I'm on Summer Project in New Zealand right now. But hopefully I'll have time to post some of my teaching times. Maybe even thoughts at some point. We'll see. Here's the first teaching thing I've done as of late. The wedding homily of two of my best friends. Love 'em. Here it is.
Jay and Adrienne, today you’re making a commitment before God to love each other as husband and wife, and all of us are here to celebrate with you. The passage you’ve chosen for your wedding, though, indicates something that we all know: loving people with consistency is hard work.
We all know this, don’t we? There are times we ‘don’t feel it,’ we get our feelings hurt and strike back, we have desires that go unfulfilled and we fight. And we say things we know will be hurtful. And more than these things, when we make a commitment to love, we’re making a commitment to feel and act in certain ways with consistency. Let me say that again, when we make a commitment to love, we’re making a commitment to feel and act in certain ways with consistency. When we think about it that way, the task of love seems really difficult, doesn’t it? Maybe even impossible.
What this section from God’s book tells us is that God, through Jesus, is the only source of lasting love. Again, what we’re to see here is that God, in Jesus, is the only cause and support of lasting love. We’ll be looking at this text under three headings: the source of love, the example of love, and the completing of love.
The Source of Love
First, let’s look at the source of love. If you open your program, you’ll see the Scripture text printed in it. Please follow along with me as I read verses 7 and 8.
“Fellow disciples of Jesus, let us love each other, since love is from God, and each one who loves has been birthed by God and knows God. The one who does not love has not known God, since God is love.”
So the answer to the question: How can I truly love in a consistent way? What’s the source of this love? Is this – it’s God. Verse 7 says, “love is from God.”
You may have noticed something, though. This Scripture isn’t addressed to all people, but to disciples of Jesus. What’s a disciple? Well, it’s someone who is dedicated to a teacher – to believe all they teach and to obey what they command. The best example I can think of concerning this is Luke Skywalker. He was a disciple of Yoda. He had to believe what Yoda taught and do what he commanded. The scene where Luke tries to use the force to raise the X-Wing out of the swamp is a great example of discipleship. Yoda tells him what to think, how to act, what to believe, and then shows him by example how to do it.
Being a disciple of Jesus is similar. It involves seeking to obey what he commands. That involves seeking to be under his teaching.
There’s one other aspect of being a disciple that is vital to Jesus – and that is a complete reliance on him for eternal life. Like a drumbeat in Scripture, God teaches that our doing good things will not and cannot contribute to getting us eternal life. That’s because we have sinned against him. Either we can fully rely on what Jesus did, bank on that, and God will treat us as if we’d obeyed him; or, we can just partially rely on Jesus, or not rely on him at all. The problem only partially relying on what Jesus did is tthat in God’s economy, we’re guilty – and either Jesus’ death and resurrection will completely take care of our guilt – or we will still stand guilty before God.
So a disciple of Jesus is one who treats him as owner of this world, and who isn’t relying on themselves in whole or in part for eternal life – but is just relying on what Jesus has already done.
Now, this passage applies specifically to disciples of Jesus and isn’t particularly about marriage. But since Jay and Adrienne are both disciples of Jesus, this applies to them and their marriage in a heightened way. How does God being the source of love for them work? Like this: all disciples of Jesus have been birthed by God. Read verses 7 and 8 with me again:
“Fellow disciples of Jesus, let us love each other, since love is from God, and each one who loves has been birthed by God and knows God. The one who does not love has not known God, since God is love.”
So in other words, disciples of Jesus have a new nature. They have new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting than they used to – and God is the one who did that. This new nature now is a nature that loves as God intends people to love.
That’s kind of hard to understand, because Jay and Adrienne, when they made their decisions to become disciples of Jesus – they didn’t look physically different. But they did have new hearts and new minds.
Think of it this way. In Terminator 2, when Arnold comes to rescue Sarah Connor in the mental institution, she’s scared to death. Why? Because Arnold, in the previous movie, was a robot from the future sent to kill her. But in Terminator 2, the Arnold Terminator had been reprogrammed to do exactly the opposite of what it was originally programmed to do. Rather than terminating her, it was rescuing her.
That’s exactly what God does with his disciples. He reprograms them. They think, feel, and believe differently than they used to. How they view life becomes structured around the person of Jesus, their new King; and this verse tells us that they then, by nature, will have a consistent love for each other – from God.
So what Scripture says here is this: God is the source of love by being the creator of a new nature in those who trust Jesus. Or in other words, God is the source of love for all disciples of Jesus, because he’s reprogrammed how they think and feel about life. And that’s a comforting thing as we think about how hard it can sometimes be to really and truly love – God is the one who makes that love in Jesus’ disciples.
The example of love
So that’s the first point: God is the source of love. The second subject to tackle is this: the example of love in this passage. God commands love, and then tells us what it looks like.
Again, look at your program, and read verses 9 and 10 with me.
“The love of God has been made known among us in this: he sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to punish him in our places for our sins.”
Or to paraphrase: God has shown us what love looks like: he sent Jesus into the world and punished him for the disobedience of all his disciples, so that they would live. Again, love looks like this: God sent Jesus into the world and punished him for the disobedience of all his disciples, so that they would live.
