I've Never Known Love Like This | Theocast

Love as Transactional Self-Gratification

Hi, this is Justin. Today on the podcast, we're going to talk about love. John and I bounced around a bunch of potential titles for this episode that were really cute, catchy, and clever, and we didn't use any of them.

We decided to say that we've never known love like this. I've never known love like this is the title of the episode. We're going to talk about the world's definitions and understandings of love that as sons and daughters of Adam, we all just kind of naturally operate with.

We think of love as transactional, and ultimately it's about our gratification, and it's just going to fall apart for us at some point. We've all been hurt by it. We're going to talk about that. Then we're going to talk about the Bible's definition of love as we consider the love of God for us that is sacrificial, unconditional, and steadfast, that has all kinds of implications for how we love one another.

We hope this is encouraging and clarifying and liberating for you. Stay tuned.

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Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the Christian life from a confessional, Reformed, and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today coming to you again together from Knoxville, Tennessee.

I think we can say that.

Sure.

John Moffitt. Dead giveaway. John Moffitt, who's pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. As I've already said, John and I are together.

This is our second day here in the beautiful city of Knoxville. We've enjoyed our time here thus far. We've been working on a number of things related to Theocast and the Grace Reformed Network. More information on some of that will be coming into your ears soon, we trust.

We're still running on fumes a little bit. Running on the Holy Spirit, extroversion, and fumes. Here we are, and we are going to record one more podcast together before we hit the road later on today.

Glad to be sitting here with you, man. It's good.

Sometimes people may not understand, but Justin and I, we're always thinking about the future of whatever podcasts we're doing and also writing. But one other ministry we're a part of, which is related to our churches, is Grace Reformed Network.

A lot of this trip was also around getting that up and running.

That's a ministry that we're working to start, a network of churches that John and I are working with some other pastors to try to get started.

If you want to know more information about a Reformed Baptist network that we're putting together, go to gracereformednetwork .org.

A confessional Baptist network, dare we say.

Yes.

You can, gracereformednetwork .org, or reach out if you know me or you know John or you follow us on social media. Particularly if you're a pastor, hit us up. Send us a message.

We'd love to talk with you.

John, speaking of talking, that's what we've sat here today to do. Why don't you tell the folks, the dear listener out there, tell them what we're going to talk about today.

We're going to talk about the love of God. I had the opportunity to preach at our youth camp this year, and I was thinking through scenarios that youth often face, and then I realized it's not even youth.

It's everyone faces this. But as a pastor and as a father of teenagers, one of the things that I was evaluating is when I say certain words, what do they hear? Because I know what it is in my head, but maybe I need to stop and think how did they develop that concept in their head?

One of those ones was that I was thinking about when as teenagers, when I would say the word I love you or I love something, or even today when I say I love something, what was sad for me in the realizing of that word was that we aren't naturally defining it according to scripture.

We're defining it according to our experience in the world. Justin, we had this conversation beforehand. I said, can you think of a physical relationship that you have on this earth that isn't transactional?

In other words, even you and I, if we first met each other and either of us kind of threw up a wall or whatever, didn't respond, it's hard to build a relationship if there isn't reciprocal. We both give.

And by transactional, what we mean is I give something and I get something in return. So I give to get.

Almost equal value, if not more.

For me to be able to remain in the relationship and feel good about the relationship and see it as a positive thing in my life, I need to be giving and then getting in return something that I think is satisfactory.

By nature, you're going to have transactional relationships. That's just kind of how it works. But unfortunately, that's not how the Bible defines it. When we think about how the world defines love, just listen to music, read books, and movies, and if you make a conclusion of when they say they love something, they always connect it to a value.

And that value typically is you make me feel good, you make me look good, you satisfy me. And what's interesting is we'll use that language of, well, I fell in love. What you're saying is you actually found, without looking for it, or maybe you were, but you found something that was bringing satisfaction to you.

Because then people say, well, then I fell out of love. I'm not sure what you fell into the first time, but what you fell out of is that what you're telling me is this person no longer satisfies you or gratifies you is what you're telling me.

Exactly. No longer making you feel the way you want to feel or the way that you think you need to feel, the way you think you deserve to feel, whatever.

Yeah.

I'll go ahead and say this now. I mean, a few things. The title of the episode, we went round and round, and about, I don't know, 11 different song titles popped into our head. I mean, we thought about calling this, you know, What is Love?

