back to index2019-03-31 Characterized by God's Love
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Would you turn with me to 1 John 4, verse 19? 00:00:25.760 |
If someone says, "I love God" and hates his brother, he is a liar, for the one who does 00:00:30.420 |
not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 00:00:36.200 |
And this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should love his brother 00:00:42.480 |
Heavenly Father, we pray that as we listen to your word that we would remember that this 00:00:49.480 |
is something that is authoritative into our lives. 00:01:02.560 |
So Father, as we listen, would we not just be convicted? 00:01:05.440 |
Would we not leave with nice Christian ideas? 00:01:09.160 |
But Father, would our desire be to live out the things that we hear? 00:01:13.540 |
And so worship and love you with all our hearts. 00:01:20.680 |
Well, you know, one of the coolest things is at our old church, we've been here for 00:01:27.560 |
a little over a year now, we had to, or I had to teach every Friday and preach every 00:01:32.080 |
Sunday amongst other various Bible studies that kind of happened during the week. 00:01:36.560 |
And one of the great pleasures that I think Kazia and I personally have had as we've come 00:01:41.540 |
here is we've been able to kind of sit in at least one service of worship and to listen 00:01:52.520 |
From day one, when we entered into these Berean doors, we were like, "Man, people are so kind, 00:02:03.620 |
And people, I think, are genuinely caring here, genuinely kind. 00:02:08.560 |
The church, I think, ought to be this way, but what we're going to be hitting today, 00:02:13.380 |
as you can kind of guess from the text, is that the challenge is that it goes much more 00:02:19.460 |
than or beyond this kind of interaction with one another. 00:02:24.520 |
This call to love one another is more than just being kind, is more than just exchanging 00:02:32.460 |
And a question we could kind of think about is, what distinguishes the interactions we 00:02:37.880 |
have with each other here at church with an interaction we might have on an elevator with 00:02:42.460 |
a stranger, when we kind of say things to each other or not? 00:02:46.740 |
Or maybe if you're washing a car in front of your house and a neighbor comes out and 00:02:52.380 |
you're kind of exchanging pleasantries with them, or with some coworkers or just people 00:03:00.300 |
What makes it any different than a social club you might be a part of? 00:03:05.420 |
And the challenge is that we are called to love one another, and here's the difference, 00:03:19.220 |
That our love for one another is not to be anything less than how God calls us to love 00:03:27.460 |
Because when we see the enormity of God's love, a love that went all the way to the 00:03:35.100 |
point of sacrificing his own son on the cross, that we can't just settle with loving just 00:03:44.740 |
And so we're gonna be going through three points today. 00:03:52.140 |
Secondly, we love because God first loved us. 00:04:11.180 |
If you look at your text there, it says we love. 00:04:21.140 |
And that term is a very loaded term, agape love. 00:04:25.060 |
Agape is to love based on a sincere appreciation or a high regard of someone. 00:04:46.400 |
It's pursuing another person's good and not really being so consumed about your own. 00:04:55.420 |
This agape love is different from philia love, which is brotherly or friendly love. 00:04:59.740 |
It's different than eros love, which is romantic love, or storge love, which is familial love. 00:05:05.500 |
It's based on the blueprint of God's love for humanity. 00:05:16.060 |
And that's why in 1 John 4, it says that God is love. 00:05:21.500 |
R.C. Sproul says this, "In the New Testament, love is more of a verb than a noun. 00:05:24.940 |
It has more to do with acting than with feeling. 00:05:27.660 |
The call to love is not so much a call to a certain state of feeling as it is to a quality 00:05:32.740 |
Agape love is ultimately the way that God loves us. 00:05:39.140 |
This is the love that is being repetitiously used here in 1 John 4. 00:05:42.900 |
If you were just to do a cursory scan of the chapter, the word just pops. 00:05:49.980 |
This isn't how we tend to use the word love nowadays. 00:05:52.340 |
Like when we say, you know, the Disney love or rom-com love, based on fuzzy feelings. 00:05:59.220 |
This isn't like when we say, "I love a certain type of food, like pho or steak or sushi." 00:06:05.640 |
This isn't like when we say, "Oh, the sun's out. 00:06:14.140 |
Notice how the expression of how we normally use the word love has much to do with self-centeredness. 00:06:20.380 |
What an object of our love can give to us, and so it draws in us something. 00:06:26.380 |
Its basis is found in bringing myself some kind of joy or happiness. 00:06:34.220 |
It looks at another person and how they could be loved. 00:06:39.080 |
This is a love that doesn't ask for anything in return. 00:06:44.780 |
