What is Love?

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I want to invite you to open up your Bibles while you're standing, and we're going to turn to 1 John.
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This is not the Gospel of John, but the first letter of John closer to the back of the Bible.
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And we're going to be looking at 1 John 4 and verse 8 as our primary text for this morning's message.
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We stand for the reading of God's Word in honor and reverence of who is speaking.
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It is God who speaks through His Word to us.
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And 1 John 4, verse 8 says this, Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
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Father in heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I pray that even now that You would keep me from error as I seek to give an exposition of Your Word, that You would keep me tied to the post of truth, and that You would help me to focus on what it is You have given me to say.
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Ultimately, Lord, I pray that the Holy Spirit would take over and speak through me, whereby people will hear the Word, and believers will be edified, exhorted, and corrected.
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And Lord God, unbelievers would be drawn and converted.
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For Lord, these are our desires today, to see people know Christ and know Him better.
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And I do pray that we would understand such a difficult and weighty subject as love better as we go through this message today.
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And I pray this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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For those of you who have been with us for some time, know that I tend to preach in series of messages.
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We just finished a several-year-long series through the Book of Acts where we went through every verse and studied through it.
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And right now we are doing the second of two in probably the shortest series I've ever done is two messages.
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And I guess that's as short as it could be to be a series.
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And so this morning we are on the second of a series entitled Truth and Love.
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And last week we asked the question, what is truth? And we noted that truth has been defined by philosophers as what corresponds to reality.
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Truth is what is real.
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Truth is what corresponds to the actual.
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Truth is what corresponds to that which is.
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But perspectives on reality can be subjective.
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Reality for you may differ from reality for me on certain subjects.
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So for objective truth to exist, there must be a perspective which transcends all others.
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And there is one perspective that does rise above all else.
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And that is the perspective of God.
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Truth is what corresponds to reality as perceived by God.
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Or better said, truth is what corresponds to what is real as determined by God.
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God determines what is true.
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So what does that mean for me by way of application? Well, that means I don't get to determine what the truth is.
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We've become somewhat narcissistic in our society where we think that we are the arbiters of truth.
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We get to determine what is and what isn't.
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But that's not so.
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I am not the arbiter of truth.
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If I believe something, that doesn't make it true.
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And if I disbelieve something, that doesn't make it false.
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Objective, immutable truth transcends me.
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It transcends my feelings.
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And it doesn't depend on me for its existence.
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And it doesn't need my approval nor my aid.
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Truth is truth all on its own.
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It doesn't need me at all.
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But truth does not stand alone in Scripture.
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In the Bible, truth stands beside an even greater reality.
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And that is the reality of love.
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One without the other leaves an imbalanced Christian life.
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Truth without love is brutality, as Warren Wiersbe said.
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But love without truth is hypocrisy.
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The dual role of truth and love must be understood.
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If we go about as champions of truth, but we're devoid of love, we're not exercising an expression of truth that is consistent with our Christian testimony.
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Likewise, if we go about as ambassadors of love, but we are willing to subvert the truth, we quickly find ourselves in error there as well.
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So the great balance of the Christian faith, the great balance of the life of the believer, is to have the balance of truth and love.
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They are inseparable siblings.
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Truth and love cannot be divided.
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Now, we've already looked at the definition of what is truth, reiterated this morning, but if you want a longer explanation, I invite you to go to the recording from last week.
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It's always available on our website.
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But today we're going to ask the question, what is love? We've asked the question, what is truth? We have defined it as that which is determined by God.
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Reality is determined by God.
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But today we're asking the question, what is love? And I want to make an admission.
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I had difficulty writing this message.
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Normally, I will begin writing my message on Monday morning and have most of what I'm going to say done by Wednesday because I spend Monday, Tuesday studying and writing and editing on Wednesday.
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And so normally by Wednesday night I'm able to give Pat my notes and she can put them into the bulletin and we're ready to go for Sunday.
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And then I start working on next Wednesday that time after.
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So that's sort of my schedule of study.
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This week it was Thursday night and I still didn't know what I was going to say because I knew what I wanted to say.
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Now, I know some pastors who go until Saturday night, so I didn't feel so bad.
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But for me to get to Thursday night and not know what I was going to say, a little nerve wracking.
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So I started to really kind of pray and look at the text and I knew the text I wanted to use.
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I had an idea of where I wanted to go.
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But I also knew that I did not want this sermon to simply be a reiteration of love's attributes.
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Because if you want to know what love looks like, we have the text for that.
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Evan read it this morning.
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He read it to us from 1 Corinthians 13.