Baby Don't Hurt Me. We thought about I Want to Know What Love Is. I mean, all these things.

It was pretty funny. To which then I just started singing all the songs.

Anyway, but what are we trying to communicate? We're trying to communicate that we have misunderstood love. We really struggle to comprehend God's love for us, but we also struggle to comprehend and understand what the Lord means in His word too when we're told to then love each other.

And we're told to love our neighbor as ourselves. So we're hoping to redefine love in one sense today on the podcast and hope it's helpful. So where we're beginning here is talking about the world's understanding of love.

And by the world's understanding, we mean the fallen world as a result of the curse, as a result of sin. We're talking about, in one sense too, John, when we say the world, to use biblical language, we're talking about the common kingdom, yes, but we're also talking about the kingdom in which Satan is the prince of the power of the air.

I mean, yeah, the kingdom of darkness. And so the world is influenced by him and is influenced by evil and is characterized by sin. And so that world's definition of love is what we all naturally operate with as sons and daughters of Adam.

And it is very transactional in terms of how we view it. But I think another thing that we would say about it, this has sort of been implied, we'll go ahead and maybe deep dive on this for a second. Love for us, as the world would define it, is almost completely about self-gratification.

It is.

Self-satisfaction, self-realization, all of these things, it's doing...

Self-protection.

Self-protection, but self-gratification. Let's talk about that for a minute. It's all about me. So I will say this often in premarital contexts or in counseling, not formally counseling, but just talking with younger people in the church or talking with couples in our church, we make fun of things like the classic Jerry Maguire line, you complete me kind of thing.

It's like, yeah, that's not helpful. Think about yourself and when you start dating somebody or when you get engaged or when you proceed toward marriage. All of these things are good things that we would get married.

But realistically, what's going on for you? You have met someone in whom you see traits, desirable things that will help you realize and achieve the dreams and the desires that you have for yourself. Deep down, we don't want to admit it, we don't want to talk like this, but it's kind of like I see in this person an individual who will deliver me all the things that I want.

It's about me. I want marriage. I want a family. I want this. I want a spouse like this. I want a person who does this, who talks like this, who thinks like this, who looks like this, who makes me feel this way.

I see all those things in this person and I love him or her. That's how we think.

So you basically want someone to be your emotional savior.

In one sense.

Yeah.

I think what we need to acknowledge out of the gate is that for us, even as believers, it is a lot more about us when we talk about loving another person. We say, I love you, but in reality, we're kind of saying, I love what you give me.

I love what you do to me.

Yeah, I love how you make me feel.

That's right.

I love the things that I think you are going to be able to deliver to me.

That's right.

And when you're no longer able to do that, it's a very selfish view of love.

It really is.

And you're setting yourself up for disaster because no human being can live up to this.

No.

No human being can provide these things.

Well, and I mean, I'll jump ahead and then we'll come back, but I'll jump ahead. This is why James says, why do you fight? Because there will come a time where what I love and what you love are at war.

Your cravings and your passions.

That's right.

They're at war. But this is just to transition this to why it is so dangerous. When we hear the love of God, God loves you. I know sometimes it doesn't move people or it scares them. And this is why they suffer from a low affection or even I would say assurance because they're thinking to themselves, I'm not transacting with God in a good way.

Therefore, how is it that he can love me? Or I don't really appreciate what God has done up to this point in our relationship because I was expecting this from him and I did not get it. And so my affections for him are low.

But when we turn love into this transactional nature where we're expecting on either side, when someone says, God loves you, and even when they say, well, God loves you unconditionally, our brains don't have a spot for that because we don't ever function that way.

The only way I would say that you can experience this for a small amount of time in your life is that if you have a child and when that child's young and they can't do anything for you other than take your food and make a mess, we understand that sacrificial love because we love this child even though all they do is take from us.

Yeah, and then real talk for just a minute. How many times as a parent of young children do you have to battle your frame and your heart because you're resenting that reality?

That's right.

Because it's like I'm giving and giving and giving and giving and I'm getting nothing in return from this child because this child is not capable of giving me anything.

That's right.

And so all they do, I'm giving and I'm sacrificing and I'm sacrificing sleep, I'm working hard to meet your needs and all you do is complain about the service.

That's right.

And we get upset.

That's right.

