May I share with you one of the great movie scenes, maybe the most popular movie scenes, over the last 25 years, check this out. We live in a cynical world, a cynical. We work in a business of tough competitors. You, complete me.
Has you? You had me at hello. I had me at hello. You're the best talking group I've ever been in.
Anybody know a movie that's from? Jerry LaGuardia, right? Like the classic scene, I don't know if you remember like the first time you saw it, and you were with your girlfriend, and she was like, why can't you love me like that? Maybe I'll just put my own baggage out there.
You complete me. You had me at hello. The girlfriend's all crying on the couch. It's a modern day wonderland of love.
At least what we think love is, or what we think love is supposed to be. At least what we were taught maybe or shown. I mean, that scene, right? It's just, and love, right?
It's supposed to be so moving and so beautiful. And it is, but the problem is for most of us, that's not always or even usually true. It's not our own experience with love. In fact, can I tell you, this is the truth.
It's not even Jerry Maguires. Anybody know that, do you know Jerry Maguire based on a real character? Lee Steinberg, he was like the Uber sports agent of the time when that movie was made. Do you know what in real life, super agent?
Lee Steinberg is divorced. That's right, and bankrupt, and struggling with alcohol. He's several years into recovery. See, Jesus commands us to love, and we think we understand what that means.
We watch that and go, yes, that's what I want. I want love, so I understand what Jesus's command is. I know what it looks like and feels like. We dream of it, right?
From the time where little kids growing up, what kind of love looks a certain way, it follows a certain pattern. If you were a little girl, it's likely you had one of these, right? Put the floor down here, that's not going down. The Barbie dream house.
And then we add Ken and Barbie. Now these are a little matted from you, but I remember when Courtney was my oldest, and then John was 16 or 18 months behind her, Courtney would always go, can we come play Barbies? A guy would go, if I could be GI Joe, that was called John Guy, and that was always the thing. But we brought up with this concept of love, this is what it's going to look like, and these two are going to love each other, and we're going to occupy this house, and build this live, Ken, me, Barbie, Mary's, Ken.
They live happily ever after in a plastic wonderland. They buy themselves a dream van, and all the rest. The only thing is, this dream house is often built on, remember what this is? The files that contained all of my past, all of the things that the record of my rights and wrongs, all the things people have said to me and done to me, all the junk I inherited from my mom and my dad, and all the stuff that I thought was normal, that turns out it was a normal, and so inevitably we have this concept of what love is, but it's built on a pretty shaky ground.
It's built on pretty shaky ground. And so welcome to the final week of Love Does. I wish we could go and do this series for a year. I think we're seven weeks into it or so.
This is, I should have the elders hold me this. I think we have to circle back to this so regularly. It's so foundational. This is everything.
There's nothing more important than I'm ever going to teach you up here. I'm going to say that again. There is nothing more important than I am ever going to teach you up here. It's just about life and love, but about Jesus and what he called the gospel and why he came for what purpose.
And so before we conclude with what Love does, I want to just go backwards one more time so we can go forward about 2,000 years ago. Jesus is born in a city called Bethlehem. And now it's important you understand that his birth, and his life, and his death, and his resurrection are the most historically provable and documented events of their time. You have to get this because otherwise it's not so you start to think some of this is just like, religious fairy tale, but that is not true.
The biblical accounts of Jesus's life are not mere stories. They are documented facts. And Jesus shows up, this real life person shows up and he declares what is known as his gospel, which means he says, I'm here to share with you good news. Now we know, we talk about the gospel of Jesus, but I'm not sure we really understand like they did then.
What this good news was that he came to clear him. Here was Jesus's good news. His good news was the Kingdom of God, which was once far and over there, has now come here and is available to you to live in and experience right now. Eternal life does not begin for you once you die.
As believers, eternal life begins for you, is born in you the minute you believe. And he says, here's the good news. I've come to establish a new covenant with you, a new promise. I'm starting something new.
