want. It's funny you knew where we were going because John 13 is a great verse that summarizes literally all of Christ's life around love.
[00:13:02] I want you to see this. This is the last night, right? This is when he's about to be betrayed by Judas Iscariot and taken away to trial. And then he's going to be taken out on Friday and crucified. So this is Thursday night.
[00:13:17] It's the last night of the world in one way.
[00:13:20] And notice what John tells us. This is one of my favorite verses in the Gospel of John.
[00:13:25] Now, before the feast of the Passover, when none of this is amazing. When Jesus knew that his hour. And if you've ever read John's gospel, you know the hour, it's always coming. The hour is coming. The hour is coming. And now it says, when this hour, his hour, his hour had come, notice to depart out of this world to the Father. In other words, he's headed towards his death, his resurrection and his ascension. He's going back to the Father.
[00:13:57] And this is beautiful. Look at this.
[00:14:00] Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
[00:14:08] Isn't that beautiful?
[00:14:11] So he came into the world for his own, and he loved them all the whole life of love. And guess what? John sinned and he loved them to the end.
[00:14:23] So from the moment he came in to the moment he ascends, he loved his own all the way to the end.
[00:14:29] That's beautiful.
[00:14:31] Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And what's going to be so amazing, beloved, is that in this upper room discourse chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 of John. It's the longest kind of treatment where Jesus is talking to us and he's telling us about his own relationship with the Father and the Spirit.
[00:14:59] And he's telling them what's going to happen when he goes away, what he's going to do for them. And then he prays for them.
[00:15:08] And he. I mean, you've read John 17. He prays for them, that they, all those who have believed, would be with him where he is to see his glory.
[00:15:21] So on the night he was betrayed, how did this love show itself for you?
[00:15:28] Jesus prayed for you.
[00:15:31] He's going to the cross and he's praying for you.
[00:15:35] It's beautiful.
[00:15:38] But if we're going to talk about the love of Christ, I mean. Ed, hit it.
[00:15:43] Jesus himself tells us, if you want to see what love looks like, don't just look at my life, look at my what?
[00:15:52] Look at my death.
[00:15:55] Look at John 15:13. I put this in your. I think I put this in your notes, right? John 15:13.
[00:16:01] What? Jesus says, greater love has no one than this. Greater love has no one than this.
[00:16:10] That someone what lay down his life for his friends.
[00:16:15] So Jesus is talking to his disciples. He's about to lay down his life for them.
[00:16:21] And he says, there's no greater love than this.
[00:16:25] That you love someone enough to say, I will die for you.
[00:16:31] I will give my life for your life.
[00:16:35] I love you this much.
[00:16:37] You're about to die. I will take your place.
[00:16:41] And I imagine this week as we were reflecting as a nation, as a world about the tragedy of 9 11.
[00:16:48] Did any of you happen to read any stories this week about people? Whether it was firefighters, it was all different kinds of different examples of men and women who put their lives and cost their lives and gave their lives to save lives.
[00:17:11] Isn't that amazing? I mean, you read that and you think greater love has none than this, that someone lay down his life for his what? His friends, brothers and sisters. Think about this, though.
[00:17:25] If you're trusting in Jesus this morning, you're his friend, and he's your friend. He's the friend of sinners.
[00:17:31] But Scripture doesn't just call us Christ's friends.
[00:17:34] When he died for us, we were his enemies.
[00:17:41] So if there's no greater love than giving your life for your friends, I mean, Paul says in Romans 5, even for a good man, someone might dare to die.
[00:17:50] But God shows his own love for us in that while we were yet what, sinners.
[00:17:56] Christ died for us when we were his enemies. He has reconciled us to God. We were ungodly, we were his enemies, we were sinners.
[00:18:07] And he gave up his life for us.
[00:18:13] And so what I wanted to do, just to help us meditate on this, because you all are sitting there thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. I came to class this morning and Jesus said, or Jesus said, Nick said that Jesus loved me.
