May 16, 2004

Service Theme – "Our God Unites Us"

1 John 4:7-21

The Roof: A Healthy Relationship with Others

  1. Introduction
    1. I want to start out this morning by sharing a couple of things with you. First, that I want you to be aware that I will give you an opportunity to come forward to the altars at the end of the sermon to pray and to commit. So be listening to what God is speaking to your heart and what He wants you to do about it. Second, I’m going to read what Oswald Chambers wrote in the May 11th entry of My Utmost for His Highest. It’s entitled "You won’t Reach it on Tiptoe" and is based on 2 Peter 1:7, which says in the King James, "Add to your brotherliness… love." This is what Chambers writes: Love is indefinite to most of us, we do not know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that that preference be for Himself (cf. Luke 14:26). When the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ is easily first; then we must practise the working out of these things mentioned by Peter. The first thing God does is to knock the pretence and the pious pose right out of me. (NEW SLIDE) The Holy Spirit reveals that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now, He says to me, show the same love to others – "Love as I have loved you." "I will bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit My love to them as I have exhibited it to you." You won’t reach it on tiptoe. Some of us have tried to, but we were soon tired. "The Lord suffereth long…" Let me look within and see His dealings with me. The knowledge that God has loved me to the uttermost, to the end of all my sin and meanness and selfishness and wrong, will send me forth into the world to love in the same way. (NEW SLIDE) God’s love to me is inexhaustible, and I must love others from the bedrock of God’s love to me. Growth in grace stops the moment I get huffed. I get huffed because I have a peculiar person to live with. Just think how disagreeable I have been to God! Am I prepared to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness are being poured out all the time? Neither natural love nor Divine love will remain unless it is cultivated. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained by discipline.
    2. Context – 1 John 4:7-21 expands these thoughts about love even further. I’m reading from the New Living.
  1. Scripture Passage
    1. 1 John 4:7-21 (from the New Living) – (NEW SLIDE) Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. (NEW SLIDE) 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God—for God is love. 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. (NEW SLIDE) 10 This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. (NEW SLIDE) 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us. 13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. (NEW SLIDE) 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. (NEW SLIDE) 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in him. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (NEW SLIDE) 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we are like Christ here in this world. (NEW SLIDE) 18 Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of judgment, and this shows that his love has not been perfected in us. 19 We love each other as a result of his loving us first. (NEW SLIDE) 20 If someone says, "I love God," but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? (NEW SLIDE) 21 And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too.
  1. Loving People Matters to Us Because It Matters to God
    1. The root for love used here, agape, is what’s called an action noun. In other words, it’s more than just mere words. It’s more than a mere feeling. Biblical love requires action. Gerhardt Kittels, a very highly respected Bible scholar, wrote in his Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, (NEW SLIDE) The Son brings remission, calls for an unconditional decision for God, and thus creates a new people who will tread the way of self-sacrificing love that he himself took. In other words, if we are truly loving like God loves, we will sacrifice ourselves for anyone and everyone. That’s what Jesus modeled for us, and that’s what we’re called to do. Kittels goes on to write, A new humanity is the goal of God’s loving action, and he uses acts of human love to attain this end. God is the source of these acts (cf. 1 Cor. 8:3). He awakens the faith which comes into action in love (Gal. 5:6). He pours forth the Spirit who frees us for loving activity (Gal. 5:22). What the apostle John has written confirms what Kittels says. Jesus showed us how to love, and now He calls us to love in the same way.
    2. Verse eight tells us that love is not an option for Christians. But anyone who does not love does not know God—for God is love. (NEW SLIDE) If someone really knows God, then God’s character is being formed in that person by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that person will love others more and more as God loves them. But if God’s character is not being formed in a person as demonstrated by that person loving like God loves, then that person does not know God. By that standard, folks, we’re in trouble, because we fall very short of loving like God loves. We have our preferences. We play our favorites, and all the while God is practically screaming to our spirits that we’re not doing it His way. His way is to love everyone as demonstrated by our actions.
    3. Chambers writes, Now, He says to me, show the same love to others – "Love as I have loved you." "I will bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit My love to them as I have exhibited it to you." We tend not to respect those we don’t like, and yet we’ve got to do everything in our power to love them with God’s love. We can’t do that in and of ourselves. We’ve got to love with God’s love. Look at verses ten and eleven: This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. There’s an interesting word in the Greek in verse eleven. It’s called opheilomen, and it means "to be morally obligated," "to owe a debt that must be paid," or "to have to do something." It’s the word translated here as "ought." (NEW SLIDE) So what John’s writing is that because God sent Jesus to die as a sacrifice for our sins, we have a moral obligation to Him, we owe a debt to Him that must be paid, we have to do something for Him, and that is to love each other. What John is saying is since God gave so much for us, our only appropriate response and obligation is not only to love Him, but to love each other with God’s sacrificial love.
