Our Love: How God Works Through Us, Part 1

Here’s my question, as we get started. How are you currently responding to sort of the darkness in the world and the darkness in your world? What is your, if you’re honest, don’t raise your hand, don’t whisper, don’t say anything to anyone. Just, in your mind, is your response fear as you think about the future and what is happening in the world or your life or work or family or finances or is it anxiety? Is it like, “Oh my, what is the world coming to and what about this and what about kids, what about grandkids, what if…?”

Maybe you’re an analyzer? You kind of analyze all the darkness and maybe on a bad day you’re a blamer. You know, I’ll tell you what, here’s the real problem and it’s those people or it’s the media or it’s education or it’s academia or it’s that other political party, whichever one that happens to be.

So how are you responding? Because we are all living in a world where there is breakdown and chaos and corruption and - The world has always been dark, there has always been tragedy, there has always been all kind of evil. And in the midst of it, there has been a small group of people that refuse to bow to the darkness and realize that, by the power of God, we can pierce it.

And our love is how God works through us. How He actually uses ordinary people like you and me to extend exceeding grace to undeserving recipients. That communities change and families change and neighborhoods change and workplaces change when Christians let the love of God and the light of God ooze out of us. And all through history, Jesus was the absolute epitome of that picture. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light came into the darkness and it pierced it, the darkness couldn’t overcome it. And that’s how God works through us.

If you’ll pull out your notes, we can jump in together. Jesus’ final conversation with the disciples was all about where He was going and what He wanted them to do. And He talked about they would do greater works than Him. His last conversation with Peter was one of a question: Peter, remember? He betrayed Him. He said, “Peter, do you love Me? I mean, do you really love Me?” And He wasn’t talking about emotions, He wasn’t talking about intentions, He was talking about loyalty.

If I could change one word, because our culture has so taken love and made it so squishy. When the Bible talks about love, it’s far more than any emotion or any feeling or liking someone or romance. Our culture has taken love and made it almost fully romantic. At the core of love is who you are loyal to. “Peter, are you loyal to Me above your life? Peter, are you loyal to Me and My agenda above your agenda? Peter, are you willing to obey Me and follow Me and do what I made you to do?”

And God’s heart behind all that has always been one thing: I want you to experience the joy of My presence. I want you to experience the love of My fellowship. I want you to experience the peace and the power of being used by Me. And so, we are going to talk about: How is it that God works through ordinary people like you and me?

When Jesus was asked, what’s the greatest commandment, of all the commandments, what’s the greatest? I put it in your notes, Matthew 22:36 - 39, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And you’re to “love your neighbor as yourself.” And when He’s talking about love there, He’s not talking about a good feeling. He’s talking about other-centered, sacrificial, being loyal, and doing actually life God’s way, by God’s power, to fulfill God’s purposes.

The evidence here is John 14:21. It’s a verse I memorized really early, because I thought, someone asked me, “Do you love God?” I love God. I have a good feeling in my soul, or my heart, or whatever about God. And then I read this verse, where this is the last night Jesus is with His disciples, and He says to them, “He who has My commandments and keeps them,” in other words, obeys them, “he (or she) it is that loves Me.” So, if we have His commandments and we don’t obey, we don’t love.

The commandments that He gives us are sort of three-fold - because you ask: Well, what are we supposed to obey? Well, the Great Commandment: Love God with all your heart And then, the Great Commission: Go into all the world and make disciples of every people group. And then, finally, what I just call the Great Compassion. Jesus said, “When you do it unto the least of these, you’ve done it unto Me.” We love when we help people no one cares about. He said, “When I was in prison, you visited me. When I was naked, you clothed Me.” Its helping people that just aren’t as fortunate as us. And that might be emotional, it might be physical, it might be spiritual, but it’s people, often, that are the disenfranchised of our world. Jesus has this very special concern for. And so, to obey Him is to love God, love our neighbor, share the gospel, and help the disenfranchised.

The Acid Test, I’ve given you is, on this little study on love, is in John, chapter 15. Let me just read uh, verses 12, this again, is the last night. “This is My commandment” - says this to His disciples and later to us - “that you love one another,” how? “just as I have loved you.” And so, imagine being with Him and pondering how He’s loved you. And then verse 13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: that one lay down his life for his friends.” And then He goes on to say, “You are My friends if you do what I command you.”

And so, all I’m trying to get is that love is not just an emotion, it’s not an intention, it’s not singing songs, and it’s not coming to church. All those have their place. Love is loyalty to God, and to God’s agenda, to the point of making very specific sacrifice with your time, your energy, your life, your dreams, and your money. So that you care about what God cares about and we care about other people. That’s what love is.

The challenge, however, is we have an adversary, if you will, right? Like does anyone have, like, a big argument like: No, let’s not love people. I mean, who wants to do that, right? We all want to love people, right? We all want to be selfless. We all want to be kind. We all, we all want to care about others. We, you know, we watch movies where someone makes a great sacrifice. And I don’t know about you but I’m a weeper. You know, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe they did that. It’s so beautiful,” right?

So, why is it so hard for us? Here’s why it’s so hard. I put it on the very bottom of your notes. Uh, I put it in the New Living Translation: there is an adversary, there is an enemy, who energizes a philosophical world system that is trying to seduce your heart, and your emotions, and your passions, and your goals away from the Lord Jesus Christ. We get it in 1 John, Chapter 2, verses 15-17. And it’s in the form of a command, and notice how many times the word love shows up. Because love is about loyalty. “Do not love this world nor the things that are in this world, for when you love this world,” are you ready for this? “you do not have the love of the Father in you.” So, you can love the world or you can love God, you just can’t love both.

