The Love of God is the Foundation of the Church
John 13 • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
In what way does the Devil devour?
In what way does the Devil devour?
There are numbers of ways that Satan desires to devour God’s people.
He introduces doubt in the Word of God - Genesis 3
He provokes the world to persecute the believer - John 16
He introduces error into the life of the church - 2 Peter 2
However, in light of our study in the love of God, I want us to consider another way that Satan attempts to devour believers.
Another way that Satan attempts to destroy believers is to introduce into the fellowship of believers those who do not love.
3 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.
1, 2 Timothy, Titus ((2) An Indictment of the False Teachers (6:2b–5))
Paul mentioned three unhealthy traits of the heretics, and he then designated the products of their impaired instruction. First, the false teachers were pompous or “conceited,” a term that describes a temptation facing the neophyte in 3:6. Second, despite their arrogance they lacked genuine spiritual knowledge. Williams combines both of these terms in calling the false teacher a “conceited ignoramus.” Paul had earlier talked about the spiritual ignorance of these heretics in 1:7. His conviction was that those who depart from gospel truth actually lack all spiritual understanding. Third, they were ailing with the disease of controversy and word battles: “Controversies and arguments … have impaired their mental health to such a degree that they have become diseased.”The products of such crippled teaching include an envy that shows annoyance at the success of others and a spirit of dissension that brings envy into the open. Also included are “malicious talk,” wicked denunciations of others, “evil suspicions,” faultfinding, and misgivings about the integrity of others. The vividness of Paul’s description suggests that he was facing a concrete situation which aroused his indignant protest. Paul saw that a sense of real community had been destroyed. 6:5 Paul mentioned a final product of the unhealthy teaching of heresy and then discussed the character of a person who could produce such diseased behavior. The “constant friction” refers to incessant quarreling that came from the contentious nature of the sectaries. As to their personal make-up, they were mentally corrupted and completely lacking in the truth. Paul’s statement in v. 4 that the heretics understood nothing was a similar emphasis. Guthrie notes: “When reason is morally blinded, all correctives to unworthy behavior are banished, and the mind becomes destitute … of the truth.”
Satan devours a local assembly by means of hypocrites who do not love one another.
1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
The local church typically tolerates unloving behavior because she has not been taught how to handle that.
But, unloving hearts and behaviors are of the flesh, the world, and the Devil and very likely indicate an unregenerate person.
It is because love is the essence and nature of God Himself that the enemy of God, the Devil, seeks to destroy those who know Him.
But, why does Scripture make such an emphasis on love?
But, why does Scripture make such an emphasis on love?
We are saved in love.
Those who know God are characterized by love.
We were saved in love:
We were saved in love:
1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Those who know Him are characterized by love.
Those who know Him are characterized by love.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
Word Pictures in the New Testament 1 John 4:8
He that loveth not (ὁ μη ἀγαπων [ho mē agapōn]). Present active articular participle of ἀγαπαω [agapaō] “keeps on not loving.” Knoweth not God (οὐκ ἐγνω τον θεον [ouk egnō ton theon]). Timeless aorist active indicative of γινωσκω [ginōskō], has no acquaintance with God, never did get acquainted with him.
1, 2, 3 John (1) Love Others Because God Loves You (4:7–10)
4:8 John now turns from the positive expression of truth to its negative expression. He adds emphasis to the point in v. 7 by now stating the converse. Those who do not love do not know God. The absence of love in the life of an individual proves that he does not know God (ouk egnō ton theon). The one who does not love is a stranger to God. He never even began to have a relationship with God; that is, there was never a time when this person could have legitimately claimed that he knew God.
1, 2, 3 John (1) Love Others Because God Loves You (4:7–10)
Because his very nature is love, mercy and goodness flow from God like a beautiful river, as sunlight radiates from the sun. Love, real love (cf. 1 Cor 13), has its ultimate source and origin in God. It is not an abstract concept but concrete action, as John will now explain.
19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
4 The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: 6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
9 The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. 10 The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; 12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
But, what does this love look like?
But, what does this love look like?
The only true picture and description of love is to found in Jesus Christ.
We can read sections of Scripture like, 1 Corinthians 13.
However, those passages are abstract to us, especially if we are not familiar with living in love in the first place.
The best picture of the essence of love is Jesus’s washing of the feet of the disciples.
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
5 Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
The effect of and the true nature of love is that it seeks the holiness and cleanliness of those it loves.
Is that not so?
Consider all that we have seen in the passages about WHY God saved us.
Consider this passage:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
This is why it hurts so deeply when this kind of love is rejected and even scorned by those in darkness.
How is it the foundation of the church?
How is it the foundation of the church?
11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Love is the fruit of the Spirit of God:
Love is the fruit of the Spirit of God:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Love is the condition of the heart of a regenerate believer:
Love is the condition of the heart of a regenerate believer:
5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Love is the goal of all the commands in Scripture/true ministry:
Love is the goal of all the commands in Scripture/true ministry:
3 As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, 4 nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. 5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
The NT gives us instructions for loving one another.
The NT gives us instructions for loving one another.
1 Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.
Conclusion
Having said all of that, now you can understand what the writer of Hebrews states:
19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; 24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, 25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
To leave the assembly of those whom God loves is to disobey the Law of love which Jesus states is the New and Greatest Commandment.
26 For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32 But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, 33 partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. 34 For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. 35 Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. 37 For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. 38 But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
Next week: I want to give concrete instructions about how to love one another in the body of Christ.
READ:
5 “And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
7 “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes! 8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. 9 “If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell. 10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven.
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”