Love Matters -Week 5

[00:00:01] Hey, good morning. Christ Church, good to. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you today. [00:00:08] What a beautiful Sunday morning. It is. But yeah, this is gonna be the last of the snow this year. I believe that by faith. [00:00:19] Did I jinx it? Is that what you're afraid of? [00:00:22] It's all good. Well, hey, we are gonna continue our first John series today. We're gonna wrap it up, so we're gonna try and land this plane because we're gonna get ready for Easter and talk about the life of Jesus as we prepare for that. I wanted to get further in first John, but I talked too much, you know. So now can you believe that? [00:00:46] So now I have to land it a little bit early, but let's pray and we'll get into it. Father, we thank you for this time. I thank you for these good people, this awesome church. I pray, Father, that you would teach us how to love each other. I pray, Lord, we could see that love comes from you, that you are love. And Lord, we could know what that means and what that looks like in our life. And I pray for your help in all this. And I pray, Father, that through the way we treat each other, your presence could be made visible. And we ask this all in Jesus name, Amen. [00:01:30] Well, I think it's fair to say that we all want better relationships in life. Is that a fair statement? It's kind of whatever domain of relationship, whether it's romantic or marriage or friendship or work or. I think all of us probably are like, I want them to be strong. I want them to be healthy. I want them to be loving. I haven't met a lot of people that's like, you know what, Chet? My marriage is going too good right now. I wanna make it worse. Like, no, we all. Amen. I haven't met that person. I haven't met that person. Like, work is going so great. I wonder how I can make my boss mad at me. [00:02:11] We all want it to get better, but yet that can be a hard thing to do in practice. [00:02:18] And I found this really interesting statistic this week that in Google search, the question of how to be a better husband is Googled twice as much as how to be a better wife. [00:02:38] I have a couple theories on this, and I don't know what the answer is, but here's my theory number one. Theory number one. Guys, we need a lot of help. [00:02:50] That's theory number one. Theory number two is that many wives are Googling that, printing off the results and putting it next on the bed stand. That's my other Theory, not sure which is true. [00:03:08] But I thought, I don't know, you can come up with your own theory. I thought that was interesting. But it does. But I do sense, man, we want to figure this all out. We want to get better. And what we've seen in First John is that God wants us to get better at loving people. [00:03:25] That's something God wants even more for us. And the good news is he shows us the way and he gives us the ability to do that. So today we're gonna look at 1 John 4. And what's really cool about this chapter is it kind of brings together all the themes, all the ideas of the book of First John. So when you read these verses, you'll hear some stuff we've talked about, but it also will just kind of be a summary of everything that's in this book. So let me read it to you. I'm gonna start at verse seven. And it says this beloved. And don't miss that. Beloved. John's saying, you are the people he's writing to. You are God's beloved. He's saying that to us, too. Let us love one another. We've heard that a few times, and in fact, it's like 30 times in this. That's a lot. Let us love one another, for love is from God. [00:04:27] And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. What a powerful statement. There's only a few times in the Bible where it says God is something. [00:04:49] And that's really a statement of, like, God's essence. We could say of what the fundamental reality of God is. And this is one of those few statements that God is love. That everything God does, everything God says, all the ways God works, all of it emanates ultimately from love. Because God is love. How powerful is that? He says in this, the love of God was made manifest, or we could say was made clear, was made visible to us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live for him. John says, do you wanna know what love looks like? Look at Jesus coming into the world. [00:05:41] That is the clearest picture of love right there. He says in this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us. That's good news. [00:05:56] God's not like, I'm gonna love you based on how much you love me, because I don't always do that. Great at that. But he says, I love you first. [00:06:08] And he says, he loved us and he sent his son to be the Propitiation for our sins. Beloved, there it is again. