Love For God & Your Neighbor

Program Transcript # 1364 Love For God & Your Neighbor The Truth In Love P.O. Box 865 Hurst, TX 76053 www.thetruthinlove.com www.ttil.tv requests@thetruthinlove.com

Love For God & Your Neighbor Program #1364 Robert Dodson Good morning. I'm glad that you've joined us here on The Truth In Love. Last week on our program we talked about the tremendous love that God has for us. Though we were separated from God by our sins, God in His love made a way for us to be reconciled to Him but it cost Him the death of His only Son, Jesus Christ, upon the cross. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16). In the Roman letter, the apostle Paul said that God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). God has loved us, and He has demonstrated that love in a tremendous way through the giving of His Son at Calvary. This week, we want to see how we are to respond to that love. As John said in 1 John 4:19, We love Him because He first loved us. I hope you'll stay with us as we continue to explore our love for God and for one another. 2

How are we to respond to God's love? We're to love God and our neighbor. This is what Jesus teaches us in Matthew 22:37-39. Let's read it together. Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. We see from this passage that we must love God and that we must love Him with our whole being. There are some who have a head knowledge of God and they say they love Him. Others have a heart-felt love for God but really don't know anything about His will for their lives. Also there are some who are torn between their love for God and the things of the world. 1 John 2:15 reminds us that if we love the world, we can't love God. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. Whom or what do you really love? Let's notice that we show our love for God by keeping His commandments. I want to read this passage to you from John 14, where Jesus emphasizes what real love for God is all about. This is what He says: If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My 3

Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me (John 14:15-24). We see from this reading that Jesus was about to leave. He knew that He was going to the cross, would be raised from the dead and ascend into heaven, but He wanted His disciples to know how they could show their love for Him. They could only do that by keeping His commandments. 1 John 5:3 reminds us, This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. They're not a burden to those who really love the Lord. I remember once when driving in the car with my father, we came upon another car with a bumper sticker that read, Honk if you love Jesus. I asked Dad if he was going to honk. But he said to me, I believe I'll show my love for Jesus in other ways. There are many who make a lot of noise about Jesus. But if we truly love Him, then we will obey Him. Not only will we be obedient to God and the commandments that teach us how to love Him, but a part of that is learning to love one another. Look at this passage with me in John 13:34-35. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. Yes, this is how the world will know that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ. If we're truly followers of Jesus, 4

it will be marked by our love for each other, and that love will exemplify the love that Jesus has shown to us. It's Jesus who teaches us how to love one another. As Jesus sacrificially and completely gave Himself for us at Calvary, so we must learn to give ourselves in love to each other. There's another passage that I would like to read with you today from 1 John 4, beginning in verse 20, that emphasizes the importance of our love for each other. Here's what John writes, If someone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments (I John 4:20-5:2). We may try to convince the world that we're the church of Christ, but they'll know that we're the family of God by our love for one another. You cannot convince God that you love Him if you do not love His children any more than you could convince me that you love me if you do not love my children. Let us who are Christians today do what Peter said in 1 Peter 2:17, Love the brotherhood. Now let's take this commandment home with us, because God not only wants us to be Christians in church, God wants us to be Christians at home. God wants us to be Christians all the time. He wants us to show love in our families. For example, in Ephesians 5:25, the apostle Paul applies this commandment of love to those who are husbands, and he says, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her. Je- 5

sus Christ gave Himself to purchase the church with His blood. It cost Him His life. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives just like Christ loved the church, unselfishly, wholly, completely and ready and willing to give their very lives for their wives. In Titus 2:4 we see that the older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands. We need to recognize that love is something that is applied to every aspect and relationship in our lives. Certainly we need to love at home as well as everywhere else. We show our love for one another in a number of different ways. We show our love by being sincere. Paul said in Romans 12:9 that our love should be without hypocrisy. God doesn't want us to feign our love, but our love ought to be real and genuine towards one another. Listen to this passage from 1 Peter 1:22. Peter says, Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. That's the kind of love that God wants us to show toward one another. It needs to be a sincere love, a holy love, a love that comes from pure motives and intents, a pure love, a fervent love, a deep and abiding love. That's the love that we're to have for one another. This love is further described in Romans 13:10, Love does no harm to a neighbor. Our love ought to be harmless. We don't want to do anything to hurt one another. We ought to be trying to help each other. Our love ought to be an edifying love, a love that builds up rather than tears down. Love edifies, according to 1 Corinthians 8:1. In the body of Christ, we are to be building up that body in love, according to Ephesians 4:16. If we love one another, we are to be serving one another, as Paul said in Galatians 5:13. I do not need to be asking, what do I need or what do I want, 6

