Randall Caselman
Bella Vista Church of Christ
2/14/99 am
Living In Love From Above #1
Reading I John 4.7 - 5.4
Today is Valentine’s Day
-A day to celebrate love
-A day to honor love and loving
-A day to resolve to grow in our love for others
-A day to practice expressing our love for one another
Love is difficult to define
- Webster says it is a feeling of strong affection; a feeling of warm attachment; a feeling of benevolence and goodwill toward others.
- Love is the dominate and indispensable virtue of the Judeo-Christian religions. Without love there can be no Christianity.
- Paul says LOVE is the greatest of Christian graces: Now abideth faith, hope and love but the greatest is love.
- Jesus said that loving God and loving others is the badge of discipleship: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.... The world will know you are my disciple when you love one another.”
- In the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus declared you are the Son of your Father in Heaven when you love your enemies and love those who persecute and despitefully use you.
- John, in our text tells us that everybody who loves has been born of God and knows God for God is love.
I believe it is reasonable and right for us to celebrate love and the act of loving. In fact, as a church, we come here each week to celebrate God’s love for us...to celebrate love from above. Do we have any concept of how much God loves us? I doubt it. Listen to these scriptures:
John 3.16 - God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten, His one and only Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.
Romans 5.6-9 - You see, at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly...God demonstrated His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, aliens, ugly, unloveable and undeserving Christ died for us.
Ephesians 2.4, 8 & 9 - Because of His great love for us, God who is rich in
mercy made us alive with Christ...even when we were dead in our sins and transgressions...for it is by grace we are saved, through faith...and this is not from ourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works so that none of us can boast.
Our text this morning tells us WE CAN KNOW how much God loves us. He demonstrated His love, His warm attachment, His benevolence and goodwill, his grace and mercy toward us by sending His son to:
- Save us
- Redeem us
- To atone for our sin
- To reconcile us
- To make us His people, His family, sheep in His pasture.
Paul declares that we have been bought with a price. We have been redeemed, purchased, pardoned and saved with love from above...with the blood of Jesus.
Now, based upon these scriptures and our understanding, to some extent, of God’s love for us, how should we respond? How should we behave? How should this love from above impact our lives daily? Well, Jesus gives us the answer when He said the whole duty of man, the purpose of our being, the greatest of all commandments is this: To love God with all our heart, mind body and soul. To love God with all our emotional mental, physical and spiritual strength and to love others as ourselves.
So the sermon today, LEARNING TO LIVE IN GOD’S LOVE, asks:
How are we to respond to His love for us? What is the proper behavior for those loved from above - loved of God? What does God’s love compel, motivate us to be and do?
Then tonight, we’ll talk about Learning How to Live and Love One Another, asks how we apply this love from above to our daily relationships with one another.
For the application this morning I want you to turn in your Bibles to John chapters 3 & 4 which are the narratives of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and the woman at Jacob’s well.
LIVING IN GOD’S LOVE DEMANDS THAT WE BE BORN AGAIN - THAT WE BE BORN FROM ABOVE - THAT WE DRINK JESUS’ LIVING WATER. We’re talking about a spiritual renewal, a new beginning, conversion, being born again of water and spirit, repentance and baptism as those on Pentecost. Jesus said: Except you be born again of water and spirit you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Matthew 18.3 - I tell you the truth, unless you be converted, unless you change,and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Peter’s plea in 3.19 was: Repent and be converted, repent and be changed, repent turn to God, so that your sins will be wiped out (forgiven).
Paul tells us that Jesus saved us through this washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
I love you this morning but I must tell you this: If you have not been born again of water and spirit; if you have not been converted; if you have not been cleansed in the act of New Testament baptism; you are not saved; you are not in the Kingdom of God; you are not a child of God; you are not living in love from above. For we are saved by faith...for as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ...have been clothed with Christ.
SECONDLY, GOD’S LOVE COMPELS US TO SEE OUR NEED AND ACKNOWLEDGE OUR SINS.
Jesus asked the woman at the well to bring her husband. Jesus, the light of the world, now exposes her evil deeds...the sin and spiritual disorder of her life. Salvation, forgiveness of our sins and eternal life, are free gifts of God. To receive them we must see our need, acknowledge our sins and repent of them. In Luke 13.3 - 5 Jesus plainly says that unless we are willing to acknowledge our sins and repent of them we will perish.
We live in an economy today where sins are:
• Denied - we refuse to take responsibility for our behavior.
• Blamed on our parents
• Blamed on our environment
• Blamed on our genetics
• We try to hide our sins
• Explain them... Justify them... Excuse them
But God simply asks us to do two things: confess and acknowledge our sins and turn from them. Listen to John 1. 8-9, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. What a joy, what a simple formula for joy! Forgiveness is based upon acknowledgment of sin yet some of us refuse to live in the joy of love from above because we are too proud to acknowledge our sins...confess our faults.
THIRDLY, LIVING IN LOVE FROM ABOVE IS LEARNING TO WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.
I think we can conclude that this woman was a God worshiper. But she worshiped according to Samaritan tradition - not in spirit and truth. Spirit and truth worship means that in our response to God’s love we do right things for the right reasons. For instance:
Why are we here this morning? Did we come to worship and praise God or to be seen by others? Did we come to please our parents, our spouse, or to please God?
I once had a man tell me that he was baptized so that his wife would stop nagging him. He did the right thing but for the wrong reason. Church, this kind of worship and service to God is not pleasing. It is not the kind of worship and service that he wants from us.
There are two Greek words for worship in the New Testament:
- Pros-ka-neeo
- La-trre-o
Pros-ka-neeo means acts of worship done in reverence to God. La-Trre-o means acts of service done out of reverence to Him. Jesus used both of these words in Matthew 4.10 when He said to Satan: It is written worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, formally, like being present here today. God is to be served daily in spirit and truth. Are we willing? Are we willing to drop all our traditions, think-so’s, preferences and hypocrisies and just worship and serve Jesus in spirit and in truth? I pray we are.
THEN, NUMBER FOUR, WE MUST LEAVE OUR WATER POTS.
This lady came to the well in search of water to quench her physical thirst. She left with living water that saves the soul. Church, the Samaritan woman had to re-prioritize her life and so must we...and so must we. There are some here this morning who have not obeyed the gospel because they are not willing to give up some things in their lives for Jesus. Some of us who have been Christians for years are not totally living in love from above because we are still holding on to some favorite water pots.
Question: What water pot do you and your preacher need to leave behind?
- Trust in money?
- Faith in human accomplishments?
- Some prized possession?
- Some family religious position?
- A favorite sin?
- Our own pride?
Don’t allow anything - anything - to stand between you and God. Come live in his love.
Then finally this morning - like this lady at the well, we must be willing to invite others to “come see”. Church, when we truly understand the joy of living in love from above we will want to share it with others. We’ll be like this lady: She didn’t ask anyone’s permission; she didn’t have to be prodded by the preacher. You see, loving God with all our heart, mind, body and soul and loving others as ourselves compels us, drives us, motivates us to say: “come see”.
Question: What do you need to do this morning to live in love from above?
- Need to be born again
- Need to acknowledge some sin
- Need to worship and serve Him in Spirit and truth
- Need to leave some water pots
- Need to become more evangelistic
Whatever your need, come to Jesus as we stand and sing.
