This talk I felt like I was pushing back against all of culture, and so I think my tone was more stern than loving. But love is serious, it puts nails in hands.
We are told constantly about love all the time. Music, movies, books. It seems that any good story has some sort of love interest. And that kinda makes sense. We are wired to love.
Love is a good thing. It is just that I think as a culture, we don’t really know what love is, or we use the word in so many different ways.
I love hamburgers, I also love my mum, and I love Hannah my wife. Now when I say these things, you would be foolish to think that I love all these things in the same way with the same seriousness and intensity.
There is Philia which is about friendship. It’s a common bond between people with shared interests, values or activities. These are your class or soccer mates.
Storge is about a bond that has a “build-in” or “ready-made” structure. Think about parents to child, brother to sister, and to a super lesser degree, you and your teachers or your boss. You love them by obeying them.
Eros is the romantic, strong feeling and desire that moves are selling us all the time. This is what society is saying is the goal of life. Our culture pretty much says this love is God.
Today, we have people basing their whole identity on who they are romantically or sexually attracted to. In the Bible, sex is an act, not an identity. But our culture says your attractions is your identity. Our culture says who you love is who you are. But putting this type of romantic love on such a high standing isn’t sustainable and results in disappointment, unfulfillment and dissatisfaction.
John, the Apostle, identifies himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. That was his identity. It was based on who was loving him, not who he was loving. I think that is a better way to see things, and it is a different type of love that is sustainable and fulfilling because it is unconditional, selfless and towards the outsider. This love is called agape love. It is a love that exists regardless of circumstance. It is unconditional, selfless and towards the outsider.
So when we look at the Bible and when it talks about love, we need to work out in what sense, the word “love” is being used.
Tonight, our reading came from 1 John. John is the guy who goes on about love in pretty much all his writings[2]. We probably could have grabbed any part of his writings for this talk.
There is lots in our passage, but from this text I want you to see two main things from the passage, and then we will talk about two main things about this type of love.
Love is a good thing. It is just that I think as a culture, we don’t really know what love is, or we use the word in so many different ways.
I love hamburgers, I also love my mum, and I love Hannah my wife. Now when I say these things, you would be foolish to think that I love all these things in the same way with the same seriousness and intensity.
4 types of loves
I find it helpful to talk about love in at least four different categories[1]. This comes from the Greeks who used different words for describing love, relative to the relationship it involved and its intensity. There won’t be a test on this, but I just want flag that when we use the word love, we may mean different things in different context.There is Philia which is about friendship. It’s a common bond between people with shared interests, values or activities. These are your class or soccer mates.
Storge is about a bond that has a “build-in” or “ready-made” structure. Think about parents to child, brother to sister, and to a super lesser degree, you and your teachers or your boss. You love them by obeying them.
Eros is the romantic, strong feeling and desire that moves are selling us all the time. This is what society is saying is the goal of life. Our culture pretty much says this love is God.
Today, we have people basing their whole identity on who they are romantically or sexually attracted to. In the Bible, sex is an act, not an identity. But our culture says your attractions is your identity. Our culture says who you love is who you are. But putting this type of romantic love on such a high standing isn’t sustainable and results in disappointment, unfulfillment and dissatisfaction.
John, the Apostle, identifies himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. That was his identity. It was based on who was loving him, not who he was loving. I think that is a better way to see things, and it is a different type of love that is sustainable and fulfilling because it is unconditional, selfless and towards the outsider. This love is called agape love. It is a love that exists regardless of circumstance. It is unconditional, selfless and towards the outsider.
So when we look at the Bible and when it talks about love, we need to work out in what sense, the word “love” is being used.
Tonight, our reading came from 1 John. John is the guy who goes on about love in pretty much all his writings[2]. We probably could have grabbed any part of his writings for this talk.
There is lots in our passage, but from this text I want you to see two main things from the passage, and then we will talk about two main things about this type of love.
God is love
Twice in this passage, John says “God is love”. This is a nice idea and many people like this concept but don’t really think though what type of love this is talking about. Because God is love, does this mean that God affirms and encourages us to be who we want to be? That God approves of everything that we do?No, not really. In fact, right after John says God is love in verse 8, comes verses 9 and 10 which says:
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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.We see that this love John is talking about is an action, it is a gift, it initiates and takes the first step, it is a sacrifice. Love is found in the person of Jesus.
Jesus came into this world to give us new life. For Jesus to give us life, it cost Him His life. Jesus died as a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus died so that we could be made right and restored back to God. Jesus took the punishment that we deserved. He took God’s just wrath that we deserved because we are sinners, and then, after that, we are seen without sin. We are perfect in God’s eyes[3] and we can have a relationship with Him.