So God, of course, is not like us because we're going to get to his love for us later. But he isn't like us. He doesn't get frustrated with us because we're not able to give him what he, you know, quote unquote needs.

And of course he needs nothing.

Right.

And we don't bring things to him that he needs.

That's right.

What's so crazy and brilliant about the world and the world system, aka the father of all lies, is that he takes this, because selfishness, no one would say, walk up to you and say, with pride, I'm a very selfish person.

The world knows that's not great. So we have to romanticize it. We romanticize our selfishness because we don't want to admit what we're doing.

Romanticize it. We euphemize it.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden, it's like we love these movies and we love these songs, but if you really watch them, you're thinking to yourself, this is more about the discovery of two people. Oh, you make me happy through gratification.

I make you happy. Hey, let's make this a team event. And then we romanticize it and it's, you know, all happy in songs and words.

And I love And it's soulmates and meant to be.

Right.

Or during, you know, the Christmas season on the Hallmark Channel where it's always these new developments of relationships because there's nothing there that requires sacrifice yet because it's all discovery mode.

It's all new.

You know?

But when 20 years in, you're like, yeah, I know everything about you and it requires me to deal with you in a certain way. That's not gratifying to my flesh.

Sure.

And this is why many people live and we're going to get beyond. We've talked a lot about romantic relationships, marriage, dating. We're going to apply this broadly to all of us in the church later. But this is an easy way to illustrate the problem in the world because people are hung up on romantic love.

They're hung up on, you know, all kinds of things. Attraction and chemistry and everybody's searching for it. Everybody wants it. And like you said, songs, books, movies are written, produced about this topic.

And so often what is depicted is the discovery mode portion.

That's right.

Where people have met someone in whom they think, yeah, I'm finally going to get what I've been searching for. And so I love the person that's going to give me those things and deliver upon my dreams for myself.

That's true. But then what often occurs for many people in this life, we see it all the time. People just live on this kind of constant cycle of I meet somebody. It's exciting. You know, I'm gratified.

I'm getting what I want, what I need for a season. Then it goes poorly. That relationship ends. There's pain. I do whatever I do to cope and medicate myself and then I look for a new one.

That's right.

And people just have that on loop over and over and over again.

How many country songs?

Here's the brilliance. I mean, the brilliance of Satan on the one hand and the reality of the blindness of man in a fallen world. We are able to look at all that and think that's good. And we have convinced ourselves in the world that that's what's going to make us happy.

It's at least acceptable.

Well, it's acceptable. But we've convinced ourselves that we're going to be happy if we pursue it this way. And the world tells us this is what happiness is.

Right.

And in reality, it is a fool's errand. It will never deliver.

No.

No.

But the reason why it works, I'll say this one last thing on that note before we transition. The reason why it works is that there is temporary gratification.

Right.

There's that moment of satisfaction. But we're always looking for that next one, that next one. And that's what makes unbiblical worldly love, the love of this world, such a trap because you'll never reach that moment.

In the love of God, we're going to get to in a moment. You can reach utter happiness and joy and satisfaction and peace, but in the world, it won't be found.

And even the love that the saints have for one another in the church.

That's right.

As a result of and as an outflow.

Of God's love toward us.

That's right.

The Love of God as the Ground of True Love

That's where we're headed. So let's talk in better ways, John, about love. How would we ever know.

What love is.

Is a great question to ask. And the Scripture is plain. We will know love in as much as we know God because God is love. And then we're going to get in a minute to how do we then love others legitimately?

What we love because he first loved us. So God is the ground.

Of all of this.

Well, I even love how Jesus says, and this is love, right? And what he describes next is not emotional. It's not selfish. It's not gratification. It's death.

It's sacrifice.

That a man laid down his life for his friend.

It's sacrifice.

It is.

But there's no way in our hearts we're like, that can't be good. That cannot be good. So when we go back to, there's a reason why the New Testament and the Old Testament has to define love because the world has got it wrong.

And so you'd have Christ redefining it. You have Paul redefining it. So this is Romans 8. Paul is redefining. If you want to know what the love of God is, this is the love of God. It's unconditional, which means you will never find yourself in a situation where God goes, okay, you've gone too far.

You walked too long. This is what it means. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. To summarize,.

That is unconditional.

Now some people say, well, that's ridiculous because then God just kind of has to wink his eye at sin. That means, well, we can just go run off into sin and do whatever we want because he's saying he loves his unconditional.