[00:18:25] Whoo. That's great. Like, tell me something I don't know. Well, what I have found in my life. If I want to, I want to grow deeper in my understanding of the love of God in Christ, I've got to meditate. And so one of the best ways to meditate on the love of God in Christ is to think about and ponder what he said when on the cross for us.
[00:18:49] Because out of the Jesus said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth, what speaks. So if we. If John 13 right here is telling us what was in his heart, namely love.
[00:19:01] And Jesus says, on the night he was about to die, or the diabetes was betrayed, the head of the cross, he says, I'm going to lay down my life for my friends. That's love.
[00:19:10] Well, let's look at his words on the cross and reflect.
[00:19:14] Do they show a heart of love for sinners and saints and sufferers?
[00:19:20] Well, first thing he says on the cross, father, what for? They know not what they do.
[00:19:30] He's on the cross dying.
[00:19:34] Father, forgive them, those who are crucifying me because they don't know what they're doing.
[00:19:42] And then he looks to one of the thief that had two thieves, right? One on the left, one on the right.
[00:19:48] And remember, he said he defended Jesus. Remember, he says, we're guilty. He's done nothing wrong.
[00:19:58] And he says, remember me when you enter into your kingdom.
[00:20:02] And what does Jesus say to him?
[00:20:04] Truly, I say to you today, you thief on the cross, you will be with me.
[00:20:14] Paradise.
[00:20:16] Is that coming from a heart of love? I wonder when the last time someone loved that thief.
[00:20:24] And then you think about the fifth commandment, right? Honor your father and mother.
[00:20:33] On the cross.
[00:20:34] Jesus knows he's about to leave his mom a widow and she's going to lose her eldest son who took care of her.
[00:20:46] And so what does Jesus do? He honors his mother.
[00:20:50] He says to John, the disciple whom he loved. What does he say? He says, woman, behold your son.
[00:21:00] And he looks to Mary and he says, behold your mother, right? So he speaks to his mom, he speaks to John, and what is he doing in this?
[00:21:08] Jesus is making sure Mary's taken care of. Taken care of.
[00:21:13] Is that coming from a heart of love?
[00:21:16] Think about when Jesus was eight days old.
[00:21:20] They went to the temple, Joseph and Mary, to present him for purification. Remember, Remember, he's been circumcised, right? On the eighth day.
[00:21:28] And while they're there, remember what happened? They gave an offering of turtledoves, remember? And then an old man came up to him. Remember what was his name?
[00:21:37] Old man Simeon. Remember? And he grabs baby Jesus from Mary's arms. Y' all remember this? Y' all read Luke? Anybody read Luke? Okay, one person. Thank you, Justin. Praise God. Remember, old man Simeon takes up Jesus in his arms.
[00:21:52] He says, now, O Lord, your servant can depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, right?
[00:21:59] And then eventually he looks to Mary and he says, this one, this one will cause the rising and falling of many in Israel. And he will be a sign that will be opposed.
[00:22:11] And he looked Mary in the eyes and said, remember? He said, and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.
[00:22:20] And Mary's been living with that since he was an eight day old baby.
[00:22:25] And she saw her son get crucified.
[00:22:29] And so what does Jesus do? He says, mom, this is how I'm going to love you. You're losing me today. I'll be back in three days. Don't worry. But John's going to take care of you.
[00:22:44] Beautiful.
[00:22:47] I thirst.
[00:22:52] The one who gives the water of life is thirsty.
[00:22:58] He says on the cross. My God. Quoting Psalm 22, right?
[00:23:03] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[00:23:11] He was forsaken so that we would be accepted.
[00:23:17] And probably my favorite. What does he say in John 19:30? It is what?
[00:23:23] It's finished.
[00:23:25] No, it is finished. And then what happened when he said that the veil of the temple was what, Torn top to bottom? Right. There's nothing more for you to do. He has finished his work for you. And he will finish his work within you when he comes again.