There was an old promise between God and man. I'm going to start a new promise between God and man. Now when Jesus was born, the nation of Israel, those are his people, right? They had been living under what was known as the old promise, the old covenant, the old way that God related to his people.
If you're familiar with the Bible at all, you know the kind of two thirds of the beginning of the Old Testament. And that's kind of ruled, the Old Testament is ruled by the old covenant, the older promise of God, that had been in place, that Jesus was born for generations. It was given to the patriarch of Israel, Moses. And it was that God was going, here's what the old covenant was.
God is going to establish a relationship with people, and he's going to do it by first establishing a nation called Israel. And God would bless that nation, and then they would be a blessing. Now this covenant, this promise between God and Israel was conditional. It was essentially, Israel, if you obey my laws and my commands, you will be blessed.
And if you do not obey my laws and commands, if you choose your own way, your own path, well then you won't be, you'll be operating outside of my blessing. And so here's how the old covenant worked between a nation and God. If you do, I will, if you don't, I won't. Now see, here's the problem.
We tend to take that old covenant methodology, and we sprinkle Jesus on it. But we still keep acting it out in all kinds of areas of our life, especially we think that that's how God interacts with us. God does not interact with us that way anymore. Now at the heart of the old covenant was the temple system, where sacred man and sacred places with really nice robes, they kept behind closed walls, sacred texts, full of laws and commands that people were to keep.
And to stay right with God, you had to do two things. The first thing you had to do in the old covenant model was you had to be a good person, as measured by how well you kept all of these laws. That's how you stayed right with God. You kept it first, it was the big 10 commandments.
But then over time, they added on and added on, it was over 600 of them. And the second way you stayed right with God was you would make yourself right, understand that you must have broken one of those 600 plus commands, so there was a complex temple system of sacrifices, symbolically sacrifices of animals atoning for covering, at least until the next ceremonial sacrificial ceremony, your transgressions. This goes on for centuries. Jesus shows up and he goes, I have good news for you.
That's over. That's done. God is no longer relating to you on a conditional promise and you no longer have to worry about it. You've done enough or if you've covered your sins enough.
Jesus says, I'm going to establish and put something brand new in place that is not like the old. In fact, the scripture say, it's not only not like it, it's better, it's superior. He said the old isn't going away, it's just that I'm fulfilling it for you. And so Jesus serves as the once for all sacrifice for all the sins of all of the whole world.
This new covenant, this new promise, teaches that the laws weren't actually there, this is kind of crazy, okay? The laws got it given the laws, not believing you'd be able to follow them. They were not given so that you could be good enough to earn your way to heaven. The laws were actually there to show you that you couldn't be good enough.
Thus you are going to need some saving and to save your enter Jesus and a new way to God. And so Jesus gathers on that famed last supper evening and he holds up a glass of wine and he says, this wine represents my blood, which is going to symbolize for you a new covenant. I will fulfill on your behalf all of the old laws, I'll take you, I'll make you righteous. I will be the one sacrifice for all.
The old covenant is now fulfilled and done away with. And you will be made right before God, not by your works, but by faith in the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. He says, if you would put your faith in me and repent which is eventually the faith and religious word which means change your mind, change the direction, the path you're going, change what it is you believe. If you would repent and follow, here's what will happen.
God has now in the old covenant, God 12th in the temple, in the new covenant, God now dwells in the hearts of his people. And he says, as a result, God is no longer there. He's in you and with you and he is going to empower you to obey the one commandment that underlies the new covenant. 600 plus gone fulfilled, one new one, you can't do it on your own, but I've left the building and I will help you do it.
Do you know what the new command was? This is what he said at dinner that night, a new command I'm giving you. Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another.
That is the singular great command of this new gospel, of this good news. The good news is the promise of God is no longer conditional. If you will, I will if you won't, I won't. It is, I have satisfied all the laws for you.