This is a love that will go to war for the object of that affection. 00:06:52.140 |
This is a long-lasting, it endures, it perseveres, it is steadfast, it's a heavyweight love, 00:07:00.540 |
it's anchored, it's immovable, this kind of love. 00:07:07.060 |
And again, it's modeled by God's love for us. 00:07:10.620 |
And so it becomes very possible that even traditionally high forms of love, like a love 00:07:16.100 |
that a parent would have for their child, that that might not be true agape love. 00:07:22.780 |
That even a love that you might have for a good friend, that might not be agape love. 00:07:32.080 |
And so in verse 19, when it says that, it says very simply, very matter of fact, "We 00:07:42.020 |
There's a clause that comes after that, it says, "We love because you first loved us." 00:07:50.980 |
It doesn't have any direct object attached to it. 00:08:05.180 |
If you look back at 1 John 4, verse 7, it says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for 00:08:13.020 |
That's the "We" that's being talked about there. 00:08:16.100 |
It kind of sounds like agape, because that means those who have been loved. 00:08:24.180 |
The ones who have been loved by agape love, these are the agapetoi. 00:08:40.620 |
This word, there are different moods when you think of verbs. 00:08:44.300 |
Three very common ones are indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. 00:08:54.620 |
It's not a command to us that says, "This is what you want to do. 00:09:06.940 |
This is talking about a reality of what already is. 00:09:09.940 |
There, of course, is an imperatival aspect of love. 00:09:13.900 |
If you look at Ephesians 5, verse 1, it says, "Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved 00:09:17.860 |
children and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us." 00:09:23.860 |
So we are called to go, we are commanded to go and love people. 00:09:27.100 |
Here, it's an indicative, a truth and reality of what we already are as justified, saved 00:10:00.180 |
And so where we were so bent on loving ourselves, there is another lesser known Greek word for 00:10:16.940 |
We are people who are sacrificial in our love. 00:10:21.420 |
We are not self-centered or selfish in our love. 00:10:24.380 |
When we look across the world, when we look at the person next to each other, the type 00:10:30.700 |
of love we're called to love with is this type of love. 00:10:37.900 |
We don't walk through these doors thinking, "What can I get today? 00:10:45.020 |
What is this person going to do to make me feel welcome today?" 00:10:48.820 |
It's a love that says, "How can I love others?" 00:10:51.740 |
And as every Christian walks through these doors, that we are entering in as people who 00:10:59.900 |
And when the world sees the Christian, they see a person who loves as God loves. 00:11:07.940 |
We don't come in just being kind to each other. 00:11:10.940 |
We come in consumed with the understanding and the depth and the breadth and the length 00:11:31.340 |
On a side note, that doesn't mean that they'll call us loving people, talking about the world. 00:11:36.380 |
It doesn't mean the world will look at us and say, "You're loving." 00:11:40.180 |
This world holds all sorts of insults at Christians who proclaim the truth of love because we 00:11:45.660 |
When we preach a gospel, that is a love and truth. 00:11:52.300 |
It is a love that will smell of the aroma of life to those who are of life and the stench 00:11:56.900 |
of death to those who are unbelieving, to those who do not know Jesus. 00:12:02.660 |
That's why in John 15, 18 through 19, it says this, "If the world hates you, you know that 00:12:10.180 |
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. 00:12:12.660 |
But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, 00:12:17.060 |
However, with that said, the Christian is still characterized by love. 00:12:22.580 |
They can look at you and not agree with what you're saying, but the world will still be 00:12:34.420 |
In Galatians 5, verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit, the first fruit, the first of this 00:12:42.380 |
It says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, 00:12:51.900 |
Some people think that the first word in the list many times becomes an umbrella to everything 00:12:56.700 |
It may or may not be the case here, but love at the very least is placed up front. 00:13:04.340 |
In Matthew 22, verse 36-40, all of the law, all of the prophets, all of scripture is based 00:13:13.660 |
It says, this man who walks up to Jesus and asks, "Teacher, which is the great commandment 00:13:20.020 |
And Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all 00:13:26.820 |
A second, and there is a second, the second is like, "You shall love your neighbor as 00:13:33.020 |
On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. 00:13:36.540 |
Many times we come into church, we live our lives understanding with great clarity and 00:13:41.420 |
