Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community Rockland, Ontario |
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Broadcast Notes:
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, October 21st,
2012:
http://proxy.autopod.ca/podcasts/chum/6/9148/good_news_023_oct21.mp3 ____________________________________________
Broadcast Notes:
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‘Perfect Love’
Today’s topic is taken from: 1 John 4:16-5:5 (ESVUK):
16 So (A)we
have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. (B)God
is love, and (C)whoever
abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By
this (D)is
love perfected with us, so that (E)we
may have confidence for the day of judgement, because (F)as
he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but (G)perfect
love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has
not (H)been
perfected in love. 19 (I)We
love because he first loved us. 20 (J)If
anyone says, “I love God”, and (K)hates
his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has
seen cannot[a] love God
(L)whom
he has not seen. 21 And
(M)this
commandment we have from him: (N)whoever
loves God must also love his brother.
Overcoming the World
5 (O)Everyone who believes that (P)Jesus
is the Christ has been born of God, and (Q)everyone
who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 (R)By
this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his
commandments. 3 For
(S)this
is the love of God, that we (T)keep
his commandments. And (U)his
commandments are not burdensome. 4 For (V)everyone
who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has
overcome the world—(W)our
faith. 5 Who
is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes (X)that
Jesus is the Son of God?
Footnotes:
a. 1 John 4:20
Some manuscripts how can he
Cross references:
A. 1 John 4:16 : John 6:69
B. 1 John 4:16 : See ver. 8
D. 1 John 4:17 : [ch. 2:5]
F. 1 John 4:17 : [ch. 3:1]
I. 1 John 4:19 : ver. 10
J. 1 John 4:20 : ch. 2:4; 3:17
K. 1 John 4:20 : ch. 2:9, 11
M. 1 John 4:21 : Gal. 6:2
O. 1 John 5:1 : John 1:12
P. 1 John 5:1 : ch. 2:22
Q. 1 John 5:1 : John 8:42
T. 1 John 5:3 : See ch. 2:3
U. 1 John 5:3 : Matt. 11:30
X. 1 John 5:5 : ch. 4:15
God’s purpose for us is that we be made perfect in His love.
We can think of no higher complement than if others say that they see Jesus in us.
What is it to see Jesus in us? It’s to see holiness. It is
to see purity; to see kindness and generosity; to see joy and peace; and above
all, to see the love of God.
There’s no doubt that the world needs love. Even pop culture
is telling us about the love that the world needs. Remember the Beetles singing
“All you need is love.” That was an anthem of a generation. They recognized
that what seemed to be lacking was love; that made all things good. They may
not have been entirely clear on how to get that love, or where that love comes
from, or what that love would look like, but Pop Culture recognized, and the
society around them recognized, that: The world needs love.
God is Love. That’s the word that John gives us, and it’s a
surprisingly profound word. It’s a very simple word. Many people have reduced it
to a kind of trivial cliché, that since “all you need is love”, what do you
need faith for? What do we need Jesus for?
If all we need is love, why can’t we just love one-another?
Why can’t we all just get along?
John is not being all that simple. When he says “God is Love”
he’s pointing to the source and the example of love that is needed in the world
today. We can cry out, “all you need is love”, all you want. But, without love
actually coming into our lives, where do we get it?
John is speaking of a greater love than the love that just
emerges out of attraction. This is a love that comes from God. He says that we
can be confident of love because of the love that God gives. We can know what
love is because God first loved us.
Are you perfect in love? I know I’m not. It’s one of the
scandals of Christianity, I suppose, that we speak of perfect love, and yet we
have not yet achieved it.
This is what we strive for as Christians. This is what we’re
accused of by non-Christians; that we talk about love, but where is love in our
lives? And sometimes that accusation hits home, because we realize that we’ve
stepped away from our main focus. We’ve moved away from what God has shown us
and have become impatient, become difficult, become narrow.
But God is love and the
more closely we walk with God, the more perfectly we love. John says it
quite clearly, there’s a connection between loving God and loving our
neighbour. Do you love your brother? Are there people that you would say you
hate?
John says that you
can’t say that you love God, whom you have never seen, when you say that you
hate your brother. You’ve seen your brother. You’ve seen that person who
has sometimes disappointed you, sometimes hurt you, and you know that there are
things that are not lovable in that person. And so, because your love is
focused on their characteristics and their problems, you believe that you have
the right not to love them.
