Love: The Most Expensive Gift

We say 'I love you,' too much, particularly as English speakers. It's not our fault. English only gives us one word for the most complicated reality in our world. It has become so flat, so overused, that the most common way we see it defined is 'love is love.' What that means, of course, is, 'love is whatever you define it to be.’ For selfish people, that's a great definition. If love is whatever I want it to be, then love revolves around me. But what does God's word say? It says that God is love. That rips the power to define love from us and gives it to Jesus. And, oh, how He has defined it! 

We have defined love mostly in terms of what it feels like to us. It’s a very subjective, personal, private, inward thing. It is what happens to me or how I make someone else feel. That way of thinking about love makes it all about ourselves. Everything in love is in reference to me. God defines love in an entirely opposite direction. True, Biblical love is not in reference to your feelings but in sacrificial action towards other people. In order to do this well, at all really, is not to draw from your own well of love. It’s actually quite shallow. You need to draw from love that is coming to you rather than what is inside you, so that is what we are going to be looking at today. 

Our main point today is defining love as doing for others what Christ is doing for you. 

This book of 1 John is something that you can read in a single sitting, and in fact that would be a great thing for you to do today or sometime here in the next few days of rest off from work. This is a letter written by the Apostle John, the same guy who wrote the book of the Gospel of John. If there is anything about John it’s that he wants to make sure that you know that you have eternal life. At the end of chapter 20 of his gospel he writes these things so that you may believe, and at the end of this letter, he writes these things so that you may know that you believe. Both John and James teach that the way you know that you believe is whether or not you are doing what Jesus says (1 John 2:3). It’s very simple. John doesn’t hold up perfection as possible on this side of eternity (1 John 1:8), nevertheless, the Christian is expected to live a life where the pattern of one’s actions points towards obedience to God’s commands. Their habits are ones of obedience, broken by interruptions of sin, rather than the other way around.   

It is like watching a child learn to walk. Before they get up on two legs, their pattern of movement is crawling, rolling, scooting, really anything except walking. When they start their walking journey, it will look like mostly crawling still, with little attempts at walking. But as they get older, they crawl less and walk more and more. Sure they will trip (I still do; and I’ve been walking for years!), but the pattern is walking. Now, our spiritual life doesn’t progress as quickly as that, but I think that is the idea. There is a stark difference that is defined by action. If someone asked me if my child was walking yet, I never said, “Oh, yes, they are! They haven’t taken any steps yet, but boy are they thinking about it!” I never said that! I know that walking is an action not a thought or a feeling. 

The Christian walk is the same. The Christian life is not a private, inward, emotional journey only. It breaks out in tangible action. Christian life looks different. How different? A literal night and day difference. In chapter 2, John describes the Christian life and non-Christian life as light and darkness. Wherever there is light, darkness is gone. 
That’s what the Bible is saying, but how are you fitting into that? Let’s get practical. Where are you right now? Are you walking? Are you in light? What would your wife say? Your kids? Your parents? If you are living the Christian life, others can have an answer because they can see it or not. 

Now, at this point, you may be rightly saying to me, “Wait a minute, I know people who can put on a good face. I know people who have never missed a Sunday in their lives but are just as far away from God as ever. Are you saying that all you have to do is a few religious externals and you can be saved?” No. Absolutely not. I, too, know of pastors who aren’t saved. I’ve seen guys who were conference speakers, book authors, and household names who weren’t saved, as evidenced by their later actions. Those actions proved something was missing, and that is what John begins to draw out here in chapter 2 and 3, true love. 

This is the part of this book that is key. It is not just external actions, it is whether you have love in your heart from God to motivate those actions. Hear from Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Do you hear what Paul is saying? Paul is saying that even if you have one of the most impressive spiritual gifts possible at that time, able to speak in any language without training, even if it were possible speaking the language of heaven, but if you don’t have love, you’re just a noise-maker. You could have the mysteries of the world all unlocked in your head, you could have every book ever written stored in your memory and able to teach like no one else, but if you don’t have love, what’s the point? Even if you could perform miracles, be the next Mother Teresa, or even be a martyr for Christ, someone who dies for Jesus, but you don’t have love, what’s the point? 

Do you see what Paul is doing here? Love is the critical piece. This isn’t to say that those actions are bad, but love is the most important factor! And as we are about to see in our text, you can’t have love and it not come out in action. 

