True Love

Q: What does the Bible say about true love?

The Bible defines true love as sacrificial, exemplified by Jesus laying down His life for His friends (John 15:13). The Bible reveals true love through the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ love, stating that 'greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends' (John 15:13). This type of love is not self-serving or driven by personal gain, as is often seen in worldly perspectives of love, but is instead characterized by selflessness and commitment to the welfare of others. True love sees beyond mere emotions, recognizing a divine gift embedded in human relationships, especially as believers are called to reflect the love of Christ in their actions towards one another. The Scripture encapsulates this divine love, demonstrating how it bridges over imperfections and even betrayal, which is a hallmark of the love Christ showed us.

Q: How do we know Jesus' love is true and real?

Jesus' love is evidenced by His sacrificial death for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8). The authenticity of Jesus' love is firmly rooted in His selfless sacrifice on the cross for sinners. Romans 5:8 proclaims, 'But God commended his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' This profound act demonstrates that He willingly gave His life not for the righteous, but for the undeserving, thus reflecting the epitome of true love. The nature of His love is further emphasized through His continued relationship with believers, who are called His friends and are nurtured by His Spirit to demonstrate this same love in their lives. Such a love empowers us beyond human limitations, enabling us to show grace and forgiveness to others, even in difficult circumstances.

Q: Why is sacrificial love important for Christians?

Sacrificial love is vital as it reflects Christ's love and calls Christians to lay down their lives for others (John 15:12-13). Sacrificial love is at the core of Christian teaching because it mirrors the very essence of Christ's love for humanity. In John 15:12-13, Jesus commands, 'This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.' The importance of this love cannot be overstated, as it not only fulfills Christ's command but also fosters unity among believers, encourages mutual care, and exemplifies the grace of God in action. By embodying sacrificial love, Christians are called to transcend their self-interest, demonstrating a profound commitment to serving others, whether within the church community or in broader societal contexts. This love is not merely an emotion but involves active obedience, similar to how Christ obeyed the Father to fulfill His purpose.

Q: What does true love in relationships look like according to the Bible?

True love in the Bible is characterized by selflessness, commitment, and the willingness to sacrifice for the good of others (Ephesians 5:25). True love in biblical relationships is fundamentally about selflessness and sacrificial commitment. Ephesians 5:25 exhorts, 'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.' This definition of love extends beyond mere affection or emotional attachment; it involves a deep-rooted commitment to act in the best interest of others, often necessitating personal sacrifice. True love seeks to strengthen relationships, forgiving grievances, overcoming misunderstandings, and nurturing connections in faith. In this sense, love is not simply a feeling but must be expressed through tangible actions, reflecting the love of Christ and the commands He has set forth for His followers.

You can once again, with the Lord's help, I'd like you to turn with me to the chapter we read together, the Gospel according to John, chapter 15 and verse 13. The greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. These words are the very well-known words of the Lord Jesus Christ and as we know, as we look at the scriptures in our translation and all the translations that we have, the scriptures are broken up into chapters and into verses. often we can get caught out and think that a verse is spoken in isolation, but these words of the Lord Jesus Christ are spoken in really one big block of teaching that begins really just at the end of verse, of chapter 13, going all the way through chapter 14, 15 and through even into chapter 16.

And the Lord Jesus there is speaking really of his, of his sacrifice, what he is going to do as he leaves earth to go to glory, what will take place when he ascends up into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father, that the spirit of God will come, whom Christ will send, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, then he gives this great parable of himself being the vine and that the believers are grafted in to that vine and they are able only to exist and to bear fruit as being able to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ and that as abiding in Christ, their life bears fruit. it manifests fruit that brings glory to God. And so he gives this wonderful parable of this vine. But this vine is a vine that grows, a vine that bears fruit, but also a vine which God the Father works on. He works on it by pruning it that it may bring forth more fruit and so the desire of God the Father as he gave a people to the Son for the Son the Lord Jesus Christ to live and die for and to rise again for that these people would live a life which would glorify the Father by abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ and bearing fruit or producing good works that would bring glory ultimately to Christ and the Father.

But he speaks constantly of love, constantly of love. The Bible tells us, doesn't it, John 3, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting love. And the Lord Jesus Christ in this verse 13, he demonstrates or he states what true love is, the love which God himself created or input in people as in its perfection.