I love you. Now love. Jesus goes on by this. If I just stop there, if I went to somebody on the street and said, how do you know a Christian?
I mean, a lot of us think, especially when we get caught up in the church, well, it's by how good we keep the commands, how good a person we are, how nice a person we are, how blessed we appear to be, how much scripture we have memorized, how many scriptures we have on walls. Somebody in this morning was showing me the of scripture, how many bumper stickers we have, how many tattoos we have, how much money we give to the church, how many mission trips we go on. Jesus goes, yeah, that's all well and good. Back later on, we go, it's actually worthless.
If you don't do this one thing, if you don't love. He goes, no, this is how people know that you're my follower. Everyone will know you're my disciple. If you love one another.
The new covenant is not about keeping the laws and being a good person. It is about grace, which means unmerited favor. It means I did nothing to deserve my standing before God. Jesus did.
Grace was, guys, and still is, dangerous and unsettling. In fact, it's threatening to the religious leaders in the temple system. And it's even threatening for some of us that are trying to be good. They, and we have lots to lose in some sense, if grace wins out.
And so now the temple and religious big wigs of the day, they're always trying to trick Jesus up, because if grace wins and the temple model goes away and God lives with his people, well, then they're out of work. It's on a couple of different occasions. Conversations went down that went like this. A religious leader comes up to Jesus to try to trip him up and goes, teacher, what's the greatest commandment in the law?
Tell me the law. And Jesus goes, love. Love the Lord your God, with all of your hearts, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it.
It's like it in importance, it's equal to it in value. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then to make sure that the religious leader got it, he says, let me explain to you all of the law and the prophets, all of the things that you're protecting, all of it, hang on these two commandments. Do these, all of the other stuff falls into place.
Now I know this is crazy, because you weren't taught this growing up a lot, because even our moms and dads like to make sure that we follow the rules, right? And that there are punishments in place. And I love you if you do, and I can tell you if you don't. And so this is hard, right?
If you think of understanding, though, the apostle Paul, who himself was a leader in the temple system, he says, I was the best law keeper on all of Israel. I was the most righteous guy there was. He goes, but now I've come to understand all the things that I did that I thought were game for me, were really garbage. They're worthless.
In fact, he comes to a statement which is really quite crazy. He says, the only thing that counts, the only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love. That's it. It seems fairly simple.
The only thing that counts is love. Now here's the key. It's not the jury McQuire. Oh, I love you.
It's not kind of love. It's not romantic or physical or erotic or brotherly. This is not what Jesus is talking about. We get confused because we think we understand what love is and what Jesus commands is something quite different.
Jesus commands a kind of love in the Greek with the word agape. This is a charitable self-sacrificing, self-denying. Oh, they're seeking an often non-returning kind of love. This is not the kind of love that you feel.
It's not the kind of love you fall in and out of it. It's not the kind of love that grows apart over time. This is the kind of love that you do. It's the kind of love that is a verb.
It is an action. And I got to be honest with you. It often, if you get it, it often to our humanness, doesn't feel all that good. It's not like the kind of love we romanticize or we put in the movies.
It's not the kind of love that just comes in your mind. The first time you read what Jesus is commanding you to do, this kind of love is unnatural. It doesn't sometimes seem right or fair. And I'll go further.
What Jesus is commanding you and I to do, this way of loving, is actually impossible. You can't do it unless God has left a building and dwells in your heart and soul. Because if he does, then you can. So I think, if you've been trying, maybe like I have, along these few weeks to love like this, what you've probably learned that is in our natural state, it's hard.
So week after week now, I've enrolled you in Dr. Eismann's class, Loveology 101. How to be a better lover this Sunday at Men of Hills. Because if that's all that counts, I mean, I spent my whole religious life trying to be a good person, but now you're telling me that is worthless.
If all that counts is how I love, then we should probably be working on it. And so we begin working on it. Week one, right? We learn that what underlies this kind of agape love is the concept of mutual submission.
