Dan Herold | 1 John 3:18-24 | April 24, 2016
(Sermon starts at 23:26)
True love is one of those things that is very hard to define, but when you see it you know it. You might know a couple that’s been married for 40, 50, or even 60 years and look at them and think to yourself, “Now there is true love.” If they’ve been married that long there certainly must be something real and true holding them together. But we can’t use any number of years of marriage as a definition for true love because no marriage is perfect. No matter how long a husband and wife have been married there still are times when they don’t love perfectly and truly.
To complicate things even more, true love doesn’t need to only be limited to husband/wife relationships. True love can exist between friends, for example David and Jonathan were friends in the Old Testament and they loved each other. Parents love their children. Brothers and sisters love each other. There are all kinds of loving relationships that exist, but what defines true love? True love is incredibly difficult to define and there are countless ways to describe what it is. There is a simple way to think about true love, though. It is how John talks about love in the verses we read in our second lesson this morning…true love consists of words and actions.
In 1 John 3:18 John calls on us to love truly…not just with words but with actions as well. If we just love with our words—if we just say that we love someone—that isn’t true love. John says,
“Let us love with actions and in truth.”
Before we get into how to do that, we have to know why God tells us to love each other.
True love is not something that comes naturally to us. That’s why God tells us to do it…we need that little jab to push us into action. By nature we are selfish. We are great at loving ourselves. We make sure we have what we need and want. We make sure we have fun. We make sure that we are as comfortable as possible. By nature if we see someone in need our first thought is usually, “If I help them, how will it hurt me?” That is not true love…
John tells us about true love though…he tells us that there are some great benefits, or side effects, of showing true love. John says that by loving in action and in truth we know that we belong to the truth and we can quiet our hearts whenever our sinful nature accuses us (or makes us question whether or not our sins are forgiven).
Those are the reasons John (and God speaking through John) tells us to love in truth. We need to be told because it doesn’t come naturally and loving in truth brings some great benefits that God wants us to enjoy…but how do we do it? You can find some good examples of true love in this world, but there aren’t any perfect examples. There isn’t a single person in this world, or a single married couple, that you can use as your definitive model for true love. You can’t find a perfect example because even though sometimes some people might exhibit true love for a moment (or a few) at some point every person fails because we are all sinful. Think of the best example of a husband or a wife you know. Think of the most loving parent or grandparent you have ever met. Even if you have never seen them show anything less than perfect love, if you asked them if they always loved everyone perfectly I’d be willing to bet they’d have more than a few failures to tell you about.
That’s the catch isn’t it…true and perfect love doesn’t just love the people that are nice or the people that you like. Loving in truth means doing something we can’t do by ourselves. It means truly loving even the people we don’t always like—it means loving our enemies. So then, how are we supposed to “love in truth” like John tells us to? Is it just one of those aspirational goals that you are supposed to try to accomplish, but it’s understood that you never will achieve it? No! God really wants you to truly love others—and it is possible. John tells us how it can be accomplished in verses 21-24 of 1 John 3.
First of all John tells us about what it is that will enable us to truly love other. He tells us that we are truly loved by God. John says,
“Dear friends…we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.”
Not that we earn God’s love by obeying him, but by trusting in his love for us we receive anything we ask.
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That’s what true love looks like. It doesn’t hold anything back for itself. It doesn’t refuse to give any gift. God truly loves us so much that he was willing to send his own Son, Jesus, to die for us. God loved us so much that he was willing to be humiliated and suffer a great deal to pay for our sins. In faith we confess our sins to him and ask for forgiveness and he delivers that forgiveness. He was willing to do whatever it took to deliver the forgiveness that we needed. And since he has delivered that forgiveness we can be confident that God will also deliver every other gift that we need…he’ll even give us the ability and privilege to reflect his true love toward others.
So, since we are truly loved by God in turn we are to truly love others. We are to reflect God’s love and love others like he loves us.
“This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”
When you set out to love someone else, whether it’s your husband or wife, your mother or father, your children, or even your co-worker or neighbor you need to start by looking at how God loves you.
If you don’t use God as your example of true love you won’t get far because he is the only one who loves perfectly all the time. If you try to do it on your own it won’t be long before you find yourself wondering if it’s worth it. You’ll start to wonder what you are going to get in return for all the work you are putting into loving that other person because loving someone else the way that God loves you is not an easy thing to do! But if you used God as your model for how to love you’ll see that he was never concerned with what he was going to get in return.
When God decided to send his Son to die for your sins he didn’t do that because he was hoping someday you would try to pay him back. God does not forgive your sins and then down the road use them to blackmail you saying, “I know what you did…you better do something for me or else…” God’s love is ours with no strings attached and no requirement to pay him back.
So, how can we show that kind of love with our actions and in truth…not just with words? It starts with you and your own personal relationship with God. If you aren’t being filled up with God’s love you can’t love others like you’re supposed to. It’s necessary to take time to fill yourself up with God’s love. Make time for devotions. Make time to read your bible. It doesn’t need to be hours out of your day, but we need to find some time in our day to talk with God and listen to him talk to us through his Word.
Once we have spent some time with our Lord who truly loves us we are equipped to love others truly. Each and every moment brings new opportunities for us to reflect God’s love…to spread some light in a world of darkness. This past week’s flooding in Houston forced many families out of their homes and did great damage to a lot of property…there are opportunities to show love to those in need. In our own community there is no shortage of people to whom we could demonstrate true love. There are opportunities to show love where you work, to your neighbors, and in your families.
Everywhere you go there are opportunities to do kind things and show true love through actions, but no one is going to force you to go and do something nice for someone else…if they did then it wouldn’t be true love. It’s up to us to take advantage of the opportunities that God gives us. He has given us all that we need. He has blessed us with more than we need for ourselves. He has loved us truly and perfectly and has forgiven all our sins. God has been the perfect model of true love for us—he showed us how to truly love and equipped us to do so.
Now do it!
”Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
Your Lord loves you more than words can express and he wants everyone to know. Since words can’t explain the greatness of God’s love we only have one other option—actions. We have to show God’s love in the way we act and treat others. Leave here today ready to show the world how much God loves you. You are truly loved. Now, go and love truly!
Amen.