Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Sharing the Good News. Today I want to talk about something that is really, really important for us to understand. And as we go through these, these episodes, what we want to do is continue to uncover and open up the truth of the Word of God. And also we want to do is go ahead and correct, you know, misunderstandings or things that maybe we've perceived in our own mind. Because all of us come to the Bible having a lot of assumptions, a lot of assumptions about God, about who he is, about his, his nature, his character, a lot of assumptions about his teachings, what he says. And it's, it's important for us to really know what, what does God actually say? What are the teachings of the scriptures? Not what I think they are, but what are they in reality. And that, of course, is the purpose of studying the Bible is one of the, the, the greatest purposes, right, is really trying to understand what it is that God is looking for from me and from you and what the truth actually is.
[00:01:04] So today, what I want to talk about, I want to talk about understanding some elements or a specific element of the love of God, because we hear a lot about the love of God and it's, it's true. I mean, God is, He. He is a loving God. The scriptures actually tell us, if you go to First John, chapter four, a few places, he says, here, I'll read verse 16.
[00:01:29] He says, and we know, excuse me. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.
[00:01:37] God is love.
[00:01:39] And he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.
[00:01:43] So we have these scriptures that tell us about the love of God.
[00:01:48] They tell us that God is love. Okay? So everything about God is going to be loving because God is a God of love.
[00:01:56] And if you go on down, I want to read First John, chapter five.
[00:02:00] He says in verse three, he says, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not grievous.
[00:02:10] So one of the things that's really important to know when coming to the scriptures is, is that God is the definer of truth.
[00:02:19] I'm not the definer of truth, okay? Neither is the Internet or anybody else, right? God is the definer of truth.
[00:02:27] And if God is the definer of truth, because he is the, he is the origin of these things. So he's, he's the one who gets to define what does the word love mean, right? So as we talk about the love of God, keep in mind that you can go to a website or to A dictionary, they can give you some general things about love that may be true, some things may not be true. But we always want to verify with the Scriptures what does God mean when he talks about love. So, for example, he says, this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. Okay? You're not going to find the dictionary saying that, but that's what God is saying. God is saying, you want to understand something about love? Let me, let me explain to you something about love, okay? If you love me, you're going to keep my commandments. And my commandments are not grievous. As a matter of fact, my commandments are a blessing to you, right? Every commandment of God is a blessing to me.
[00:03:19] So as we talk about the love of God, I want to really cover an element of the love of God that's really important for us to understand because oftentimes what we think in our own imagination is that the love of God means that I can do whatever I want and I'm still saved because God loves me, right? And we can basically interpret the love of God to mean that no matter what I do, that God is just always, you know, I, I always have salvation.
[00:03:56] And so first of what I want to do is I want to go ahead and let's let the Scriptures define what love is, okay? What it looks like to love God. Okay? Let's, let's say that because there's two sides of this, right? There's the love that God has to me, and then there's also the love that I have to God. And so let's kind of COVID both of those sides, just briefly, so starting with the love that I have to God. So we know that there's two great commandments in the Scriptures, and there's a lot of scriptures in the Bible that make this point. And the point that they make is that there's two great commandments. The first one is to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. And the second one is to love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:04:42] And the scriptures tell us that every commandment in the Bible actually comes from these two principal truths, okay? The, the, the commandment to love God and to love my neighbor.
[00:04:55] So as you look at these things, like, let me, let me give you, let me give you an example of, of one of these scriptures, right? So let's read Romans, chapter 13.
[00:05:05] So in Romans, chapter 13, he says, let's, let's start in verse eight, he says, owe no man anything but to love one another for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Okay? So if you love somebody, he says you are actually fulfilling the law. And then he's going to go on and explain.
[00:05:23] He says, for this, thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill.
[00:05:28] 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.
[00:05:43] Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
[00:05:51] So this is really important as we start to think about when I say that I love somebody or that I love God, God has defined for me what he calls love.
[00:06:01] Because a lot of people, they call things love that God never called love. And, okay, he's saying that if you commit adultery, that's not love, that that's evil, okay? You're hurting people, you're hurting yourself, you're hurting your family, you're hurting the other person because you're bringing them into sin.
[00:06:19] So many problems are caused by. By sin. Sin is extremely destructive, okay? It is a spiritual cancer.