And he even says in one sense that even sin itself will not separate us.

From his love.

Yeah, absolutely.

So how can this be?

That's right. How can that be? God is not an unjust God. God is not a tyrant. He isn't going to just wink at sin because that would be horrible.

For him to do.

So this is what makes the second part of the nature of love important is that God's love is sacrificial. I mean, this going back to what Christ said is in order for me to show you this love, I was the one who had to take on your payment of your sin so that I could unconditionally love you.

So love becomes sacrificial. And that's hard for us. Not only, and then the third one I'll let you talk to her in a minute, but when we talk about relationships and I say to another individual, well, I'm going to love you as God has loved me.

That's hard for our brain to compute because that means there's no condition that you're going to put myself in that is going to cause me to separate myself from you. And number two, I understand if I say this statement that I love you, it is going to require that I take on sacrifice.

On my end.

So that you remain loved.

Another thing that we would say.

About God's love biblically.

Is that it is steadfast. So when you hear that language,.

The Lord is a God.

Of steadfast love, he shows steadfast love to thousands of generations. Steadfast love is covenant love. And this is not unrelated from the two things that you've already described, the fact that God's love is sacrificial and the fact that God's love is unconditional.

Well, that's very much related to the fact that God makes covenants and he relates to people through covenants. We think about the covenant of redemption that occurred before the world began where God the Father and God the Son covenanted together that they would save a people from the mass of fallen humanity through the work of the Son.

So this whole premise of sacrifice and unconditional love begins there because the plan for the sacrifice of the Son and the obedience of the Son in the place of those whom he would save is already there.

And so then, of course, in time and space, we have the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

Whereby God effectively.

Accomplishes that covenant.

Of redemption.

Through the covenant he makes with Adam and then the covenant that he makes with his people where the merits and the benefits of Christ are given to us. So yeah, on the account of Christ's sacrifice, God's love then comes to us unconditionally and it comes to us in the form of this steadfast covenant love.

That will never stop.

He will never relent in his love and his pursuit of his people because of all of this. So this is what love looks like. And of course, it cannot be based on anything in us because all we bring to the table is sin.

We fail. We do not love God as we should. And at the same time, he is happy to continue to faithfully, relentlessly love us.

That's right.

Yeah, so sometimes when you hear this, you're thinking, well, sacrifice and unconditional seems dangerous and that in the end, I'm not going to be a very happy person. I'm just going to be beat up and brutalized.

That's fair.

Yeah.

And what is interesting is that the exact opposite is promised to us. I mean, I love John 15. John 15 has transformed my world forever. I mean, the first time I preached through it so many years ago when I started to rethink about the love of God, Jesus literally says, I have told you all of these things so that not only your joy, not only will your joy may be full, but you will have my joy.

That's an unbelievable statement because he's not just saying, hey, you're going to find some happiness. Is there anyone who is more joyful in the universe than Christ? And the answer to that is no, he's never, he doesn't have sin that blocks him or detracts him from joy.

And he accomplishes everything he means to accomplish. And what's wild is we're told that he delights in us and he delights in.

Like the riches.

Of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

That's right.

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So Jesus says, I tell you, well, then the question you have to say is, what did he say to them? What things did you say that we could have that? He said that you love.

One another. And then he goes,.

And this is love, right? This is my definition of love. Because then he, Jesus, thankfully, in his kindness, understands we may not understand the definition of love, so he says, let me define it for you, that I lay my life down for my friends.

So the definition of joy you are promised complete,.

Full,.

Satisfying joy of Christ when you unconditionally and sacrificially love one another. That is an unbelievable promise. So we hear that, and we're like, I don't think that's, I don't know, that doesn't seem right.

And then we run back to our selfish love, selfish definition of love, and we continue to be hurt and empty, and we keep trying to see if that's going to work. And there comes a moment where it's like, if you trust in God's word, then trust in God's love, and then give that.

I mean, can you imagine,.

Justin,.

We already talked about this, but could you imagine what it would experience to have an experience of another human being who legitimately said, I'm going to make it my mission that you experience physically, in person, what I am experiencing spiritually from my father.

That would be an, and if both people were doing it, that's an amazing marriage.

Right there.

That's an amazing relationship.

Right there.

And we're going to get here in just a minute. Imagine a church full of people who have this perspective on loving others.

