I'm going to turn your Bibles
to 1 Peter 1, please. 1 Peter 1. I've entitled today's
message, Love. Just one word, love. And you'll
see when we read this why I have chosen that as the title. In first Peter chapter one, there
is such an outpouring of the love of God for his people. He begins in verse two, grace
and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of
God and of Jesus our, I'm sorry, I'm in second Peter, no wonder
it doesn't read right. He says in verse two, elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. That's the first statement. We
could just go on down the list here. Everything in here is talking
about the work of God of saving blessings to his people. And
I heard Todd Nyberg say this, and I confirmed it. You know, in today's, in Christianity, in today's evangelical
things, most of what's preached about begins with this way, along
these lines. God loves you, and he has a wonderful
plan for your life. But in the book of Acts, this
is what I heard from Todd, in all the sermons, in all the book
of Acts, although the love of God is implied, it never once
says, God loves you. Nor does it say anything about
God's love. Love is not even mentioned in
the book of Acts. And that the fact that it's missing
there, and that the book of Acts is the proclamation of the gospel
of Christ to those who both, those who killed the Lord Jesus
Christ, and those who had never heard of him, the Gentiles. and
God's saving work in them is a remarkable fact. It doesn't
mean that God's love is not there, it is by implication, but the
fact that the audience in the book of Acts is a mixed multitude
and the message of the gospel is always given in the context
of sin and our deserving God's condemnation for our sin. And
it begins there, which is what the apostle Peter does in his
first sermon, and what Paul does throughout. And this is the way
God speaks of Christ in the book of Acts. But when you read the
epistles, it's different, isn't it? Every one of the epistles
talks about the love of God. And in the epistles, there's
a constant exhortation to the brethren to love one another.
And I think that that, as I was thinking about this the last
couple of days, I was thinking about how that the epistles are
written to who? The church. Well, the book of
Acts obviously is written to the church, but it is specifically
written to all men in the book of Acts. For example, in Acts
17, the apostle Paul says that God now commands all men everywhere
to repent. So you can hear the universal
message of the gospel being sent out to the universal audience,
and yet in the epistles, that audience is brought down to the
narrow group of the church. Therefore, every epistle opens
up this way, like it is in 1 Peter, elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. You can't say that to everybody,
can you? because not everybody is God's
elect. And so I think that as I think
about that, we see the difference in the way that religions called
churches nowadays have a disproportionate emphasis on this message that
God loves you. If God loves everybody, there's
some serious questions we have to ask. some serious questions. For example,
in Revelation chapter three, the Lord says, he says, I rebuke,
I chasten all those whom I love. Chastening is the action of the
father towards his children. God says, I chasten those I love. And then he says, repent therefore.
So you can see this throughout scripture that God's chastening
hand is not on, in order to bring to salvation, God's chastening
hand is not on everybody. Otherwise, it would be meaningless
in the book of Hebrews when he says, if you are without chastisement. So we know that if God chastens
his children, then what about the rest? So these are questions
that naturally should arise in our hearts. And when we just
read in John chapter 13, the Lord Jesus made a distinction
between Judas and the rest of the apostles, didn't he? Judas
was not clean. Jesus said so. You're not all
clean. And Judas was not chosen. Jesus said, I know whom I have
chosen. And then it was after that he
sent Judas out that he says, a new commandment I've given
to you that you love one another as I have loved you. So God,
the Lord Jesus Christ, made a distinction, didn't he? And what would it
mean? If the Lord Jesus loved everybody
with an equal degree, when he said, when the Apostle John said
that he leaned on Jesus' bosom, that disciple whom Jesus loved. Why would you make a distinction
like that if God loved everybody? Or why would it even be mentioned
that Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus? Why would these
things even make a difference? So we have these statements in
scripture that lead us to these questions about what is the love
of God? And in 1 Peter, he talks about
God's love towards us in his actions towards us. And he opens
it this way, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father through the sanctification of the Spirit, which occurs when
the Spirit of God sets us apart in the new birth, regenerates
us, and creates us in Christ. And then when he says here, and
unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,
and grace to you and peace be multiplied. This is talking about
a distinct blessing God gives, but not to all people. And now
I naturally think when I hear that, that, well, okay, then
how do I know that I'm one of them? I want to be one of them.
