The Overcoming Kind of Love

The Overcoming Kind of Love

John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

·        The defining characteristic of our Heavenly Father is love.

·        Therefore, the Bible says that “God is love.”

·        This does not mean that love is God. No… it means that our God “so loves” that there is no better way to describe Him other than love.

·        His love is pure love. It is a choice. This love loves the “unlovable.”

·        This pure love is a giving love…sacrificial giving.

Matthew 27:32: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

·        The defining characteristic of the Son is also love.

·        He poured out His love for us, yet we were not willing to receive Him.

·        Instead we nailed him to that cross, but He wanted to pay the price for our sin, and said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!”

·        What kind of love is that? It’s an overcoming love.

·        We must try to understand this “overcoming love” because it is the most powerful force in the universe.

·        In fact, all love comes from God.

·        Love pours from God into human hearts like sunshine and rain is poured upon the ground, upon the just and the unjust…upon the good and the bad.

·        Therefore if God is the source of all love, then no being on earth can love without contact with the love of God, or, without some contact with the God of love.

·        Since all love comes from God, the love of parents for children, the love of friends for friends, the love sweethearts for each other—all is a gift from God, just like sunshine, rain, air, food and shelter.

·        Love is at the center of all things that makes life beautiful.

Luke 6:32-36: “But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.  And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.

·       But something happens to the “pure love of God” when it comes down on the heart of fallen mankind; it becomes “twisted and distorted” because it becomes “redirected” towards “self.”

·       Love…before Christ comes into a man’s life is self-centered love.

·       There is nothing wrong with this “love” in itself. It is the direction love takes and the object it is focused on that distorts the pure love of God.

·       It’s like taking pure water and mixing dirt into it—it’s now something different.

·       We love our children because they are extensions of ourselves.

·       We love our mothers and fathers because our life is related to theirs.

·       We love our pets because they are ours and they please us.

·       In fact we love those that please us and we love those that help us; so we love those that somehow do something for us.

·       Therefore, we really love the projection of ourselves in others based on what they can do for us.

·       Jesus is telling us that “selfish love” takes “the power out of love.”

·       But…love has the power to “overcome evil” when directed toward others, particularly towards those who can do nothing for us.

1 John 3:11: For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

·       The Apostle John likes contrasts to make his point; light and darkness, death and life, truth and lies, God and the devil, and now, contrasts love and hate.

·       John tells us that true love begins when we receive Christ.

·       It is produced in us by the “message” we heard in the beginning.

·       That message is the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that very moment, we are to love one another.

·       Many say that Christians “think” they have some kind of monopoly on love.

·       The Bible never says that, but it does claim that love of the highest quality begins to flow only in the Christian experience.

·       There is a difference between the love of a Christian and the love of a non-Christian. The love of a Christian can love with nothing in return.

·       Without Christ living in us, we cannot love with pure love.

1 John 3:12-13:  Not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.

·       John wants to warn us, he’s saying if you love with the love of God… the world will hate you. He uses Cain and Abel as an example; Cain murdered Abel because Abel was righteous and good.

·       The nature of hate is against God Himself--and the outcome of hate is murder, therefore, if anyone hates… he is a murderer.

·       But Bob, I may hate someone, but I don’t murder them!

·       But in your heart didn’t you wish that person would just “go away?”

·       In fact, you don’t really want that person around at all.

·       God says that hatred eventually leads to murder.

·       God sees our heart, and in His eyes it is as good as done. He does not need to wait for the actions.

·       Matt. 5:21-22: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

·       Therefore, Christians who hate have fallen back under the control of the evil one, therefore we must confess it (agree with) to the Lord and the Lord will deal with it in our heart. He’ll cleanse us of all “unrighteousness.”

1 John 3:14-15: We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. 15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

·       If you don’t love those who can do nothing for you, then you have not passed from death into life.  You are still just like everyone else.

·       When you passed from death to life as you were born again… a different kind of love was deposited in you and now you are able to love those you never loved before.

