Is It Love If I Don’t Feel It?
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, here's a good question that we get all the time and it's worth
00:00:03.560 | addressing frequently in this podcast. It comes from a listener named Jacqueline
00:00:07.280 | who writes, "Hello Pastor John, I have a follow-up question to episode number 897.
00:00:11.520 | I appreciated your answer to the question, 'Is love fake if it's motivated
00:00:16.080 | by a reward?' As a follow-up I want to ask this, is love fake if it's only motivated
00:00:22.260 | by duty? I'm thinking of relationships where the believer acts lovingly, as in
00:00:27.480 | Philippians 2.4 and in 1st Corinthians 13, but without the feeling of love, often
00:00:33.760 | due to ongoing sin in the life of the beloved. Is it enough to love because I
00:00:38.360 | am supposed to if I know in my heart it is not tied to the desire to know and
00:00:42.960 | glorify Christ as you mentioned? Does the motivation for reward fuel love in that
00:00:47.880 | episode?" Well let me start with an illustration. I read this years ago in
00:00:53.480 | Edward John Carnell's book, oh the name just slips my mind, Christian Commitment.
00:01:00.280 | That's the name of it. He says, "Suppose a man asks, 'Must I kiss my wife goodnight?'"
00:01:09.200 | Carnell gives the answer, "Yes, but not that kind of must." That's very profound.
00:01:18.080 | It really affected my Christian Edenism. What did he mean? What did he mean? He
00:01:23.160 | meant that the man who asked this question misunderstands the nature of
00:01:30.520 | duty. He thinks that duty only relates to the external behavior of kissing, and if
00:01:41.000 | he kisses his wife he's done his duty. But Carnell's point is that Christian
00:01:47.560 | duty is deeper than physical acts, always deeper than physical acts. Our duty
00:01:53.600 | includes not only the external physical acts that are appropriate, virtuous, but
00:02:01.840 | also a right heart or a right disposition or right set of affections,
00:02:08.960 | emotions. So yes, it is a man's duty to kiss his wife, but that includes the duty
00:02:17.920 | of feeling affection for his wife. Now I think Jacqueline might be making the
00:02:26.680 | same mistake as the husband in that illustration. Maybe. I might
00:02:30.880 | misunderstand her, but let's see if this helps. She asks, "Is love fake if
00:02:38.080 | it's motivated by duty? Is it enough to love because I'm supposed to?" That
00:02:46.720 | sounds like she conceives of love as a set of external behaviors which one can
00:02:55.160 | will even if one does not feel any gladness in the act of love. But is
00:03:04.000 | that the biblical duty of love? Does not love, biblically speaking, include more
00:03:12.280 | than mere physical behavior? Always include more than mere physical behavior.
00:03:17.880 | So I want to argue that our duty is more than deeds, always more than deeds. The
00:03:28.320 | duty to give, for example, includes the duty to rejoice in giving. So giving or
00:03:36.800 | loving out of duty when there is no delight in giving is really only doing
00:03:46.000 | half our duty. God's will, as revealed in the New Testament, is that our loving
00:03:53.800 | behavior, deeds, should always include gladness in God that overflows in the
00:04:04.640 | hope of including other people in it. I'm gonna say that again because that is an
00:04:09.880 | absolutely crucial ethical sentence for me. The biblical duty to love, that is the
00:04:18.320 | very meaning of love, always includes gladness in God that overflows in the
00:04:27.200 | act, the behaviors of love, in the hope of including others in it. That is, in our
00:04:37.480 | gladness in God. I get that definition of love from 2nd Corinthians 8 verse 2
00:04:46.400 | and 9 verse 7. Here's what it says, "In a severe test of affliction there," that is
00:04:54.960 | the Macedonians, "abundance of joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a
00:05:03.440 | wealth of generosity," giving, loving, "on their part." Notice carefully, the subject
00:05:12.080 | of the verb "overflowed" is joy. "Their abundance of joy overflowed in generosity."
00:05:23.280 | In other words, love was the overflow of joy in God—you can go back to verse 1 to
00:05:30.720 | see that—joy in God, in God's grace being poured out on them, that aimed to bless
00:05:36.800 | others and thus include others in that joy. That's what love does always. And
00:05:43.920 | notice also there were two huge obstacles standing in the way of this
00:05:50.440 | generosity—a severe test of affliction and extreme poverty. In other words, it was
00:05:57.960 | very costly—you might even say painful—for Christians to show generosity
00:06:06.000 | when they themselves were hurting and poverty-stricken. If there ever was a
00:06:11.680 | time when a person might say, "Surely all that is expected of us here is dutiful
00:06:18.280 | deeds, not heartfelt joy," this was that time. But in fact, what
00:06:25.920 | marked these deeds of generosity as love was the abundance of joy in God that was
00:06:32.960 | overflowing in love in the hopes that others would be included in that joy. Now
00:06:41.280 | we know we're on the right track here because in chapter 9 verse 7 of 2nd
00:06:46.560 | Corinthians, just a chapter later, Paul makes it a principle. He takes this
00:06:51.520 | behavior and he makes it a principle. He says, "Each one must give as he has
00:06:58.880 | decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion." That's another way of
00:07:04.640 | saying mere willpower duty. "For God loves a cheerful giver." Now that's the clearest
00:07:15.240 | statement—that doing good things for people generously without any delight in
00:07:23.040 | the doing is only half our duty. So let me restate Jacqueline's question the way
00:07:32.960 | I would ask it because there's a real problem. There's a real problem she sees.