And I hope that that's the attitude that you have too. But let's
go on in 1 Peter 1, he says in verse 8, your response to this
love. Notice, whom having not seen
you love. you love him, in whom though
now you see him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. There's a response on the part
of a believer to the faith that God gives by which we know and
rely on the love of God to us in Christ, isn't there? And what
is that response? We love him who loved us. Now
we're gonna read from verse 18 through verse 22 here for our
message today. In verse 18 it says, we've read
this many times, but it's necessary to combine these things together.
See here the love of the Lord for his people. For as much as
you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot. Notice in verse 20, who verily
was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest
in these last times for you. For you, Christ was manifested,
for you, the elect. Verse 21, because it says so
in verse two. But verse 21, who by him, by
Christ, you do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead
and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. Now back, if you look in verse
three, I'm taking you back to verse three. Notice, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy hath done what? He has begotten us again
unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So we just read here, who by him, by Christ, you believe in
God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory that
your faith and hope might be in God. It is because Christ
rose from the dead that God then justified and gives birth, spiritual
birth, to his people. And in that spiritual birth,
he gives us faith in Christ. Faith in Christ, who by Him,
by Christ, because of His work, because of His resurrection,
His justifying work, and because God raised Him from the dead
and gave Him glory, now your faith and hope is in God. Because
you see that God has done this. He saved me. by the Lord Jesus
Christ. Verse 22, seeing you have purified
your souls in obeying the truth. That's a expanded way of saying
you believed on Christ through whom your soul, you were purified,
you were made clean. And believing him, the application
of the truth of that by the Spirit of God washed your conscience. So now you can approach God through
his blood. Seeing you have purified your
souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit, how do we do this?
Not by ourselves, but through the Spirit of God. Notice, unto
unfeigned love of the brethren. Unfeigned means unmasked. There's no need for a mask. There's
no need for hypocrisy or deception. This is sincere, it's true love.
Unfeigned love of the brethren see that you love one another
with a pure heart Fervently that pure heart is that new nature
given to us by God and in our new nature. We're born of God
and In that new nature we love with a pure heart fervently,
and yet he exhorts us to do what the Lord says we are and will
do. Notice he says in verse 16, it
is written, be ye holy for I am holy. Be what God has given you,
what he has made you in Christ. Here he says it again, see that
you love one another with a pure heart fervently. He tells us
to do what God has already worked in us by the operation of His
grace. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle John wrote
in 1 John chapter 5, he says, I write these things to you that
you might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So he's writing
to those who do believe in order that they might believe, that
their faith might mature, that it might be upheld, that it might
increase as the disciples ask Jesus to do for their faith.
But notice here, you love one another. with unfeigned love
because of what? Verse 22 again. Seeing you have
purified your souls in obeying the truth, you've believed on
Christ through the Spirit unto, this is the result of this, unfeigned
love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure
heart fervently. Now we wanna look at this, the
love, the love that God is speaking about here. And there's three
things. Three things I want to say about this at the outset
so that you don't lose the flow of what happens, what God does,
is that, first of all, we need to understand, and we do, by
faith, the love of God to us. The love of God to us. Because
God is love, and love is found in him. It's who he is, his nature,
his character. It's his mind, it's the way he
is as God. And we want to understand the
love of God. Secondly, we want to understand
our response to that love, which is our love to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And thirdly, our love to Christ
has a result. How do we love him? We love his
people, his own. And it seems simple. In fact,
this is so well known by believers that God says in one place, I
don't need to write to you, for God himself has taught you to
love one another. And that obviously flows out
of faith. and that faith obviously is in
the Lord Jesus Christ, and that was given to us by the Spirit
of God from Christ on His throne, so that we were raised from the
dead in our souls and in our spirits, so that we now believe
on Christ. We look to Him as our sin-bearing,
curse-bearing substitute who brought us to God out of His
own love. He gave Himself for me. And we
know that this all came from God the Father according to his
will. He gave his son because of his love for us. So it flows
that there's a reaction, there's a response, there's a result.