There are a few key components to understanding how God showed us his love: disobedience, punishment, Jesus, and life. We’ll tackle them one by one.
First, disobedience is a subject here. Why? Because God made us and owns us. And though we may be nice to other people, none of us really treat God like he’s God – like he’s owner of all things. He has commanded much, and we really only obey when we want to. We don’t treat God like God. We treat us like God. And so, we are disobedient.
Second, punishment is a subject in these verses. Why? Because God punishes people that disobey him. That’s all of us. And that’s really bad, because the punishment matches the crime, and since the person we’ve disobeyed is infinite, so is the punishment. If you rob a convenience store, you get some jail time. If you murder someone you either get life in prison or the death penalty. If you fail to treat an infinite being as an infinite being, the punishment will be infinite. So that’s the second theme here: we all have disobeyed God, and we all are in danger of punishment from him.
Third, Jesus is a subject in these verses. Jesus was very clear in teaching that he was actually God in human flesh. He’s significant in these verses, because God here says that God the Father punished Jesus instead of punishing his disciples. Or in other words, for all who trust and obey Jesus, Jesus voluntarily took the wrath of God that was due them. The Bible says God will not acquit people he considers guilty, and so, out of his love, he punished his Son Jesus instead of punishing those who would trust Jesus. Picture this: you’re part of a country and you have a good King who always does what’s right. But you rebel – you commit treason. What happens to traitors? They get executed. But this King and his Son make an agreement because of love for you– and they agree that the Son will be executed instead of and as a substitute for everyone who obeys him.
Fourth, life is a subject in these verses. Life is the result of Jesus being punished in the place of his disciples. And that life is life with Jesus in a future world with all the effects of sin removed: a world where God is seen and enjoyed, with no pain, and with only beauty and joy forever. Jay and Adrienne are about to go on a honeymoon. When they do so, they’ll be leaving a lot of hard things about life behind – work, finances, etc. And their purpose will be to just enjoy each other. That’s a little picture of the life that Jesus has accomplished for his disciples in his future Kingdom!
SO, this is how God showed his love – look at verses 9 and 10 again in your program: “The love of God has been made known among us in this: he sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to punish him in our places for our sins.”
And so Jay and Adi and everyone here who is a disciple of Jesus, love is a hard command to follow. But remember, as we just saw, love comes from your new nature created by God, and on top of that, he’s shown you love – Jesus suffered and was executed voluntarily in your place!
There are probably many of you here who are not disciples of Jesus. You either aren’t actively seeking to obey what Jesus has commanded or you are partially banking on ‘being a good person’ for God to let you into heaven - you aren’t relying solely on what Jesus has done. And the problem with that is that none of us are good to God.
But God is making his love known to you right now. Think about it – he killed his Son for the lives of others. And in your case, you’ve not yet been judged. And Jesus, in his love, is tugging at your sleeve, saying, “Hey – I was already executed for treason I didn’t commit. Won’t you let that count for you – so you’ll live? Treat me as King and rely on what I did – and you won’t be judged, but rather, I’ll give you eternal life.”
There is love! In that opportunity – all you need to know is Jesus died for rebels, he rose again from the dead, he owns the world and is coming to judge it – and forgives everyone of everything they’ve done and will do – if they’ll turn to him as King and trust him for it. You may have questions about other things and that’s totally fine– but that is all you need to know to accept the love and eternal life that he offers right now.
And if that’s too much – he’s giving you a chance to explore what he’s said in the Bible – and you owe it to yourself to explore this love. And his hands are open wide to you for you to do so.
-So – God is the source of love. And he’s given us the example of love by killing his Son in the place of his disciples for their eternal life. Third, let’s look at the completing of love.
The Completing of Love
Look at your program again with me at verses 11 and 12. God says, “Fellow disciples of Jesus, if this is how God loved us, we also are obligated to love each other. No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God abides among us and his love is completed among us.”
Jay, Adrienne, and everyone in this room: God showing his love requires us to love each other, because God wants to show his love in this world. Again, look at verse 12, “No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God abides among us and his love is completed among us.”
God demonstrated his love in Jesus’ death – but that happened 2,000 years ago, and God is still love – so how will he show it? In you, Jay and Adrienne. In you all who have received Jesus as Lord. Verse 12 says that God’s love is completed by the actions of his people.
Say you were starting a charitable organization to help with the AIDS epidemic in Africa. You would go, and you’d pour yourself into helping suffering people. But Africa’s a big place; you’d never be able to help everyone. How would you do it? You’d show other people how to do what you were doing, and then have them complete your task.
That’s exactly what God has done. He’s shown us how to love in Jesus, and has put us in a world to finish what he started. We are here to finish what Jesus started, and as we do, it will be God showing his love to the world.
We’ve seen three things in this passage: 1) God is the source of love. He changes human nature so that disciples of Jesus will love. 2) God gives us an example of love: he punished Jesus instead of all his disciples, and thus gives them eternal life. 3) God’s disciples are the fulfillment of his love: we continue to show Jesus’ love off, even though Jesus is now in heaven.
Jay, Adrienne – sometimes love will not be easy. But remember at those times: God’s given you a nature that can love; he’s shown you how to love in Jesus; and he wants to show off his love through you.
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