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. [00:06:19] No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. Now, there's a lot in these verses, but I want you just to see today that love always begins with God. [00:06:39] All of us. Can you just see that? In these verses, it all comes from God. It originates with God, it flows from God to us, and then it's meant to flow through us. And so what that means is that if I am going to grow in love, if my relationships are going to get better, it always has to start with God. [00:07:04] It doesn't start with the other person. Well, this relationship would be better if they get their act together. No, no, no. John said, and I know that's a very appealing thought, but John says, no, no, it begins with God. It doesn't even begin with you. It begins with God. But then he says, but we do have a role to play. It's completed through us, and we're gonna talk about. So it begins with God, but it ends with us. Now, let's talk about this. There is a powerful logic to the love that John is talking about here. Now he begins, and he calls the people he's writing to, and ultimately he calls us beloved. Now, I don't want you to just read over that. He says, you are beloved. You are loved by God. You are God's loved one. That's what it means. And what's so powerful about that is that this same John, I've told you, he wrote the Gospel of John. [00:08:10] And in the Gospel of John, which talks about the story of Jesus life and his death and resurrection, in that Gospel, when John writes about himself, he never calls himself by his name, John. [00:08:25] And he doesn't use the first person. He doesn't say, I ran to the empty tomb. And by the way, I beat Peter, I'm faster than he is. There's a competitive spirit there. [00:08:38] He doesn't say, I did. He uses this language, the one who Jesus loved. That's how he refers to himself and beloved. Here is he's referring to us that way, too, ultimately, like, I am God's beloved and so are you. Now, here's what's significant about that, is that John is saying, ultimately, if we understand God's love, it changes our identity. It changes how I understand myself. [00:09:14] See, John says, my time with Jesus, my relationship with Jesus, how I think about myself today is that I am one that God loves. That that is first and foremost who I am, and everything comes after that. Now, this is a really, really powerful thing because all of us, we live from some place of identity. [00:09:45] If someone asks you, who are you? You'd probably at first be like, well, I'm still trying to figure that out, you know. [00:09:54] But we would say, well, you know, I'm a. Maybe I'm a son, I'm a daughter, I'm a husband, I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a dad, I'm a pastor. I do this, I'm in this role. And all those are. Those are roles that we play in life, very important ones. But they're not our ultimate identity, and they're not meant to be. What John is showing us is that if we understand God's love, then the thing that. That eclipses my identity the most is that I am loved by God, and everything flows from there. Now, I think this is really, really helpful because in our world today, we really struggle with this concept of identity. [00:10:43] In fact, I was rereading this week this book called the Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Truman. It is a powerful, powerful book. And basically in the book, what he talks about is how our understanding of what it means to be a self, how that has changed over history and kind of put us in a crisis. And one of the big changes is that in the past, we used to see that our identity comes from outside of us. It comes from God. But he said, but in the modern world, we think we have to make our own identity inside of ourselves. And so we feel this pressure. And that's why we say things like, well, I'm trying to find out who I am. Not really getting anywhere, but I'm trying. We feel that we have to answer that. But here's what Christianity does. This is so powerful. It says, I will give you the best identity that you could ever have. And you don't achieve it, you just receive it. And you know what? The best identity you could ever have is one who is loved by God. [00:12:02] Because if you are one who is loved by God and you see yourself that way and you understand yourself that way, then everything good will flow from that. You with me on this church. And so John begins. He says, I'm God's beloved, you are God's beloved. And because of that, love is what makes sense in our lives. There's a logic to it. We are God's love. God loves us, therefore we should love one another. Now, a lot of times, people critique Christianity and They say, you know, faith doesn't make a lot of sense. Sometimes people kind of make claims like that, and they'll say, you know, people who believe in these things, you know, you're not really maybe thinking logically or, you know, people make assertions like that. But if you actually think about what John's saying, there is an incredible logic to this. [00:13:06] And this is a logic that only exists within a Christian understanding of the world. Here's what I mean. [00:13:14] Many people in our world, they don't believe there's anything beyond what we can touch and see with our eyes and hear with our ears. You know, many people would say all that is in the world is just what is material, and that's it. And many people would say, and we are not God's creation. We've just evolved, and we're highly evolved primates and all that. But then we also will say, and you know what? And we should love each other, even though that's our origins, that's where we came from. One philosopher, he kind of takes a jab at this. He says, man descended from apes, therefore we must love one another. And he's being a little tongue in cheek. But what he's saying there is, if God doesn't exist, loving one another doesn't really make as much sense as we claim it