God's love does not go unrequited. You know what that means? You
know how love stories go in the movies. A man sets out to woo
this woman that he's set his eye on and has attracted his
affections and he does all these things, gives her flowers and
so on. At the end of it all, she says,
I'm not interested. His love went requited. I mean, it wasn't returned to
him. But God's love never goes unrequited. We always respond
to God's love. We always do. Those God loves
are born of God. And those that are born of God
are loved of God. These things we have to get down
from scripture, but I want to look at these things with you
today. First of all, let me say this.
I want to know the love of God, don't you? I want to know the
love of God. And I want to know that God,
and that the Lord Jesus Christ, God in Christ, loves me. I don't want to just know about
the love of God, I want to know that He loves me. And I think
you do too. And I want to, and I want, I want to love the God of love,
and I want to love what He loves and whom He loves, don't you? I not only want to know His love
and know that He loves me, but I want to love what He loves,
and I want to love those He loves. And I want to tell the truth
about the love of God. I want to tell the truth in love,
and I want you, therefore, to know the love of God in Christ. The Apostle Paul prayed this
in Ephesians chapter three, that you might know the love of God
in Christ. I want you to love Christ. I want you to love those
that Christ loves. And I want all of us to love
one another for Christ's sake. I don't know. I can't make this
happen. God has to do it. And he does
it through his word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. And the word that is preached
to us is preached to us by the gospel of his son. The truth
of the gospel is the word God gives to produce faith and increase
faith in the life of his people. That's why it's so essential
that we constantly are taking in the gospel of Christ. It's our life, isn't it? Jesus
said, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood. What is that?
But taking in by faith this blessed accomplishments of our Savior
in saving our souls. There's a hymn, and it's not
in our hymnal, unfortunately. It goes like this. There will
never be a sweeter story, a story of the Savior's love divine,
Love that brought him from the realms of glory just to save
a sinful soul like mine. Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? Wonderful, wonderful. Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? Wonderful it is to me. Boundless
as the universe around me, reaching to the farthest soul away, saving,
keeping love, it was that found me. That is why my heart can
truly say, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful? You
see? Now there's no way that you can
be the recipient of this love and not be affected by it. Okay, so we know we want to know
the love of God. We want to know God's love to
us. We want to know God's love in Christ. We want to love God,
love whom he loves, love what he loves. How? How can we do
this? Well, Jesus said, without me,
you can do nothing, in John 15, verse 5. And here he says in
1 Peter 1, 22, it's through the spirit. Notice, he says, in verse
22, seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth
through the spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. See that
you love one another with a pure heart, fervently. And immediately,
I think of my own childhood growing up in a house with all my brothers
and sisters. It was a family. Mom and dad
were there. All of us kids were there. And
you know what was happening in that family a lot of the time? Punching, hitting, poking, pinching,
pulling, kicking, biting. arguing, you know, it's just
characteristic. Name calling, mocking, cruelty,
merciless cruelty. And yet there was a bond between
us because we were brothers and sisters, still is. But you know
what, as my children, my own children were growing up, you
know the thing that bothered me the most, and Denise will
vouch for this, And nothing would set me off sooner or more radically
than to see one of my children treating the other one with that
kind of cruelty. It just really bothered me. It grieved me. And I think that's
what it's talking about in Ephesians. If you want to look at this in
Ephesians in chapter 4, notice what he says here. In Ephesians
chapter 4 and verse 29, he says, let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers. Not condemnation,
not mocking, not criticism. That's characteristic of children. who have no love for one another,
but in verse 30, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby
you are sealed unto the day of redemption. I believe that's
what this is talking about. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God. Do not treat one another in the
opposite sense of what God is talking about when he says love
one another. And then he goes on, he shows
the opposite. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor
and evil speakings be put away from you with all malice. And
be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Now, that's what
the Spirit of God is speaking of here. Do not grieve him. Do
not grieve him. Therefore, the Spirit of God
is the one who must teach us in our heart. He must perform
an operation in us that moves us from unbelief to faith in
Christ, and with that faith, this love that is the response
of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Galatians chapter 5, another
place you might want to look, in Galatians 5 and verse 6, it
says this. In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision
availeth anything nor uncircumcision. It doesn't matter what you do
by religious works. Here's what matters, faith which
worketh by love, faith in Christ. causes something, it produces
something, it has an outward manifestation, it has an outward
evidence to it. What is it? Love. True faith
in the heart can't be seen, but love springing from faith can. In verse 13 of the same chapter,
brethren, you have been called to liberty and how we love that
liberty, forgiven of all our sins, access to the throne of
God through the blood of Christ alone, full access and assurance.