Now we get to the middle of chapter 3, and we find out how love is known. I think this is the heart of what John is trying to get across to us. John says in verse 16, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” This is the perfect summary of the Christian life. This gets to the heart of what it means to be a Christian. It begins with knowing Jesus and His love for you. Jesus’ love isn’t some sort of sentimentality. It isn’t your picture on His fridge, as it were. The love that Jesus has isn’t limited to teaching things, or even doing miracles like healing diseases or raising the dead. Those are wonderful things, even things that took effort, but the love that Jesus has for you is blindingly displayed on the cross and the process leading up to it. I mean, it was one thing to have God Himself step out of heaven to live as one of us in one of the least comfortable times in human history. It was one thing to leave the praises of the angels to go be a carpenter making tables and chairs for people for thirty years before his ministry began for the last three. Here Jesus was every single day sacrificing, living for us. But it is going to culminate in the way He dies for us. 
Jesus going to the cross isn’t just another thing He did to teach us. It is not in the same category as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus going to the cross was making the teaching He gave us possible. We do not start out life neutral with God. We start out with a legal and moral debt. We start out as shameful children. We start out as sinners, disobedient to God, rebels to the King of the Universe. What kind of punishment fits crimes against a figure like that? Eternal punishment! Nothing less would do. Anything less would be to lessen who God is. We understand this intuitively. Commit a crime against an adult brings prison time that can be debated. Crimes against children bring punishments that almost always result in people saying, “That’s not long enough.” We have a sense of justice that expands depending on the person sinned against. It shows we value children. God is infinitely more. He is the one who creates children. And we sin against Him when we violate His laws. We can’t be taught our way out of that. 

Jesus wasn’t just a teacher; He is our Savior. He went to the cross as the infinite God to pay our infinite debt. His perfect life is now offered to you. And He didn’t have to do any of that. That is the definition of love. 

Then John is going to turn around and say, “That’s the standard for you with your brother.” That’s what it means to love people. It isn’t just a one time dramatic sacrifice, but it is also a life-long servitude for others. Verses 17 and 18 provide us with a really practical example of this. Do you see people with needs you can solve but choose not to? There isn’t love there. John isn’t satisfied with talking about loving people. Loving people is doing. It’s laying down our lives.  

Now, at this moment, if you are anything like me, you’re probably wondering, “Is there a limit to this?” I mean, we’ve all read or heard of the concept of enablement or helping actually hurting. Is there a point where this kind of love stops? I think this is actually the wrong question. There is no limit to Biblical love. We are commanded by Jesus Himself to pray for even those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43-44), stunningly demonstrated by Stephen in Acts 6-7 who prayed that the people killing him would be forgiven. Again, that’s the standard package. 

The real question is when does what you are doing stop being Biblical love and start becoming selfish love? Biblical love is always pointing to Jesus. You can’t point to Jesus and help people sin. You can’t point to Jesus and lie to people about what He says about their sinful lives at the same time. It can feel nicer and get people out of your face faster to do those things, but that isn’t Biblical love. Sparing feelings isn’t always Biblical love. Sparing hardship isn’t always Biblical love. Biblical love sometimes does involve giving people money, but it almost always demands more. Biblical love almost always demands time and personal sacrifice on your part. 

Now, if you are saying at this moment, “This is an absolutely crushing standard. There is no way I can do this.” If you’re saying that, Good. You’re right where you need to be. Because I’ve got some good news for you, you’re right! There is no way you can love like that perfectly all the time, and Jesus died on the cross for that, too! You can be free from the burden of measuring up to earn salvation and just go and love people. Don’t love people to get into heaven. That’s not love anyway. That’s just using people. Instead, knowing that Jesus has paid for all of your sin, including your lack of love for people, You can have that pressure taken off of worrying about yourself and love people. It’s like being told to go rescue people on a mountain top. It’s terrifying if you think you’re going to fall off the mountain yourself. But you’ve got an unbreakable harness on. You’re not going to fall! So go rescue some people! Give them a harness! 

Maybe if you are having a hard time loving people, it might be because you don’t know what it is like to be loved by God. God loves you. He does. He showed you so on the cross. Do you believe that? Can you believe that He could love a little sinner like you? If you don’t, I’m begging you today, with God’s own words in my mouth to you today, “Come, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let everyone who thirsts, come to me and drink, drink without price. Taste and see that the bread of life is good.” Take Him up on His offer to you. Lay down your life, turn to Him, and He will love you and never let you go. And when you are being filled up with a love like that, it will be like a firehose going into a burlap bag. It can’t help but leak out! God’s love poured into you can’t help but leak out to others. Imperfectly, incompletely, but unmistakably. I know this, because this is the very first fruit listed as the gift of God. The fruit of the Spirit is first “love.” He has promised to give this to you, not only as a gift between you and Him but between you and others. 

So what does this mean for you? If you are struggling to love people, it might be because you are trying to draw from the empty well of your own ability. To love like Jesus, you need to draw from Jesus. You need to go to Him every day in prayer and ask for another portion of His love to give to others that day. It won’t be easy. He gives you just enough for the day. He expects you to spend it all, because there is another portion of love coming tomorrow. 

If you are here saying, “I have been doing that for decades, but the person I am pouring it out for just isn’t responding at all. You have no idea who I’m married to, who I’m parent to, who I’m related to, and I just don’t see anything happening.” You may not, but God does. Listen to Hebrews 6:10-12 “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” 

Finally, let me encourage you that you are not alone. There is no way that you can show this level of love to absolutely everyone you can lay your eyes on by yourself. You’re not God. Have some humility, and ask for help. Let us love by helping you love, and for the rest of us, when we get that call may we all answer. 

And when we fail, and we will, let us go back to God, rest in the forgiveness that He freely gives, and let that Divine love inflame our hearts once more to love people again. 

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