Deeper- Part 2- Loving Deeper
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· 6 viewsHere we find that knowing God, loving God, and loving others are all intricately connected ideas.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Last week we introduced a new sermon series entitled simply “Deeper.” This series of sermons is intended to challenge each of us to go deeper in our walk with God.
The first message in the series served as an introduction to the idea of the deeper Christian life and was drawn from Ephesians 3:14-18.
In this passage we learned that to enjoy the deeper Christian life we must have a Spirit that has been strengthened through consistent obedience, a heart that is open to Christ’s presence, a life that is founded upon love, and a mind determined to know more of Christ.
A deeper walk with Christ will produce in our lives a deepening of certain aspects of our lives.
Today we are going to focus in on one aspect of this deeper Christian life and it is love. We will see that a deeper walk with Christ will naturally produce in us a deeper love for God and for others.
One important distinction that we must make from the beginning is that love in the scriptural sense is not an emotion but is an action.
It is not something that you feel but something that you do.
This passage begins with...
The Command to Love (Vs. 7-8)
The Command to Love (Vs. 7-8)
You will notice here that we are commanded to “love one another.” This is not a option to be considered but a command that is binding upon every believer.
Regardless of our feelings or our reservations, we must love one another.
The choice to love one another is born of our relationship with God.
Love is of God and in fact God Himself is love. Love is at the very heart of His nature.
The natural man apart from God may exhibit love at times when it is to his benefit but only those who are “born of God” can exhibit love continually.
This does not mean that loving one another will always be easy or that there will never be times when we struggle with loving another believer, but we choose to love because we are commanded by God to do so.
God is love and if you and I claim to know God we will exhibit love towards one another.
Those who fail to exhibit love demonstrate the fact that they do not know God for He is love.
Our knowledge of God and relationship with Him give us the capacity to exhibit love towards one another.
It would be foolish to insist that we are born of God and that we know Him if we do not show love one toward another.
The Pattern of Love (Vs. 9-11)
The Pattern of Love (Vs. 9-11)
God does not simply command us to love, but He has demonstrated for us how to love.
Here is clear evidence that love is active because God demonstrated His love for you and I when He sent Jesus into the world.
We cannot deny the love that God has for us because it was manifested when God chose to send His only begotten Son to this earth to die for the sins of mankind.
Love always begins with God, we did not love Him but even so He demonstrated His love for us. God did not wait for us to love Him before He demonstrated His love to us.
There was no reason that God should love sinful individuals like you and I and yet He loved us so much that He chose to send His son to take the penalty for our sins and to provide the means of our redemption.
Jesus was the propitiation for our sins, literally the atoning sacrifice that made our forgiveness possible. Jesus satisfied the justice of God on our behalf reconciling us back to Him.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
God provided a powerful example of love when He sent Jesus Christ to this world knowing He would suffer and die for the sins of all mankind.
This is the pattern that we are to follow in demonstrating love toward God and toward one another.
Love requires sacrifice for this is the literal definition of love to place the needs of another above our own.
Notice that God loved first. In this we learn that we are not to wait on others to demonstrate love toward us before we exhibit love to them.
For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
If God was willing to demonstrate His love for us in such a significant way even when we were yet sinners living in open defiance of His commandments, should we not choose to love one another?
Source of Love (Vs. 12-16)
Source of Love (Vs. 12-16)
Not only has God showed us how to love but He has placed within us that which gives us the capacity for love.
The more that we begin to comprehend the love that God has for us the easier it will be for us to love one another.
You and I are capable of loving as God has commanded because He has placed His Spirit within us.
The very fact that we can love the unlovable and that we are willing to sacrifice of ourselves for the good of others is evidence that God dwells in us and that we dwell in Him.
It is God’s intent to continue to exhibit His love to men through believers He now indwells.
The love that God places within us for one another gives us assurance that we are His child and that He dwells in us.
Those who know not Christ and have not been born again are incapable of the love that God demands.
One of the distinguishing marks of the true Christian is his love for others.
The Significance of Love (Vs. 17-21)
The Significance of Love (Vs. 17-21)
It is this love that will allow us to have boldness in the day of judgment.
If we allow the Spirit of God to lead us to love one another we need can boldly stand in the day of judgment.
When we live according to His example and we love as Christ loved we shall be able to stand confidently in the day of judgment knowing that we have pleased God.
If we fear the day of judgment it is because we have failed to act according to love and by extension we have resisted the Spirit’s leading in our lives.
We need never fear being judged for that which we have done in love.
Love originated with God and we love Him only because He first loved us.
It is hypocrisy to say that we love God and to hate our brother (likely used in a much broader sense here).
If we claim to love God, one whom we have never seen and yet we find ourselves incapable of loving those that we have seen the scripture says that we are liars.
This passage closes with one final commandment that those who love God love their brother also.
The clear conclusion is this that if we truly understand the love that God has for us we will love Him and if we love Him we will love one another.
Conclusion
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Today I want to challenge you to examine yourself in light of this passage of scripture. Do we love as we should?
As we deepen our relationship with the Lord, the natural result is that we will love more deeply.
The closer we draw to Christ the more better we will understand His love for us and the more motivated that we will be to love one another.
God has commanded us to love, He has showed us how to love, He has provided us with the capacity to love, and it is through acting in love that we will stand boldly before Him in the day of judgment someday.