fervor that we are called to love God, and we will pursue and chase after that. 00:13:45.660 |
But there is a second commandment that goes in conjunction with it, that is that we are 00:13:52.140 |
In Colossians chapter 3, verse 12-14, it says, "So as those who have been chosen of God, 00:13:56.060 |
holy and beloved," that chosen people, holy people, people loved by God, it says, "put 00:14:04.900 |
out a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one 00:14:09.580 |
another, forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord 00:14:15.020 |
And then he gives his last statement, he says, and Paul says this, "Beyond all these things, 00:14:22.380 |
Beyond all of these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 00:14:28.180 |
In 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13, it says, "But now faith, hope, love abide these three, but 00:14:37.260 |
And the question swings to us then, are we characterized by this love? 00:14:41.980 |
When people say that you are a person who loves, if someone, if I were to go up to your 00:14:52.420 |
co-worker, would they be able to look at you and say, "I don't agree with everything, but 00:15:05.380 |
A family member, a roommate, when the world sees us, what goes through their mind? 00:15:18.380 |
It's not a personal effort of love or trying to be kind or considerate. 00:15:32.100 |
Even if this were an imperative to go and love others, this is not something you can 00:15:35.940 |
muster up with sheer willpower or human exertion. 00:15:41.540 |
Loving something is something that happens supernaturally. 00:15:44.940 |
It's something that happens in the heart as it transforms you. 00:15:58.820 |
That is the reason why we are characterized by love. 00:16:04.020 |
And this is found in the second half of verse 19. 00:16:06.020 |
It says, if you look there with me, "We love because he first loved us." 00:16:12.180 |
As I was preparing for this sermon, I was wondering, "Man, is this too elementary a 00:16:18.100 |
Is this too much, like something we already know?" 00:16:24.100 |
This statement is so just, you know, it's a verse you memorize. 00:16:32.460 |
In 1 John 4, verse 7 through 8, a little earlier on, before our passage, it says, "Beloved, 00:16:37.940 |
let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God 00:16:43.380 |
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 00:16:47.180 |
See, our love for one another is because love is from God. 00:16:51.500 |
So then anyone or everyone who loves is born of God, it says there, and knows God, it says 00:17:03.500 |
Like anyone who is born of God, anyone who knows God, what will it be? 00:17:15.940 |
And Pastor Peter was talking about like sounding and walking like a duck last week. 00:17:20.500 |
If you think about a chicken, and you try to describe a chicken to someone, he has a 00:17:24.940 |
beak, he has, he has, what else does he have? 00:17:29.340 |
He has feathers and that thing underneath, it's like a waddle, or I forgot what it's 00:17:33.020 |
called, but there's that thing he has, and we see all these different things, right? 00:17:36.100 |
And we look at this, and we say, "That's a chicken." 00:17:45.940 |
Characteristics are passed down from chicken to chicken. 00:17:51.260 |
Now anyone who is born of God, anyone who knows God, will love. 00:18:10.380 |
You don't just go and grab an animal and staple up a beak or feathers onto it and say, "Here's 00:18:15.420 |
Neither can we be Christians who say, "I've been born of God, I know God," and we staple 00:18:27.980 |
And we can have a lot of other good characteristics. 00:18:45.980 |
Without love, 1 Corinthians 13, we know that it means nothing. 00:18:51.740 |
As we look, we love because God first loved us. 00:18:55.420 |
Okay, so God's love is the blueprint and the DNA that kind of gets injected into us. 00:19:01.060 |
We're gonna be looking at three qualities as to why God's loving us first causes us 00:19:08.380 |
Someone greater than us has shown us sacrificial love. 00:19:13.100 |
Someone greater than us has shown us a love where he would kneel down to serve. 00:19:24.100 |
Addie and Hudson, they're my two children, four and two years old now, and they've been 00:19:30.220 |
And my son, Hudson, has been kind of running up to Addie and taking things from her. 00:19:34.380 |
And she'll go and play with something else and he'll run up and take that thing from 00:19:37.540 |
her and she'll go to something else and run up, take that thing from... 00:19:40.380 |
And he'll take that thing from her and after a while, she just starts screaming, right? 00:19:45.220 |
So he starts screaming and screaming and it's really hard for her to share and we try to 00:19:51.300 |
But something that I realized is there's a difference between when I tell her to go and 00:19:56.860 |
share and then when I model what it looks like to share. 00:20:01.660 |
When someone of authority kind of does something, it makes it a lot easier for those who are 00:20:07.500 |
