Morning Message Text: 1 John 4: 7-15
God’s Love and Ours
7 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.
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.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: 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 that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
Morning Message:
Today’s message on love may be challenging to all of us. Why? Because I think it flies in the face of everything we believe love to be. I think that the best way for me to explain this is to start with scripture and its view of what love is. Listen very carefully to verses seven and eight of today’s scripture. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
I want you to realize that this is a shocking statement to our society and to us if we take the time to understand what it means. What the apostle John, who is known as the apostle of love is saying here is, only the followers of Jesus, among all the people on earth, can truly love another person. He said that we should love one another, for this comes from God to those who are born again and have a relationship with Him. If you will take a moment and allow that to sink in, it will change the way you view things.
Other people can experience and convey affection and compassion and attraction and physical intimacy. There can be non-Christian philanthropy. But the selfless agape love that characterizes God himself can only be experienced and conveyed by those who know Him. If God abides in us, his love is being perfected in us. Stay with me here, this is where things get a little sticky in today’s world. If true love can only be felt and conveyed by those who know Jesus as Savior because you can’t truly love God if you have rejected the sacrifice of his only Son, and the mark of a believer is obedience to God’s word, then much of what this world claims to do in the name of love is false. Think about the things that are done in the name of love that according to God’s word cannot be love at all. Maybe you heard this kind of a story. “When I was a child, we saw two men kissing and I looked at my father and he said, “It’s simple. They love each other.” Not according to what God says love is. Listen, I will not walk on eggshells when I preach from the pulpit. What you agree and disagree with in life has to be a reflection of who you truly are, and love should not be used for an excuse.
Now, we must remember that we are called to love all people. When we belong to Jesus love is unconditional. God calls his sons and daughters to love people as they are and to pray that He will do a work in their lives. When I tell you that the relationships between people of the same sex is wrong and should not be excused as love, I am not saying that you should judge them, Just the opposite, you should show them unconditional love. As Christians, because we know what true love is, we should not merely tell others of God’s love, but show them that God loves through our demonstrations of love. Part of true Godly love is the willingness to sacrifice so that others can experience God’s love through us. You don’t sacrifice what you believe, but you can love even when you disagree.
One other part of our true love of God and others is to personally show that love to others, especially those who are lost. The only Christ most people will see is the Christ they see in you. Those of us who have experienced and know true love must reflect that to others. Let me switch gears just a bit. We just celebrated the birth of our nation. Almost everyone took the time to celebrate in one way or another. When we celebrate national holidays, we hear a lot about patriotism. To be a patriot conveys a sense of love of country, but I want you to think about this in the context of what we have examined in scripture today. There is no true love of country without a love of God and the Christian principles this nation was built on. There are some things that you just feel. I never served in the military or had to go into battle to protect our nation’s freedom, but I know that in order to do what these brave men and women did they must have known true love. They understood unconditional love, they were willing to sacrifice their very lives, and they made a personal decision to do what was best for their country. There is no true love of country apart from the love of God.
How are you doing with this assignment given to us by Jesus? The love that reflects Jesus compels us to do things for others without any expectation of something in return. It puts the needs and interests of others first. That’s what our world and our nation needs today. Even in our politicians we need to see a willingness to care about what is best for the people they are asking to serve. Anyone can claim to love, but true love sacrifices self-want for the good of others. Don’t get me wrong, I am not judging whether or not our politicians are Christians. I have no idea who is or isn’t, but what I do know is that true love of anything must come from God. Ask God today to help you love others the way he does, and let’s show the world we are Christians by our love. A little prayer for us today: “May the love of Jesus fill me as the waters fill the sea; Him exalting, self abasing, this is victory.”
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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