I lay down my hopes, my dreams, my plans for the future, I'm willing to lay them down so that yours might win. That your future plans and dreams and hopes might live. Because we're supposed to love like Jesus loved and Jesus lays down his life willingly so that we might live and then says, now you go and do the same. Is that natural?
Because it ain't easy. Because I got plans and sometimes you stand in the way. See the church of Jesus, I mean even, especially just in here, right? Every relationship in here should just be like this mutual submission fest.
Like you should see each other out there and you're waiting in line at the cafe, no you go before me, no you go before me. Not only should you go before me, I'll treat you, what would you like? No, what would you like? Right, like this is what it would look like you'd start to get a sense, man, these people.
You know, I think he might be a Christian. Oh, he's got a bumper sucker, no, did you see how he loved? In the last couple weeks, trying to learn how to be a better lover, a loveology 201 and 301, we've looked at Paul's great treatise on Agape in 1 Corinthians 13. Now remember, this is a guy that was once the best keeper of the law in all of Israel.
And he thought it was to his game. Here's what he came to discover. And he's talking about himself. He goes, if I speak in the tongues of men or angels, but I don't have love.
I'm only resounding, gonger, a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and I can find them all the mysteries, I have all the knowledge and if I have faith that can move mountains, I don't have love. I'm nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor, I give my body over to hardship that I could boast, but I don't have love.
I've gained nothing. It's all, you know what? That's a fancy way of saying Paul's like, look, the only thing that counts, let me just kind of sum it up, is faith expressing itself through love. It's all that matters.
Thus as a people of God or a people interested in the things of God or a people wondering about God. And this just clears up Christianity so much, right? Shouldn't we as a people worry a lot more about if we've loved enough and worry a little bit less about if we've been good enough? And so Paul goes on, he goes, let me explain what I'm talking about.
Explain what I got because he goes, a got-be love is patient. Well, that's not normal, it's kind, no, that's not normal, it doesn't envy, it doesn't envy. He goes on, it doesn't boast, it's not proud, it doesn't designer others, it's not self-seeking. It's not easily angered.
And then we looked at this a couple weeks ago, it keeps no record of wrong. Does anybody remember what this baby is right here? It's my record of wrongs. Remember this is John's caffile cabinet right here?
This is my kid's filing cabinet right here. Anybody remember who this is? That's right, yours, I've got all your emails that are talked right in there, right? And then this one down here, this one is just all the stuff that I've piled up about myself along the way.
All the things people have done and said hurt or left a mark or got me thinking about myself in certain ways. Love keeps no record of wrongs, but I do. And what we learned is that when I keep these files of wrongs, they create filters in my mind, and we run all of our experiences through them. And when I run my experiences, when I run what you're saying or doing through that pile of experiences, it ultimately keeps me from loving, at least the way that Jesus loves.
Because remember the good news of this gospel, this new covenant is not only that Jesus forgives your sins, but he forgets your sins. And that's what really restores the relationship. It's not like he's begrudgingly going, well, I guess I'm going to have to let this go because Jesus died. He doesn't say it anymore.
When he looks at you, he doesn't run well, remember that time of night in college? I mean, I forgive it, but I can't get past it. That's not the way he loves you. Paul goes on, he goes, look, love doesn't, don't why you're evil?
Every choice isn't true. It always looked at this last week. It always protects and trusts and hopes and perseveres. I mean, when we talked about love, right?
Love always trusts. What does that look like? And we discovered last week that there's so much power in loving like that. In fact, if you go back and listen to last week, we looked at the research that shows that that principle of always trusting, always believing, always hoping, that is the only singular principle sociologists have studied.
It is the reason behind every marriage that makes trust and belief in the most generous explanation for others and their wrongs. And so today, here's what we are. We conclude with this. Paul starts wrapping up.