So when Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, they were created perfect. Every emotion that they had was a perfect emotion. And so the love that they had towards each other and towards God was perfect love. And as sin came, sin watered down and eroded what love is and how we understand love.

If we look at what the world tends to peddle as love, we see that it falls far short of the love that God states here. Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. But, you know, ungodly people are able to see what this great love is. don't see it in the Lord Jesus Christ but they see somebody giving their life for the cause of another as a demonstration of the highest or the peak of love. As you know we have been to Normandy over the past few weeks and there we saw many landmarks regarding the war, many monuments have been erected throughout the countryside and along the coast where you can go and you can learn about the history of D-Day and all those who lost their lives. And you will see there that there are Bible texts that are put upon the wall. And one of those texts is this one, greater love has no man than this, and a man lay down his life for his friends. And it is then seen by the people of the world that this giving of life for the cause of another is the peak demonstration of the act of love. But we see a far greater love in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What of those soldiers who gave their lives, hundreds of thousands of them, for the freedom that we have today in this land and across the whole of Europe. If those men and women had not walked in obedience to those that were their commanding officers and those in authority of this country and in America, the allied forces as they pushed across, they made those decisions to push across the channel and to advance into occupied France. Many of them lost their lives, but they We could say they didn't fully know all the people that they were endeavoring to help. They were going under the command of another. They're walking in obedience to others. Yes, they laid down their lives and we today are reaping the benefits of their deaths and their sacrifice.

But ultimately this is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. who gave his life, that he was the greatest demonstration, the perfect love, which is seen in him, who gave his life for his friends. The love of the world, which is not sacrificial, but it is a love that seeks to benefit a self. And almost we can say the love that is peddled by the world, which is pressed upon us by media and by music and by television, ultimately boils down to lust. It is not sacrificial at all in the way that it is put across. It is a love that has you at the centre of it. You are the one that benefits from the love that you are being told to give. but true love, the love that God gave us right at the very beginning, the love that is seen in the Lord Jesus Christ and the love that is seen by the world in those that give their lives in war for the benefit of others, this is seen as the height of what true love is.

And in this love, As we saw with a blind Bartimaeus, the Lord Jesus Christ, he stood still. In blind Bartimaeus, there was nothing attractive that we could say in him. Others passed by him. Others told him to be quiet. Yet the Lord Jesus Christ loved him. The Lord Jesus Christ stood still and called him to himself. The Lord Jesus Christ healed him. The Lord Jesus Christ enabled him to follow him. was nothing attractive in Bartimaeus of himself. And this is the love that Christ has to his people.

There's nothing attractive in us that drew Christ from heaven. There was nothing that he saw in us of our own good works or our own beauty or our own lifestyle, our own habits, our own religious abilities, or our ceremonies. He saw us in our sin. It was a choice that he made. As he heard blind Bartimaeus cry out, Jesus stood still to listen to him. It was a choice that the Lord Jesus Christ made.

And this is the love that is being spoken about here. Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friend. It is a love, it is pointing us to the love that the Lord Jesus Christ had for us. It is more than a natural love. More than a natural love. Natural love we have for family. for our children, for our nephews and our nieces, for our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, for our spouses and for our friends. We have a natural love that the Lord has given to us to enable us to love them, to care for them, to think about them and to demonstrate our love towards them. But this love that we have, this natural love, it can be broken.

It is a fragile love. It is a love that can be broken by betrayal. It is a love that can be broken by a disagreement. You can love somebody, you can have a friendship with somebody, you can disagree with that person and you could never speak to that person ever again. That love that you have towards them is a fragile love. They are our families. that are broken up because of disagreements, because of betrayal, because of lack of trust one with another.

They have no communications one with another, yet when they were young they loved one another. Yet that love is broken, it is severed because it is a fragile love. There's love even in relationships where people grow apart from one another. Life is busy. We say that we love each other but one person is living their life over here, another person is living their life over there and life becomes so busy that the love grows apart and becomes cold and distant. And so it's not this love that is being spoken about. The love, the natural love that we have for one another, it can break, it can fall apart, it can distance itself, it can grow cold.