just, say, underneath, those who are underneath to follow by example. 00:20:15.940 |
We used to go to a restaurant all the time when I was a kid and my family would go to 00:20:21.140 |
a place called Spires and it's like this diner and we always had the same thing, fried chicken, 00:20:30.020 |
But it would always take forever because there would be a four-course meal that would come 00:20:34.860 |
And then so we would eat and I would get bored. 00:20:37.020 |
And as a kid, I was very restless, I was very energetic. 00:20:46.260 |
And I would knock over my water and my drinks all the time. 00:20:50.780 |
And my dad would get so, so frustrated at that. 00:20:57.100 |
They would move the cup all the way over and I'd somehow figure out a way to go and knock 00:21:04.260 |
Now, there was this time though where my grandfather was with us and my dad, he would get mad anytime 00:21:13.620 |
There was a stint where he would try to teach me. 00:21:17.580 |
If I knocked it over, he would make me go and ask the people for napkins and I have 00:21:20.660 |
to get on my knees and I clean up all the water and stuff like that. 00:21:26.540 |
And then there's this time when my grandfather was with us and he was a very quiet man. 00:21:37.500 |
And what does a son do when you do something like that? 00:21:43.980 |
And I looked and then I saw the fire in his eyes. 00:21:52.220 |
My grandfather, he just quietly just grabbed a stack of napkins out in the middle and he 00:22:10.340 |
Because my grandfather, he's like the patriarch of the family. 00:22:13.180 |
Because my grandfather was doing that, my dad, it just extinguished the flames from 00:22:20.140 |
He just like, "Jet!" underneath the table and he started wiping it up. 00:22:23.980 |
And before I knew it, my entire family was down there wiping it up. 00:22:28.100 |
And I was just standing, I was just still sitting down like, "What just happened?" 00:22:33.340 |
When someone greater than us shows a sacrificial love, it makes it much easier, I think, for 00:22:41.380 |
Because when we see the example of what's given to us by God, in Philippians 2, verse 00:22:45.780 |
5 through 8, this is one of my favorite passages in scripture. 00:22:50.420 |
It says, "Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although 00:23:01.220 |
"He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking 00:23:07.260 |
the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. 00:23:10.700 |
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the 00:23:20.020 |
God first loved us, and we can use that as a means by which we will arm ourselves and 00:23:28.340 |
But we ought to stop and think about what that looks like and what that means. 00:23:49.460 |
If you've been in Colossians with us, it's staggering who Jesus is. 00:24:00.220 |
God is powerful and holy and just and sovereign. 00:24:17.340 |
He is actually the only one that is worthy of every ounce of worship that can come out 00:24:31.420 |
If rocks could speak, it would start screaming "worship that God." 00:24:40.500 |
Angels are worshiping day after day, minute after minute. 00:24:49.860 |
This is how God loving us first sets the course for us. 00:24:52.820 |
When someone so great loves us, it causes us to love others. 00:24:56.220 |
That's A. B, this is the second, love is shown for people who have no business receiving 00:25:07.020 |
We actually have to sit and meditate and ponder about the enormity of what kind of took place 00:25:14.860 |
That this great and transcendent God didn't just love the best of us, He dispenses His 00:25:25.100 |
As an unbeliever, there was a time I grew up in the church and I was an unbeliever. 00:25:28.540 |
And I came and I thought I was a pretty respectable, good, nice person. 00:25:33.060 |
High school yearbook, go to my high school yearbook, look it up, I was voted nicest person. 00:25:56.700 |
And I saw myself, I viewed myself more as a person in the middle of the ocean that's 00:26:00.140 |
like, "Okay, then I guess what I need to feel like is I'm a victim in this. 00:26:12.620 |
But no one pauses to think about what it looks like to save a sinner. 00:26:20.580 |
Romans chapter 5, verse 8 through 10, but God demonstrates His own love toward us. 00:26:26.180 |
He shows us His love, but then look at the means by which He does that. 00:26:31.300 |
In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 00:26:41.260 |
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 00:26:45.620 |
Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath 00:26:51.480 |
Verse 10, "For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death 00:26:58.060 |
of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." 00:27:02.580 |
If you were to think about like World War II imagery, and there are trenches, and there's 00:27:07.100 |
the enemy, and they're coming, and they're killing. 00:27:12.420 |
They're killing the people that you call your brothers, and this is just an atrocious thing, 00:27:18.540 |