does. Because if God doesn't exist and all the world is, is what is material and all that, then really survival of the fittest makes a lot more sense. Like, maybe I love those closes. But this whole virtue of love only makes sense if what John is saying is true. Now, here's all that I'm saying is that Christianity actually does make a lot of sense, and it makes a lot more sense out of this world than it oftentimes gets credit for. See, John says, no. Do you know why love is so important to you? Because God is love. Do you know why we should love? Because God has loved us. There is a clear, flawless logic to it. And that's why everybody's like, yes, love is so important. And then you're like, why? Like, well, I don't really know. [00:15:10] But John says, well, here's why, because it is the reality that exists beyond this world. God is love. That's why it's important to you, even though you can't articulate why. That's why we believe in its supremacy over so many things, because it exists in God and God has given it to us. So there is a real logic to it. And then John says, love is from God. Let us love one Another, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. [00:15:47] Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. And so he says, and as I know God more, and as I experience God more, love will become a more powerful part of my life. So it just goes hand in hand. See, the people that know God the most will be the most loving people that you'll meet on this earth. The people that know God and are connecting to God. It just follows from a relationship to God that love becomes more and more a part of our life. Now, I know maybe some of us are thinking, well, Chet, I've met some Christians who are real jerks. [00:16:34] And I don't know what was going on there, but this is what John tells us. He's saying, look, talk is cheap, right? John's saying that you can say you walk in the light. That's part of this whole letter, right? He's saying, look, don't be surprised that many people talk a good game, but it doesn't mean they really know God. So John said, yeah, you're gonna encounter people say the right things, you know, have the right answers. But John's saying, but if it isn't being produced in our lives, then there's some disconnect. You with me on this. And then here's what John would also say, is that if you remember in chapter one, it all begins with this whole idea of if we confess our sins, that God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, that. That. That we are going to fail in loving each other at times, and that we. We are going to fail in our attempts to love. But the way that we move forward is we go back to God and we say, lord, I was wrong. I'm sorry. Would you forgive me? And would you cleanse me? [00:17:51] And as we do that, God continues to grow our capacity for this. And I would say one of the really cool things that I get to see just in this church is so many real people who know God and love God serving others in hidden ways. Like, it's one of the great blessings is everyone can probably pick out some story about someone who claims to know God and treats people like garbage. But I see stories literally every week of someone who claims to know God, does know God, and loves people in this church in real ways that change their lives. The problem is I can't tell you all those stories. They don't get headlines. [00:18:46] They're not the ones that. But they happen all the time. [00:18:53] And it is awesome to See, and it's exactly what John is saying here. And this is you guys. I see this church. Do it. What I love about this church is that I really believe you'll find two things here. One, real people. [00:19:08] If you're looking for. If you're new here and you're like, man, I really hope this is a place where everybody has their act together, you're in the wrong place. [00:19:16] This is not it. [00:19:18] Just keep passing. Go. You know, if you're looking for a place where it's like, oh, man, they got it all figured out and they don't stumble and fall again, wrong place. You will find real brokenness here. You'll find real messed up people here, but you will also find a real savior who is at work and who is greater than all that and who is changing us. And this is what John is saying, is that as we connect to him, love begins to become more healthy and realized through our life. And then he says, but in all this talk about love, let me tell you what love looks like. [00:20:08] And I love this. He says, here's what the picture of love is. It's God sending Jesus in the world. It's Jesus being our propitiation, being the one who takes away the wrath and the demands of justice for our sin and gives us God's love and reconciliation instead. And. And he gives us this great picture. Now, I think this picture is important because when we talk about love, we can have a lot of different ideas in our minds. You know, if you've watched a lot of, like, romantic comedies, you know, love is gonna feel, you know, warm and fuzzy in your belly and, you know, all that kind of thing. And we might think about love only in those terms, but John's talking about it in a very different way. And he says, if you wanna understand it, you have to look to Christ. I think about it this way. Anytime the kids get a new toy that needs assembled or we get something from Amazon that needs assembled, my first thing