The Lord is speaking about a supernatural love. As he speaks to us, he says, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. And so the Lord is speaking about a supernatural love. a love that is given to the Lord's people by the Holy Spirit of God, a love which is stronger than blood, a love that is stronger than relationships, stronger than disagreements, stronger than betrayal, stronger, a love that bridges boundaries, It is this true love, a supernatural love that crosses bridges of betrayal, that heals broken hearts, the greater love. But it is a sacrificial love.

As I said, the world, by our nature, we love and expect to be loved in return. The Bible tells us it is more better to give than to receive. By our nature, we like everything to go in a cycle. As we give, we desire it to be given back unto us. As we demonstrate love, we expect to be loved in return.

But this is not the love that the Lord is speaking of. He's speaking of a higher love. A love that gives and gives and gives and gives at the expense of the giver. True sacrificial love. A love that puts ourselves in last place. A love that does not count the cost. I like what Sam said the other week. It's like a love that puts his hand into the pocket and takes out what's ever there, not counting the cost. It gives and forgets, gives and without acknowledging or even considering what was in the pocket.

True love, sacrificial love, the love that Christ demonstrated to his people. this love enables us if we have this spiritual love this supernatural love this love enables us to overcome those hurdles that are naturally there well i can't love them because they were horrible to me uh you know a while ago or i can't love them because i i i disagree with them on some you know doctrinal point or i disagree with them on some uh some political thing or I disagree on them because they like this and I don't like that and this true supernatural love builds bridges, it overcomes hurdles that are naturally there. This supernatural love enables us to overcome the hurt that we have experienced in our relationships in life and even and even those relationships where betrayal may have taken place.

True love is able to walk over and to look beyond the betrayal and to see the love that Christ had for us. This true love enables us to lay down our lives ultimately for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. It enables us to put ourself at our last and to offer up our lives as living sacrifices unto the Lord Jesus Christ. We look at this love of the Lord Jesus You see, as we live in the world, we become, as it were, contaminated with what the world pushes upon us all the time.

But when we come back to the word, when we see the truths of the scripture and enabled to wash out the uncleanness of the thoughts of our mind and see what true love really is, It shows us how hard, how hard love actually is. If we take love as what God intended it to be, it is actually very difficult to love in the right way. It is easy to love husbands and wives, it's easy to love children, because it's a natural emotion that we have. But when something takes place that breaks that natural tie, and then we are called to continue to love, that is when love becomes difficult. When you are told to continue loving as Christ has loved us, as Romans tells us, Romans 5, 6. It tells us the love that Jesus had for us.

For when we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man would one die. Yet peradventure for a good man would some even dare to die. But God commended his love towards us, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. if we when we were your were your enemies we were reconciled to god by the death of his son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life and so he he says that Scarcely for a righteous man would one die. Peradventure for a good man some would even dare die.

Our life is so precious that we hold on to it with a grip. No one really wants to give up their life. As I've said this morning, our culture is me. It's my life. It's mine to do with what I want. I can do what I want. I can go where I want. I can achieve what I want to do.

And for somebody to offer up their life, to live a life for somebody else, the Bible says it's a scarcity, a scarcity. We see with those that have given their lives for the war, when they went to battle, the Bible acknowledges that some would even dare to do such a thing, as they walk in obedience to those that are commanding them to do so. They lay down their life, that which is precious to them, they give it up, they lose it.

The Lord Jesus Christ did it because he chose to love a people before the foundation of the world, and seeing nothing in them, nothing holy, just as the Bible tells us that our mouths are like open sepulchres, he chose to love us, not just by words, by an action that proved that love for us, that while we were yet sinners Christ gave himself. God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. So as we look at those chapters in John, We see that John is speaking of this love, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ that he gave himself and the giving of himself was the greatest evidence of the demonstration of his love.

If you love me, keep my commandments, John 14, 15. Verse 23, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings, and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. Chapter 15, verse 9. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Verse 17. These things I command you, that you love one another.

And so this love that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking about is not just about words only, it is about an action. We cannot say that we love the Lord Jesus Christ and we don't keep his commandments. As it would be, we cannot say that we love our children, we love our husbands or wives or our relatives and we don't demonstrate that love in such a way. If we are horrible to them, if we are violent to them, if we are unkind to them, if we ignore them, we cannot say that we are demonstrating our love towards them. If we say that we love somebody, then that love must be demonstrated, it must be shown. as it is with those who say they love the Lord Jesus Christ because that love must be shown and the Lord Jesus Christ expects that love to be shown because he says if you love me you will keep my commandments if you love me you will keep my words and my father will love him he that loves me not keeps not my sayings and the word which you hear is not mine but the father's which sent me and so jesus says if you if you love me you'll love my words and you'll love the father also but he goes further than that Not only will you love my words, not only will you love me, love my father, but you will also love one another.

