Love Part 1

The Gospel of Matthew chapter 22. Now what I have in mind to speak about tonight and tomorrow night, Lord willing, is the subject of love. So I trust that it will be beneficial and will stir each one of our hearts to appreciate God's love and to be able to experience its value in our relationships with one another as well.

So we're going to start in Matthew chapter 22 with what's called the Great Commandment. Verse 34, But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Now in the last six months or so, particularly, I have been very much impressed with the wonder of God's love and of how much attention and emphasis is given to it in the scriptures. And I know that historically as assemblies, we have tended to put a premium on truth. We know we believe that the assembly is the house of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

And it may be that somehow in our zeal and appreciation for the concept of truth, we have somehow minimized, and I can only speak personally and in some of the assembly experience that I have known, to somehow think that while we know that love is vital and important, somehow it can be sacrificed when we're fighting for truth. When in reality, that's when we need it the most. I want to just give you a few scriptures that really highlight how great an importance is given to it in the scriptures.

We can start out by the definition of God. 1 John 4 and 8, God is love. If you can put any term on an equation with God, it has to be very, very significant.

This is talking about the essence of God's being. God is love. And I would suggest that everything else that we can say about God will fit in with what love is or be in harmony with its nature and character.

In fact, I'll ask you a question. What do God and Christ and love and glory share in common? Well, as I've been meditating in these different concepts and truths, I'm going to suggest that they're virtually synonymous. If I was to tell you that love is all you need and that love is everything, you would probably wonder if I'd been listening to too much New Age music.

But if I was to tell you that Christ is everything, well, you would relate to that instantly, wouldn't you? Do you know what God's purpose for us is? That we would know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now that little expression in itself would teach us that if we are going to get into the essence, the realm of what God is like, it's going to be in understanding and experiencing the love of Christ. Christ is that outpouring of God's love to mankind.

Now, there's really a lot of other verses as well, but I'll just give you a couple of them. 1 Peter 1, verse 22. This connects truth and love together.

It says, and I'm going to have to look at it because I just used it last night, but I've forgotten it already. 1 Peter 1, verse 22. Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently.

That ties together entering into the realm of truth in our obedience to the gospel. Introduced to the realm of reality, of genuineness, it's unto a life, and that life is love. Genuine, sincere love.

A little farther over in 1 Peter 4, verse 8, it says, and above all things, have fervent love among yourselves. For love shall cover the multitude of sins. And any of us who have been around very long know that there are some sins to cover.

There are things that happen. There are failings, and how we handle those failings and how we handle one another is going to have a tremendous impact upon whether the Christian life becomes an endurance test, a survival of the fittest, or whether it is the nurturing of the tenderness of God for his saints. And there's another theme that I've been thinking a lot about recently, and that's the mystery of God.

And I discovered that that also is very much intertwined with the wonder of love. And I'm not going to say any more about that now. Hopefully I'll get back to it a little bit.

But coming back to our passage, we have the Pharisees confronting the Lord and sort of challenging him with this question, what is the great commandment in the law? What is that one first and great commandment? I would have loved to be able to be there to hear the Savior and answer. I'm sure he wouldn't have rhymed it off like sometimes we rhyme off familiar Bible verses. I'm sure he would have spoken with a depth of feeling, of fervency.

Thou shalt love the Lord. The Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. That doesn't sound like a casual relationship, does it? It doesn't sound like just sort of putting God in a little corner in your life in case you need him in an emergency.

This is talking about a relationship that is all-consuming. You know, I've come to believe that the love of God is a love that gives everything, but also demands everything. It demands first place.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. Now considering the fact that the Law and the Prophets comprise the revelation of God that these people knew at that time, this was their Bible, this was their covenant relationship to God. To have these two commands brought to their attention would surely convey to them this is what really matters to God.

I will say this, if this is the great commandment, if it is the greatest commandment of God, it must be his greatest desire. So if you want to please the Lord, if you want to honor him, this is where to aim. He wants your love.

What does it mean then and and how does this fit to love God with all our heart, soul, our mind? I'm going to suggest that it is a response to what God is. Because as I've already given to you from 1st John 4 and 8, God is love. And God pours out his compassion, his kindness.

He is full of faithfulness, full of goodness. And when we love him, we are simply responding to what he is. And God is also the eternally sovereign, omnipotent God, the creator of all things.