is, let me see the picture of it, right? Like, what does this look like? [00:21:25] What am I getting into here? And I wanna know. I wanna see the end picture first. And what John is doing is he's giving us the picture of what real love looks like. Because the problem is, is a lot of us, we've grown up and we've experienced broken scripts on love. [00:21:47] And even if your home was really healthy and good, there's still gonna be some parts of the picture of what real love looks like that are missing. And all of us need to keep looking at God to understand what real love looks like. You with me on this? John Stott says it this way. He's got such a powerful quote. He says, for the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God. The essence of sin. We say, it's my life. I'm doing what I want. I'm taking God's place. [00:22:26] John said, that's the essence of sin. But look at this. While the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. And this is what John is saying, that Jesus is the propitiation. That the cross should have been you and me, but it was Jesus instead. [00:22:49] That the justice of God should be on us, but it was on Jesus instead. That's what he's saying. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be. God sacrifice himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Church, you've got a good savior. [00:23:14] You have one. We have one who has done for us, who has. Who has taken our place in an incredibly bad spot and given us his place that he rightfully deserved. This is why this is called good news. Good news. And this is what John says. This is what love looks like. So what does that mean? Let me just kind of pull out a couple ideas. Number one, it means love. Initiates. [00:23:44] John says not that we loved God, but that he loved us. Do you know the beginning of your relationship with God is not you waking up one day and be like, oh, my gosh, I need God. No, no. Oh, my gosh, what am I doing? No. The beginning is God's love. All went before that moment. Church, you with me on this? It all starts with God. God initiates. Because here's the deal. If God wouldn't initiate, we never would. [00:24:17] We would run all our lives. But the grace of God, and probably in so many of our lives, we can tell a story of how God's grace interrupted our life and brought us to him. God loves. He loves first. He initiates. And when we love, right, we go first. [00:24:40] Like, you know what? I'm gonna be the first one to apologize. That's love. [00:24:46] I'm gonna be the first one to move towards this person when we're moving away from each other. That's love. Love. Love. Initiates, we've been reading, as a staff, this book called Managing Leadership Anxiety. It's by Steve Kuss. It's a really good book. If you have a leadership role, check it out. Super helpful. But one of the big things that he says is that when our relationships are in a bad place, there's anxiety, there's pain, there's hurt. Any of those things that one of the most normal human responses is cut off. [00:25:28] Say, I'm hurt, I'm scared, I'm anxious. So what am I gonna do? I'm moving away from you because it's safer over here. And so one of his big points in the book is that a lot of the way that we deal with our relational anxiety is cut off. But the problem is, is that when we move away, we don't get better, we get stuck. [00:25:58] And those dynamics can still be impacting us. You with me on this? But here's what love does. It bridges the distance. It initiates. It says, yeah, I wanna move away, but I'm gonna take a step towards you. With me on this, the last thing I wanna do is move towards. But love initiates. Here's what else love does. Love acts. [00:26:23] God sent his son. Jesus was a propitiation. Love is not just talk. [00:26:31] We can all talk a good game about love. Amen. But love rolls up its sleeve, and love gets to work. In fact, we didn't read these verses in chapter three. But in chapter three, John says, if you say you love God and you see a brother in need and you can do something about it, and you don't, John says, that's a problem. [00:26:55] That's a problem because love acts. [00:26:59] Love does something. [00:27:01] My daughter, Emory, she's so funny. [00:27:04] She'll, you know, so many mornings, she'll be like, dad, what projects do we have to do today? I want to help you. [00:27:13] And I'm like, some days I'll, like, make something up, you know, we gotta clean the garage. I don't know. But her heart, I love her just innocent heart. For her, love is all about action. She wants to help. She wants to do something. [00:27:31] And it's a good reminder to me, love is action. Love is also sacrifice. [00:27:37] The clearest picture of love is God sending a son in sacrifice for you and me. See, one of the big lies of our culture is that love is about making ourself full. [00:27:53] You know, if I can just. If I can find the right person, everything in my life is gonna be full, and it's gonna be great. And they're gonna provide all this stuff for me. But you know what the Bible says again and again, love is not about making yourself full. It's about. About making yourself empty. [00:28:12] It's about pouring yourself out for the sake of others. And here's the irony of it all. When you pour yourself out, you actually get more full. [00:28:24] The problem is we're living on a different script