These things I command you, that you love one another. And so this love involves obedience. As those that gave their lives in the wars, they were obedient to those in higher office, to them. They laid down their lives. And so the Lord Jesus Christ, not really in obedience, but we can say in obedience to the will of the Father, but His will was to do the will of the Father. He gave His life. He demonstrated His love towards the Father, demonstrated His love towards His people by laying down His life upon the cross for His people.

But He doesn't just call them people. He doesn't just call them associates, he calls them friends. Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. The Bible tells us, doesn't it, there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of by the Pharisees as being a friend of publicans or tax collectors and sinners. All of those that the Lord Jesus Christ died for, he calls them his friends.

They are in a close connection with him. If we have friends here on earth, normally they are people by which we have some tie to or something by which we enjoy being with them. There is something that attracts us to them in some way. We have a friendship, we have a unity one with another, we agree on certain things. You don't normally have friends that you are hostile to, disagree with.

And so those that are in Christ Jesus, they are friends of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only are they friends, they are sons of God. They're adopted into His family. It is Him that drew them to Himself. It is Him that has given them His Spirit that they may be united with Him and with the Father and with each other.

And so each of the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are friends with Christ. Not only are they friends with Christ, they have things in common with the Lord Jesus Christ that they like to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. They commune with the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are also friends of each other. They are part of the body of the Lord Jesus. They are part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they all in measure agree. And Jesus says, you are my friends. if you do whatsoever I command you. What is the command that the Lord Jesus Christ gives? The command is that we love one another. Jesus says, doesn't he, about the whole of the law of God, that it is summed up in this.

To love God with all of our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbour as ourself. He tells us here that if we love Christ, then we must love the Father. If we love the Father, then we must love the Lord Jesus Christ. That is to submit and to walk in obedience to him. But as we love Christ and as we love the Father then we are to love one another with the same love that Christ has had towards us.

And so the love that we should have for the brethren is to be a supernatural love. a love that crosses boundaries, a love that crosses hurt, a love that puts self last, a love that is not self-motivated, a love that bridges acts of betrayal, bridges hurt. And that love is the love that has to be prayed over. That love is a love that is difficult.

If you think of the Lord Jesus Christ and how he has, as we read, that while we were yet in our sins, he loved us and gave our life, his life for us, was undeserved. As we are pressed by the world to think of self, the scripture tells us to put self last and to love others greater than we love ourselves. Luke chapter 10. verse 27 says and he answered said thou shalt oh love the lord thy god with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself and so this is the love that the lord jesus calls the believers to have that we are to demonstrate this love to others, first by walking in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, by demonstrating the love that we have to him. You are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

That is the love that believers are to have for each other, a love that looks beyond the actual individual and looks to the Lord Jesus Christ to to serve one another as Christ has lived and died for us. Well, trust the Lord will help you to interpret these few sayings and pray that he may give us this true love that is called for believers to have. Amen.

I might have admitted to say that next Law's Day, as well as the morning service, it's three o'clock in the afternoon and not the evening service. So it's three o'clock next Law's Day in the afternoon. I might have admitted to say that earlier. Let's sing our final hymn 354 from Gadsby's to the tune 172.

Firm as the earth, thy gospel stands, my Lord, my hope, my trust. If I am found in Jesus' hands, my soul can ne'er be lost. 3-5-4. My Lord, my hope, my trust, if I am found in Jesus' hands, I surrender all. in which to stay, the meters of history. Oh, that His head, if all the day, is unseen. In the May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit to be with you each now and forevermore. Amen.

True Love

What does the Bible say about true love?

How do we know Jesus' love is true and real?

Why is sacrificial love important for Christians?

What does true love in relationships look like according to the Bible?

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True Love

What does the Bible say about true love?

How do we know Jesus' love is true and real?

Why is sacrificial love important for Christians?

What does true love in relationships look like according to the Bible?

Sermon Transcript

About James Gudgeon

Comments

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