[00:23:40] But it's finished.
[00:23:42] He finished it. He didn't say, I'm gonna do 90%. Have anybody done a group project?
[00:23:49] It's always one person doing everything anyway, right?
[00:23:53] Imagine how awful would it be if Jesus was like, salvation is a group project.
[00:23:58] I'll do my part. You got to do your part.
[00:24:01] Jesus did the whole. All of it. Not in part, but the whole, right? It's finished.
[00:24:08] And I love how the first thing he says on the cross, the last word he says on the cross, he talks to his Father.
[00:24:17] So it's finished.
[00:24:19] And exercising love to his Father, he says, father, it's into your hands I commit my spirit.
[00:24:27] He walked in love towards his Father his whole life.
[00:24:32] They shouldn't be any different in his death.
[00:24:35] And so, brothers and sisters, do you see just in this little snapshot?
[00:24:39] Do you see the love of Christ for you?
[00:24:42] Do you see the love of Christ for you? I hope so.
[00:24:45] Paul the apostle who wrote Galatians is what he wrote in Galatians 2.
[00:24:51] I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.
[00:24:58] The life that I now live in the flesh I live.
[00:25:02] I live by faith in the Son of God. And notice what he says, who what loved me and who gave himself up for me?
[00:25:13] Paul lived his life knowing that Jesus loved him.
[00:25:20] Jesus loves me. This I know.
[00:25:23] For the what Bible tells me so, right? It's a wonderful song, and it's a biblical song. And so when we. When we sing, when we read this, we shouldn't just say Amen, we should want to sing. And if you think about the number of hymns in the Christian life, they're all about the cross because it's all about the love of God for us, right? So I'm going to just give you two that I love.
[00:25:48] Some of you will know these, some of you won't. That's okay.
[00:25:51] Isaac Watts, he said, was it for crimes that I have done, he groaned upon that tree, Amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond degree.
[00:26:09] And then another one so dear, so very dear to God, more dear. I cannot be the love wherewith he loves the Son such is his love for me.
[00:26:26] It's amazing.
[00:26:27] So, brothers and sisters, this is, this is the love of God displayed in his life and in his death. If you want to see love on display, love for God and love for neighbor, just open the gospels and read and ponder and meditate later. The Apostle John says, we love because what he first loved us. And so if you want to be a loving person, you're not going to be a loving person by just trying to be a loving person. Right. Christianity teaches us that we have to be loved in Christ and that transforms us into a loving person.
[00:27:15] And so we're going to think about that this morning. We're going to move now to thinking about seeing the fruit of Christ in us. Right? Let's, let's look for. How do we display this fruit of the spirit of love in our own lives? Well, let's talk about loving God. We're going to talk about loving God and then loving our others, loving the church and loving our neighbor. So about what loving God means. Well, loving God, here's the definition. Like I said, the spirit given. Again, it sounds like Piper. It's a lot of hyphenated words. The spirit given fruit of Christlike love toward God is delighting in him and joyously embracing his will and service.
[00:27:58] And so as we love God, right?
[00:28:02] As we respond to his love, and we love him, we don't do it grudgingly. You don't love God with a scowl on your face. I love you, God, and you look like you don't like him, that we love him.
[00:28:17] And it's amazing that we get to love him. And so when we love the Lord, even when things are hard, right?
[00:28:25] You can love God with tears in your eyes because you're going through hardship, but there is a deep rooted delight and joy that this love expresses itself by embracing his will and by serving him.
[00:28:42] By serving him.
[00:28:44] And so what I wanted to just mention for a minute is like, where do we see this in scripture? Well, this is a famous spot. Matthew 22. Remember when the man comes up to Jesus, this lawyer, and says, hey, what are the two. What's the greatest commandment? Like, what do I got to do to inherit eternal life?