He goes, you know, love, it never fails. Then he explains, he goes, look, where there's prophecies, they're going to cease, where there's tongues, they're going to be still, where there's knowledge, that'll pass away. Because now we know in part, we prophesy in part. But when completeness comes, what does it part?
Disappears. And Paul's going back to his opening lines, right? He's going, look, love is the only thing that lasts. Prophecy doesn't last, spiritual gifts, wisdom.
He says when completeness comes, what he means is when Jesus comes and establishes his kingdom here on earth. Nobody's going to need to prophesy about Jesus in the kingdom to come. You know why? Because he's going to be standing right there.
And then he says in the kingdom to come, you're not going to need spiritual gifts. You're not going to need tongues and healing, because the healer will be right there. Knowledge, knowledge, if it's completeness right there. And God right now, we're just trying to, you know, but then we'll know in whole.
Paul says there is only one thing, this is so cool. There is only one thing that will carry over. There is only one remnant of this kingdom in the kingdom to come. There is only one transcendent commandment.
There is only one virtue that counts. Love. That's what allows Jesus to stand up and say, the kingdom of God starts now. It starts with love.
And it starts with love doing this completely unnatural, inhuman, more than human choice to agape one another. It's all that matters. And he concludes with a big thought. Here's what he says.
I think he says it to you and I. And it's almost kind of, I mean, I could see him kind of being frustrated, right? Remember, he's talking to these people in the Corinth and they're suing each other and dragging each other into court and doing all kinds of stuff to each other. And he says, look, you've got to grow up.
You've got to grow up in the way your understanding of love is. He says, look, what happens to child? I talk like a child and I thought like a child and I reason like a child, but when I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. Now Google, this guy, you'll find lots of sermons on it, because the church over the years has used it for lots of things to try to get people to conform and behave.
It's probably been used more than anything to get people to follow old covenant laws and rules. But that's not what Paul's talking about. His point is that you and I tend to have a childish understanding about love. Oh, you know, where's Paul to dream van around front and get ragsie the dog?
Well, you know, but he's going, this isn't it. This is a share, it's a fallacy. You've got to grow up. That's not the kind of love I'm talking about.
He says, when I was a child, I taught about love like a child. When I was a child, I thought about love like a child. I understood it immaturally. And when I was a child, I reasoned about love like a child.
He says like, when I spoke about love, I didn't know what I was talking about. I spoke about stupid things. You know what? One of the first things that a child learns growing up, right, are things you should say and things you shouldn't say.
And the next thing, the next time you learn that is when you're a husband. You learn, there are certain things you should say, and there are certain things that you shouldn't say. Things that you say in your head and you don't let out out. Anybody remember the first time you cursed in front of your parents?
I remember mine very vividly. I was bounding downstairs. I had some friends at the bottom of the stairs. I asked my mom, like a ghost somewhere with them.
She said, yes. Here I came trucking downstairs. And it was an overhang when you got to the lower stairs. And I now had just grown up enough.
Like, you know, I must have grown an inch since I went by it the last time. And I bound in. And that thing caught me right in the head. And down I went and out came a word.
Ooh. And I remember thinking to myself, like where did that come from? And number two, man, I am dead. Like, I'm dead.
I shouldn't say those things because my parents told me not to. I remember trying to teach my kids not to curse. You're trying to raise kids and teach them not to curse. And then you take them to a professional sporting event.
And you just sit there and you're like, and I'm trying to remember the first time I'm trying to make these kids are just hearing words and I'm going, so I'm trying to figure out how to teach them. Don't do that. And so I started going every time somebody would say something. I'm not proud of this.
And this isn't the right way to go about it. But somebody would say something. I'd be like lean over to what I'm going to go. I think you went to Harvard.
You think you went to Harvard or Princeton. Because they talk like that all the time. And just kind of like trying to get them to understand it's not cool to curse. But then if I did hear them curse, what did I do?
