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July 17, 2005
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Christian Love
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Love One Another"
1 John 4: 7-21
- The story comes to us that as an old, old man, the apostle John, who was the only one of the apostles who had not been martyred, who had survived the attempt to boil him alive in oil, unscathed, who had been exiled to the Island of Patmos, and then written his Gospel and the book of Revelation and his surviving letters and ended his days as bishop of Ephesus, this man had one message. They would carry him out before the gathered people in Ephesus and he would say just this: "beloved, love one another."
And then he would be silent. Still.
John, whom Jesus had named one of the "sons of thunder" with his brother James, because of his fiery personality, under the influence of the love of Jesus Christ, became the apostle of love. At the end of his life all the good news had become that single sentence. Just as Jesus had given him and the other disciples a single commandment, saying, 'love one another," so John was left with a similar message.
And we find that message to love one another again and again in this first letter written by him.
"Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." He wrote. "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." Love defines God unlike any other person you could describe. You might say that I am loving but you could never say that I am "love," that my life is so filled with love that you experience such love through me 24/7. You need only ask my wife or my children!
But John wrote that God is love - that is to say, the living God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, lives in Trinity, in continual, ongoing loving relationship.
It was God who also defined love. John says He defined love as an action by sending his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. Love is not a feeling. Love is not a warm fuzzy. Love is an action it is something that is demonstrated.
When we receive God's love in Jesus Christ, we experience forgiveness for our sins, and life or salvation. Once we have experienced God's love, then, it is the natural consequence to express love to others. Love must be expressed. This is what John means by his statement that God's love is made complete through us. Love cannot just be received and held onto for it to be love, but it must flow through us, and in that outflow of loving reality, it is made complete.
- Love must be demonstrated. As John wrote in chapter 3 in his letter, the love of God is seen as we meet the needs of those around us. So he says, "Let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth." (3:18). He advices, if we have material possessions and see our brother or sister in need, and do nothing, we are not demonstrating that we have experienced God's love.
That illustration is how John defines action and in truth - that our love seeks to truly meet the need of those around us, not just talk love but act love.
So, I suppose the logical question is how do we then demonstrate love? I mean by what means do we "love one another"? If love must be expressed, if it must be a practical outflow of our experience of love with God our Father, then, what should love to look like.
In a moment we will be renewing marriage vows with Len and Dian Punzel, married 40 years today. That's something to celebrate in this world where marriage is something entered into haphazardly or not at all.
But suppose we interviewed them, and asked, "Did you ever have a day when you did not feel like you loved each other? But knowing your life would go better chose to express love even without feeling it. Did you ever have that happen?"
I can almost guarantee, we would receive a positive reply, perhaps even an example from "just yesterday". Any married couple knows that love is not a feeling but a reality that demands expression. I kiss Karen, I get her flowers, I take her to dinners, I set up dates to just talk with her, not because I am always feeling passionately in love with her every moment, but because I have committed my life to loving her; I have said, "I do" to the vow that until parted by death her life and mine are inseparably joined. God commands me to express love for her. I am to love her as I care for my body. Well, my body is fairly well treated by me, I make certain it is clean, clothed, cared for, pampered, fed the foods I love, etc. So my love for her is to be expressed in a constant, daily, ongoing care-filled interaction.
Now, everyone here is not married, but no matter our marital status, we are all in relationships in which we can demonstrate the love of God. And if we are believers in Jesus' life, death and resurrection, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. Christ's Body is a training ground for love. It is a family place, where we practice loving each other. When we are feeling grumpy with someone, we still do not choose to mistreat them because of it. Instead the very person, to whom you may need to send one of our encouragement notes, is the person you are feeling grumpiest with. If you are both Christians you are going to be spending eternity together, so better learn to love here! Our blue encouragement notes in the pew backs are simply filled out, dropped into the offering plate and then mailed by the church to the recipient of your note.
There are other simple expressions of love: notes, cards, phone calls, hugs. There is the sharing of food and funds, visiting the sick, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry. When Jacque Duncan was in ICU and could receive only visits from family or her pastor, she received many visits from folk from this fellowship. She told me, "I have lots of brothers and sisters, Brian." Indeed!
Yes, Love must be demonstrated, as John said, in actions and in truth, as we honestly seek to reach out to build up another's life, meeting the need we believe they have expressed. Love must be given as God gave: freely, without any known benefit in return. Love gives by way of sacrifice, it gives because it must; it gives even without knowing if there will be love coming in return.
Jesus loved others in this manner when he lived among us. He touched the untouchables, the rejects of society, the "Gentile dogs" and offered them healing and salvation.
We see his disciples similarly reaching out to those passed by, by the religious leaders -- and those leaders are astonished and take note that these men had "been with Jesus" and were acting just like him (Acts 4:13)!
- God's love is a demonstrated love - first in the manner in which God lives eternally as Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then, God also demonstrated His love for you and for me, when Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, died on that cross so that you and I can live. The Bible says that while we were yet sinners, while enemies of God, while dead, Christ died for us in order that we might have life. So, we love because God first loved us and we demonstrate that love in large ways and small as we love one another.
Our oldest daughter Anna is living in Peru this summer working alongside a church in ministry there. One evening she was at a Bible Study with the church fellowship and a woman there asked her friend if Anna had another pair of shoes. The shoes she was wearing that evening were ones she had worn in Texas and were stained by the red Texan clay. Embarrassed, thinking she had worn the wrong shoes, she asked if there was some problem. No, no, no, the woman told her, but if you will wear your other shoes on Sunday and bring this pair, she would like to take them home and wash them for you. Anna was astounded. This woman just was seeking ways to express God's love and seeing Anna's shoes had found a means. Well, Anna thought the shoes were impossibly stained, but she received her shoes back the next week looking white like new.
For Anna it was an expression of God's love for her. This woman looks for ways to show God's love, and such a simple gesture meant so much to Anna.
Last week missionary Nik Harrang who with his wife are reaching out to college students with the Gospel in the Seattle area, shared about a photograph he has of 4 of the students in the group he leads. This picture is a photo of great love, love that cares not only about today's needs but also about eternal needs. In this picture there was a young man whom Nik had reached with the gospel his first year in college. Then this young man after being discipled by Nik during that year, reached into the life of an incoming freshman the next fall and led him to the Lord, who in turn reached the third young man, who reached the fourth man. So in this picture were four generations of those reached with the gospel through Nik's love.
Nik has a heart filled with God's love and that love cannot but reach out through his life and touch others. The same love is in my life and yours, as we have said yes to Jesus and the gospel. It is a love that must be expressed concretely. This past week a bunch of you did just that through songs, stories, prayers and games as God's love reached through you into the lives of many children from our community at VBS. Yes, love must be expressed in the demonstration of how our lives have been impacted by the love given to us. Through Jesus we come to know the source of love, and then through us that same life-giving love can be expressed.
Beloved love one another. By so doing you may build someone up in ways you could not imagine and empower them for service in ways you could never dream, but God will do mighty things through that love, perhaps even raise up generations of those who will follow Jesus because of your life. Beloved: love one another!
Love One Another
John 13:34
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
John 15:17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
Romans 12:10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
13 Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
Romans 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
Galatians 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Ephesians 4:1
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
1 Thessalonians 3:12
And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:
13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
1 Thessalonians 4:9 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
1 Peter 1:22
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
1 Peter 3:8
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:
9 Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
1 John 3:11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
1 John 3:23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
2 John 1:5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.
Topical Bible Studies > Law of God > This Study
http://www.topical-bible-studies.org/24-0006.htm
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