[00:06:26] So if you think about any sin in the Bible, all sin is either. It's unloving, either to God or to your neighbor. So if I steal from you, I'm not loving you, okay? Because I'm. I'm harming you. I'm taking things that are yours. If I, you know, speak evil things about you, if I gossip behind your back, I'm not loving you, okay? Because those are hurtful things. Those are things that are. They're hurtful to you. They're not, right? If I refuse to worship God, right? If I choose to do my own thing, and it's like, you know, I don't got time for God. You know, it's like I'm not loving God like I need to.
[00:07:01] So the scriptures are going to show us what does it look like for me to love God?
[00:07:06] And then I want to read you something that Christ said, okay? Because Christ said in John 14:15, he said, if you love me, keep my commandments.
[00:07:18] So here Christ, you know, he says, if it's true that you love me, keep my commandments. That's how I will know that you love me, okay? I will know that you love me if you keep my commandments.
[00:07:32] Now, notice that this is very different than often how we define the love of God in our own minds.
[00:07:41] Because how often have you or maybe someone you know talked about how much you've loved God, but you don't keep his commandments. And so, see, that's not the way that God is defining love. So God is the definer of truth.
[00:07:55] I don't get to make up my own definitions for what truth is. God tells me what truth is, and then it's my responsibility to understand and to uphold the truth that God reveals to me.
[00:08:06] So if I'm going to love God, what that actually looks like is me obeying God. It's me keeping God's commandments, right?
[00:08:14] So now let's talk for a moment about the love that God has to me. Because a lot of times the truth of what it means for God to love me or me to love God is often mixed up with a lot of things that just surround emotions. And so it's like a lot of times we say it's like, oh, you know, I love God, and you know, I feel so, you know, deeply connected to God. But then if we go off and do all these sins, God says, no, if you love me, the way you show me that you love me is you keep my commandments. So, you know, for example, it's like if your spouse says, I love you, you know, you're the best, I care so much about you. But then they go and stab you in the back and they cheat on you. It's like, well, those words that you said really don't have any meaning to me, okay? Because if you loved me, you would show me that you love me. You wouldn't just say that you love me.
[00:09:02] So if I actually love God according to what love actually means, then it's not just going to be something I talk about. It's going to be something that is manifested to God by my life, by my keeping of his commandments, right?
[00:09:19] So now let's talk briefly about the love that God has to me. Right? So there's a scripture that God says I'm going to read to you real quick. It's in First Timothy, chapter two. And this is just an obvious truth, but I'm just going to read it to you so that we can have it. And in First Timothy 2, he says in verse 4, as he's talking about God, he says that he will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, okay? So it is the will of God that everybody would be saved and that everybody would learn the truth. Because you have to learn what the truth is in order to be saved, right? You can't be saved without knowing what the truth is.
[00:09:57] So this is the desire that God has for all of mankind that all of mankind would come to know this truth, the truth of the gospel, the truth that Christ brought to the earth, that they would believe that truth and that they would obey that truth, okay? And he says, it's my desire that everybody would be saved.
[00:10:15] So this is the desire of God. But the thing that oftentimes we overlook is, does that mean that every human being is saved? Well, obviously not, no. And I want to read you some scriptures that are going to verify that, right?
[00:10:33] So very beautiful scripture, very well known scripture. John 3:16, right? Let's start in John chapter three and let's let the. Let's let God speak to us.
[00:10:43] So John 3:16, it says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So here God is once again affirming the love that he has for us, right? The love that God has towards us is really unimaginable. It surpasses anything that you and I can really even possibly comprehend.
[00:11:10] He loved us so much that he said, I was willing to send my son into the world.
[00:11:16] Not just send him to the world to tell you the truth, but to give his life for you so that you can have life.
[00:11:23] But then let's keep reading, okay? Because it's important for us to really understand the bigger picture of a lot of these things because oftentimes we can read a scripture like this and it's like, great, you know, God loves me. He sent his son. I'm saved, right? It's like, I can keep on going with my life. I could do what I want to do because God loves me and I'm a Christian and it's like, this is great. I get to do whatever I want and I'm loved by God and so I could just, you know, I can have all my sin and still go to heaven. But that's not what love means, okay?
[00:11:56] Love doesn't mean that God allows you to stay inside of your sin and still forgive you, okay? That's not what love is. And so we're going to go on and let's let God speak to us a little bit more about this.
[00:12:07] So in verse 17, John 3:17, for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. So here's the purpose of Christ coming, right? The purpose of Christ coming was not for the purpose of condemning people. The purpose of Christ coming was to save people.
[00:12:28] His Mission. His goal was the salvation of souls. Right? I'm going to bring the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm going to give my life for you, and then I'm going to leave you all of these things, my word, the Church, you know, the way to. To be able to be saved. All of these things that we're going to. We'll talk definitely in more depth about as we go forward.