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Love is patient and kind.
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Love does not envy nor boast.
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It is not arrogant nor rude.
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It does not insist on its own way.
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It is not irritable or resentful.
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It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Love never fails.
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That's the Bible's description of truth.
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But I want to propose that that's not a definition.
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It's not.
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It's a description, not a definition.
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Because the conceptual idea of love is much more difficult to define.
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I can describe how it looks.
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And that's what 1 Corinthians 13 does.
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But to describe what it is, is a little harder.
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You go to the dictionary and look up the word love.
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And I did.
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I went to several.
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Merriam-Webster and all the other online dictionaries.
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And this is what kept coming up.
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Dictionary definition.
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An intense feeling of deep devotion.
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Okay? Another said affection.
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Another said strong affection.
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And another said a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
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Now, I want to tell you something.
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I have experienced love.
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And I've got to say, those seem like rather inadequate descriptions of what I have experienced.
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And that's where I was having trouble.
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Because I was trying to find a definition that's hard to define.
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Even if I go to the biblical Greek.
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And you all understand the Bible wasn't written in English.
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Right? The Bible was written in Hebrew in the Old Testament.
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Greek in the New Testament.
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There's interspersed sections of a dialect known as Aramaic.
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But primarily we have a Hebrew and Greek Bible.
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And the Greek Bible uses two words for love.
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There were three words in the Greek language.
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Some argue there's four.
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But at least we know there were three.
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Phileo, agape, and eros.
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Eros is not used in the Bible.
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Eros means a sensuality.
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Something where we get the word erotic.
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But the two words that are used in the Bible that are Greek that we get the word love is phileo and agape.
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And most of you know that there's been much said about the distinction between phileo and agape.
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And I don't make such a strong division.
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Because there are times when they're used interchangeably.
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But I will say this.
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If you wanted to make a distinction between phileo and agape.
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Phileo's love is more of the emotional love.
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And agape is a devotional love.
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If you want to say there's the distinction.
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One is dealing with how you feel.
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And one is dealing more with how you feel.
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Or how you act toward how you feel.
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So there's an emotional and a devotional concept.
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But even that is not a definition.
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Because I'm using the word to define the word.
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So while it may be hard to put into words.
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All that love is.
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We all know that we have at least experienced it on some level.
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So we tend to have an experiential definition.
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And that's sort of what I had to kind of get into my mind.
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Is I'm going to have to explain this by experience.
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And people don't like that.
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Especially reformed folks.
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We tend to be in the reformed church somewhat scholastic.
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And we tend to put it on paper, written down.
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We want it to come out of a commentary.
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We want it to have Calvin's signature.
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With John Knox's fingerprints.
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We want it to have some really heavy duty scholasticism behind it.
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But I want to tell you something.
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My definition as I was thinking about love.
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I began to think about the fact that when I was a small child.
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When I was very little.
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My earliest recollections of life.
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And, you know, the earliest memories we have are around two.
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Two and a half, three years old.
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And even those come in snapshots.
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There's something called infantile amnesia.
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The first two years of a child's life are pretty much forgotten in the brain.
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And I think the reason for that is most of us don't know what we're doing the first two years.
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So it kind of leaves the child safe.
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All those mistakes we make.
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We get, you know, at least two years kind of free and clear.
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Because they're not going to remember that anyway.
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But the first thing that I remember growing up.
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Is the love of my mother and my father.
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And I experienced that.
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It's hard.
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I couldn't define it.
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But I experienced.
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It was years later that I realized that some kids don't get that.
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You know, some children are placed in foster care very young.
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They never really feel that love connection between a parent.
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Never adopted.
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They age out of the foster care system.
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And they live a life really devoid of that feeling that I knew as a child.
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And that breaks my heart.
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To know that's a reality.
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My dad, from the earliest time I remember, would tell me he loved me.
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And you know, it wasn't until high school that I started talking to my friends.
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And realized their dads didn't all tell them that.
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That some dads don't say, I love you.
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I couldn't believe it.
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It never made any sense to me.
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So I praise the Lord that from a very young age, I had this experience of love.
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And I understood what it was.
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And I moved on to my teenage years.
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And I started thinking of a different expression of love than that which I shared with my parents.
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Because when I was 17, I met a girl named Jennifer.
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And I started thinking of a different kind of love.
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They might call it love at first sight.
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I don't know what she got out of this.
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But we've been together for almost two decades.
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So it worked.
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In 2004, we met two foster children.
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And we wanted desperately to become their parents.
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And we did.
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And we are their parents.
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And that was a new kind of love that we didn't have before.
