(upbeat music) Good Monday morning, everyone. It's a big week ahead for us because today we launch week number 500 in the podcast. 500 weeks. Incredible, that's a lot of sustaining grace and it's not possible without you. So thank you for your prayers and your support and your questions and your listens.

We don't take any of this for granted. So thanks for listening while you wait in airport terminals, while you ride in subways or do your daily mundane chores, the dishes, the laundry, walking the dog, or when you're driving to work or shuffling kids around town or even through your iPhone speakers as you end your day.

However, and whenever you listen, thank you for listening and making this podcast a part of your busy life. And now for 500 weeks, humbly. And we begin week number 500 with a question from a listener named Joe. Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast. What would you say is the difference between the kind of love that is produced in the Christian's heart for others through the new birth?

1 John 4, 7, 1 Peter 1, 22 to 23, compared to the charitable and often self-sacrificial love that we often see demonstrated in the world among non-Christians. Pastor John, how would you explain this difference? The difference between secular love and Christian love is that secular love is not rooted in the cross of God's son and is not sustained and shaped by the power of God's spirit and is not acted for the glory of God the Father.

So the source of it is different and the sustaining power of it is different and the goal of it is different. So let's think about each of these one at a time and see if we can fill it out. First, there's a different source for these two loves. 1 John 4, 19, we love because He first loved us.

1 John 4, 19. And how did He first love us? Well, John says in 1 John 3, 16, "By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." So Christian love is rooted in Christ's sacrifice for me, for you.

By this, our sins are forgiven. We're justified, accepted, loved by God. We have the hope that everything in life will work together for our good and bring us to everlasting joy so that fear and greed, the great barriers to love, are taken away as we trust what God is for us in Christ.

And when Paul calls Christians to have compassion in Colossians 3, 12, he prefaces that command with three identifiers of who we are. He says, "Put on then as God's chosen, God's holy ones, God's loved ones, compassionate hearts." Now, this is the root of the source of compassion. God chose me, God consecrated me, made me holy, set me apart for Himself.

God loves me. And all of this is provided for us because of Christ's death in our place. No other way. That death for us provided the hope from which love flows. Colossians 1, 4, "We heard of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven." And that hope is purchased by Jesus on the cross.

Christ's death also provided the joy from which love flows. 2 Corinthians 8, 2, "In a test, a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy overflowed in a wealth of generosity." In other words, joy overflows in love. Christian love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others.

And that joy is a blood-bought joy from the death of Jesus. So the first difference between secular love and Christian love is that our love is rooted in and is the overflow of the work of Christ and its effects in our lives. Second, Christian love is sustained and shaped by the work of God's spirit, whereas secular love isn't.

Paul calls it the fruit of the spirit. Galatians 5, 22. It is the spirit that takes the death of Christ and causes it to be real for us and gives us new hearts so that the death of Christ has a love-producing effect on us. John says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.

Whoever does not love abides in death." Love in our lives is the evidence that the spirit of God has brought us from death to life. And the spirit not only gives us life at the beginning of our Christian walk in new birth, but he sustains our faith and life as we go along, moment by moment, depending on his power so that we can make the sacrifices necessary that love demands.

It's the Holy Spirit that sustains our faith so that we can continually lay hold of the promises of God for hope, for joy that free us for love. And we could go on and on how the spirit forms and sustains our capacities to love by overcoming the great love killers of fear and greed and selfishness and directing our hearts over and over again to the truth of God's commands and promises where we get the wisdom and boldness we need to love and humbling our pride so that we don't need to be somebody and instead can take thought for the interests of others and not just our own and on and on that the work of the spirit sustains and shapes Christian love, but not the love of the world.

Third, finally, Christian love has a different goal, not an entirely different goal, but a radically different goal. It's not entirely different from the unbeliever who loves, not entirely different because secular love often aims at the physical and emotional and psychological and relational and economic well-being of other people. And Christians care about these things.

There's this overlap. But when Christians ask, what is good for people in all those areas, what's really good? The answer is always essentially different from the answer of secular people. Because for Christians, what's good for human beings is always defined so as to include their relationship to God in Christ.

What is good for people is that they trust Christ and depend on his spirit and walk in obedience and live for the glory of God. Therefore, when Christians talk about seeking the physical good of a person, for example, we do so in the hope that they will experience this physical good as a gift of God and receive it in the name of Jesus and rely on the Holy Spirit to use it for his glory.

If all those Godward dimensions are missing, our love is falling short of its goal and we grieve. Christian love is keenly aware that life on earth is a viper followed by an eternity, either of exquisite happiness in the presence of God or eternal suffering cut off from his presence.

And therefore, Christians care about all suffering, but especially eternal suffering. The Bible tells us to do everything to the glory of God. So we should love people for the glory of God. And when someone asks, is it truly love for a person, love for a person, is it truly love for a person if we are motivated by the hope that God will be glorified through our love for this person?

I know people ask that question. I've heard it recently. And the answer is, it is love, the greatest love. And the reason the answer is yes, it is love when you love someone in order that God would be glorified. The answer to the question why goes like this. Love is doing whatever it takes to enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest happiness, even if it costs you your life.

And what will enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest happiness is the glory of God. All that God is for them in Jesus. Therefore, love for people means doing all we can at whatever cost to ourselves, like Jesus did, to help people be enthralled with the glory of God now and forever.

When they are enthralled with all that God is for them in Jesus, then they are satisfied fully and forever. And God is glorified in their being satisfied in Him. That's what makes us tick at desiring God, this glorious, profound biblical insight. Therefore, loving people and glorifying God are not alternatives.

They're not at odds. They are profoundly one thing. So in those three ways, Christian love is different from secular love. Different source, the death and resurrection of Christ, different sustaining power, the work of the Holy Spirit, different goal, full and everlasting joy in God. - Very helpful distinction here, Pastor John, thank you.

And thank you for the great question today. That's why we're here 500 weeks later, because you are perceptive Bible readers. You are articulate with the challenges of the Christian life and you send us some great articulate questions. And if you have one of those on the brain, type it out and send it to us through our online home@desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

Speaking of Christian love, another key factor in genuine Christian love is dying to the love of money. That must happen. We must die to the love of money for our love to be genuine and for our worship to be genuine. It's a great connection. Pastor John, we'll make it next time as we work through week number 500 on the podcast.

I'm your host Tony Reiki. We'll see you back here on Wednesday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)