    4. God loves us with everything He is. He sent His Son to die, and His Spirit to fill us and to transform us when we have relationship with Him. God expects us to love others as much as He loves us, but He doesn’t leave us on our own to do it. He gives us His Spirit living inside of us to grow God’s love in our hearts. Look at verses 17-19: And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we are like Christ here in this world. 18 Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of judgment, and this shows that his love has not been perfected in us. 19 We love each other as a result of his loving us first. God is perfecting, or bringing to completion, His love in our hearts. So why would we fear? Because we have been unloving to each other. That’s the only basis John has mentioned for us to be out of relationship with God in this context, so it is the only reason John would mention here for us to have fear. Remember, you always have to understand Scripture in its context. (NEW SLIDE) So if we’ve been unloving to each other, then we don’t have God’s love growing, being perfected in our hearts, so we’re out of relationship with God, and we’d darn well better be afraid on judgment day. But then John gives the solution: We love each other as a result of his loving us first. Love for others demonstrates our love for God.
    5. Now we come to the most difficult verses in this passage, and some of the most difficult in the entire Bible. These words are not difficult to understand – they are incredibly tough to do. Verses 20 and 21: If someone says, "I love God," but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? 21 And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too. The Greek for hate means the same as the English for hate. My dictionary defines hate as "to loathe, detest… to dislike… intense dislike or animosity." And we tend to think we’re okay because there are few if any people we loathe or detest or intensely dislike. But dislike is part of the definition, and if we dislike someone we’re not looking at them through the eyes of God’s love, so we are not loving them with God’s love. (NEW SLIDE) We can’t love someone with God’s love like we are commanded to if we don’t see them as God sees them – loved and treasured enough to die for. And that’s why these verses are so tough. God has commanded that we love others with His sacrificial love. Which brings us to our deepest and greatest problem.
    6. All of us in this church have a problem with love, because every human being on the face of the earth has the same problem. (NEW SLIDE) We love those whom we like, and we do not love those we do not like. Let me say it again. We love those whom we like, and we do not love those we do not like. I know some of you are probably thinking, "That’s not true! There are people we don’t like that we love!" This is really hard for me to say, and not just because I struggle with this as much as you do. It’s hard for me to say this because I know that God will break some of our hearts here today, and I hate to see people hurt. But I’d rather have our hearts broken by God so that we can go on to do His will instead of drifting away from Him because we haven’t faced up to our sin. Please understand that I am coming at this from a position of humility and as a fellow sinner in this regard. May God break all of our hearts through His word this morning!
    7. (NEW SLIDE) If we are looking at people through God’s eyes we cannot dislike them! God dislikes no one. He may not be happy with their choices, but God dislikes no one. That doesn’t mean that everyone has to be our favorite person, that we spend incredible amounts of time with everyone, but it does mean that we have to like and befriend everyone. That’s tough. Very tough. David Hansen, in his book The Power of Loving Your Church, writes, We may be able to theologize correctly about God’s good will for a people we do not like, but we cannot lead real people toward God’s good will unless we like them. They do not need to like us. Now I know this book was written for pastors, but the principle is still the same because all of us are called to help people understand and follow God’s will for their lives. We’re called to lead them to Jesus. (NEW SLIDE) If we don’t like them, we can’t be God’s representatives to them. They don’t have to like us in order for us to like them and show God’s love to them. That’s the paradox, but it’s also the truth. Folks, we’ve got to love each other! (NEW SLIDE) And since agape is an action noun, we’ve got to do our love for each other. Every day. Every time we see any other person whether we feel like it or not.
    8. This is the greatest challenge we will ever face as a church. I’ve been involved in dealing with some pretty difficult issues since I’ve been here, and this is by far the most dangerous. Why? Because if God is love and if we don’t love as He loves just like He commanded us, then He will withdraw His Spirit from us. We will be a hollow shell of a church, going through the motions until and unless He brings us again to the point of facing this issue and we decide then to do it right. That possibility scares me to death because I know lots of folks would be hurt and God would shake us down even further. But what if we do repent right now and begin to learn to love like He loves? What will our church be like then? Oh, my heart swells with the possibilities of the outpouring of God’s Spirit on us. The possibilities of people coming to Christ because they see the love we have for each other. The possibilities of the transformation of our community and our area for Christ. If we choose to repent of our sin right now and ask God for forgiveness and to help us begin to love as He loves.
  1. Conclusion
    1. I said at the beginning of the sermon that I’d give everyone an opportunity to come forward to the altars to repent, to pray and to commit. If God has been speaking to your heart this morning, come forward now. My desire is for every single person in this room to come forward and beg God to help them love as He loves, but I don’t want you to come forward for the wrong reasons. So if God’s been speaking to your heart, come forward now. And if He hasn’t, spend some time in prayer asking Him why you haven’t heard. Come forward now.
    2. The next thing I’m going to ask us to do is just as difficult. If there is anyone here this morning that you need to reconcile with, to apologize, to ask forgiveness, to begin a new relationship with, please seek them out now. We need to take this time to do God’s business here in learning to love each other, and reconciling is a significant part of that. So if there is anyone here this morning that you need to reconcile with, please do so now.
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