And yet he says, only use not that liberty for an occasion
to the flesh. Don't serve yourself by that,
but by love, serve one another. What do we learn from these things
about love? Love serves. Love gives. Love humbles itself. Love does not look with malice,
but is tender-hearted towards one another. Love forgives. And
love does all for Christ's sake, out of faith in Him. And so we
know that this is what the Spirit of God teaches us. He's grieved
when God's people are acting the opposite way. They have this
attitude of arrogance and self-love and hatred, even hatred. No, the Spirit of God teaches
us that's why in our new nature there is a complete and perfect
submission to this and that new nature in the believer has dominance,
okay? All right, in 1 Thessalonians
4 verse 9, as touching brotherly love, you need not that I write
to you, for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
God teaches his children to love one another. In his family, his
children love one another, and it grieves the Spirit of God
when we do not love. Galatians 5, it says in verse
22, the fruit of the Spirit is love. joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against
such there is no law. So the produce, what the Spirit
of God does in the life of the believer, Christ in you the hope
of glory, is He produces this fruit of love. In Song of Solomon,
chapter 4, listen to these words. Song of Solomon, chapter 4, verse
16. And to understand this, you must
understand who is speaking. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the bridegroom, who is in love with his bride, is speaking to
his own spirit in these words. Song of Solomon 4 verse 16, Awake,
O north wind, and come, thou south, blow upon my garden, that
the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruits. What's he talking about here?
Just like the Spirit of God, as it says in John 3, He gives
birth as it pleases Him, the wind bloweth where it pleases,
or it listeth, as it says in the King James Version, so is
everyone that is born of the Spirit of God. What does the
Spirit of God do according to Song of Solomon 416? By the command
of Christ, he comes upon his people, the church, his garden,
and the spices thereof flow out of that garden, and that spice
is the love, the fruit of the Spirit of God, the pleasant fruits
to Christ. The Spirit blows where he pleases,
and you hear and see the effects of it. Faith in Christ is the
effect, and love to him and to his people. You can't tell where,
the Spirit of God blows in any other way than their faith, which
is evidenced by their love. So that the sons of God and the
children of God are loved and they love Christ. And that's
what John 3, John chapter 3 is talking about, isn't it? Nicodemus
comes to Jesus at night, the Lord tells him, Jesus tells him,
you can't see the kingdom of God, you can't enter it, you
can't understand it. unless you're born of God. And
Nicodemus. How? How can these things be? And the Lord Jesus tells him
about his own person as the son of man who was in heaven and
came to earth and would accomplish his work and rise again in ascension
back to heaven and send his spirit and the spirit of God would cause
sinners to look to him who bore their curse as a serpent in the
wilderness was lifted up by Moses. So that when they look upon,
they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that effect of the spirit
of God is evidenced in their new birth. Because they look
with heart faith to the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Now, the result of that is salvation. And Jesus says in John 316, for
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. What world? The world of those, the word
world is often, you know, we've got to measure it out. Is it
this big? Is it this big? And someone said,
it's not the bigness. It's not a word to indicate the
bigness of something. It's a word to indicate the badness
of it. You see, it's our sin that is
set in contrast, the wickedness of those for whom Christ died,
those Christ loved when we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. And then the result of that, God coming upon them through
giving his son and his son sending his spirit into their hearts,
that they might believe on God through him. The operation of
God in the hearts of his people produces this faith in Christ
and love to Christ. So they believe on him. They
have eternal life. They're God's children. And now
they're set in contrast, according to Romans chapter nine. These
are the children of promise. Right. Jacob, have I loved he
was a son of promise, but he saw have I hated. Now, I know
people try to bend that scripture around and try to say, well,
it's because God loved him less. God loves everybody. He loved
Esau less than he loved Jacob. The word is hate. Search it out. It says in Psalm chapter 5 that