but what do you need? What can I do for you? How can I serve you? That's what God teaches us about loving one another. Another very important thing about love is that the love of God is impartial. It's without respect of persons. This is the kind of love that we must bring into God's church, and that we must show to this world. I want to read with you from James 2:1-13. Let's see what James says. My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, You sit here in a good place, and say to the poor man, You stand there, or, Sit here at my footstool, have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Those are piercing questions, because it tells us that we ought to treat everyone alike. James goes on to say, Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak 7

and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. We see here from James how important it is that we do not show respect of persons, and that we do not love with partiality, but rather with impartiality. We should open our hearts to all men, black, white, red and yellow, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. We should not make differences and treat people differently, but we should show them all the love of God in Christ Jesus. That means that we're going to have to be forgiving and merciful in our love. Every one of us needs forgiveness and mercy. If you're a Christian today, you know that you have experienced that. That's what God wants us to share with others. In 1 Peter 4:8, he tells us to have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. Loving others is opening our hearts to them. In 1 John 3:17, John says, Whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? We can't say that we're loving if we shut up our hearts to those who are in need. Let us open our hearts, let us open our lives, and let us give ourselves to one another in love. Let me tell you today that when we love one another, we have great assurances. Look in 1 John with me today, and we'll look at some of those assurances. We notice, for example, in 1 John 2:10 that when we love one another, we are assured that we're in the light and that there is no cause of stumbling in us. You see, if we're not loving each other, we're in the darkness. We're not walking with God. We're going to cause others to stumble, and we will be stumbling and falling ourselves spiritually. But if we love one another, John tells us in I John 3:14 that we have actually passed 8

from death to life. It's evidence that we know the love of God, and that we've experienced that in our hearts and lives, having received the Lord Jesus in obedience to the gospel. If that's true, we will show that love to others. We will have evidence that we have passed from death to life. 1 John 4:7 tells us that if we love one another, we're born of God. It's proof that we have a new spirit and that we are a new creation. The love of God has caused us to be one who loves others. If we love one another, according to 1 John 4:12, God dwells in us. God cannot live in a heart that is void of love, but it's in the heart that loves that God dwells. No one should think that he belongs to God who does not love God's people and who does not show the love of God to all others. Yes, we are to love even our enemies. Let's look at the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5:43-46. Here's what He says, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? As you listen to these words of Jesus, your first reaction might be that it is impossible to pray for someone who intentionally hurts me and love someone who has taken advantage of me. That's what Jesus said. That's what Jesus practiced. He wants us to do more than simply react to those around us. It's not hard to love someone who loves you or to be kind to someone who's kind to you. Anyone can do that. But the real challenge comes in being loving to 9

that person who is unloving to you. When our normal reaction is to hit and hurt and hate, Jesus says to love. Before we leave this lesson today, let's talk about how we can grow in love and how we can become more like our Lord Jesus Christ in loving one another. To do that, let's turn to Galatians 5:16-25, where the apostle Paul explains to us that love is a fruit of the Spirit and that it is dwelling in those that walk and are led by the Spirit. Here's what he says in Galatians 5, beginning in verse 16, I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Yes, love is a fruit of the Spirit. It's what God produces in us when we're led by the Spirit, and when we walk in the Spirit, having crucified the flesh and the lusts thereof. It's not our natural reaction, but it's what God teaches us. To grow in love, we must: be rooted and grounded in love, as Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:17; put on love, as he commanded in Colossians 3:12; walk in love (Ephesians 5:2); do the 10

work and labor of love (1 Thessalonians 1:3 and Hebrews 6:10); stir up love when we assemble together, as the Hebrews writer said in Hebrews10:24; greet one another with love (1 Peter 5:14); keep God's word (1 John 2:5); keep ourselves in the love of God (Jude 21); and not leave our first love. Do you remember these words of Jesus from Revelation 2:4-5? Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Perhaps some have left their first love. It's time to repent and get right with God before it's too late. I trust that you are one who loves God and loves others. My prayer is that you may only increase in your love and abound more and more in love, just as Paul prayed in Philippians 1:9 and 1 Thessalonians 3:12. If you've never responded to God's love, He invites you to come to Him, trusting Him for your salvation and turning your heart from sin to live for God. Upon your confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, give yourself to Him in baptism. As Jesus said, He who believes and is baptized will be saved (Mark 16:16). Won't you be saved today? Won't you let us know how we can help you towards heaven? 11

2012 The Truth in Love Robert Dodson, Speaker Chad Seaton, Director The Truth in Love P.O. Box 865 Hurst, TX 76053 www.thetruthinlove.com www.ttil.tv requests@thetruthinlove.com 12