17th May - Love that Casts out Fear

It means Jesus bore the judgment that our sin deserves. He was the propitiation for our sins. It means that Jesus stood in our place. Jesus dealt with our guilt. Jesus satisfied that divine justice. The cross is not merely a display of love, but the cross has accomplished salvation for us. So John tells us, if you want to know what love is, do not start with your feelings, but look to the cross. If you want to know where love is really defined in this world, look at this holy and costly sacrificial love where Jesus moves towards the guilty and love given itself for those of us, all of us, who are undeserving of it. [00:35:11] (58 seconds)  #LoveAtTheCross

There is a difference between experiencing something of love and knowing love itself. I want to be really clear as we begin this morning that if you do not know who God is, you don't know what love really is. We might know things about love, we might have experienced love, but unless we know God, we do not know love at its source, its shape, or its fullest meaning. All of us, we all want some feeling of love, some acts of love, but you do not know what love is unless you know the God who defines it. [00:27:56] (37 seconds)  #KnowGodKnowLove

Love is first a gift before it is ever a duty. John says, whoever loves has been born of God and knows Gods. The kind of love that John talks about does not simply come out of our fallen human nature, but the love that we're talking about this morning comes from that new birth as we die to our old self and raised to new life. In that new life, that's where we really start to understand what love is. I wanna know what love is. Well, if you want to know what love is, love comes from its source, God himself. [00:31:30] (34 seconds)  #BornOfGodLove

So where is love revealed? Where is revealed in this love of God was made manifest? What that means is love is not some vague idea floating around in the air that sometimes we might feel like it is. You wanna know what love is? God has shown what love is. And it's not built on sentimentality, it is built on an act in history from God himself as he sent the son. The second thing is love is initiated by God. In this love, not that we have loved God, but he loved us. And that is the deepest truth of our salvation. [00:33:48] (49 seconds)  #LoveRevealedInChrist

That fear that we have not done enough. That fear that our failures will one day tell our final truth about us. In your Christian walk, do you think that grace can have got you through the door, but then it's your performance and your impressiveness that will keep you in in the room? John is saying that if you want fear to be driven out, we cannot begin with our love for God. We have to remember that God has loved us and Christ. Because fear has to do with punishment, and that punishment has been dealt with on the cross. [00:39:37] (43 seconds)  #CrossCastsOutFear

I don't want us to ask this morning, how loving am I? I want you first to ask, have you received the love of God in your heart? Do you just admire the cross? Do we just sing about the cross? Or have we received that love from God himself? Because if we want to be able to to be loving as a fruit of the spirit helps us to think of that that characteristic of love, but we need to go back to the source. We need to go back to the root, and the root is that God has loved us first. [00:36:42] (37 seconds)  #ReceiveGodsLove

Does grace make us gentle towards one another? Does his truth make us tender? Are we bearing one another up in love? Are we forgiving one another? Do we notice the lonely amongst us? Are we learning to love those who are a little bit more difficult to love than others? There are many churches who have long histories and are cold places to go. Churches can hold sound doctrine, preach the word faithfully, and have good theology, and lose its tenderness amongst one another. A church can have a really strong history but have a weak love. [00:50:55] (43 seconds)  #TendernessOverTradition

If your answer is your track records, fear will keep ruling you. If your answer is your usefulness, that fear will drive you to do things. If your answer is your reputation, fear will continue to haunt you. But if your answer in these things is Christ crucified for sinners, then there is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear. So how does that relate to the fruit of the spirit? Well, I believe that the spirit grows love in us when we are settled in what love really is, and that is in the father's love. [00:44:21] (40 seconds)  #SettledInFathersLove