That's right.

And imagine what it would be like as an individual who has never been loved that way to walk into a congregation of people who love one another.

Like this.

That's right.

And who seek, with open arms, to welcome others into the fold that others might taste and see that the Lord is good, and that others might enjoy this kind of love amongst the saints because of how.

God has loved us.

That's right.

Which makes sense of how the New Testament writer Paul, for instance, in Ephesians says, when this is established, he says, be eager to maintain the bond of peace because it does bring peace.

Amen.

Because it's the opposite of James. Why are you fighting with each other's passions?

And of course,.

When we talk about marriage, I'm going to make this clear.

I know. John agrees.

When we talk about marriage, marriage is just a subset of our relationships with all people. And what I mean is this. We're told to love our neighbors as ourselves.

That's right.

If you're married, who is your primary neighbor?

Your first neighbor.

Your first neighbor. It's your spouse.

That's right.

If you have children, they would be next because you are responsible for them in unique ways. For all of us as brothers and sisters in Christ, we then, very high priority.

In our lives,.

The household of God. Those believers with whom we have covenanted in are a part of the church. We're under the same doctrine. We're under the same authority. And so we're called to love one another in these ways.

So when you hear us talking in specific terms about loving each other as husband or wife or as brothers or sisters, you can understand this.

To apply broadly.

And to apply in a general sense when we are told to love our neighbor by the Lord Himself. So let's apply some of these things specifically and broadly, John. As we think about loving people, start wherever you want.

And then I'll jump in.

Loving Neighbor, Marriage, and the Church

So I want to go back to a podcast we have done a couple of weeks ago for you. We did it yesterday on church, how do we title that?

Church, discernment,.

And pretty culture. Where there was a wrong reaction, including, you know, we had talked about a couple of authors in there, including Ike's Dating Goodbye. And there was a reaction.

To all of this.

And I agree with the world's perspective of dating and the world's perspective of marriage is wrong. It's damaging. So we'll agree there. The response then, I felt like, was an overreaction and it was an external, it was an outside-in approach.

If I control the outside scenario,.

Like enforcing.

Certain kinds of laws and regulations around whatever it is that you want to do. As far as dating and meeting people, then it'll protect the purity of the individual.

Well, that never works.

What does Jesus do? He says, yeah, you're not sleeping around with other people, but you are in your heart and that's what condemns you and that's where the real problem is. It's festering on the inside.

So when I'm thinking about, so I've got children, I've got youth, I've got youth in my church and so I am trying to shepherd and care for them and I finally decided to put my foot down and say, I'm not going to let the world define what is acceptable.

It's just ridiculous. I have seen so many teenagers, my children, I have an 18, 16 and 14 year old, so many of their friends just pummeled by ridiculous relationships where young people who don't understand what the word love means, who doesn't, who don't really understand what marriage is really about and they start developing these relationships in such a way and they're doing everything that the world is telling them and they're doing it right and they're consuming each other upon their own lusts and desires and then they wonder why it doesn't work out.

Well, two selfish people trying to be selfish isn't going to work out. You know what you did is you had two three-year-olds in the nursery who couldn't agree over a toy and they fought over it and the same thing happens when they're 16.

Just manifests itself differently.

That's right. So being able to shepherd our children to say what you're looking for in a relationship is someone that agrees with you on what is love. Because does this person understand God's love for them and that the greatest joy that they have is not what they get from you, your emotions, your body, your affections.

What they get from you is what they get to give. They're going to give an unconditional, sacrificial, ever steadfast love because they understand it's reflecting God's love. And I understand that that relationship on the general is true but the Bible does talk about how it becomes a special and mystical relationship with those who decide to unite in one, become two bodies into one, right?

To leave their families and join together. So if you aren't centered in agreement on what is love, it makes complete sense of why kids are dating all over the place, really dabbling in things that they shouldn't be dabbling in, and let's just be frank, going having intimate relationships they should not be having because they're trying to reach that moment of, well, this is the pinnacle of love because now we're going instead of just standing over here and yelling at kids and saying don't have sex outside of marriage, don't kiss, don't hold hands, don't date, the don't list doesn't fix the real problem.

What they're seeking is they're seeking this joy and acceptance and they're seeking real biblical love but they're doing it the way of the world. And so I think the church needs to step in and say we want you to experience the absolute supreme joy of being one with another person in Christ.