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In 2012, Jennifer was found to be with a child.
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Had our first natural child.
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And when you looked at the face of hope.
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And that little plastic bassinet that they put her in.
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A new type of love.
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And, you know, it was new.
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New person, new love.
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Then again, J.J.
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and now we have Faith on the way.
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Lord willing, in September.
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And we'll get to have a new type of love again.
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And along with these important instances, we also met other folks that developed loving relationships.
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Many of you in this room.
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My family in the faith.
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You're so much closer to me than my actual blood relatives.
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And I love my relatives.
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Don't get me wrong.
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But, you know, we have a family reunion once a year.
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I see them a few times a year.
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But you guys, I see every week.
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Just this past week or two ago, I had a need.
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Just had a need.
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Who do I call? My two brothers in the faith.
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Kevin, Chris, can you help me? And right away, Johnny on the spot.
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You know? So you're our church family.
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We love you.
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So from as far back as I can remember, I love my parents.
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From my teenage years, I love my wife.
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Since birth, I have loved my children.
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And from the moment that we've all become church family, we have loved you.
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Yet while it is confident that I do in fact love you and I believe you love me, it's still not a definition.
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I'm still speaking from experience.
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I'm 15 minutes into the sermon and I haven't given you a definition yet.
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And we can use words.
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Attachment, affection, passion, compassion, emotion, devotion and some others and all these descriptions of love and what love is.
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But we also know that it's more than that.
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Love is more than a feeling.
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It's more than even an intense feeling.
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It's more than passion, compassion, emotion or devotion.
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It's like truth.
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It's so profound, it's hard to put into words.
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Yet when we go to the Bible, there is a sense in which it assumes that we'll know what it is.
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Even though we have a hard time putting it into words.
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The Bible assumes we know what love is.
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Now again, it gives us a description in 1 Corinthians 13.
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But I want to make a point.
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And this really kind of just like a light bulb this week came to me.
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The Bible talks about love long before it gives a description of love.
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1 Corinthians is written sometime in either the late 40's or the early 50's of the 1st century.
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How many books of the Bible are written before that? Well the 39 books of the Old Testament.
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All of the Old Testament is written before that description.
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And the word love is used throughout.
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Do you know when the first time the word love is used in the Bible? The very first time the word love is used in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 22 and verse 2.
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And do you know what the context was? And God said to Abram, take thy son, thy only son, whom thou loves, and offer him up on the mountain.
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The very first time love as a word is used in scripture.
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It's used in the context of father to son and a love of sacrifice.
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How is it that God can use a word like love and assume we all know what it is? The answer I have come to is that I believe that we are created with that purpose.
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And so we do know what it is because of the imago dei.
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Now what is the imago dei? The image of God.
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What does the Bible say in Genesis chapter 1? It says that God formed man in his image.
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And according to his likeness, male and female, he created them in his image.
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And as a result of being created in the image of God, we have this capacity to love.
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And understand what love is.
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In fact, I believe that this is how we best glorify God.
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What is the chief end of man? If you know any of the catechisms, you'll know that the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, the very first question, what is the chief end of man? Meaning what is his goal or purpose? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.
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That's the chief end of man.
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That's his purpose and goal is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
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How do you glorify God? What's the greatest commandment? To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind.
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And what? And to love your neighbor as yourself.
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How do we best glorify God? Love him.
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And in loving him, love others.
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Because that's what you were created to do.
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And that's why you know what it is.
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Because it's part of the imago Dei that has been placed in you.
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You bear the image of God.
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Now in our passage today, 1 John 4, 8, that was all introduction.
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So we're going to finally now get to the passage.
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Because in our passage today, it says something very profound.
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It says in 1 John 4, 8 that God is love.
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In fact, it says the same thing again in verse 16.
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If you just happen to glance down at verse 16, it says again that God is love.
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And I want you to consider something that it doesn't say.
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It does not say God is loving.
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Now God is loving.
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And I'm not denying that.
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But it is different to say that God is loving than it is to say God is love.
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Because we've been trying all morning to define love.
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And I've told you that you know what it is.
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I've told you that you've experienced it.
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You've exercised it.
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But we still haven't defined it.
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So we want to find a definition.
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The question is, what is love? Well, what is love? The Bible says God is love.
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And that verb is indicates an inherent characteristic of being.
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We know verbs work differently.
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Verbs often describe action.
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If I say God is moving, the is there refers to an action.
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Or if I say Jesus is coming, the is refers to an action.
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Or if I say Jack is sitting, or Jack is standing, or Jack is running at me, or whatever.
