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Loving to the Standard

Sermon for February 24^th, 2008

Last week we began with some quotes about love from children and then we looked at five Greek words that convey different aspects of love. The Greeks had a specific word for passionate, sensual love, another word for the love of friends, another word for affection and one for desire as well as the word for self sacrificing; other oriented love.

It is the last type of love that we will be looking at today as this is the love that God has for us and it is the standard for how He wants us to love one another. Some of our best known scriptures are about the self sacrificing love of God, but let’s not let them become trite. John 3:16 says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." His love drew Him to take action.

We do not just naturally love in this way. It takes the love of God within us to live and love to His standard. Romans 5:5 tells us how we can achieve this level of love: "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." While verse 8 shows God’s love in action: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." If we are to be God’s people we have to be people of love. In John 13:34-35 Jesus says to the 11 Apostles "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Last week we focused on the truth that love is shown through our choices. We looked at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 to see that:

1CO 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1CO 13:8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Because of our respect of the other person, the relationship and God we can, and must, choose to be patient. We choose to be kind instead of rude. We choose to rejoice in the success of others and we choose to not brag about ourselves and get caught in the "one-upmanship" that he world promotes. We choose to not be prideful and arrogant trying to get people to look at us. These are the choices that we make.

We choose to avoid self seeking behavior by choosing to focus on the needs of others. We choose to keep our calm because the pain that we can cause in anger is not easily repaired. We choose to think about the positives instead of recording the wrongs. We choose to speak the truth in a loving way so that lives are made better. These choices show that we are led by the love of God.

We choose to protect others, trust them and to put our trust in them. We choose to invest in people to show them a positive future that is lit by hope. We choose to keep going when the going gets hard and the road is long. And we choose to do this through the power of the Spirit and the love that God has placed in us because, unlike ours, His love never fails.

With this preamble in mind I want us to focus on the passage of 1 John 4:7-5:5 on page 1030 to see the standard of how God loves and how He expects us to live to that standard. We are going to read through it slowly and tease it apart so that we can see what He is saying.

Look at the first two verses.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Remember; the type of love here is self sacrificing love.

Loving self sacrificially is a way of showing our relationship with God.

If we do not love in this way we do not show that we know God.

Now we learn from His demonstration of love.

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is a giving love.

This type of love makes way for God to live in us and through us.

John goes on to say:

1JN 4:13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges (same root as "preaches") that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

The Spirit testifies of God’s love which is the core of the Good News.

Loving to the standard means living a life of preaching and testimony.

Vs 16 reminds us that we know it and rely on it.

The next part of 16 says:

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

God is this type of love: He sets the standard.

He then calls us to the standard of being loving like He is.

The next part speaks of the relational aspect of self sacrificing love.

1JN 4:19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

God is our motivation and power to love in this way.

We also learn from this that we are not in charge of judging who gets this type of love.

We are commanded to love in this way.

In the next chapter John writes:

1JN 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

Loving God draws us to action just as it drew God to action – active belief!

Again; loving God means loving others.

Loving God means following His word.

The self sacrificing love of God helps us overcome the selfish love of the world.

Putting it together:

So what is the standard for love?

The love that Jesus demonstrated to his Father, family, friends, and enemies.

How do we live to that standard?

By having the Holy Spirit leading us through the choices that we make. Are we choosing to be patient, kind, without envy, without boasting, without pride or rudeness. Are we choosing to not be self-seeking, or easily angered? Are we choosing to keep no record of wrongs and choosing what to remember. Do we not delight in evil even when we think they deserve it or are we more often to rejoice with the truth? Are we making the choice to protect, trust, instill hope, and to persevere?

What happens when we do not love to His standard?

God continues His love in this way and He changes us through the process of sanctification.

What now?

Take time to recognize how selfish our love usually is and read the word and follow the Lord by practicing loving to His standard.

Put the needs of others first and see everything in light of its spiritual impact.

Grow in grace and knowledge of God while we confess that we are not perfect but that we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds.

The love that Christ brings into our lives is different than the love of the world and as His followers we can be the salt and light by choosing to demonstrate His love for others.

Next week we will be looking at some passages from Exodus as we remind ourselves of some of the principles of transition. This could be a good short series to invite people to!

After that series we will take two weeks to look at a few of the suggested sermon topics that people have been gathering from friends and family, and after that we will start a series through Nehemiah to see God can help us reach seemingly unreachable goals.