But the love that comes from God is a love that comes
because of what’s inside the lover. God doesn’t love us because we’re perfect.
God doesn’t love us because we’re always pleasing to Him. He loves us because
God is Love.
Our love doesn’t come automatically. The apostle Paul was a
violent man before he became a Christian. He was an angry man and he was
narrow-minded. He had his viewpoint and if people didn’t fit his viewpoint he
was ready to haul them off to jail, or even, he was pleased to see them stoned,
because they disagreed with what he knew to be the truth.
But, when he met Jesus Christ, Paul became a different
person. He was passionate. He was full of strength. He was unstoppable; very
similar to the Paul that was before, but now he’s a man of love; a man of grace;
not someone who surrendered the truth, but found a greater truth: The truth of
God in Jesus Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.
It was Paul, this formerly violent man, who wrote the words
of poetry that accompanies so many weddings and have become for, even the world
at large, an expression of the perfection of love, when he wrote in 1
Corinthians 13, “Love
is patient. Love is kind.” Paul goes on to describe the fullness of
God’s love. He says something that is astonishing. He says, “Though I may
have all knowledge and understand all mysteries, but I have not love, without
love I am nothing.”
Here’s a man that once was without love, and because of the
transforming power of Christ has become a man of love. If we want to have
perfect love, we understand that all love comes from God. And yet, the source
of that love will be two-fold. We will understand that love through the
biblical testimony to the way God deals with His people; to the revelation God
gives of what He requires of us. John in his Scripture says that this is how we
know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands.
This is love for God: to obey His commands. And God’s commands are not
burdensome. They’re not burdensome for two reasons. Whether they seem stern, or
whether they invoke generosity, or whether they invoke tenderness, or whether
they invoke firmness, we know that the love of God, as He commands it, is a
love that is perfect and holy; that is intent on the best for the person that
is loved.
Though perfect love will be Biblical, obedient to God, it
will be Christ-like, capable of tenderness and sternness. Christ was able to be
tender when tenderness was called for, and He was able to be stern when people
had to be turned from stubbornness. Love will be like the fruit of the Spirit,
which starts with love and continues to joy, peace, kindness, gentleness,
faithfulness, and self-control. God gives us a love that will be
self-controlled.
The revelation of love in the Bible is one way that God gives us that love. Of course, the other is in the power of God through His Holy Spirit.
These two go together, a Biblical Love and a Spirited Love.
These two cannot be separated and still be the Love of God. The Spirit empowers
us, so that John is able to say that “We overcome the world”; so that we are given
power to obey the commands of God so that they are not burdensome. We have
victory in an ability to love, even in the harshest circumstances. This Perfect
Love given by God, biblical, holy, Christ-like, obedient to God.
It’s a failure to understand God if we think that we can
love God, while disobeying His commands. Or, to even think that it’s more
loving towards our neighbour if we disobey His commands.
God has not given these commands arbitrarily, but out of his
wisdom and knowledge and understanding that perfect love will act in certain
ways; that perfect love will call forth the best of each person. Perfect love
will encourage. Perfect love will challenge.
We have in the Holy Spirit, both a power from God and a
trainer who leads us to apply the Scriptures in love.
Let’s admit that sometimes our love fails that test.
Sometimes it’s very obedient. We follow the rules to the letter, but we lose
track of the Spirit of Christ. And we don’t follow these rules out of love, but
out of harshness and frustration. Sometimes we get so impatient with the world
around us that the love seems to disappear.
God calls us to an obedient and spirited love: a love filled
with His grace, filled with His power, and obedient to His truth and wisdom.
Do you want this perfect love? John has made it very clear
that the only one who has this perfect love is the one who believes that Jesus
is the Son of God.
There is no loving person in the world today that could not
become more perfect in love by a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You, yourself, who have entered into that relationship with
Jesus, who have trusted in Him for forgiveness of sins, sought from Him to be
filled with His Holy Spirit, you too, can become more perfect in love. Don’t
give up. Love can seem like a long road to travel. God has urged us to travel
that road and to know that there will be victory; that God will bring to
completion what He has begun in us.
Perfect love: It’s worth striving for. It’s worth praying
for. It’s worth living out.
Would you pray with me?
Loving God, We give you thanks that you have shown us perfect
love in Jesus Christ. Lord, we want to receive Jesus more and more fully every
day, to allow him to work in us that which is perfect and good and pleasing in
your sight.
Almighty God, we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen
Rev.
Brian Wilkie
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