Well, it didn't turn out the way that I had expected. I met Luella standing in a lunch line in college. For me, it was love at first sight. For Luella, it was decidedly not love at first sight. I finally secured a date with her. We went out on the first date, and she told me not to ask her out again. I did. She accepted. I continued. She accepted. We continued dating for several months, and I thought the time was right. I looked for the right moment; I was expecting reciprocation. When that moment came, I told her I wanted to tell her what I had been feeling for a while, and I said those words, "I love you."
What Do You Know About Love?
What happened next was not reciprocation; it was closer to anger. Luella said to me, "What do you mean, "You love me? What do you know about love, anyway? Please don't say this to me again." I look back at that moment; I was 17 years old. I think she was probably right. I didn't know a whole lot about what love actually meant. For those of you who don't know me well, I must finish this story. This lady has been my wife of 37 years. Perhaps it's the universal question asked by every human being at some moment, "What is love?"
It's asked by boys and girls and moms and dads and husbands and wives and friends, asked by every culture, asked during every period of history. Volumes of books have been written on this thing called 'love'. Google "what is love" and you'll get hundreds of websites. We have a precious little book at home; it's Quotations and Thoughts by C.S. Lewis on this subject of love, almost an inexhaustible topic. And so, it is my privilege this summer, sprinkled throughout the summer, to preach three times in the morning, so I decided to preach on that topic.
What is love? Turn in your Bibles to I John chapter 4. The fourth chapter of this letter of John is one of the New Testament's most focused discussions of love. And so, I want to spend my three times this summer looking at I John 4, just this morning, three verses beginning with verse seven. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
"Beloved, let us love one another." It is the inescapable call of God to all of God's children, the call of love. You may not have been called to be a pastor in Christ's church, to be a preacher or a teacher. You may not have been called to the office of Elder, or the office of Deacon. You may not have been called to teach a Sunday School Class or lead a small group. You may not have been called to be a global partner, taking the message of the gospel around the world. You may not have been called to a para church ministry that seeks to support the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, but whoever you are, wherever you are, whomever you're living near, whatever you're doing, you have been called to love.
It is an inescapable call. It's a call to everyone who's in this room. If you claim to be God's child, you have been called to love. You see how central that call is even in this little letter. In chapter 3, John begins by discussing the magnificence of God's love, that by His love, we have been made to be His children, and He reminds us that's exactly what we are because of the love of God; we're God's children. What an amazing thing. And then John begins to discuss how God's children are called to live, and He uses this wonderful little phrase, "We're called to practice righteousness."
That means we're called to live in a way that submits to the call of God, that submits to the authority of God, the plan of God, the will of God; no longer is my life directed by me. I am committed to live the righteous life that God has called me to, to practice the things that He's called me to practice every day. And when John is thinking about practicing righteousness, right away, his mind goes to this life of love. He says in verse 10 of chapter 3, "Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother."
Love Is Central to the Righteous Life
Central, right smack dab in the middle of the righteous life that God has called us to is this life of love. You cannot seriously say, "I am serious about relationship with God; I'm serious about a life that pleases God and not be committed to daily, faithful, active love. Those things are inextricably glued together. Now, what I just said makes me shudder because this call, that none of us can escape, is one of the highest and hardest calls that a human being could ever accept. This morning, as I got up early to think about this passage, I was reflecting on my own week.
My heart was grieved. I wish I could look back on that week and say, "In all of my relationships and all of my situations and everything I said and everything I did, everything I've thought and everything I desired, I sought to live this life of love, that that life of love was perfectly and faithfully demonstrated by the way I lived this week." But I can't. This inescapable call is a hard call. And that call immediately leads us to where John goes next. Hear these words: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. What John says next is really quite humbling. He essentially says this, in a variety of ways; hear this. "Love has a source, and it is not you." Humbling! Love has a source, and that source is God, and that is so powerfully true that John can say, "If you love as God has called you to love, you only love as God has called you to love because you know God. And if you don't love in the way that you have been called to love in that consistent, dedicated, committing way, it is because you do not know God."
That's how deep our need is. That means you and I do not have the natural capacity within ourselves to do this thing that we're being called to in this passage. We must understand that what John is talking about here is something deeper than being respectful and something deeper than being mannerly, something deeper than cultural niceness, something deeper than relational comfortability, something deeper than an occasional act of service. It's something so deep and so fundamental that it actually requires a radical change of heart in order to be able to live this life of love that we've been called to.