00:07:37.080 | She's right. She's right to see the problem and I'm just complaining about
00:07:41.720 | the way it was asked. And I hope something really important is being seen.
00:07:46.040 | Here's the way I would ask the question for John Piper. What does a Christian do
00:07:51.640 | when he is confronted with the opportunity of a helpful good deed that
00:07:57.680 | he doesn't feel like doing? That's the issue. Because that's real life. Perfect
00:08:07.000 | love to God will always delight perfectly in doing God's will. But until
00:08:14.400 | we reach perfection, which none of us does in this life, we are an embattled
00:08:21.280 | people. Satan and sin corrupt our will so that we feel disinclinations to do the
00:08:31.040 | loving thing. And that's reality. And this is why Jesus said, "Whoever would come
00:08:37.480 | after me must deny himself." In this fallen world where sin and Satan disincline us
00:08:47.360 | to love, self-denial will always be a part of the duty of love. So how does
00:08:55.800 | this work in the moment when there is an opportunity to do good and we
00:09:03.080 | don't feel like doing good? And here's the difference between... I'm going to give
00:09:09.160 | you two options to do here. And people line up on these two options. I mean most
00:09:13.520 | line up on the first one, I'm afraid. The difference between a Christian
00:09:18.480 | hedonist, my understanding of our duty at that moment when we don't feel like
00:09:24.360 | doing the good we ought to do, and those who think emotions don't count.
00:09:29.480 | They're marginal. They're not essential at that moment. That group
00:09:34.880 | says, "Just do it. Just do it. Do the right thing because it's the right thing." All
00:09:41.080 | the while ignoring the biblical teaching that doing it cheerfully is part of the
00:09:46.720 | right thing at that moment. You can't just say, "Do it" as though it were your whole
00:09:52.600 | duty. It's not. It's half your duty. But the Christian hedonist, therefore, does
00:09:59.440 | four crucial things at this moment. Because I'm admitting John Piper, the
00:10:05.160 | imperfect, fallen, selfish Christian hedonist doesn't always want love, delight
00:10:12.840 | to do what he ought to do. So here's here are the four things we ought to do.
00:10:16.480 | Number one, admit honestly to God and to yourself you don't feel like doing the
00:10:22.320 | good thing. Admit it. Number two, confess this to God as sin and tell him that
00:10:30.020 | you're sorry for your heart not being more loving. Three, ask God in that
00:10:38.280 | moment to restore the joy, the fullest joy of your salvation and an overflowing
00:10:45.280 | gladness in grace that can be shared with other people. Ask him to restore
00:10:52.240 | your joy. And four, now go ahead and act. Do that good behavior. Do that half of
00:11:01.840 | your duty. Do the good deed, hoping, expecting, believing. You've asked, you've
00:11:10.000 | prayed that in it, in it, joy will be awakened and you will actually, before
00:11:18.000 | you're done, be delighting in the love before you're even finished. The loving
00:11:24.440 | behavior, now you're glad you're doing it. I, Tony, I have seen this happen in my
00:11:30.560 | life as a pastor over the years again and again and again. I would be, I would
00:11:37.980 | be on my way to the hospital when I didn't feel like it. And some saint is in
00:11:43.040 | trouble and I repent to God. God, I wish, I wish I had more compassion. I wish I
00:11:50.560 | felt more affection. I wish you were more fully in charge of my heart right now.
00:11:56.160 | Please restore to me the joy of loving my people. And how many times have I
00:12:03.360 | walked into that room and either before I get to the bed or as I put my hand on
00:12:08.200 | some dear saint's arm, God awakens gladness in being there. Gladness in
00:12:16.760 | being able to share the word. Gladness in being an instrument of their hope. Gladness
00:12:21.600 | in hoping that some of my gladness in the Lord would sustain them in their
00:12:25.960 | trial. So my answer to Jacqueline's question is that the duty of love always
00:12:32.360 | includes more than willpower behavior. It includes the gladness in God that
00:12:38.160 | overflows in the hope of including others in it. When the behavior and the
00:12:43.560 | gladness are both there, the duty is being performed. And when the gladness
00:12:48.280 | is not there and we confess it and repent and pray for forgiveness and act
00:12:56.360 | in hope that God will restore it, that too is our duty. Yeah, so helpful and
00:13:02.440 | carefully nuanced. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, we're gonna break for the weekend
00:13:05.800 | and return on Monday to hear from a listener who wants to know, "What are we
00:13:08.560 | supposed to do with the verses in the Bible to talk about God regretting
00:13:11.560 | things and repenting of things?" Oh, such a great question, and that is next. If you
00:13:17.080 | missed any episodes from the week, catch up this weekend at our online home at
00:13:21.160 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. I'm your host, Tony Reiki. We'll see you on
00:13:25.580 | Monday.
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