And so we owe our very existence to him. And so to love him is not only the morally appropriate thing in response to his nature and character. He is first.

He is supreme. And if we love him with this all-encompassing love, then we're simply honoring who and what he is. One thing I should tell you that, and hopefully I don't have to explain this, but I am not trying to put you under the law tonight.

All I am doing by going back to the law is to reveal that this is really the ultimate purpose of God. This is what made the law have its meaning. It was really a love relationship.

I want to move you beyond the law to the true avenue by which we can know love and fulfill God's desire. But I'm thinking about this idea, if I were to love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, wouldn't that indicate that there would be no resistance within me to God? There would be no restraint and no resistance. There wouldn't be any area of my life that would be exempt from him.

There wouldn't be any area that he was excluded from. And it would seem that this relationship would obviously dominate every other relationship that I am in. So then what's the connection with the second commandment, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself? If the first and great commandment is a true response to God as he is, the second commandment is really reflecting his love.

This goes back to our original creative purpose, that we were designed in the very image and likeness of God so that we would represent him in this world. That the invisible God would be seen and understood by this wonderful creature that he had designed, a human being who would actually live out in the physical, visible realm, the life and nature of God. That's our calling.

And so when I love my neighbor as myself, I am becoming a reflection of what God is. You know, today there is another commandment inserted in here by modern psychology. I've read a lot of Christian psychology books.

There's quite a bit of help in some of them. But one of the things that I have often noticed is that they latch onto this passage and teach another law. And that is that if you, and before you can ever possibly love another person, you have to learn to love yourself.

I've always had a little bit of trouble with that third law. Because the basic emphasis when you get reading some of this material is that you need to put yourself first. You need to learn to love yourself.

And then when you are whole and complete, then you can hope to be healthy in your love to others. That's the thinking. But the Lord didn't really teach that.

He taught that there's an invisible source of life. And it's really the experience of God's love that equips us and fills us to be able to love others. What I would suggest, what it means when he says thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, he is really assuming that we know how to love ourselves.

And we do it rather well. Even when we disappoint ourselves, somehow we pick ourselves up and next time anybody says anything against us, we're right ready to defend ourselves just the same. We're really quite self-protective, self-preserving, self-promoting, self-providing.

We know how to care about ourselves. What the Lord is saying is, I want you to care for other people the way you instinctively care for yourself. It's not saying that there's anything abnormal about caring properly for yourself.

If we recognize that we belong to God, we ought to take care of ourselves as vessels, as instruments to glorify God. But really, I think the equation fits better as the Lord himself taught it. You love God and you will be entering into a relationship with the one who by his character and nature will form you in a kind of life that will equip you to care about others.

But I want to move from this to the connection that is given with the rest of the laws we have here. Verse 40 says, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. And so I want to show, and this will be familiar to most of you, but in Romans chapter 13 we see that the Apostles clearly grasp this coherence of the law with this truth about love.

Romans 13 and verse 8, this is in the context of government authorities, administration of justice, and so on, and we're told not to owe anyone anything. Verse 8, owe no man anything but to love one another. For he that loveth another has fulfilled the law.

For this thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Now there's a similar truth taught in Galatians chapter 5, and maybe we'll just read that together as well and then consider what these have to tell us. Galatians chapter 5 and verse 13, this chapter has really been, in fact the whole epistle has been teaching us our freedom from the jurisdiction of the old covenant law. Verse 13 of chapter 5 says, For brethren, you have been called unto liberty.

Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by or through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another.

So if love really fulfills the law, then that tells us something about what sin really is. Sin is a failure in love. Love by its very character honors others.

It honors and respects God as he is. It honors and respects others. You know in Ephesians chapter 5 where you have the marriage relationship of husband and wife, it boils down to love and respect.

But it's interesting that really respect arises out of love. It's part of the essential character of love. Why is that? Well we'll get to that, but basically it's because love thinks of the other first.

Love does not think selfishly. That's why love is the fulfillment of the law. That's why love keeps from all the evils that the law condemns.

Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. Every one of those sins involves a self-centered motivation. And so love is really the antidote to the idolatry of self.

And that's what's wrong with us. Letting self become first. Whereas God belongs in that place of being first.