So, when John says “God is love”, the love He is talking about is seen in the sacrifice of Jesus.
We are to love others
The other thing we see in this passage is that we are to love others. Just in our bit of this letter we have verse 7, 11 and 21Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.And there are plenty of other verses about loving others, in this letter and though out the whole Bible.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Now again, it is important that we work out what type of love this is. I don’t think this means we should have warm and fuzzy feelings about everyone around us, and chalk that up as love for others. I don’t think this means we have to approve and accept every idea and culture and religion and say that that is love.
I think this love is an action and not something that goes on in your mind or in your emotions or even your words. The chapter before this passage we are explicitly told:
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18)We are to look towards the example we see in Jesus and then love others with our actions based on Jesus.
I think this love involves at least two things, which come from one gospel motivation.
Selfless or Sacrificial
We see Jesus’ death as an atoning sacrifice for us. To know what this means, you just need to look at the word atonement. It means At-One-Ment. It is about making something that was broken one. It is the action of joining two things together, and Jesus brought about us being one with God. Jesus restored our relationship with God, but in doing so, it was a sacrifice. It cost Jesus His life. He was selfless.We are to love others this way. We are to help restore relationships with others, seeking not our own glory or for attention to be on ourselves. We are not to treat people as things that we can get something out of them.
In primary school, I was friends with the kids who had a Sega Master System. I like them, so I could go over their place to play with their Sega. I was using that relationship to get something out of it. When we are older, we don't really change. We start using people for their connections, or influence, or their stuff, or even how they make us feel. We see our relationships as transactions. I will do this for that person, I will invest in them so that they will do something for me, or give me attention, or make me feel nice about myself. All of those are not sacrificial reasons.
We are to live humble lives, putting others above ourselves, not so people think we are good and kind, but because we know what it is like to be loved sacrificially and we what the other to know that type of love too.
Unconditional towards the outsider
There is something noble about sacrifice. People on a battlefield can be selfless and sacrificial in their love for their fellow soldiers by jumping into harm’s way to save others. It is possible for this to happen in other relationships, but I think this type of God love that we are called to do, really breaks away from other loves when we see that this selfless love is for the outsider, not for those you are in a relationship with already. Soldiers don’t jump on grenades to save the people they were fighting against. Mothers don’t run back into their burning house to save the guy who was in there robbing it. But here we see another aspect of God’s love for us.We did not love God first. The passage says love comes from God, that we didn’t love God, but He loved us and also verse 19:
We love because he first loved us.The Bibles says that were enemies with God. That no one was righteousness, that no one was seeking after the one true God, and yet, despite our lack of love, or interest or feelings toward God, He still sent Jesus to rescue us, because He loved us.
Our love for others is not just sacrificial towards those we like, it is towards those we may not even like. We do this, because again, we have experienced this love from God, while we were hostile towards Him, and we see that this initiating love breaks down walls of hostility; and we what the other to know that type of love too.
Gospel Motivation
So the application here could be to just work on what you are doing. To go out and love people in action, not with feelings. Go out and sit next to the loner on the playground. Share your lunch with someone who didn’t bring theirs. For you to be conscience on your motives when doing a loving action, that you aren’t doing it for your own glory or attention, or to be repaid in some way.Sure, those are good things. But non-Christians can do that. Non-Christians can love sacrificially and can be kind and open to the outsider.
If we love those around us, who we can see, with the same motivation as God, then we know the Spirit is in us. If we say that Jesus is king over this world and our life, then we have His Spirit in us. We can rely on God’s love for us, to help us to love others around us.
The Gospel is the driving motivation for anything in our relationships. It is why we forgive; it is why we are humble; it is why we are different; it is why we are pure in our relationships.
We are loved by God. That should be our basis of our identity. Not who or what our interests or attractions are.
The Gospel is the driving motivation for anything in our relationships. It is why we forgive; it is why we are humble; it is why we are different; it is why we are pure in our relationships.
We are loved by God. That should be our basis of our identity. Not who or what our interests or attractions are.
May the good news of what Jesus had done for us, be our bedrock and motivation in our love for others around us. May we be known for our love.
[1] Stolen from C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
[1] Stolen from C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
[2] For the sake of time, I dropped a whole story about John harping on about love when he was old, from Jerome's Commentary on Galatians, 6:10
[3] This was a reminder from last week where we saw that it is possible to have a perfect relationship with God
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