Sermon Notes
Pastor Jeff Stanfill

Love
Making Your Home a Treasure House - Family Series
May 14, 2006

LOVE
MAKING YOUR HOME A TREASURE HOUSE
(COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD)
TEXT: 1 JOHN 4:7-12
INTRO:
Being Mother's Day, we recognize our literal indebtedness to our Mom's. According to Salary.com, if one hired for the services a Mother provides for her family in 2006, or if you paid your Mom for all that she did, her salary would $134, 121 per year. Of that amount $88,424 would be overtime pay for a stay-at-home Mom works an average of 91.6 hours per week.

Moms who work outside the home on the average of 44 hours per week, after returning home at the end of the work day, put in an additional 49.8 hours per week of work at home attending motherly duties. Such a Mom in addition to the $134, 121 she saves the family yearly, provides an additional $85,876 in both earnings and savings.

But to the surprise of many, Moms who work outside the home actually work only 2.2 more hours total per week than those who stay-at-home.

In our culture, we consider the love of a Mother to be the greatest example of self-giving. And with due respect to Salary.com the true work of a mother cannot be measured in America dollars; for how do you measure love?

Today we want to recognize all the women of CCC. Please stand. We want to give all the women a gift and as well as a gift for the mothers. USHERS DISTRIBUTE.

A mother's love lasts a lifetime, but God's love is eternal. In fact, when we speak of God's love we must understand it from the Bible where it is shown to us that God's love means He is eternally giving of Himself to others. He is self-giving for the benefit of others.

READ TEXT.

Love cannot be known except that it is demonstrated (4:7-9a). Beautiful cards and letters can be romantic but they can also be deceptive and used to manipulate. Warm, fond affections are exciting but can also be defective, created by the moment or the mood.

God has demonstrated His love for others by awing us, amazing us, and atoning for us so we can be reconciled. In doing this, God has given us a tool to counter the self-love that we all possess. He has also shown us how to move reconciliation when it seems impossible to do.
I. AWING US (SENDING HIS SON) (9b).
1. God's one and only Son came into our world sent by the Father. How is Jesus Christ the one and only Son? Jesus Christ is God's Son in a one-of-a-kind way; God's one-of-a-kind Son. Jesus is in a class by Himself as the Son of God.
2. What does that have to do with us today? It has this - that Jesus is the one of a kind Son of God. We are children of God by a spiritual rebirth. But Jesus is the Son of God by virtue of being God as a member of the Trinity in the position of the Son of God.
3. With the love of God shown by sending His Son, God has sent His very self to us. God became one of us in nature. That is incredible! That God loved us so much as to become one of us to show us His love that we might live through Him.
4. God's demonstration of His love by sending His one of a kind Son to us provokes awe in us. We are awed because it is beyond us as to how God could do this; beyond us as to the power of God to do this; and beyond us as to the measure of love He shows us in Jesus.

God has demonstrated His love for us by:
II. AMAZING US (INITIATING HIS LOVE) (10a).
1. To all of this, verse 10 says, "This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us..." God loved us; He initiated this relationship. And we are not necessarily that lovely or lovable. I know we recognize what is appealing to our eyes and call it lovely. But with morning breathe, no shower, and bed-head hair we are not very presentable. The makeover industry is escalating because we are not lovely even in our own eyes. And, people are not necessarily very lovable. Some of us act catty toward one another, others work hard to hinder others from succeeding, it is difficult to get very many of us to agree about something. We grump and grumble, sass and strut, demean and demoralize - not a loveable bunch.
2. And yet God not only sent His Son but sent Him first - before there was anything about us to attract attention or concern. God's love more than awes us but it amazes us. "Amazing love, how can it be. That You my King would die for me."

