8/24/08 Love Pt. 1
II Peter 1:5-7 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
When I first discovered this passage
in II Peter chapter 1 many years ago
one of the first things that surprised me,
and confused me,
and amazed me,
and puzzled me about it
was the positioning of the quality of LOVE
in Peter’s progressive steps of growth.
There was a song that was popular
at the time when I first began to study this passage,
a song that proclaimed in a catchy little tune:
What the world needs now
is love, sweet love,
that’s the only thing
that there’s just too little of.
I can remember what a shock it was to me
when I began to realize that
not only was love not something
that could be poured out by
the masses of the world population,
but that it was actually
the most mature expression of Christ’s life within us.
It was a quality that could only exist,
only become a living, functioning, practical reality
when it rested upon a solid underlying foundation of moral excellence,
knowledge,
self-control,
perseverance,
godliness,
and brotherly kindness.
It clearly was not a gushy feeling
nor was it a skill or ability
that could be mastered
without a tremendous amount of character growth in our lives.
The second thing that hit me
was the realization once again
that the whole purpose and direction
of God’s growth program in our lives is RELATIONAL in nature.
By that I mean that the work God is doing in us as His children
has nothing to do with His trying to
squeeze us all into conformity
to some arbitrary set of ‟rules” He wants us to follow.
What He is really seeking to do
is to teach us
what it actually means to love
and to be loved by God and one another.
This is a remarkably common area of confusion for most people.
We have an amazing way of blinding ourselves to the truth
about what God is actually seeking to accomplish in our lives
through the moral commandments
He offers us in His Word.
We just naturally tend to view those commandments
as an arbitrary list of do’s and don’t’s
established by God
as a sort of list of membership requirements
for those who want to be on His team.
You know how it is -
If you want to keep on good terms
with the Almighty,
you won’t lie,
and you won’t steal,
and you won’t cheat,
and you won’t commit adultery.
We even allow ourselves
to develop a sort of bargaining
or bartering system with the rules.
If we break one of the rules on the list,
then we can compensate
or pay for that violation
with some ‟good works”-
special acts of kindness
or generosity
or giving of our time or money.
And even though that whole concept
is as far from the truth
as anything could be,
and even though Scripture is crystal clear
on the real underlying goal God has
in giving us His moral commands,
amazingly few Christians
and virtually no non-Christians
ever seem to grasp what's really going on.
Let me read you a passage out of Romans 13
that never ceases to amaze me.
ROM 13:8-10 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.”
...he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law...
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law...
Do you hear what is actually being said here?
Paul is telling us
that not only are the moral commands of God not an arbitrary list of do’s and don’t’s,
they are actually a carefully designed description
of what it means for one human being
to love another human being.
Now this is an amazing thing -
you see, our ability to establish
and maintain the kind of love relationships we need
and desperately long for
is inseparably linked to our relationship with God
and our ability to trust what He says
and apply it in our lives.
It might be easier if we back way up
and look at this thing from the other end.
I want us to back up to where
the human race began with Adam and Eve.
In the beginning,
during the brief first phase of man’s time on this planet,
before sin messed things up
all relationships were working perfectly.
Adam’s relationship with God was clear,
and open,
and unhindered,
as was his relationship with Eve
and Eve’s relationship with him.
There was no tension,
no little mind games,
no one trying to win
or afraid of losing.
No one was trying to conquer,
or hide,
or guard,
or protect themselves from blame,
or accusations,
or hostility.
Each person was deeply appreciated
and valued for who they were,
free from competition, or guilt, or fear, or condemnation.
Then Adam and Eve staged their revolt.
They bought the lie
being peddled by Satan
that true freedom could only be found
by being their own boss,
running their own show,
making their own choices apart from the meddling interference of their Creator.
But the only way they could take control
was through wilful disobedience
of the only boundary God had established in their world.
They took the bait,
they shook their little fists in the face of their God,
and proclaimed themselves liberated.
But their liberation came with a terrible price tag -
every relationship in life from that point on
became a complex,
confusing,
stress-filled game of hid and seek.
With every human being
now committed at the deepest level
to the defense and protection of their own personal little inner kingdom,
openness,
trust,
honesty,
and faithfulness and commitment to the needs of others ceased to exist.
They were replaced by
an endless stream of attacks,
accusations,
blame,
and self-defensiveness.
Do you know what the first recorded words out of Adam’s mouth were,
following his rebellion against his God?
Gen. 3:10 And Adam said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid ...”
...I was afraid...
Where once there was openness and trust
now there was fear in his relationship with his God.
Do you know what the second words out of Adam’s mouth after he sinned were?
Gen. 3:12 The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."
BLAME!
He blamed God for giving him Eve,
and he blamed Eve for giving him the fruit.
And that set the pattern for human relationships from that time on.
The chaos and confusion and pain and emptiness in my life isn’t really my fault.
If my boss would just recognize my talents
and put me in the position I deserve...
If my parents had done their job better and given me the love and care I needed...
If my wife would get off my back and meet my needs the way she should...
If my husband would just exercise some godly leadership in our home...
If my children would just respect me and follow my instructions...
The problem isn’t me, Lord, its all these other people You’ve placed around me.
It’s the boss you’ve given me,
it’s the wife or husband you’ve given me,
it’s the children you’ve given me,
it’s my teacher in that class.
It’s the President’s fault.
It’s those guys in congress.
The devil made me do it.
And as a human race
we never seem to catch on.