And it is what God is that is to govern and control what we are. And so the apostles as they connected together the revelation of God, the Old Testament law with all its multitude of commandments, they said it can all be boiled down to this. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Because love will actually fulfill all of these requirements of goodness and righteousness that the law expresses. But unfortunately couldn't give us the life to do it with. I wanted to draw attention to that idea in Romans 13 about, oh no man anything but to love one another.

I'm not going to get into the debate about whether it's all right to owe, to have a mortgage. I have one so I guess that tells you where I'm living as you are living. But I would consider that it does mean that we are to fulfill our obligations.

When the money is due, pay it. To whatever obligation you have towards others, discharge your obligation. And then he says except for this one thing.

You know why? Because we'll never be out of debt. To love one another. In other words, love is always owing.

I will never be able to say I don't owe you anything. I don't have to care about you. I am under no obligation to think about you or worry about you or be concerned about how you're doing.

As long as God lives, I am accountable to him and accountable to him to care for you. So love is an obligation that we will never be free from. That's why it's given as the exception that is here.

Let me just draw attention to Galatians chapter six because I may not get back to this. Galatians chapter six and verse one and two says, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such in one in a spirit of meekness considering thyself. Lest thou also be tempted, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Now, did you know that Christ had a law that he gave us a law? He gave us a command. That's what I really want to look at now. What's called the new commandment, but I just want to connect it to this in Galatians chapter six because obviously the apostles understood that the Lord Jesus Christ has has left us with an order.

He has left us with a charge to fulfill and we will see that it is that we are to love one another as he has loved us. That's his commandment. That's the law of Christ, but notice that that links us with our responsibility to care even when it's somebody else's fault that they are in a problem.

If someone is overtaken in a fault, sometimes we have a hard time being sympathetic because we say, well, what is it? You make your bed, you lie in it. Sometimes we have to let people experience the natural consequences of their own choices. We can't always save people from the consequences of the choices, but at the same time we are always responsible to care and to seek the restoration of someone who's gotten tripped up, someone who has failed.

And that's in complete contrast to the atmosphere of legalism where we, in a sense of rivalry or competitiveness, look with contempt upon someone who fails and allow that to make us think that we are more spiritual. He says if you're spiritual, you restore such a one. That's how you will show that you are spiritual, that you are in harmony with the mind and thinking of God, that you will have a care for their deliverance.

And then it says in verse 2, bear ye one another's burdens. The things that are too heavy, the things that overwhelm, are we watching? Are we really watching out for one another? Do we see when somebody is struggling? And do we know that the Lord wants us not to see through them, we manage that quite well, but to see them through. To help them through life on the way to eternal glory.

Let's go to John chapter 13. John chapter 13 where we have this great new commandment. Let's start reading at verse 33.

This is the upper room and the Lord is preparing his disciples for his departure. And he says, little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek me and as I said unto the Jews, whither I go you cannot come.

So now I say to you, a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one to another. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? So obviously he got the message, right? He completely missed what the Lord was saying because all he heard is, I'm going away.

I'm going away. And Peter says, Lord where are you going? What's happening? And so he missed the impact of what the Lord was trying to say. I'm going away.

I want you to take care of each other. I want you to love one another as I have loved you. Now as we're going to look at some of the next few verses in chapter 14 and 15 that relate to love, I think we can see that what we have here is an advance on the commandment of the law.

Let's notice a few of these verses. Chapter 14, he's talked about the Holy Spirit being given to them. Verse 18, he says, I will not leave you comfortless.

I will come to you yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more, but you see me. Because I live, you shall live also. At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

He that has my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. And so then there's a question asked, well how is it you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Again, Jesus answered in verse 23 and said unto them, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him.

And we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings. And the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.

Drop down to verse 31. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

Now you know where he's going. He's going to Gethsemane and then to Calvary. In chapter 15, where we have the vine and the branches, in verse 8 he says, Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. Now under the law, the command was, love your neighbor as yourself. Do you see anything more here? He says, love one another as I have loved you.

And then he says, greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. What we are being introduced to now is the fullness of love, which could not be expressed or even commanded under the law. This is the love that does not just ask for equality, it asks to be self-sacrificing, because that's his love to us.

And so the character of the love that we are being introduced to here is a love that is primarily taught by example. He says, I want you to love one another as I have loved you. And so they would know, as they had already experienced, the wonderful care and interest of the Savior in them.