and all this craziness is happening, and bombs are flying, and bullets are whizzing, and 00:27:30.460 |
They're waking up and going to sleep, taking turns in the middle of the night so that they 00:27:35.740 |
can continue that idea of trying to destroy you. 00:27:46.420 |
You know, this thing, this understanding of Romans 5, 8 through 10. 00:27:53.500 |
While we were enemies, this is when God loves us, not with just some flippant love, but 00:28:15.980 |
Someone that wants to hurt you, or said slanderous things about you? 00:28:19.500 |
Someone who's screaming at you, and spits in your face, maybe metaphorically or whatever? 00:28:29.900 |
Have you ever had anyone who actually wants to kill you, because they hate you so much? 00:28:36.300 |
With every last fiber of their being, just vitriol and venom against you. 00:28:46.660 |
Have you ever thought what it is for transcendent God to love you? 00:28:56.420 |
That's why in Luke 6, verse 31, it says, "Treat others the same way you want them to treat 00:29:01.660 |
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? 00:29:05.300 |
If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? 00:29:10.100 |
If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? 00:29:14.980 |
Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 00:29:18.380 |
Here it is, but you love your enemies and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, 00:29:27.380 |
and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High." 00:29:34.420 |
The DNA passed from father to son, sons of the Most High, for he himself is kind to ungrateful 00:29:45.220 |
That's the second reason why God's example of love causes us to love others. 00:29:53.720 |
If God can love a wretch like me, it is infinitely easier for me to love other wretches. 00:30:00.820 |
And finally, this letter C, God's love for us came at great personal cost. 00:30:12.460 |
Now, we can't take too much time to go into it, but I was meditating on Genesis 22 again. 00:30:17.820 |
I really love the story where Abraham is called to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. 00:30:29.660 |
Abraham, you know, like, "Okay, God must know what he's doing," goes and walks up this hill 00:30:35.780 |
You can just imagine putting onto your own son the wood by which you're going to burn 00:30:39.980 |
him, wielding the knife that you know you're going to kill your son with. 00:30:47.740 |
And without thinking too much about, "Well, I would God command him to do such a thing." 00:30:54.780 |
He goes up and he lays down his son Isaac on this altar and he binds him, stares down 00:31:06.100 |
He's going to be staring at his father straight in the face. 00:31:15.060 |
Now, we can look at that and question what God's doing there, but whatever the case, 00:31:35.020 |
Cross by which Jesus walks up a hill with wood strapped to his back. 00:31:41.300 |
Goes up and what happens as he's nailed to the cross? 00:31:45.860 |
That as a son cries out for his father, father looks down upon his son and he turns his face 00:32:16.300 |
Not only that, what it cost to purchase the sinner, the wretch, the enemy, cost Jesus. 00:32:28.580 |
We think because he's alive again and that understanding of the fact that he rose from 00:32:33.420 |
the dead, that fine, great, but we forget to realize and we forget and we don't realize 00:32:48.060 |
So are you a person characterized by this kind of love? 00:32:57.860 |
Do you follow in the example of God's love for you? 00:33:00.660 |
Does this great love for you cause you to transform in heart? 00:33:07.860 |
That we don't walk through those doors just thinking, "What can I get today?" 00:33:11.500 |
We walk through those doors with that kind of love becoming the framework, becoming the 00:33:22.020 |
Let me bridge this into it with just a couple of verses here. 00:33:24.500 |
But in John 13, 34, that's why the world, it says this, that the world will know us. 00:33:28.020 |
A new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you, that 00:33:33.580 |
By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. 00:33:40.620 |
Dwight Moody says the world does not understand theology or dogma, but it understands love 00:33:46.900 |
And so the third and final point here then is we must love one another. 00:33:51.900 |
And it says, "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar. 00:33:57.340 |
For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has 00:34:01.940 |
And this commandment we have from him that the one who loves God should love his brother 00:34:12.060 |
As the person who says, "I love God," and hates his brother is a liar. 00:34:16.620 |
He's saying, "How can you love your brother who's right here next to you?" 00:34:22.120 |
I'm sorry, you can't love God without loving him. 00:34:27.520 |
That's what it's saying here in this passage. 00:34:33.160 |
This is the application that we are called to love one another with this same love. 00:34:38.000 |
It's talking specifically about brothers here. 00:34:47.720 |