the Lord hates all workers of iniquity. And you'll hear some
people say, well, God hates sin, but he loves the sinner. That's
not what he said. God hates all workers of iniquity. See, God's love is always set
in contrast to his hatred. How would we know love if we
didn't know hate? And God is a God, this is the first thing
you must see in scripture, is that the love of God is holy. Holy. Because God is love and God is
holy. All that God is, All of His attributes
are. Is He holy? Then His love is
holy. Is He almighty? His love is almighty to save. Is He just? Is He light, pure
light? Then His love is just and righteous
and pure. There's no taint in it. There's
no compromise in His love. All that was necessary to maintain
and magnify God's holy perfections in the brightest light was consistently
done, and it was done by God in fulfillment of His love. You
see, God's love moved him to meet every cost necessary to
magnify his perfections and yet save sinners. And that's why
he gave Christ. And he accomplished what he meant
to do. He did not fail. I read something yesterday and
someone was trying to say that God loves everybody, but really
it's up to you. The choice is up to you. And
they actually said, God does all that he can do, but ultimately
it comes down to you. You know what? If that's the
way it is, then I am lost. and eternally lost because there's
no hope for me unless God overcomes my reluctance, my sin, my death
in sins and raises me to life by his almighty power because
of his love, because of his answer to his own justice and righteousness
in the propitiation of Christ. That's what he says in 1 John
4, verse 10. This is love. Herein is love.
Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son
to be himself, to be the propitiation for our sins. That's love. That's
the love of God. It's a holy love. God doesn't
compromise any of His attributes. He doesn't diminish any. He doesn't
push that one down a little bit in order to raise this one up.
No, all that God is is in perfect harmony. He is holy, unlike us. We're constantly, we're willing
to trade off this for the other, aren't we? For our own benefit. So understand these things. The
Spirit of God produces this in us. He produces us, and this is the
fruit of the Spirit at the command of the Lord Jesus Christ as a
result of His redeeming work, which is a result of the eternal
love of God for His people. What an amazing love this is. What an amazing love this is.
Now think about love. Think about love, and we're gonna
use the scripture to this, but love And sometimes it's good,
as I said, to set these things in opposites. Love is the antithesis,
the very opposite of hypocritical self-righteousness. Self-righteousness
is self-pride, it's self-promotion, it's self-love, and it is hatred
for God, and hatred for what God loves, and hatred for those
God loves. That's what self-righteousness
is, pride. The Pharisees, Jesus said to
the Pharisees, woe unto you, Pharisees. And he's talking about
us and our natural selves. We can condemn ourselves. Oh,
wretched man that I am. Do you ever lie awake as I do? And you think, oh, wretched man
that I am, that I don't love Christ as I ought to and love
his people as I ought to. Wretched man that I am. Jesus
says, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees. Just the names, their
very names in the dictionary have the picture of self-righteousness
and arrogance beside them, and I hate this. I hate this about
myself. And we naturally don't like it,
do we? Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You
pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, all these herbs, and you've
omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy
and faith. He said in another place, woe
unto you Pharisees, you tithe mint and rue and all manner of
herbs, and you pass over judgment and the love of God. That's the
opposite, hypocritical self-righteousness. Love is not self-righteous. Paul the Apostle said in Philippians
chapter two, esteem others better than yourselves. It's the truth.
You might as well get alongside of the way things are. So that's
the first thing we know about love. Love is not self-promoting. It is not puffed up. It doesn't exalt itself. It humbles
itself. The Lord Jesus did, didn't he?
John 13. You see what I've done to you?
You call me master and Lord, and you say, well, I am. If I
then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you also ought
to wash one another's feet. Stoop, humble yourselves. The
servant is not above his Lord. So he says, love is the opposite
of arrogance and self-righteousness. He told the Pharisees, I know
you, that you have not the love of God in you, in John 5, verse
42. And the second thing we learn
about love is that love Love is not something you get.