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I'm referencing movement.
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But if I say God is spirit, the is there becomes a state of being verb rather than an action.
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It's a state of existence.
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God is spirit.
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And those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth, right? A spiritual nature is essential to God.
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But the Bible says God is spirit.
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It says God is love.
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So what does that say about the nature of God? That His nature is one of love.
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As R.C.
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Sproul has said, love is the disposition of God.
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Do you realize that God did not begin to love when the world was created? See, I've heard people say, I've heard some very, very, you know, loving, great people say, Well, God created the world because He wanted something to love.
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Love didn't begin when the world was created.
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God possesses love in eternity because God Himself is love.
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And within the Trinity, there is one God and three persons, and there is an inter-Trinitarian love.
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There's always been love.
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And when the Bible says God is love, it's saying something about what love is.
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In fact, I want to give you an illustration.
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If I look at a woman and I say that woman is beautiful, right? That's a nice thing to say, or it's a positive compliment to say that woman is beautiful.
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But if I said that woman is beauty, that would be different.
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Because what I would be saying is that she's not only beautiful, she encapsulates all that beauty is.
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She is the standard against which all other beauty is to be measured.
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And if you want to know what beauty is, look at her, right? That's what is meant when the Bible says God is love.
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It says God encapsulates all that love is.
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God is the standard against which all love is to be measured.
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And if you want to know what love looks like, look at God.
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And in that, He becomes definitional.
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And honestly, I've got to say this.
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I'm a Reformed guy, and we know, you know, we hold to the tenets and the teachings of the Protestant Reformation.
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We're part of the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals and all that.
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And I've got to say, there can be a tendency among Reformed people to downplay this aspect of God's nature.
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It can.
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And I think that this is the case because the Reformed faith tends to dig into the meatier and weightier things of the Bible than most normally do.
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And as a result, we have to come face to face with the fact that the love that God demonstrates is also influenced by His holiness and balanced with His righteousness and His justice.
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And we know those things, but we must never consider that those other aspects of God's nature rob Him of this quality of love.
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If we have a God who is holy, righteous, and just without love, we do not have the God of the Bible.
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That must be understood.
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Now the atheist will look at that statement about God's love.
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When we say God is love, the atheist will look at that statement and will sneer with haughty derision.
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He'll say, how can you say God is the standard of love when He has been responsible for so many atrocities, either actively or passively? And they point to God's act of judgment in Scripture, and they say that such acts are not acts of love, or of God not saving or thwarting disaster and saying, see, here's where God failed to love, or here's where God is not loving enough.
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And that's especially true if you talk about hell and the reality of punishment.
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Some say that God is a moral monster.
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But you have to understand this, beloved, and this is where the balance comes in.
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God's love is never divorced from God's truth.
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And while God is love, He is also holy.
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And His love is a holy love.
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His actions towards man are ones which flow out of His love and His righteousness.
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And this is actually something which we should be thankful for.
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In fact, we are thankful for it in our inner being, because we know that love without justice is not real.
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Think about this.
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Think about when you see an injustice perpetrated.
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What do you yearn for internally? You want to see justice done, right? It's not so much out of hatred for the offender, but a love for what is right, a love to see justice prevail.
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No one wants to see the guilty party simply go without any recompense.
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How could we say that we love a person if we don't desire justice on their behalf? The same truth can be applied to God.
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He exercises justice and righteousness not in spite of His love, but in accord with His love.
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His righteousness demands that sinners be punished, but His love provides a place where sinners can find refuge.
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The love of God in Scripture is tied...
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And this is a sentence I asked her to put on the screen.
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The love of God in Scripture is often tied to one immeasurably gracious act.
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The act of absolutely unmerited favor, and that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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If you look up the love of God in Scripture, and what does it say? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.
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In this way, God loved the world, and He gave His Son.
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God demonstrates His love towards us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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For our sake, He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
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In this, the love of God was made manifest to us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.
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This is the way that God loves.
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God's righteousness...
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Hear this now, because this is important.
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God's righteousness puts a demand on His will regarding our sin.
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Because our sin deserves to be justly dealt with.
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So God's righteousness puts a demand on His will regarding our sin.
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But His love puts a demand on His will regarding our salvation.
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Not that He has to save us, but that He wants to.
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God doesn't have to save anyone.
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He's not bound to save anyone, but He wants to save because He loves.
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And so His will has a desire to save.
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Yet that salvation does not come at the expense of His holiness, or in contempt for the truth.
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God will be just while He is justifying the sinner.
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That's what Romans 3.26 says.