Adam and Eve knew, at least at some level, what it meant to live in love -
to know the love of God
to know it as a constant, glorious, warm, and wonderful backdrop to all of life.
And they knew true love between themselves.
Then their sin destroyed both
and replaced them with pain,
and emptiness,
and loneliness,
and fear,
and shame,
and confusion,
and insolation.
And every one of us have lived out their heritage ever since.
Our spirit rebellion against our Creator separates us from Him,
but it also drives us apart from one another
and isolates each of us in heavily fortified little inner kingdoms.
In a single blow
we lost our ability to hear God’s love
and our ability to truly love one another.
Then, hopefully, at some point
we recognize our disastrous state of affairs
and turn to Christ.
We allow Him to clear up
the messy business of our sin,
and then we begin to discover
that His commitment to us
goes far beyond just taking out the garbage.
He actually begins to reverse the history of the human race in our lives
rebuilding what we have destroyed.
He seeks to give us eyes
that can once again see the love of our God,
and He seeks to rebuild within us
a foundation that will make some degree of love in our human relationships
a living reality.
But that takes a lot of healing
and a lot of rebuilding.
And that is central in what Peter
is saying to us in these progressive steps of growth in II Peter 1.
It’s as if he is saying,
‟Do you really want love to be a reality in your life?
Well, that is going to require
laying a whole new foundation.”
Love is not a gushy feeling,
it is the ability to make some extremely difficult choices at times.
It means choosing to relate to every person we meet
within the boundaries of the protective moral framework
given to us by God Himself.
And that is exactly what Paul is saying to us in this passage in Rom. 13.
When he says all the commandments are fulfilled in this one phrase, ‟you shall love your neighbor as yourself”
he is revealing to us the remarkable
underlying purpose behind every commandment in Scripture.
He is saying, ‟My friend - do you understand what we have
in this moral framework given to us by our God?
We have been given the keys to love -
true enduring human love relationships.”
When our Lord said to us,
‟You shall not lie,”
he was not simply telling us
that God has a thing about liars
so we’d better watch what we say.
He was saying,
one of the keys to building deep,
fulfilling,
enduring love relationships is unquestioned honesty
with the person you are relating to.
Honesty is the only thing that can truly build trust between you and another human being,
and trust is essential in love.
The deeper your level of honesty
the deeper your foundation of trust.
And when our Lord says to us,
‟You shall not steal”,
He was not simply telling us
that stealing ticks Him off
so we had better avoid it
if we know what good for us.
He was telling us
that one of the essential pillars
necessary if our inner love needs
are ever going to be met
is to establish an unquestioned respect
for the possessions
and boundaries of those around you.
What we need and long for in our human relationships
is to be allowed entrance into their world,
to establish close, supportive, trusting friendships.
But if those around you discover
that they cannot trust you with their possessions,
they will certainly never trust you
with themselves.
Stealing in any form
will always rob you of what you long for the most - friendship and love -
whether you steal their possessions,
or their position,
or their integrity,
or their time,
or their rightful honor,
ultimately the one you rob is yourself.
And when our Lord says to us,
You shall not lust -
He is not simply saying
‟Lust is so nasty, and I really wish you wouldn’t do it.”
What He is really saying
is that lust is incompatible
with meeting our desperate inner need for love.
Whenever we mentally turn another human being into a thing,
an object that exists in our mind
only to gratify our sexual or emotional desires
any hope of establishing
a truly healthy and fulfilling love relationship with that person ceases to exist.
You shall not commit adultery...
You shall not murder...
You shall not bear false witness...
You shall not covet...
There is nothing in any way arbitrary
about the moral boundaries
established by our Lord.
Each of them is carefully designed
to reveal to us how our need for love can be met.
They were given to mark the pathway
that can lead us back
into the wealth we lost
when we turned our back on our God.
Peter places love where he does on his progressive steps of growth
because he knows that learning to love is in every sense
the most mature
and most difficult of all the projects
our Lord shares with us.
It is the quality that will cause us
to cling most tightly to the hand of our God,
the one that will generate the most fear,
the most anxiety at times.
Yet it is also the one that has the ability
to bring the deepest fulfillment
and satisfaction into our lives.
If you would like a definition, for our study here I would define love as
choosing to relate to each human being we meet within the protective boundaries of the moral laws of God.
Given the fact that we have all spent the first phase of our lives
guarding and protecting ourselves at all costs -
competing,
hiding,
attacking any who get too near,
entering into this whole new way of relating does not come quickly or easily.
But given the fact that it is so contrary
to who we are outside of Christ
it also comes as the most powerful proof
of His life within us
and His ability to transform those who come to Him.
OK, now everything I’ve just shared with you
is absolutely true,
and a central part of all that our God says to us about love.
To love another person
is to choose to relate to them
on the basis of the moral boundaries revealed to us by our God.
And not only is it true,
but it is, of necessity, the first step in our understanding the true nature of love.
Until we understand the inseparable union between love and the moral boundaries given to us by God
we cannot even begin to truly give or receive love.
And what I’ve just shared with you
is the only adequate foundation
upon which all love relationships can built.
But having said that,
there is more I need to say
because, even though love is rooted in our choices,
it goes far beyond that.
The kind of love that God has for us
and that He seeks to build between us and the people around us
is not just right choices,
it involves every aspect of our being.
It deeply affects our emotions,
our priorities,
our goals,
our values.
Loving another person
or being loved by another person
has the power to transform our lives as nothing else in human experience can do.
And I want us to take next week
to talk about how God accomplishes this work in our lives
and why it affects us so deeply.