Love gives. Love gives of itself. The apostle
Paul said, the son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me. Love gives. Look at him. Look
at him. Love gives and gives its most
loved possession for the ones he loves. His most cherished
possession, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
son. When we were yet sinners, God
commendeth his love. He recommended, he made it known,
he manifested and magnified his love while we were yet sinners.
Christ died for us. That's a recommendation. That's
a resume, isn't it, of the love of God? Love gives its most cherished
possession. God gave his son. He delivered
him up for us all. And how shall he not with him
also freely now give us all things? These are basics of the love
of God. Love is not proud. It's humble.
And love gives. It does not puff up itself. It
gives of itself in order that the one loved might be blessed. The first time love is mentioned
in scripture is in Genesis 22, verse two. It says in Genesis
22, God told Abraham, Abraham, take now thy son, thine only
son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of
Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering on one of the
mountains I'll tell you of. And in another place, I mean,
who did that? Wasn't that the love of God towards us? God's
son whom he loved offered his son. For who? For those who in
themselves were, there was nothing to love. There was nothing ever
to be loved in us. The love came from God because
God is love. We are not. God is holy. He loved in a holy way. He gave
his son. In Genesis 29, Jacob served seven
years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days for the
love he had to her. No one had to crank him up and
say, come on now, you need to love her. It's nothing, really,
you don't even have to tell me. Rachel is the one I love, and
he was willing to serve his life for her. Christ also served for
his people, and it seemed as nothing to him. because he loved
her. Christ loved the church and gave
himself for it. And so love loves to enrich the
one who is loved with the greatest possible blessings. Blessings
beyond any measure or any value on earth. It says in 1 Corinthians
2 verse 9, as it is written, I has not seen, nor ear heard. If you can see it, you don't
know about this. If you can hear it, you haven't
entered into the truth of it. Eye has not seen, neither has
ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things
God has prepared for them that love him." That's in 1 Corinthians
2 verse 9. We know that scripture. And those
things are told to us in the gospel. God has prepared them.
Jesus said to his disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. And at the final judgment to
the sheep on the right, he says, enter into the kingdom prepared
for you of the Father from the foundation of the world. So these things were prepared.
God loves to enrich and bless and lift up and make known to
his people. He gives, and he gives of his
most precious possession. He gave. That's what love does. It gives. And you're thinking
about, well, I love my wife. Well, then give to her. Give
what? Well, give of your time. Give
of yourself. Give all that you have. If a
man could give all that he had for love, it would be utterly
contempt. So love is not what you get,
love is giving. And love gives freely. Love doesn't
place conditions on the one loved for love to flow. In Hosea chapter
14, he says, I will love them freely. I will love them freely. Let me turn you there, Hosea
14. We could just wear our Bibles
out, couldn't we on this? I will love them freely. Where
is this book? It's right after Daniel. Hosea Chapter 14. Notice he says
in verse 4, speaking of these that he loves, I will heal their
backsliding. God's going to do it. I will
love them freely. There's not going to be any cause
in them, Looked for, for me to love them because there is no,
there's no worth in them. The love comes from God, I will
love them freely. Nothing, no cause found in them
without cause, love freely. He says, for mine anger is turned
away from him. God turned away his anger from
Christ. He turned away his anger from
us because we were in Christ. This is love. This is love. Love freely gives. It says in 2 Corinthians chapter
12, the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians, listen to this,
I will very gladly spend and be spent. for you, though the
more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. The Apostle
Paul, he didn't wait for the Corinthians to love him, and
he didn't stop loving them when they didn't respond proportionately. I'll spend, I'll be spent for
you, because God spent, Christ spent himself, and he was spent
for us. So love is not puffed up. Love
does this. It bears the burden. Love, I heard someone say one
time, and it's true, love begins where tolerance ends. You know what that's like. My neighbor's dog was out there
messing around in my yard today. It's like, golly, I had to go
out there, throttle that dog, throttle my neighbor too. There's
no reason to do that. God's got it all under control.