[00:29:04] And he says, what's the greatest commandment?
[00:29:08] And he says, okay. And Jesus says, well, you know, what's the answer?
[00:29:13] What does he say? It's right here. What does he say?
[00:29:16] You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And then he says, and the second is like it. And what does he say?
[00:29:24] When I was teaching the boys, Emmaline was not old enough yet, but I was teaching the boys the catechism. We got to this question in the Heidelberg, and it's, you know, what's the first and greatest commandment? And Hudson, I remember, quoted this passage, Matthew 22, and it was so sweet. He got the first part right and then he said, and the second is like it, keep your hands to yourself.
[00:29:47] I was like, we had to go to the judges. Like, we'll accept that. But, you know, anyway, the point is, you shall love God. Now, notice how comprehensive this is. Think about this, because I said over here, delight, joy embracing. This is what love is. Look at how comprehensive this is.
[00:30:06] You're to love God, notice with just your mind.
[00:30:10] No, look, he says, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.
[00:30:18] So you see how comprehensive this is. Everything we are, all that we are, we ought to devote to loving God, right?
[00:30:28] This is the first, and it's the great commandment. If you think about the Ten Commandments, that's an embodiment of God's love, right? Call to love. The first four commandments. You all know the Ten Commandments, right? If you don't know the Ten Commandments, we need to learn them with our fingers. But anyway, I'll do that another time. But the first four commandments, right, all have to do with loving God. And then commandments five to ten have to do with loving our neighbor, right? So. So you got 60, 633 laws in the Torah, summarize them into 10, Jesus summarizes them into two. So 6, 3, 3, 10, 2. You can you remember it? Love God. Love your neighbor. Okay? And I imagine someone here is wondering about maybe you're not a follower of Jesus and you're thinking, I don't know, like, it sounds risky. You're telling me to put all my heart, soul, mind and strength towards this God that I can't even see.
[00:31:21] And maybe you're holding back love towards other people or towards God because you don't want to get burned. Maybe you have been burned.
[00:31:32] Maybe Christians have been the one who have burned you.
[00:31:35] Maybe you're sitting here thinking, yeah, that's all great, Nick, but like.
[00:31:40] Like I'm going to just going to hold that back and not love, because that's safe.
[00:31:48] So I want to read something from a friend of mine. He's been dead a while.
[00:31:53] His name's C.S. lewis. And this is what he. This is what C.S. lewis wants you to hear.
[00:31:58] He says in one of his books, the four Loves this little book here, he says, to love at all is to be vulnerable.
[00:32:08] Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.
[00:32:14] If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one.
[00:32:20] Wrap it up carefully around hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in a casket or a coffin of your selfishness.
[00:32:29] Put it in a casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless.
[00:32:35] It will change.
[00:32:37] It will not be broken.
[00:32:39] It will become unbreakable.
[00:32:43] The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell.
[00:32:56] Friend, listen.
[00:32:58] If you want to know what love is, it's not to try to start being a loving person.
[00:33:07] It's to come to Jesus Christ by faith.
[00:33:11] He is love.
[00:33:13] And he came into the world because His Father loves the world and sent His Son into the world to die for the sins of the world.
[00:33:20] And then he rose again from the dead. And he calls you who don't love him right now to know his love, which surpasses knowledge.
[00:33:31] His love will transform you.
[00:33:35] But before your life is transformed by love, you come to him with all the ways you haven't loved. You bring your failures to him.
[00:33:45] You bring your sins to him. And he will receive you with arms of love and grace. Just as his arms were stretched wide on the cross, his arms of love are ready to embrace you even this morning.
[00:33:57] If you will trust Him.
[00:33:59] If you'll humble yourself to trust him.
[00:34:03] And everybody around here that knows Jesus can testify.
[00:34:09] We have never regretted loving Jesus Christ.
[00:34:14] So trust him.
[00:34:16] Trust him.