All of those things are good things, but this is something deeper and fuller than that. Maybe if we were willing to be honest this morning, what we would say is, "There are few more powerful demonstrations of our need for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ than this call to love." Who here would say, "Yes, that's easy for me?" Well, before you say that, interview the people you live with. It's hard! And so, John, in these wonderful phrases, introduces us to a theology of love. If I could say it this way, of a worldview of love, and it is really powerfully depicted by these two phrases: "God is love" and "Born of God".
Let's take the first one: God is love. What an amazing statement, a statement that could only ever be said of God. God is love, essential to everything that God is, expressed in everything that God does and says and chooses and desires is love. God is the definition of what is loving and faithful and pure and active in love; God is love. It's not just that He loves; He is the sum total definition expression of what is loving. What an amazing statement! I could say that you love. I could say that you love committedly.
I could say that you love faithfully; I could say that you love wisely and intelligently; I could say you are a lover, but I could never say of you, "You are love." But that's who God is. He is the universe's source of love. He is love. And if God would cease to be love, hear this, brothers and sisters, He would cease to be God. Not so you! If you would cease to love, you would not cease to be human. You would not be a nice human being. It wouldn't be sweet to live near you, but you wouldn't cease to be a human being, but not so God.
Born of God
This is so bound up in what it means to be God; you cannot separate love from God and God from love because God is love. Now, there is a second phrase, it's the phrase: Born of God. Now, there is Gospel in this phrase that we need to hear; we need to understand, very, very important. You see the one who loves is born of God. What does that mean? Here's what it means. It means, before I come to Christ in saving faith, I am dead in my trespasses and sin. I don't have spiritual life inside of me. And by an act of grace, God gives me new life.
Now, hear me say this, "That new life is not just somehow God flicks the light switch up, and all of a sudden, like a light bulb, I come to life. No, I'm born of God. John wants me to understand, wants us to understand this dynamic spiritual reality that this new life is actually God's life living now inside of me. I'm born of God. I have life now because God who is life comes and makes me the place where He dwells. God Almighty, in His power and glory and grace and love, now, is living inside of me.
That's why I live. Paul says, "It's no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me." That new life is God's life living in me, and so that God who is love, now is actually living inside of me by His Spirit; I've been born of God. Wow! I'm not just another person struggling somehow, someway, to be moral and altruistic. There is new life inside of me because God now lives within me. Praise Him! What hope! What encouragement! You see, it takes because God is love; it takes being born of God in order to live this life of love.
It's not something that I can just read in a textbook and study and get some abstract technical understanding of love with all of the moral implications and launch out and live this life of love. I don't have the individual autonomous capacity to do that. That's why, if you say, "I want to accept this call; I want to live this life of love," it will drive you to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ because you will embrace your helplessness to do this thing that inescapably you've been called to do.
Well, look with me at verse nine because what John does in this next verse is exegete or expound further what he's just said: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that (purpose statement) we might live through him." If love is a call, and it is; and if love has a source, and it does; then the life of love demands a rescue. Hear these words again, I want to read them to you again, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him."
Jesus Christ came to earth, and He faced all the trials and temptations of life in this fallen world. He did that as our substitute, and He was perfect in His responses in word, thought, choice, and action. Therefore, He was able to go to the cross as the untainted, the Perfect Lamb of God, taking our sin upon Him and satisfying the wrath of God, purchasing our acceptance with God. And that Lamb, who died, rose again, walking out of that borrowed tomb, conquering death on our behalf so that we might know life.
So That We Might Live Through Him
When John says, "...so that we might live through him," surely he means eternal life. Of course, he means that, but that's not the focus of this passage. Remember he's in a discussion of the way that God has called us to live in the here and now as the children of His love, a discussion of practicing righteousness and the corollary living this life of love. His focus is on the here and now, and he says, "Jesus Christ came so that you would have life now living within you so that you would live as you have been called to live, so that you would have the capacity in the here and now in the situations and locations where you have been sovereignly placed, you would have the capacity to live the way that you have been chosen to live."
Now, why did God have to go to that extent, to literally send His Son to the cross, to literally, in a moment, turn His back on His own Son? ...because you and I needed that kind of rescue. I don't know how much you've thought about this, but there's something in the way for all of us, of this call to love. It's sturdy and powerful. It rears its head again and again. I would say it to you this way, "Love has rescued you from love so that you would be able to love." Love has rescued you from love so that you would be able to love.
The God who is love by the powerful work of His Son, the Lord Jesus, has rescued you from love. You say, Paul, "I don't know what that means." Hear this. This is what sin does to us; sin turns us in on ourselves; sin makes us shockingly self-focused and self-absorbed. That love for self is so sturdy in us; it becomes the moral structure of our lives. We look at a week as being a good week or a day as being a good day according to how it has served our agenda. We want; we want; we want; we want; we want.