“For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.” Another translation says, “The world’s system is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” In other words, sex, salary, and status. The world says, those are the things that will bring security, and happiness, and significance.

Now, God would say: All those things are gifts from Me, as a by-product of walking with Me, but, boy, they’re really bad goals. Now, notice, it goes on. “These are not from the Father, but from the world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave,” or lust after. “But anyone who does what pleases God,” notice, “will live forever.” So, all I wanted to do in the first part is just say, could we get real, that love is not a feeling, love isn’t an emotion, love isn’t crying when you see little kids on TV that, you know, with their bellies out, love is not just being a nice person. Love is loyalty, and action, and obeying - have we got it?

So, how in the world could God use ordinary people like me and ordinary people like you to pierce the darkness and really make a difference? And I’m going to suggest two things. First and foremost is God has to work deeply in you, and second, He has to work very powerfully through you. Notice I’ve put in your notes: How can you bring all that you are and all that you have to pierce the darkness in this moment of history with the light and the love of Christ?

How does God work deeply in you? Open, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 12, because we are living in a day where it’s really easy to get discouraged, it’s really easy to get weary, it’s really easy to want to just back away and find a, sort of a safe place and hope things get better somehow, someday.  The writer to the Hebrews wrote to a group of people that after, you know, fifty, sixty years of the Church growing, pretty soon it got really, really hard. And a lot of them were saying, “You know what? I don’t think I can do this anymore. I don’t think I can follow Jesus anymore. The price is too high.” And so, they were going to go back into Judaism. They were going to go back into, “You know, we’re just going to go to the temple and worship. I can’t handle any more of this.”

And the entire book is written to them: Don’t shrink back. The theme of the book is endure, endure, endure. Don’t give up, because Jesus is a greater priest, He’s a greater Savior, He’s the only hope. Don’t shrink back; walk with Him, endure whatever.

And then they give this chapter 11, which is this history of all the people of Old Testament history who were faithful and they paid a huge price. And then in chapter 12 it opens up, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,” then here comes the command, “let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Well, how? “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of the faith.” Motivation, “Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him,” Jesus, “who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.”

Let me make a couple observations about this passage and [if] you have a pen you might want to jot them down, because I think life is going to get way, way harder for people that really walk with God. Maybe better than ever before, but harder. First, for God to work in you deeply, you have to get perspective.

And the perspective of this passage is all of Hebrews 11, whether it was Abraham or Sarah or Noah, whether it was Isaiah, whether it was all that list of people who endured hardship, who believed that, you know what? There is a real heaven and there is a real God and I won’t give up no matter what. And life that is really life comes from Him. And he is saying, “Since we have such a cloud of witnesses,” since we can look back and see how, the result of their life – don’t give up.

And then he gives us some real specific application. He says: Eliminate distraction. He says, “Lay aside every encumbrance.” It’s an athletic word and in fact, the literal word for “encumbrance” is lay aside every fat. It’s a metaphor. In other words, anything that would drag you down, anything that would weigh you down, anything that would keep you from pursuing as fast as you can. He says: In your faith, you need to understand and lay aside, not just bad things but anything.

He says, “Lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which easily,” this word, “entangles us.” In some of the original manuscripts, they were trying to get the right translation for this. And it’s either “entangled” or “traps,” or in some early manuscripts, “or things that distract us.” Lay aside the sin. Lay aside the things, even the good things that weigh you down. Lay aside anything and everything that distracts you from making your number one passion following Christ and making Him known.

There is a path, there is a way that seems right to men and to women that the world just is bombarding you with each and every day that leads to darkness and death. And there is a path that is narrow and challenging and deep and rich and fruitful that leads to life. And the writer of Hebrews is saying to them there are so many who have come before us, this cloud of [witnesses], so lay aside. It’s a command. Lay aside, get rid of, clean the closet, declutter your life of relationships and hobbies and idols and things that distract you and entangle you and keep pulling you away from the path that is correct, because of how much God loves you and because of the consequences.

One of the greatest things you can ever do is just don’t give up, just don’t give in, just don’t become cynical. And then in verse 2, he tells us how. He says, “All this is so you can run with,” hupomeno, that’s the word for endurance; he uses it three times in this passage. It’s the word James uses when he says, “Consider it all joy, knowing the testing of your faith produces,” hupomeno, “endurance.”

And that as you endure through difficult times, that’s how God builds character, that’s how He builds faith. He says, “Lay aside and run this race,” how? “…fixing your eyes on Jesus,” not fixing your eyes on other people and what they have, not fixing your eyes on all the problems, not fixing your eyes on circumstances, not fixing your eyes on the if/when or the if/then scenario that if I get married, then I’ll be happy. If I can get healthy, then I’ll be happy. If my kids turn out right, then I’ll be happy. If we can ever buy a house, then I’ll be happy. If/then, if/then, if/then, if/then. And then when you finally get the “then” you want a bigger “then.” There’s no end to it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. In the gracious love of God as you follow this path, what He promises, in the presence of God is fullness of joy. What He promises is My peace I give unto you. What He promises is is there is fellowship and love and connection with people. And what He promises is as you’re on this path, the byproduct is He may bring prosperity and blessing, He may have you go to a good school, He may actually give you wealth, both material, family, financial. What He is saying is God delights in the prosperity of His servants.

God never wastes hard times. He’s not down on you. He is for you and He loves you. The world says easy, quick, leverage, scale. God says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Me.” Because those who seek to save your life will lose it, and those who seek to give your life away, that’s when you find it.