than that. And we're trying to make our relationships about, like, how much can I take in from people? And we're like, I'm taking in a lot, but I'm still empty. Yeah. Because that's not the way love works. [00:28:39] But when we go and we're like, how can I empty my life? How can I pour myself out for the people that God has put around me, the people that God has called me to love? There is actually far greater fullness in that church, and selfishness will fight against that all day long. But don't believe that lie, because love is about sacrifice. Love is about emptying ourselves. Love is about giving of ourselves. And love reflects the reality of God. See, John will say to us again and again, your standard of love is God. [00:29:25] How I want you to love people is how God. God has loved you. That's your standard. That's your guide. [00:29:35] That's what we need to keep looking back to. Says that's what love looks like. And then he says this really, really powerful thing. He says, no one has seen God, but when we love one another, God abides in us. Now, what is John ultimately saying here? He's saying that part of what God's plan is, is to make himself visible by us loving each other. Well, that's part of what God's plan is. You know, people are like, well, if God is real, why doesn't he show up at the Super Bowl? You know, what did he do? [00:30:25] That's not his plan. That's not his purpose. And there's probably a lot of other reasons for that, too. [00:30:33] If the Browns make it, I do believe he will show up, though, and the world will know that this could only happen by God. [00:30:47] But here's the deal, church. God wants to show up through you. That's what God could. He could. He's God. He could do whatever he wants. But his purpose, his desire is to show up through you, through our love of each other. People will look at that and they will see something of God in it. I've been part of, like, this pastors group for a couple years, and they're like a national group, and it's a really cool thing to be part of. But one of the neat things is they have a benevolence fund, and they say, you know, if there's someone that you know that could use a little bit of help, you can make a request, and then they will send you a check to the church and then from the church to give to them. And so it's like this really cool resource. They're very generous with it, and they just kind of allow people who are part of the network to make these requests, and then they filter them out. And so I've done that a few times. And when it happens, I'll tell the person, I'll say, hey, I have something for you. [00:32:05] But it's not from me. It's not even from our church. It's from another place you don't even know, you probably never heard of. But it's something that they gave me to give you, to bless you. And it's really awesome anytime you get to do something like that. [00:32:26] And it's so fun, and it's a true privilege. But John is ultimately saying, God has given us that privilege. [00:32:36] That God says, I have a vast amount of resources and I'm giving them to you so you can give them to others so that they could be blessed by it. And so we can say to people, hey, I have something for you. [00:32:57] I have love to give you. I want you to know it's not from me. [00:33:03] I don't have all that. [00:33:06] I don't have this fun to go to. It's not from me. Someone gave it to me so I could give it to you. [00:33:16] And that's what John is saying. I want you to think today, who in your life does God want to make his love visible to through you? [00:33:31] What is that relationship? Who is that person that God's saying, hey, I'm giving you? I'm giving you something. [00:33:39] I know you don't have it. It's coming from me. I know that grace. You don't have it, but I'll give it to you, that forgiveness. You don't have it, but I'll give it to you, that kindness. You don't have it, but I'll give it to you. And I'm giving it to you so you can give it to them and so they can know it's not from you. It comes from a much better place, a much richer place. This comes from the God who is love. [00:34:10] Who is God saying, I got something that I want to give to others through you. [00:34:16] Pray, Father, would you fill us with your love this morning? [00:34:22] That, Lord, we could have something of great value to give the people around us, something of eternal significance. [00:34:37] Father, we do acknowledge and we believe, Lord, that this all is so incredibly important. [00:34:48] And we want to be people, Lord, who know you in very real ways, whose love can flow through us to others. And it doesn't get stuck. It doesn't get derailed, it doesn't get sent back. [00:35:05] And so, Lord, I pray that just your presence could be made visible through us and you would be glorified. Thank you for these good people. Thank you for all the times that it happens. All the time that just happened this week, Lord, we give you the honor and we give you the glory for it. And now, Lord, we pray just that that good work of love could continue to be multiplied through our lives, especially in those areas where we've resisted it. Help us instead to partner with you in those areas where we fought against it. Help us to walk with you. [00:35:44] And we pray you would be honored above all in all of it. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.