[00:34:18] So that's what it means to love God. Just as Jesus, the joy that was set before him.
[00:34:26] He endured the cross, he despised the shame, and he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
[00:34:33] So that's what it means to love God. We see Jesus loving God and we are called to love with heart, soul, mind and strength. And let's just conclude with loving others. What does this look like? Well, the Spirit given fruit of Christlike love towards others. Notice it's free, sacrificial and merciful action to do good to others.
[00:34:55] And what do I mean by those really quickly?
[00:34:59] It's spirit given and it's Christlike love. And it's free. It's sacrificial and merciful action. So real quickly, it's free.
[00:35:07] So we don't love as Christians towards others because we expect to get something back that's trans. Have you ever been in a situation where it's like transactional? I do this for you. You do this for me? I scratch your back. You scratch my back. That's not Christian love.
[00:35:23] Right.
[00:35:24] Jesus says in Luke, chapter six, verse five, we're to love even our enemies, expecting nothing in return.
[00:35:34] So, like I love Allison because I love her, not because I'm expecting her or demanding her to love me back.
[00:35:43] Right? We love. And it's a free love.
[00:35:46] Secondly, it's sacrificial. What does love look like? Well, Jesus says in Matthew, for example, like in Ephesians 5, how's a husband supposed to love his wife? Husbands love your wives. What? Just as Christ loved the church and what gave himself up for her, so Christian love looks like sacrificial love. Jesus loved us on the cross by laying down his life for us. Greater love has done this, that we lay down our life for our friends.
[00:36:12] So love will. It's free.
[00:36:15] We don't demand something in return. But it will cost you love anybody. It will. Love costs. It's sacrificial.
[00:36:26] It will cost you to love your neighbor.
[00:36:29] But that's Christlike love. And then third, it's merciful, meaning that if you love someone, most of the time, they don't deserve that love.
[00:36:41] Right?
[00:36:42] So you're showing love towards sinners.
[00:36:45] Anybody you love in this world, you're loving a sinner, Right? So it's merciful that you are, as it were, that love is full of mercy as you're loving. And then lastly, it's action. It's not just feeling. It's not just emotion. It takes concrete action.
[00:37:03] For God so loved the world that he felt this way. No. That he sent his only begotten Son. Love takes action, okay?
[00:37:13] To do good to others.
[00:37:16] All right, so real quick, we got two buckets that we want to think about here. Loving our church and loving our neighbor. These are all in your notes.
[00:37:26] I'm going to go through these pretty quickly because you guys kind of already know these, I imagine. But Jesus said, we're thinking about how to love our church. Right? What does Jesus say?
[00:37:37] A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. There it is. And notice the qualifier here.
[00:37:43] Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
[00:37:48] So telling us to love one another, it's not a new commandment. God's law teaches us that in the Old Testament. But Jesus is saying, what's new about this is that now you have me as the model you love, just as I have loved you. Right? And then notice how this affects the church by this. That is our love for One another. All people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
[00:38:16] So the way we love one another in the church displays something to the world that we're followers of the king of love.
[00:38:25] Okay?
[00:38:27] And then here's love for neighbor, right?
[00:38:30] Paul's going to say in Galatians, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word.
[00:38:36] You shall love your neighbor what?
[00:38:38] As yourself.
[00:38:40] As yourself. If you want to know what loving your neighbor as yourself looks like, perfectly.
[00:38:46] Jesus told a parable about this one time called the Good Whoops, the Good Samaritan.
[00:38:53] So if you want to know what neighbor love looks like, go read that parable, and it shows you what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. It's intense. It's intense. So I wanted to help us think about this a little bit more fully, and then we're going to break up and discuss this. But if I were to ask you what passage in the Bible, Maybe besides John 3:16, that you love about love, I imagine a lot of you would say a passage of scripture that shows up in weddings a lot of times. What passage is that?