And we might ask that question, "What about non-believers? 00:34:50.520 |
Are we not called to love them with this kind of love?" 00:34:53.080 |
Well, what this is more saying is we ought to be loving people who are closest to us. 00:35:00.040 |
If we don't love our own family and we're going around loving all these other people, 00:35:03.440 |
you ought to be questioning what your love is even made up of. 00:35:05.840 |
I've seen people, and I'm guilty of it, going around loving other people and maybe I don't 00:35:14.280 |
I've seen people who love and serve others so much and neglect their parents. 00:35:22.760 |
With others outside, you can fake it because you can turn it on and off. 00:35:40.920 |
That's why church is something we do on weekends or during apportioned times. 00:35:44.400 |
Rather than invest in the church as how Scripture calls it to be. 00:35:50.720 |
And so this is a direct call for believers to specifically love each other with God's 00:35:57.260 |
This is how the body of Christ is to be built up and loved. 00:36:02.360 |
This is the thing that kind of flows through us. 00:36:07.240 |
We pull together a bunch of people who have been loved by this weighty love of God. 00:36:15.400 |
They love non-believers as well, but there's a special form of love that happens in a pool 00:36:26.440 |
Unbelievers are incapable of loving with God's love. 00:36:32.680 |
This isn't to say that they're incapable of some form of love. 00:36:38.240 |
The true Agape love, only believers are capable of it. 00:36:44.520 |
And so you bring these people together, and you get what you see in Romans 12. 00:36:49.380 |
People outdoing one another and showing each other honor. 00:37:04.840 |
If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother. 00:37:08.560 |
That is to dislike strongly with the implication of aversion and hostility towards somebody. 00:37:16.800 |
There are people who might have said something against you, or maybe you don't like the way 00:37:23.280 |
Maybe people that you would think, "That's a bad person." 00:37:30.000 |
You might actually even find yourself doing that here in our church. 00:37:36.280 |
When you see people backstabbing, when we see churches splitting, there's active hate 00:37:44.440 |
And we ought never to think that it can't happen here. 00:37:50.440 |
And hate starts small, and it grows, and it grows. 00:37:57.040 |
First John chapter 3 verse 14 takes the understanding of hate even a bit further. 00:38:00.800 |
It says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. 00:38:08.200 |
"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal 00:38:13.800 |
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our 00:38:19.840 |
But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against 00:38:28.520 |
Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth." 00:38:32.040 |
What's striking here in First John 3 is how hate is described. 00:38:35.520 |
It's not described just as bitterness, or vitriol, or annoyance, or fighting words, 00:38:46.320 |
It's described as someone who sees a brother in need and closes his heart against him. 00:38:53.440 |
This is actually shown as someone who is not a loving person. 00:38:58.240 |
So it's not just outright hostility against someone. 00:39:02.920 |
And so in First John chapter 4 verse 20, going back to our text, that's why hating and not 00:39:07.800 |
loving is actually much more similar than you might think. 00:39:13.760 |
It seems almost an absurd parallel, but it's not. 00:39:16.280 |
Because a Christian who is born of God will love as God loves. 00:39:22.000 |
God isn't just telling you not to hate and to love people, so we exist somewhere in the 00:39:36.880 |
He is telling you that this is what someone born of him looks like. 00:39:41.080 |
So if you think about it, in our fallenness, we are prone to hate people. 00:39:46.560 |
But in our salvation, we are instructed and transformed to love others. 00:39:52.920 |
And maybe we would naturally think there's a person here or there that we hate, or you 00:39:56.840 |
might even say, "I don't really hate anyone." 00:39:59.180 |
You might actually be thinking that right now. 00:40:02.600 |
You might just call it frustration against someone or annoyance, and maybe it's just 00:40:07.080 |
It could be maybe just a little bit of an annoyance, a little bit of frustration towards 00:40:12.720 |
But you have to ask the question, "First of all, do I love him?" 00:40:26.520 |
Maybe we need to learn to scrutinize and evaluate our own hearts to see how we view people and 00:40:36.440 |
see if there are any seeds of sprouting roots of hatred in our hearts. 00:40:42.280 |
When you expand the definition of hate, you begin to see the ugliness of what hate is. 00:40:56.640 |
The fact that they are impinging on your world, impinging on your comforts and conveniences, 00:41:06.280 |
In sin, what we do is we declare ourselves God, and all these people here are there to 00:41:13.520 |