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He is the just and the justifier of the one who comes to faith in Jesus Christ.
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So we've learned a lot today about the subject of love.
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And based on everything we've learned about love, I want to leave you with a few points of application as we draw to a close.
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Three simple thoughts that I want you to take away from here.
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And they're not alliterated or anything fancy.
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Just three things I want you to consider.
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Number one, God is the standard of love.
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We've already said that.
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But I want you to take that away.
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Because the world will give you all kinds of definitions for love.
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Some of those definitions will even be obscene definitions.
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They will violate God's word and they will violate the human conscience.
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And they'll say, no, but this is love.
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Anything which does not comport with God's standard for love is not real love, because love cannot be divorced from the truth.
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If a person says, this is love, no matter how sincere it may look, it is an abomination in the sight of God if it is not love as God has defined it.
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So God is the standard of love.
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Number two, God illustrates his love through Christ.
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Do you want to know what love looks like? Look at what God did in Jesus.
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You remember, I mentioned earlier, Abram.
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Abram was told, take thy son, thy only son, whom thou lovest, and take him up on the mountain and sacrifice him.
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And you remember Abram was willing to do that, right? He is taking the wood for the fire.
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He's got with him a dagger and he's ready to climb the mountain with his son.
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And his son asks, but dad, where is the lamb? And that's where we get that phrase, Jehovah Jireh.
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Because Abraham looks at his son, he says, the Lord will provide.
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So they get to the top of the mountain and Abram has tied his son up, who I am certain is confused at this moment, because he's now there ready to be the sacrifice.
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And he pulls the dagger and he's ready to plunge it.
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And God says, stop.
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And he shows him the ram caught in the thicket.
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And he takes that ram and he takes Isaac off the altar.
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And he places the ram on the altar as a substitute for Isaac.
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And thus the ram becomes the picture of Jesus.
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This is the love that God has in Christ.
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So we see the illustration of God's love in Jesus.
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Third and finally, we've said God is the standard of love.
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God illustrates love through Christ.
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And thirdly and finally, most profound thing in the world.
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God loves you.
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Even before you came to faith in Jesus, if you have, you've been an object of God's common grace, whereby He demonstrates loving kindness to all men, regardless of their station.
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This is why even the most vicious atheist can breathe God's air, drink God's water, and enjoy God's cool breezes.
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This is why even those who blaspheme God can enjoy the blessings of marriage, the enjoyment of a family, and a form of love in this life.
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Because God's justice, though it could have eradicated them from birth, is not yet fallen upon them.
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And they live every day under a veil of common grace.
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Beloved, you realize the beating heart in our chest is beating because of the grace of God.
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And thereby, we can say common grace is a form of God's love.
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But there is more to grace than that which is common to all men.
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There is a grace by which we enter into a genuine relationship with God.
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There is a grace whereby we find an ability to identify God as more than our Creator, but as our Father who art in heaven.
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Theologians call this salvific grace, but we can simply call it saving grace.
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That's the grace that comes as a result of God opening our heart to believe in Jesus.
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And that's how we really experience the love of God.
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You have to understand, if you're a believer this morning, you are the object of the saving grace and love of God.
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You didn't earn that love, you didn't deserve that love, you have that love because God gave it to you as a gift through the work of Christ.
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And if you do not know that love this morning, I want to tell you that the love that I am speaking of is found in no one but Him.
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You will not find that love in another religion, you will not find that love in secular reasoning, you will not find that love in business pursuits, you will not find that love in personal achievement, you will not find that love in success.
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The love of God that saves comes only through Christ.
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And I pray for you, if you never have, to put your faith in Him today.
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Now, we are going to sing.
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Brother Jim will come in a moment and sing.
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But I'm going to ask you to sing before we sing.
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Because I have a four year old, and one of the most favorite things I hear her sing is a song called Jesus Loves Me.
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And I think that to end this message, before we get to our communion song, I'd just like for us to close our eyes and sing Jesus.
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Can we do that? Can we close our eyes together and make that part of our prayer? Jesus loves me, this I know.
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For the Bible tells me so.
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Little ones to Him belong.
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They are weak, but He is strong.
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Yes, Jesus loves me.
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Yes, Jesus loves me.
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Yes, Jesus loves me.
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The Bible tells me.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You.
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I thank You for Your Son.
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I thank You for the love that You have poured out on us, that You have placed within our nature as part of the Imago Dei.
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But Lord, that You have expanded and explained through the person of Jesus Christ.
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May we understand how much You have loved us, that we might love You more.
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And I pray it all in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Let's stand and sing as we prepare for communion.