[00:39:24] Yeah. 1 Corinthians 13. Right? Now, anybody have this read at your wedding? Anybody? Anybody? Raise your hand. Don't be ashamed. It's okay. Hey, it's good.
[00:39:33] It's a great. I mean, let's give it up for 1 Corinthians 13. It's a great passage. I mean, it's God's word that was weak. It's a great passage right now. It's a passage in the context of spiritual gifts, like how you use spiritual gifts. But in the center of this passage, there's a long, beautiful section. It's all beautiful, but there's a section about love. And it helps us nuance what love looks like and how love acts.
[00:39:59] So I want to read this, and then I want to just flesh this out a little bit, okay? Because when we think about love for neighbor, I want you to just. I don't want you to leave thinking, well, I'm supposed to love my church and love my neighbor. What does that look like? Okay? Love is patient, kind.
[00:40:15] Love does not envy or boast. It's not prideful or arrogant or rude.
[00:40:22] It doesn't insist on its own way.
[00:40:26] It's not irritable.
[00:40:28] It's not resentful.
[00:40:30] It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but on the other hand, rejoices with the truth.
[00:40:37] Love bears or forbearers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
[00:40:52] And so My friend who's also not with. Who's with the Lord now. His name is Jerry Bridges. I have a lot of dead friends who are with the Lord. I didn't know Jerry Bridges, but he was one of the first Christian writers that someone gave me in high school. And he changed my life.
[00:41:06] So he's a friend.
[00:41:08] This is what Jerry Bridges said.
[00:41:11] He said this. He's unpacking this. I'm going to read this.
[00:41:14] I am patient with you because I love you and want to forgive you.
[00:41:21] I'm kind to you because I love you and I want to help you.
[00:41:27] So he's taking each one of these and connecting it specifically to love.
[00:41:31] I don't envy your possessions or your gifts because I love you and I want you to have the best.
[00:41:40] I don't boast about my attainments or achievements because I love you and I want to hear about yours.
[00:41:48] I'm not proud because I love you and want to esteem you before myself.
[00:41:56] I'm not rude because I love you and care about your feelings.
[00:42:01] I'm not self seeking because I love you and want to meet your needs.
[00:42:06] I'm not easily angered by you because I love you and I want to overlook your offenses.
[00:42:14] I do not keep a record of your wrongs because I love you and love covers a multitude of sins.
[00:42:24] So, brothers and sisters, this is what love looks like.
[00:42:29] And as I close, and we're going to go now and take some time to have some discussion questions. I was looking for something the other day and I came across this little liturgy that I modified it from something, I don't remember what it was. And I gave it to Scott, Scott and Ana the day they took Flora home from the hospital.
[00:42:48] And I gave it to him to put it in the nursery because I thought this is a great example of how we should be those who prize the love of God in Christ and pass it on to the little ones as soon as we can. Okay? So I'm going to read this and pray for us and then we're going to break up and have these questions.
[00:43:09] So this is.
[00:43:11] I guess this would be a liturgy for Flora. Okay.
[00:43:15] It says this, it was for you, little one, that the dayspring from on high the only begotten Son of the Father came down, became flesh and lived among us full of grace and truth.
[00:43:30] It was for you, little one.
[00:43:33] Jesus Christ came into the world for you he has fought, for you, he has suffered, for you he entered the shadow of Gethsemane.
[00:43:43] For you he entered the horror of Calvary.
[00:43:46] For you he uttered the cry. It is finished.
[00:43:50] For you he descended to the dead, for you he rose again.
[00:43:55] For you he ascended into heaven on high. And there he rules and reigns and intercedes. For you all this was done for you, little one, though.
[00:44:11] All this was done for you, little one, though you do not know any of this yet.
[00:44:17] But we will continue to tell you this good news until by grace it becomes your own.
[00:44:24] And in this way the promise of the gospel is fulfilled.
[00:44:28] We love him because he first loved us.
[00:44:33] Let's pray.