I did the old trick that my mom had taught me. Except it's a lot easier when you can just pump the soap out now. So they broke the command and there was payment for the command. And dad said, don't curse.
And you cursed. And now there was a law there. And dad's going to punish you. And I think that you and I, we're mostly grown up in this room.
And we still relate to God with cursing this way. Do you really think God has a book up in heaven that's got certain letters in a row and goes, if you do that, you say that, then I'm going to do this. We relate to God like a child relates to God. We don't curse because God said not to.
And then we'll get to it. He might do something to us if we do. That's not it. That's speaking like a child.
And here's what Jesus said about it. Because remember, the laws are no longer going to be in a second place. They're going to be written in our heart. Jesus goes, for the mouth speaks, what the heart's full of.
One translation says, what comes out of your mouth proceeds from your heart. And it's the heart that defiles a person. It's a heart issue, not a word issue. Language, the way we speak to one another, flows out of our hearts.
When I was a child, I didn't speak badly because it was the law. I was told not to curse or gossip. I knew it was a sin. Grown up thinking is that I need to stop worrying about what's coming out of my mouth.
And I got to start worrying about what's going on in my heart because if I get that changed, what comes out of my mouth will be different. It's not the words that are the issue. It's not the stringing together of certain vowels and consonants under the problem. It's the heart from which they're spraying.
Paul says, when it comes to loving people, I need to have God dwell in me, change me, live within me, and that will change what I say to and about people. Listen, agape, big principle, crazy principle that it's this big. But it is. Paul only gives three things here.
One of them is this. When it comes to agape, words matter. What we say to one another and about one another matters. Husbands, what you say to your wife matters.
You know what matters even more? What you say about your wife, to your kids or your friends? It matters. Words have this incredible power to deploy or destroy love.
It's not just a marriage issue. What you say to your kids, about your kids, in front of your kids, it matters. What you say to your office, by the water core, about your boss, words matter. Words reveal the heart.
Rumor, gossip, it all undermines. Paul says, with love, as your heart changes, your mouth changes. He says, when I was a child, I thought like a child. I need to speak like a child, but actually thought like a child.
I thought that a lot of look like this. I thought about love the way I think about the Barbie Dreamhouse. I'll love you. And when I feel loved by you, because I feel loved by you, I'll love you back.
Paul goes, this is what a child thinks. That's not agape. Love doesn't work or think this way. In agape, in real love, do you know what love does with its natural thoughts?
Because remember, agape is not natural. It's not going to be the first thing that springs to mind. Do you know what you do with your thoughts? Here's what Paul said.
Take every one of them captive and make them obedient to Christ. Well, Christ has one law. And if you're going to be obedient to it, what is this thought? What do you have to do with your thoughts?
You have to make them obedient to love. I need to take what I'm thinking. Change the way I'm thinking. Capture it and make it obedient to love.
When I was a child, I thought like a child. I thought about love like a child. And you know what I would do? I would give voice to what I thought.
I would talk out the thoughts. For some reason, let's start my beautiful wife is serving upstairs in children's ministry today. So we'll just talk honestly here. For some reason, I believe that in my marriage, right?
Like whatever it is I was thinking should be aired. That was a grievous error. Because I thought that Joan deserved. I mean, isn't love just telling you what I think?
No, it's not. That is listening to me. That is not love. Just telling you everything I think.
Most of my thoughts are coming out of my brokenness, out of my natural behavior. Here's what Joan and I joke, because we talk about this all the time. We have learned so much about this in the last maybe eight years of our marriage. What we have learned is, and listen, I'm not merely the jerk.
I used to be either in other relationships. Because here's the thing. It's actually fairly easy. Just take every thought captive and run it through a new filter of what would love say here.
How does love change this thought? Like, I want to communicate. I have a thought and it relates to my wife. Before I say anything to my wife, I take it captive and think through how am I going to express this in a way that is love?
I know what her thought. I know Joan, she's got one of these two. I take up three drawers and hers. And so I know what I've done to that girl.