serve me, to pray into my kingdom, my life, my world. 00:41:24.520 |
And if someone doesn't fit into our idea of what life should look like, we close them 00:41:35.560 |
Hate them because of them, they're an obstacle to something you want. 00:41:41.080 |
By the way you treat people, they very well might be people you're hating right now at 00:41:50.800 |
So when the time and opportunity comes for you to love them, you will avoid them. 00:41:56.560 |
You'll say the superficial, due diligence stuff, and then you'll sidestep and go, "Whew, 00:42:07.200 |
And there's a potential we might be doing that to one another. 00:42:14.320 |
We can be polite and smile and say, "How was your week?" 00:42:17.400 |
And we grow protective though inwardly of ourselves. 00:42:19.400 |
Rather than having our hearts stretch and reach out towards others, we grow inward, 00:42:24.960 |
and we will interact only with those who can serve some purpose in my own life. 00:42:34.240 |
Do you know how you might show hatred to a homeless person? 00:42:38.200 |
You roll up the window when you come across them on the freeway, right? 00:42:53.320 |
You sit there, roll up window, don't make eye contact, green light, hurry, hurry, hurry. 00:43:08.960 |
It's the fact that we don't need to give them money. 00:43:11.100 |
We don't need to sit there and think, "How am I going to get out of this car and talk 00:43:18.840 |
I think the danger is in the middle of the heart. 00:43:30.800 |
You just pull up the little automatic, and they're closed out of your life. 00:43:48.720 |
Rather than sitting there and thinking, "How can I love them without just kindness?" 00:43:54.720 |
The way God loved me, how can I love the brothers? 00:44:06.480 |
To be sacrificial in our love for one another. 00:44:09.160 |
To be decisive in our love to say, "I will love them today." 00:44:15.080 |
What we do is we kind of go, "Zzzz," and we roll up our heart window. 00:44:23.400 |
We don't make eye contact, and we just hope it passes quickly. 00:44:31.460 |
He could have just rolled up that window as we went on our way to hell. 00:44:50.560 |
God himself came down and interacted with, and dealt with, and embraced sinful men. 00:44:59.680 |
Not just simple physical leprosy, but spiritual lepers touched Christ. 00:45:04.480 |
He did the exact opposite of ignoring us and hoping and pretending we didn't exist. 00:45:13.680 |
Hating someone says, "I want you out of my life." 00:45:15.760 |
God in his love not only saves us, but he doesn't just say, "I want you out of my life. 00:45:38.720 |
And so this might be what hate looks like in our lives. 00:45:42.240 |
The church, we must love one another as God loved us. 00:45:44.320 |
Not a love of our own world, but a love from God. 00:45:50.600 |
This isn't just being inclusive, or nice, or considerate. 00:45:59.480 |
If you say you love God, but hate brothers, it says here in this text, you are a liar. 00:46:03.800 |
If you're wondering, "Man, am I hating people?" 00:46:07.960 |
And if we're thinking that now, and it says here, if you say you love God, but you hate 00:46:11.920 |
your brothers and sisters around you, you are a liar. 00:46:17.000 |
First John, I love it and I hate it because it's so black and white. 00:46:24.040 |
But the understanding of this is if you are a Christian, you ought to look a certain way. 00:46:31.440 |
If you say you love God, but hate your brothers, liar. 00:46:41.920 |
Maybe God is looking down and saying, "Hmm, sure about that?" 00:46:47.360 |
I had to kind of go through my heart again today. 00:46:58.320 |
You can even pick out a few people to say, "Those are the people I'm going to serve." 00:47:03.680 |
They're like the ones that we can say, like, we can point to in our own hearts and say, 00:47:10.360 |
And maybe we'll just even pick one person we kind of don't like and say, "No, but we're 00:47:17.160 |
Whoever we come across, that's just what happens." 00:47:25.000 |
If you are saying you love God, but you hate brothers, you're a liar. 00:47:31.320 |
If you are doing that, you're always going to have a portion of the heart that resides 00:47:35.480 |
You're going to have a portion of the heart that you're unwilling to surrender to the 00:47:39.280 |
You'll have a portion of your heart that you declare yourself as deity over it as you withhold 00:47:46.680 |
In Matthew chapter 5 verse 23, that's why it says there, "Therefore, if you are presenting 00:47:50.000 |
your offering at the altar," and hopefully that's an act of love for God, an act of worship 00:47:56.080 |
Presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something 00:47:59.440 |
Leave your offering there before the altar and go. 00:48:01.200 |
Help you reconcile to your brother and then come and present your offering. 00:48:03.880 |
The idea of that is kind of what we're seeing here in this text. 00:48:09.760 |
There's a statement, it's called a fortiori statement. 00:48:17.960 |
What you see in verse 20 and 21 is a fortiori statement. 00:48:22.320 |