We want to put ourselves in the center of the universe, the one place where we should never exist. We are so focused; we are so busy; we are so obsessed; we are so occupied with loving us, we have neither desire nor time to love anyone else. Think, brothers and sisters, of how much of your anger in the past week is for no other reason than individuals were in your way. And so, if I'm ever going to love, I need to be rescued from me. I would like to think that you're my biggest problem; I would like to think that I struggle to love because of who you are.
I struggle to love because of who I am. And so, the God who is transforming love would transform us by His love so that we would become people who love. Now, hear me say this, "That is an ongoing work of rescue and transformation. You have been rescued, but you are now being rescued, and you will be further rescued until all that keeps you from loving has been finally defeated and eradicated." Maybe you're sitting here this morning, and you're thinking, "Okay, Paul, I get it, but what do I do about this?"
Maybe you're sitting here this morning as the person who has not yet been rescued by that love. You have not yet faced the scary reality that your deepest problem exists inside of you, not outside of you; it's called sin. And you've not yet owned that sin and run to this God of love, placing your hope in the sacrifice of His Son. I would say to you this morning, "Don't wait; don't wait; don't wait. Every day in your life is an argument for your need of rescue. " Maybe you're one of God's children here this morning, and you've already begun to benefit from that rescuing love.
I would say to you, "It's not enough for you to remember the Gospel on Sunday and to sing these wonderful hymns about the love of God; you need to preach to yourself the Gospel again and again and again." Maybe you're a mom, and you hit those days when it seems like your children have been more aggressively disobedient than you ever thought they would be. As the day goes on, you feel that emotional temperature rising; you just think that you're going to lose it. You need to say to yourself, "That the God who is love is at this moment transforming me by His love so that I could be a mom who's capable of loving; I will step forward in the courage of faith, and I'm going to love as God has called me to love because I'm not alone; that God of love is inside of me."
The Husband Driving Home
Maybe you are a husband; you're driving home at the end of your busy day, and all you want to do is be left alone, a silent dinner would help and then to be able to go to a silent room where no one would disturb you would be your ideal evening. But you're not going to a place of silent retreat; you're driving toward a call. You need to preach the Gospel to yourself on the way home. Men, are you listening to me? Turn off the iPod; turn off the CD; turn off the radio, and remind yourself of the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ, of that rescue that has already begun to happen in you, of that transforming love that is at work, transforming you, and step forward and say, "I'm going to be a loving dad and husband tonight, even though I feel like I am at the end of my rope."
Maybe you're a single person, and you are living in a house of roommates, and you've shockingly discovered that they don't always do things the way you do. Those people that were once your friends have an amazing ability to irritate you. And there are times when you just want to rush home first and change the locks. You need to remind yourself of the gospel that the God who is love is transforming you by His love so that you would be a person of love. Maybe you're in a university classroom, and you have an irascible, arrogant, demanding, critical professor.
He's an easy object for hatred, a lot of conversation in the hallways barbecuing this man, but you refuse to do that because you except your calling, but you just don't accept your calling, you remind yourself of what you have been given in Christ. And you determine to live a life of love. Maybe you're a child, a young person; you've come to realize that your parents are lessthan-perfect people. They don't always respond to you in grace, and there is great temptation to cynicism and bitterness and rebellion.
You need to preach the Gospel to yourself and say, "This is why Jesus came. Jesus came so that I would have the capacity to love because He's rescuing me from me." Brothers and sisters, I would encourage you to preach the Gospel to yourself. The God who is love, by His grace, is transforming us by that love so that we would be people who love. Wouldn't it be wonderful if what is to be said of the disciples of Jesus Christ would be said of us, not just on Sunday, but on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, Wednesday evening, Saturday afternoon?
"By this all men know that these are my disciples because of their love for one another." If that's ever said of you, it's said of you because the God of transforming love has visited you and made your heart the place where He dwells. Let's pray: Lord, in this moment, how could we be honest and not embrace the depth of our need that sin still does live inside of us? It is antisocial in its essence. It drives us inside instead of moving us outside, and so we are so deeply grateful for Your rescuing love.
We are so grateful that, because of Your love, You haven't turned Your back and walked away from us, but You did the unthinkable; You sent Your Son to die; the Trinity was torn asunder so that we would become a community of love. Oh, Lord, help us to avail ourselves of the rescue, the transformation that can only be found in You. In Jesus name, Amen.