I know what the world has done to that girl. She was the middle child and a little bit of a dysfunctional family. And she married a dysfunctional guy. And so the world has given her all kinds of files and past hurts.
And so what I say, the thought I say, well, I don't just tell her. Now the first thing I think of myself is, A, why even need to say that? And B, if I'm going to say it, I am going to communicate this in a way that is so loving, right? Like, it's just I'm going to think about how this is going to come through her filter, because I love her.
It's not just your wife, it's your kids, right? I've got four kids. Each of them is a little different. You've got to think through how you communicate what your thoughts are.
Take captive every thought before you just spew it out, right? I've got two sons. What if I always compare my younger son and my older son? You don't do that.
You take that thought captive. I don't go, hey, Caleb, you know, John doesn't do it that way. And you have to think all through all kinds of stuff. Courtney, God bless her.
She's got this little thing where she constantly tells all the kids you know I'm dad's favorite. She just tells them that all the time. And so this is actually a little thing in our house. Well, of course, dad's favorite, which is not true.
But when I have a thought, when I go to express it, I always think to myself, one of the files and filters that exist in his family is that court's dad's favorite. So when I express this, I'm going to think through everybody's file of filter and I express it in a way that is loving and doesn't go the other way. You can take this concept. You do it at work.
You do it with your boss. You do it with your friends. You don't just say what comes to you. This will keep you out of so much trouble.
I'm just telling you. Those of you with no friends. This could be a very, this could be an issue, right? Take every thought captive and make it loving.
Finally, Paul says this. He says, look, you need to grow up in the way you reason. You've got to put childish reasoning behind. Now, I want to explain this relative to this new covenant, and then we'll be done.
And I won't talk about love until maybe next week or year. But this is the end, right? And Paul says, you need to change the way, put the ways of childish reasoning behind you. And it's a new covenant issue because this is how God relates to you.
And he wants us to relate to others this way. Now, I inherited some of my best parenting lines from my mom and dad. When my kids were young, they had lots of rules, things that they were supposed to do, and things they weren't supposed to do. And every once in a while, they would come to me with a profound question.
They'd say, why can't I do this? And do you know what my answer was? Because I said so. I learned that from my dad.
And it works really well when they're young. And it doesn't work all that well when they're old, when they grew up. And see, we tend to relate to God like, well, we just do don't do it because God said so. And that's good.
And I mean, it sounds all religious and holy. And I think there's something to it. I mean, there's reverence for God there. But that's not what really love looks like.
We don't serve God out of obligation or duty. Paul put it this way about serving God. I said, we've been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the spirit, not in the old way of the written code. Remember, now part of the new covenant was that God's laws are no longer going to be on sacred tablets and temples.
They're going to be written on your heart. There is now a relationship between you and God. You don't just do it because God said to do it. You do it out of relationship, connection, love for the Father.
Paul wrote this. He said, thanks me to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you've come to obey from your heart. You've come to obey God from your heart. The pattern of teaching that now claims your allegiance.
That is love. Now, some of you, here's where it gets hard. Because some of us, we've all related where we stand with God based on how good a person we are. If I feel like I'm doing well, I feel like I'm in good place with God.
And if I watch something I didn't or went somewhere, I shouldn't then I feel like I'm in a bad place with God. So John, if you're saying that now I relate to God no longer by the law, but by my heart, how do I know where I stand with God? Well, here's what John wrote. This is how we know.
This is how we know. This is how we know that we live in him and he and us. He's given us all the spirit. And we see and testify that the Father sent his son to be the Savior.
And if anybody acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know, here's the key. We know the love of God and we rely on the love of God. We rely on the love that God has for us.
We don't rely on being a good person. We don't rely on keeping all of the rules. The only thing that you and I have to rely on is the love of God. And that's it.
We rely on the love of God. Paul goes on, he says, God is agape. This is who he is. Whoever lives and loves and lives and God and God is in them.