But they were going to have their eyes opened in a much greater way in just a few days, as they grasped the meaning of Calvary that was going to overwhelm them. And no doubt it would be after he was raised from the dead, and they would look back through the lens of resurrection upon Calvary and realize he gave himself for us. He died for us to bring us into a relationship to God.

He died to secure us, to save us, to bring us into the relationship which he enjoys with the Father. And so this is a love that is self-sacrificing. And I guess if there is one characteristic that I would attach to our definition of love as Christian love, it is simply the love that sacrifices oneself for the sake of another.

And something that I think you could see as we look at this is that in every direction we look in the relationships of love, love puts the other first. Now, you may have noticed another word, another term being used interwoven with love here that might be a little bit disturbing, and that's the word commandment. We don't like being told what to do, do we? We don't get along very well with somebody who keeps telling us what to do.

How long would your friendship last if you told someone, you can be my friend as long as you do everything I tell you? You know what kind of response you would probably get? Who was your slave last year? Why is this right? Why does the Savior say this without any embarrassment? You are my friends if you do whatever I tell you. And if you want to enjoy my love, keep my commandments. You know why? Because love does not deny or nullify authority.

Love acknowledges true authority. And as God is supreme, as he is sovereign over all things, that'll never change. And so love is in harmony with reality.

Love honors reality. And so I show my love to God by my obedience. The Lord Jesus is introducing a pattern relationship.

He came from the Father, and he taught us the Father's name. He taught us to relate to God in the character as Father. And while I hope you are happily agreed that the Lord Jesus is the eternal Son of God, this is an eternal relationship.

Yet in coming into manhood, he entered into a phase of his sonship as a dependent man in relationship to God, calling God my Father. And in that aspect of his relationship, we share that place. We are sons of God, and the rich blessings of our relationship to God is in the relationship as sons.

What a precious reality. And so the Lord Jesus is teaching his own about a pattern relationship. And so he says, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

You know, that should stagger us to think about the infinite God and the love that he has for his Son. And to think that this same Son loves us with the very same love that he has experienced with the Father. But he also wants us to understand that he abides, he enjoys, he remains in the sunshine of the Father's love, in the atmosphere of submission and obedience, because he honors the Father.

Notice how he says it in chapter 14 and verse 31, but that the world may know that I love the Father. And as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence, to Gethsemane and to Calvary.

Think about expressing a love, a devotion to someone who has ordered your death, who is going to hand you over to be tortured. What obedience, what submissiveness, what trust in the Father's heart and the Father's hand to say, just what the Father is telling me to do, I'm going to fulfill it, even to death. That the world may know that I love the Father.

And so we have this, I don't know if you want to call it attention, this challenge of relationship of the Lord Jesus as God's Son being absolutely faithful to God, completely devoted to the Father's glory, and yet he loves these men. He cares about us. And to satisfy his love to the Father and his love to us, he sacrifices himself.

He enters that place where holy justice meets our guilt. And so he says, I want you to love one another as I have loved you. That's the character of the love.

And while we are not in an identical pattern of the relationship, yet we have the same challenge. Our first responsibility is to love God and to manifest it by our obedience, our submissiveness, our willingness to please him and to serve him. And at the same time, we are commanded to love one another, to care about one another.

And so each one of us, if we're going to be faithful to God and faithful to one another, we come into this tension where we must remain loyal to God's truth and principles, and yet have a genuine, genuine, sincere care for fellow believers, even in their failings. And so this is really bringing us into the sphere of the kind of love relationship that is involved in our relationship with God. Now, in the time that I have left, I want to just reach a little further into chapter 17 and see where he wants to take us.

And this is really a connection of love and glory. John chapter 17, this is really the prayer of the Lord Jesus just before he's going to go into Gethsemane. And he's consciously, deliberately praying to the Father where the disciples can listen to him.

So they will get a glimpse of his interest and his care for them as he is today. So let's notice the last few verses, John 17 verse 22, down to the end of the chapter. He says, And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.

And that the world may know that thou hast sent me and has loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

And I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them. Now when you get glory and love intertwined over and over again, you know there has to be a very, very important connection. There's a number of times glory is referred to in this chapter, and if we were to go back to verse 5, he speaks about a glory there which he had with the Father before the world was.