·       This is one of the evidences that you have new life, a changed life. Maybe you even have concern for someone that you didn’t like before your conversion.

·       This new kind of love that is within you can only come from God, Himself.

·       John knew this personally.

·       He and his brother James were nicknamed the “sons of thunder” because they wanted to see the people who disagreed with them destroyed. They were also constantly arguing with the other disciples.

·       John’s natural disposition was not “loving,” but after his conversion he was called the “Apostle of love.”

1 John 3:16-17: By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

·       This is the essence of true love. It is the laying down of one’s life.

·       It is giving up self-interest; that is the God-kind of love.

·       Once again John uses a perfect present tense of “laying down our lives,” so that we can meet the needs of another.

·       John is saying we need to get ourselves “out of the way” for the overcoming power of God’s love to flow through us. It’s denying self.

·       There’s no other way.

·       This is tangible, it’s more than just talk… it’s real. It is the essence of God’s power in the Christian life. Because if you don’t have His love flowing through you then you cannot be trusted to use His power.

·       We see others in need consistently in our world, but what are we going to do about it? You can’t fix the whole world’s problems, but we can help some.

1 John 3:18-19: My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 19 And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.

·       Love must be demonstrated. Love is an action word. Love must be freed from selfishness.

·       Love is the evidence shown to the rest of the world that we are of God.

·       Today’s Christians “give some money” and expect someone else to deal with it—but there’s no power in that.

·       It’s about more than money, it’s also emotional and spiritual.

·       Find an opportunity to enter in. It could be a phone call, a visit, attend a meeting—there is a divine appointment waiting for you if you will take a risk in love! Particularly, with someone you don’t like!

·       More often than not, we just pass people by—but Jesus always entered in. And we have been given everything we need to enter in; the power of love.

John 15:9-13: “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

·       Jesus is giving us the key to the Christian experience; abiding in His love.

·       We are to make our home in His love.

·       We become intimately familiar with where we live, who we live with and what we live with.

·       You could say that we become like those we live with because our knowledge and “experience” is dramatically increased.

·       Live consistently in knowing you are loved unconditionally and you will begin to love unconditionally.

·       It will become your “experience” allowing His love to flow because you know his love, which is more than knowing about His love.

·       This is what Jesus did—He abided in the Father’s love while on earth. Therefore, the Father’s love flowed through Him.

·       This love is not self-directed it is “others” directed and it will bring you joy in a way you never imagined.

·       This love of His flowing through you and it is “sacrificial.”

·       It is there—that it becomes overcoming…and it is willing to enter in.

·       There is power in this kind of love—untainted by selfishness.

·       Let’s see it in action:

Matthew 14:14: And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.

·       You could say that his compassion or love for them healed them.

·       You will never be involved in a miracle if you cannot love…sacrificially.

Matthew 20:32-34: So Jesus stood still and called them, and said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” 33 They said to Him, “Lord, that our eyes may be opened.” 34 So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes. And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him.

·       Jesus was never too busy to enter in because love gives to others.

·       God’s love enters in where selfish love does not.

·       And there is power in that kind of love—power to change lives forever.

·       It’s a miraculous power.

Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

·       Paul understood it. Will you understand it?

·       Paul died to his own selfishness and chose to abide in the love of Christ.

·       He got out of the way so the love of Christ could flow through him.

·       Paul continually reminded himself that Christ loves him so much that he died for him.

·       Therefore, the Spirit worked many miracles through Paul. Please don’t try to lay hands on the sick for healing unless you can get out of the way and let the love of Christ move through you.

Romans 5:8-20: But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

·       He loves us in our good times and he loves us in our bad times.

·       He loves us in the middle of our sin; He still loves us at our worst.

·       In fact, He came to earth to rescue us from our sin.  He loves us so much that he couldn’t imagine life without us, so He was stretched out on that cross and nailed in His hands and feet and sacrificed Himself for us.

·       Because that is what true loves does, it is a sacrificial love that gives all and expects nothing in return.