This is how love is made complete amongst us so that we'll have confidence on the day of judgment. When you are taking your last breath one day, when you get the bad diagnosis and you show up in my office, please don't come in and go, I just don't know if I've been good enough. That is not the question. This is how you can have confidence on the day of judgment.
In this world, we are like Jesus. We love like he loved. Paul goes on, John goes, because there is no fear in love. You do not need to be afraid on the day of judgment.
You rely on the love of God. Paul says, John goes, perfect love. It drives out fear. Fear has to do with punishments.
That's why I used to not curse right because I didn't want to get spanked. That's how I love. The one who fears isn't made perfect in love. If you are afraid, you have not truly understood the love that God has for you.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love, perfect love casts out fear. Back to what Paul said, look, when I was a child, I reason like a child. I reason about love like a child. I used to think as a child, I obey because I was told to obey.
I used to think God's love for me was based on my performance. That's how I reason. That's how I grew up. I used to think that way about love too.
I used to think that if I was a good husband or a good dad or a good employee, I would do love. And if I messed up, well, then love would be withheld. I do that still. Don't say something mean.
I don't talk to her. Right? It's quite natural. It comes easy.
So I love, think about this. Now, follow me because this is so fascinating. I thought about love like a child. I loved in order to get love back.
And I gave love back if and only I felt loved. That was my reason. My thinking. If I'm good, I'll be loved.
And if I'm not good, I won't, that's how I thought God loved me. And that's how I began to love other people. God wants me to perform for his love. So guess what?
You should perform for mine. You want me to love you better. You better make sure I feel loved by you. If you love all of love.
If you don't love, I don't. If you do, I will. If you don't, I won't. Does this sound familiar?
This is old covenant thinking. We took the singular great command of the new covenant and wrapped it up in old covenant thinking. That's how a child thinks about love. And when you love that way, you know what it does?
It creates fear. If my wife or my kids think my love for them is contingent on how they perform for me, that's not love. If my wife worries that if she puts on a couple of pounds, John might not love me anymore. John might be looking for another woman.
That's not love. She's not being made perfect by my love. She's being made fearful. If my kids think they have to perform in school or get certain grades or be something on an athletic field in order to make dad proud, in order for dad to love them, they have not been made perfect in the love of their father.
They've just been made afraid. That's not love. In fact, if anyone thinks that my love for them is contingent on their love for me or their performance for me, or if they think that my love for them only goes if they vote the way I vote or if they think politically the way I think, then I blew it. Because that's not love.
I have not loved like Jesus. He loved me simply because he chose to. And I rely on it because I have nothing else. His love for me is not going anywhere.
His love for me is not capricious or fickle or contingent on anything. And neither should ours be. That's love. Paul says, this is not love.
You gotta grow up. Do not reason about love like you're a child. This isn't Barbies Kingdom, it's Jesus's. And it's a new covenant and a new promise.
You can rely on the love of God and now go and be like Jesus in this world. And so I'm gonna close with this great question. Is there anyone in your orbit, your world, your home, your work, is there anybody that knows they can rely on your love? No matter what, no matter what.
No matter what they say, how they vote. We could go through the line of things that separate us. Is there anybody in your world that knows it does not matter? You can rest assured, rely on my love.
Band come up. Paul finishes off the great treatise this way. He goes, look, these three remain. Faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love. Why? Because one day you won't have to have faith anymore. You'll be able to see.
One day you won't have to have hope anymore. You'll be living it out. The only value that transcends kingdoms, that bridges kingdoms is love. The kingdom of God breaks out in your heart and in your home and your office and in our church and in Chester and Menom and Long Valley.
When we grow up, start looking at your Facebook feeds today and start saying to yourself, we need to grow up. We need to grow up. The kingdom starts, it's only value. It's only law.
The only thing that lasts or matters. It's the only thing that counts. Love wins.