Now that's clearly his eternal glory, the glory of deity, and in that we will never share. But when we come to the end of the chapter, we are talking about a glory that he has been given by the Father, which he is sharing with us. And I think that's why I drew attention to this pattern relationship, and that he's not only the eternal Son of God in all his eternal glory of deity, but in entering into humanity, there's an aspect of his Sonship, of the Son-Father relationship, into which we have been brought, and we share a place with him.

And notice that it says, the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one. Now how does that work together? Could I suggest that this is a oneness of love? A oneness of life. We experience it in the New Testament fullness as members of the body of Christ.

We are brought into such a close relationship. We are said to be part of himself. And the only thing in the natural realm that corresponds to it is marriage, where two become one.

And we, in 1 Corinthians 6 and 17, are said, he that is joined to the Lord. Identical phrasing as marriage. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

So we actually share a life together. And if you want to understand eternal life, that you have been blessed with, it's actually life shared with Christ. It is a life of union with him.

And the Lord Jesus has so embraced us to himself, that he is bringing us into oneness with himself. So whether you look at the term sons or in the relationship of the body of Christ, there is this expression of oneness. And as the Father and the Son have an eternal oneness in perfection, there is this wonderful aspect in which he is drawing us into oneness with himself.

That they may be one as we are one. It seems to be connected to the divine indwelling, which is touched on in chapter 14. So it says that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.

You can't get much closer, can you? To think that God would ever want to bring us so close as to say that we are one. As I say, in natural human relationships, that becomes a very exclusive relationship that we only give to one other human being. And so God, in his great love, has a longing for our closeness to himself, our oneness with himself.

So as we think about this idea of glory, the glory thou hast given me, and then again the Lord Jesus connects it in verse 24. He says, Father, I want them to be with me. My will is that they be with me where I am.

That they may behold my glory for thou, sorry, my glory which thou hast given me for thou lovest me. Before the foundation of the world. So could I suggest to you that this is love's glory? And I think just a natural explanation would help us to understand this.

When you love somebody, whether it's in your family or a close friend, but let's just think about family for a moment. If you want to warm a parent's heart, just say something nice about one of their children. And the same thing goes for grandchildren.

Why? Because when you love someone, you desire to see them honored. You desire their glory. The Father loves the Son.

And when that day comes and the Son is proclaimed as sovereign Lord throughout the universe, it will be to the glory of God the Father. No sense of rivalry, but a complete delight that the object of his love is being honored and exalted. So that's the character of love.

That those that we love, we delight to see them succeed, prosper and do well. And so as the Lord Jesus is saying here that you have loved me. And because you have loved me, you have honored me.

And you want to glorify me and bring me out into display that my honor and splendor might be evident to all. And to think that the Lord Jesus has the same attitude to us. He wants to see you glorified.

So you don't have to worry about exalting yourself. You don't have to worry about your glory. You can leave it safely in the hands of the one who loves you to such a depth that he will not be satisfied until you stand with him in glory.

Perfect, pure, like himself, honored with him forever. And so there's a wonderful connection between love and glory. And I'll have to leave it.

I've already gone over the time. I'll have to leave it until tomorrow night when we get into Ephesians 3 hopefully to see that this again is going to be seen in that God's glory is going to be known in the ages to come through the love relationship of Christ and the church, shall we pray. Our Father, we draw near to thee.

And we pray that we may be able to grasp somehow the enormity of thy love. How pure, how powerful it is, how compelling it is. When we think of what it has caused thee to do, to take the most treasured possession that thou dost have, thy one and only Son, and to give him to the sacrifice of the cross, that thou might extend thy love to us, and with him, in all his resurrection, honor, and glory, to embrace us and to draw us into a fellowship of love.

Our Father, we pray that thou might open our hearts and minds, that we might grasp more of the depth of thy being. And to appreciate the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and how fully he loved thee, how fully he loves us. And we long that our lives may also more fully reflect that kind of love.

We commit ourselves to thee and seek thy gracious blessing by sustaining care upon us as we part and live our lives. May thy grace be upon us. In our Savior's precious name.

Amen. Could we sing together 431? And kindly remember we're meeting tomorrow night at the same time. 431.

O thee, deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free, rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me. Underneath me, all around me, is the current of thy love leading onward, leading homeward to my glorious rest above. 431.