IGNITION Part 3 - LOVE
Bruce Chant
Pulse – generation-j
22 March 2002
INTRO.
This is a tough topic – I was convicted researching it.
When was the last time you asked for more love it your life?
When did you pray to love your friend, work/class mate, enemy? It is HARD.
Love is not a description of activities found in a trashy romance novel or movie. Nor is it found to describe what you see if you are looking at nude women.
That is not Love. Love is not something founded in “feelings” although that is part of it. Love goes deeper and is more deliberate – it is founded on commitment, acts of selflessness, doing the right thing by someone else regardless of what it costs you.
Love is not mysterious but it is profoundly practical.
These are completely foreign and mad concepts to us..
Love is sincere, patient,
kind,
Love does not envy, does not
boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the
truth.
Love always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
--------------------------
LOVE. HOW?
1. Love God first of All.
”To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all
your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all
burnt offerings and sacrifices."
Why not? He loved us first. You have plenty to be thankful for.
”Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved
much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."
Love because God has shown love to us in our forgiveness.
The older I get the more appreciate my parents – because they demonstrated love to me when I had no clue they were.
This is the same with our love for God – the more we grow, the more our love for Him should show.
2. We, as Christians, are to be known by our Love.
John 13:34-35
"A new command I give you:
Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this
all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
This is the Great Command (to go
with the more well known Great Commission).
Matthew Henry – “The badge of
Christianity is brotherly love” – we aren’t known by our coolness, our likes,
our hair or music.
Early persecuted church was known
by its wonderful accepting love of its own. It bonds of love were so strong
that the greatest empire of the world couldn’t crush it. Love proved a stronger
force than evil and force itself.
The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your
neighbor as yourself."
One thing I hear too much is “I didn’t even know they/you were a christian”
We live in a time where there is no moral difference between Christians and Non-christians. Why? Breakdown in standards – those things that are hard – and a neglect of the great command. We need to turn this around.
1 John 2:9-10
”Anyone who claims to be in the light
but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives
in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.”
”This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the
devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is
anyone who does not love his brother.”
Love is God’s plan to win man back to Him – John 3:16.
”This is how we know what love
is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives
for our brothers”
Are you part of this?
3. Love is not Exclusive.
But I tell you: Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good
to those who hate you and pray for those who persecute you,
Agape love- Unconditional – this is the love of Christ. Isn’t it amazing?
We all doubted our parents loved us – but later on we don’t doubt it.
Agape: He puts it in us. He chooses to reveal His love to humanity through people. Pity we are such dirty containers for it – it quickly gets murky with our sins and prejudices.
It’s easy to love those who love you – even pagan do that. Love is the Christians opportunity to show God’s love for humanity.
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without
expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be
sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
This gives us an example of the how – bless your neighbour. Bless a homeless person (with a meal). Bless someone who really does hate you. Kindness leads to repentence.
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
4 Love should
be direct by God.
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love
the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot
serve both God and Money.”
Rather than let the media or your peers tell you what to show your love towards – why not let God show you what to love.
Love what God loves, hate what God hates.
God loves people, His creation; faith; cheerful giver; obedience; mercy; faithfulness
God hates sin, death, sickness, disease, pain, injustice, torment.
The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his
life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
This verse says give up what you love – your sins/idols and turn to God and what he loves. If we love things in competition with God – all will be lost.
Allow God to direct what you love rather than the latest Cosmo or Motor Mag.
5. Love is
Shown not Just Said.
It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for
him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who
were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. [ Or
he loved them to the last]
Actions speak louder than words – John 3:16 – picture of Love.
Eg I have to show Ruth I love her (in her case – quality time) not just say it from across the room whilst watching TV.
This is how we show our love for God. For eg: "If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Through our obedience to Him.
But It is more than the action - It is the Spirit behind the Action too.
1 If I speak in the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or
a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy
and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can
move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I
possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I
gain nothing
Love is more than Action – it is the power working within you, the spirit in which you operate.
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. 8 Love never fails.
6. Love
builds.
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge.
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
Love builds vs Knowledge which puff – therefore action is needed.
Do you want to build your life? Then love. Why does this church grow more? Why does this ministry grow more? Love.
We need more Love in our life. I guarantee that would make such a huge difference!!
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,” Love is so foundational to our Christian maturity – we can’t grow without it. Nothing can spiritually speaking.
“From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
Part of that Growth and development comes because Love
Disciplines (correction is part of the building process)
“Those whom I love I
rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent”
Godly love (God in His grace) disciplines us to bring us to repentance and dependence upon Him.
Proverbs 28:23 “He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor
than he who has a flattering tongue.”
Proverbs 27:5
“Better is open rebuke than hidden love.”
Hidden love is no love at all (passivity leads to death)
7. Dying Love is a sign of the End
Matthew 24:11-13
"and many false prophets will
appear and deceive many people. Because
of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be
saved.”
The love of MOST. Beware that you are not deceived and fall away from our God.
The worst thing is to know God and then turn from Him. Better you never knew Him!
This is a serious warning to us.
LOVE EXPANDERS
1. Remain in God’s love.
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I
have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
1 John 2:9-10
”Anyone who claims to be in the light
but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives
in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.”
V26-27 “I am writing
these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you,
the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone
to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that
anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him.”
You can’t love apart from God.
2. We have God’s love through the Holy Spirit.
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.
Nothing can separate us from it.
3. Purify Yourself
1 John 3:1-3
”1 How great is the
love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did
not know him.
2 Dear friends, now we
are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we
know that when he appears, [1] we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
3 Everyone who has this
hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”
Have a commitment to the characteristics of God – Christ is love.
Because of God’s love for us – we pursue purity before Him – ie life change.
RESPONSE.
Don’t be overwhelmed. Be convicted to change.
Repent. Turn to God for forgiveness, strength and grace.
And attack the world armed with the greatest power found within it!!
Remember:
Ø Love God
Ø Love others.
Ø Love life
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