It's just a dog. It's just some grass. I'm not
going to worry about it. These kind of things that irritate
us. At some point, last night at 4 a.m., there was a cat outside
my... We don't have cats, but they were out there fighting,
bothering me, keeping me awake at 4 a.m. I'm thinking, I know
what I'll do. I'll do this cat in. I'll figure
it out. But realize that then I'd have
to answer to my neighbor and I'd have to either tell a lie
or tell him the truth and there'd be war between. Okay, just going
to put up with it. The Lord knows. But then there's
these things that people do and they irritate us. It goes on
and pretty soon our tolerance, we run out, don't we? That's
where love begins. It just starts there. Because
love has to cost us something or it's not true. Here's something
about love. And all these things first apply
to God, and hopefully you can see them. When we were intolerable,
Christ died for us. When we had offended the God
who is just and holy, then God removed our offense in the death
of his son. But love covers all sin, all
of it. Proverbs 10, verse 12, love covereth
all sin. You know what that means? If
God loves you, then he covers all your sin. He doesn't impute
your sin to you. He imputed it to Christ. He imputes
instead the very righteousness of Christ who loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. Love covers all sins. It doesn't
expose and shame the one it loves. Remember Jesus with the woman
taken in adultery in John chapter 8? They set her in the midst. The Lord Jesus steps up. He answers
every accusation. They all leave. And he tells
her, woman, where are your accusers? They were all gone. He removed
her shame. The other woman in Luke 7? With
the Pharisee and Luke 7, they both had nothing to pay. Jesus
said to the Pharisee, if a man owed, you know, whatever, 10,000,
this other one owed only 50, or in other words, five, I can't
remember the numbers, but it was 10 times as much, and he
frankly forgave them both when they had nothing to pay, which
one will love the most? And the Pharisee said, well,
I guess the one he forgave the most. Bingo, that's right. This woman, do you see? She came
in here. When I came in, you didn't give
me any water for my feet. You didn't give me any oil for
my head. You didn't give me anything. But this woman, since she came
in here, has not stopped to wash my feet with her tears, to wipe
them with the hairs of her head, and she poured out this ointment
upon me. Why? Because she was forgiven
much. She loved much. So when love
covers our sin, what's the reaction? If we're forgiven much, we love
much. But none of us have been forgiven
little, have we? So what is our love in proportion?
According to our faith, it will be much. Love bears the burdens
of the one love. Love puts up with, endures long,
love forgives for Christ's sakes. All these things. And so there's
this song I learned when I was around 18 or 19. I wanna love
as Jesus does. I want to love Christ as he is. I want to love his word. I want
to love his salvation, his person, all of his offices, his surety
and redeemer and high priest and king. I want to love his
work. I want to love his truth, his gospel. I want to love his
glory. I want to love Jesus. And I wanna
love those for whom he died, my brothers and sisters, and
sinners. I wanna love sinners as Jesus
does. I wanna love all these over my
own self and my life in this world. I want to love as Jesus
does, don't you? And we can talk about the love
of God, and we will next time, but we've run out of time now.
The love that we're to have to one another is produced by the
Spirit of God. It has the effects in us. It's
the result of believing Christ. And it starts with our understanding
and being persuaded of and relying on the love of God to us in Christ.
Let's pray. Father, we pray for this grace
to know and believe your son. And we pray, Lord, that we would
love him truly. with a non-hypocritical love,
and we would love Him by loving His people with an unfeigned
love, fervently. Help us to do all that love does,
all that our Savior did, in giving Himself and humbling Himself
and forgiving us when we were such unworthy and deserving of
all the opposite of love. Help us to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge, to know the height and depth and breadth
and length of His love, that we might be filled with all the
fullness of God. We pray, Lord, You would have
this mercy upon us. You would so give to us of Your Spirit
as You do to those You love in Christ as Your children. and
You would correct us according to Your love. You would bring
us to Yourself. You would not leave us to ourselves,
but You would love us freely, and You would love us faithfully,
and love us with that holy love that's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In His name we pray, amen.