It's that if you can't do the lesser, you cannot, the greater is not true in your life. 00:48:28.320 |
It says, "If anyone says, 'I love God' and hates his brother, he is a liar. 00:48:31.360 |
For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has 00:48:36.880 |
"Who does not love his brother who he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen." 00:48:42.760 |
In Matthew chapter 7 verse 11, I'll just give you one example of it. 00:48:45.360 |
"If you there being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more 00:48:48.520 |
will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask?" 00:48:54.200 |
The reality of this passage is it's more difficult to love someone you can't see, God, than it 00:49:02.760 |
You can't love God if you're hating other people. 00:49:07.720 |
If we're not characterized by a love for people, we can't deceive ourselves in saying we're 00:49:16.440 |
We could easily be today setting up a kingdom where we close ourselves up and we're building 00:49:22.800 |
up our own kingdom, a Christianity, a church that's just some scary styrofoam castle in 00:49:31.400 |
We're playing a church game and there's no real agape love happening here. 00:49:36.680 |
We go past that, there's those three things in the bathroom all the time. 00:49:41.960 |
It's like we engage in God-centered worship and we equip believers with God words and 00:49:53.040 |
But the third one, building Christ-centered community and love and accountability, really 00:49:57.960 |
loving each other with almost that same affection that we have for God. 00:50:10.600 |
So we'll do our meetups, we'll do our meals, but are we on our knees for each other? 00:50:21.400 |
Not because you know that's the right thing to do, but because you care deeply for them. 00:50:26.880 |
You're not satisfied with when they say like, "Yeah, we're good. 00:50:35.400 |
Are you concerned for the spiritual health of one another? 00:50:38.880 |
When we look at each other, do we see how that person fits into my life? 00:50:52.840 |
So it says in verse 21, "And this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God 00:51:01.240 |
We do this by laying down our lives for each other. 00:51:05.400 |
Mind you, it's not just doing nice things or serving each other per se. 00:51:11.120 |
In 1 John 3 verse 16, "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us, and we 00:51:16.240 |
ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren." 00:51:18.480 |
So this example of Christ laying down his life for us, and then that same word, "laying 00:51:23.240 |
down life," placed upon us, says, "You love others like that." 00:51:29.400 |
John 15, 13, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." 00:51:36.760 |
We could just shoot it up, and I'm not gonna go through any of these. 00:51:40.880 |
We were supposed to, but we're gonna run out of time. 00:51:48.280 |
He was someone called the Son of Thunder, along with James. 00:51:51.920 |
And remember, Jesus, he names them that in Mark 3. 00:51:57.040 |
And the reason for that was because they were just reckless and really like... 00:52:01.240 |
You know those people who are kind of meatheads? 00:52:04.120 |
I feel like they're kind of those kind of guys that just wants like, "Hey, let's go. 00:52:11.240 |
You want us to pray and it's gonna rain down fire upon them?" 00:52:18.480 |
This was someone brash and rash, judgmental maybe, but even someone like this, he becomes 00:52:32.600 |
Remember, we are called to love because God first loved us, and love is not something 00:52:42.840 |
It's something that supernaturally happens as we ponder and meditate and deepen in our 00:52:53.040 |
And so this is maybe my plea, my exhortation to us as a church. 00:53:07.700 |
Because this unity is vital in carrying out the mission that the church is called to. 00:53:13.480 |
This isn't something nice to have on top of what we do as a church. 00:53:17.500 |
How we love each other is going to be the proof of whether or not we truly love God 00:53:24.060 |
This is not something to sweep under the rug. 00:53:26.280 |
If we just superficially continue our interactions with each other without deeply loving each 00:53:30.160 |
other, there is no true unity in the spirit and it's just a matter of time before Berean 00:53:38.080 |
We will not be able to stand together in a world that's looking for every reason to tear 00:53:44.080 |
We ought not to be looking at others to see why others aren't loving me. 00:53:52.280 |
Challenged by God's call on my life to go and do that. 00:54:02.500 |
This is not a church game, this is who we are. 00:54:08.080 |
The stakes are high because God will empower us to love each other. 00:54:13.000 |
As we deepen in our understanding of his love for us, the stakes are going to be like will 00:54:18.000 |
you answer the call of what it is to be a believer. 00:54:26.520 |
Then after a moment our praise team will come and lead us in some songs of response.