[00:12:49] So he says that's not the reason Christ came, was to save people. That was his mission. And then look what he says in verse 18.
[00:12:56] He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
[00:13:09] So now, right away, after we read John 3:16 and John 3:17 about the love that God has for the world, right away, what is introduced is. But if you don't believe, you're condemned, okay?
[00:13:22] So this is really important to understand that the love of God doesn't mean that he won't condemn us for our sins.
[00:13:31] That's not what that means.
[00:13:33] The love of God. He cares about us. He's extending his hand to us. He wants all of us to come be in heaven with him forever. He wants me to live the best life that I could possibly live on this earth, but I have to believe and obey Him. Okay?
[00:13:49] That doesn't just all come because God loves me.
[00:13:52] So he says, he that doesn't believe on me is condemned because he hasn't believed. Right? The word condemn is a strong word because what it means is that you have been found to be guilty and you're given a punishment for your crime.
[00:14:08] So right after he talks about the love that he has, he says, but if you don't believe, then you're condemned. Then he talks about why people don't believe, okay?
[00:14:18] He says, this is the condemnation. This is verse 19.
[00:14:21] Light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
[00:14:28] So people don't want to receive the light of Christ because they don't want to stop their sin, right?
[00:14:35] So they're resistive to the light that Christ came to bring. Like we talked about in our last episode, turning people away from their sin, causing them to be blessed by turning away from their sin.
[00:14:48] So he says in verse 20, for everyone that doeth evil, they don't want to hear that they're wrong.
[00:14:54] They want to have this fairy tale. They want the fairy tale that God loves me.
[00:14:59] That's all that matters. And now I can just go on with my life, right? I believed in Christ.
[00:15:04] Their definition of belief, right? Because again, God is the definer of truth. What does it mean to believe? And we're going to get more into that understanding that the love of God does not mean that God supports and is okay with you staying in your sin and pursuing things that are evil. And this was something the Apostle Paul, as he was talking about some of these things, he wanted to make sure that the. The church in Rome understood clearly this. This truth. Because as he's talking about In Romans chapter 5, about the salvation that is in Christ, he comes into Romans chapter six and verse one.
[00:15:45] And then he's. And he, after he concludes these things, at the end of the fifth chapter, he says, what shall we say then? This is Romans 6:1. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.
[00:15:58] How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
[00:16:03] So he's trying to make this point clear that as we talk about the grace of God, as we talk about the love of God, does that mean that we can stay in sin? It's like, absolutely not. God forbid. No, no, that's not at all what this means. The grace of God and the love of God does not mean that I can stay in my sin. The grace of God and the love of God is that God will forgive me if I turn from my sin, okay? That God has sent his Son because he wants me to turn from my sin. And so he sent Jesus Christ into the world to explain to me what is evil, what is right, what is the way of truth, okay? What's the path that I'm supposed to walk down. He's told me what I need to believe in, what it means to obey what love looks like.
[00:16:46] But never is Christ like, hey, go ahead and stay in your sin. No, no, no, that's not the love of God, okay? The love of God is the opportunity for me to turn from my sin and to be forgiven. But the love of God is not for me to acknowledge that Christ came to the earth and then believe that there's a God up in heaven and then stay in my sin. That's not at all what the grace of God or the love of God is all about.
[00:17:14] So as we think about these things, God has made it clear to us, as we already read in John 14, if you love me, keep my commandments. So if I'm gonna say that I love God, God has told me what that looks like, okay?
[00:17:32] It looks like obedience.
[00:17:35] So we're going to dive a little bit deeper into these subjects going forward, but just, just to lay the foundation about the love of God and understanding what the love of God is not, okay? The love of God is not a pass for me to remain in my sin. The love of God is not a that does not give me the allowance to continue to live the life that I want to live, pursuing my own sinful desires, the things that I like. No, no, that's not what the love of God is about. The love of God is about the opportunity to be able to turn from your sin and to receive salvation. Okay. And to be able to repent from your sins and receive the forgiveness that is promised when we obey the things that Christ has told us.
[00:18:25] So ponder those things and we're going to go deeper into some of these things as we go forward.
[00:18:31] And make sure you reach out if you have any questions. Feel free. Our email is sharing the good news34gmail.com we'd love to hear any questions you have, any specific topics you want covered. And also just reach out because we would like to be able to connect with you in person. So thank you for your time today and we'll be back soon.