God has demonstrated His love for us by:
III. ATONING FOR US (DYING FOR US).
1. John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." This is not the extent of God's love. Not that He loved us to the extent of death but that this is the way God showed us His love - by His Son dying for us.
2. Rom 5:8. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." While we were sinners He did this for us. Not when we were good people, or kind people, or lovely and lovable people. He died for us when we were utterly despicable in His holy eyes.
3. Rom. 5:9-11 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." We were enemies when we were reconciled with God. Here again God's love is demonstrated with taking the initiative. He died for the life of an enemy - a bitter enemy, not just someone that did not like Him but someone who fought against Him with hatred. God did not with hold Himself from us until we got our act together, but gave Himself while we were opposed to Him.
4. God's love puts awe and amazement in us but it provides atonement for us. God has made a way to reconcile us.

CONCL:
As you know I preach with the Bible in my hand, figuratively, or from the Bible, literally. But to make God's message clear, one often has to hold a newspaper in the other hand. Today there are overwhelming signs that one of the greatest problems our society faces is that of being in love with self. It is called narcissism because of a story from Greek mythology. Narcissus was a handsome, well-built young man. He would sit by a pool of water and look at his own reflection with such great admiration that he fell in love with himself. So great was his love for himself in the reflection he saw, that he sat by the pool of water gazing at his face. He sat there love sick and wasted away to death. He was then turned into a flower by the Greek gods. We call the flower today a narcissus. For the church, this self love has been captured in much of the preaching and teaching of Robert Schuller, "Self-love is, or should be, the basic will in human life."

Phillip Graham Ryken, "When people think this way (as many people do), they feel justified in doing whatever seems to be in their self-interest, without showing much compassion or giving much consideration to their neighbors, co-workers, employees, spouses or children. We live in a culture of takers, not givers. In his landmark study The Culture of Narcissism sociologist Christopher Lasch discovered that ordinary Americans now display many of the same character traits that are usually associated with pathological personality disorders. Narcissism has become normal. One sign of our self-absorption is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for our nation to do anything that requires widespread cooperation or personal sacrifice, such as combat poverty, improve education, reform our health care system, or provide for the common defense." (City On A Hill, pg. 19).

We are warned of this drifting in the Bible when Paul writes Timothy that there will be terrible times in the last days, "People will be lovers of themselves ..." (2 Tim. 3:1-4). Today we come into relationships with the goal of getting from the person what we want - and then the relationship is over. The best picture of the mindset of most newly weds today is that they enter marriage with the expectation that the first marriage is short-term, ten years at the most. It is the trial marriage where they learn the about themselves in the context of a marriage and hopefully pick up some needed skills. In Japan, couples are avoiding parenthood due to the perceived expense of children. The Japanese government is studying economic incentives to reverse this because already there will not be enough workers to support the older generation that is coming. In America, having a child is becoming more an experience one seeks such as hiking the Appalachian Trail or attending a popular concert. Within two years of the child's birth, the experience has been a good one but I'm on to something else now leaving the child at best emotionally abandoned and at worst at someone else's door. The root of abortion is self-love.

But more insidious is the act of self-love during the need for reconciliation. Broken relationships are more common among people than whole relationships. Husbands and wives, children and parents, adult siblings and adult siblings, neighbor and neighbor, even tragically church members if not believers can found to be estranged from one another. Not speaking to one another, giving one another a cold shoulder, actually acting hostile toward one another, sabotaging the efforts of one another. The scenarios are almost endless.

In this context, self-love is counter by imitate God's love. God's love starts reconciliation. Our imitation of His love can do the same. Notice two demonstrations of God's love toward us when we were enemies of His. These two demonstrations form a model for us to start the reconciliation work in our own estranged relationships and counter our self-love.

First, He took the responsibility to reconcile the relationship. Do you see that? God did not think toward us as we think toward others with whom we are estranged. He did not think, "Well, I did nothing. If they want to fix this then they can come and apologize. I'm innocent of anything. What responsibility do I have? They did it so they can fix it." The fact that we could not fix it is immaterial in this point. The fact that God took responsibility when He did not have to is important. Our imitating His love counters our self-love.

We know how we do this. "Well, he knows what he said or what he did. If he wants it right let him come and make it right." Or, a couple has one of those days when both are taxed and tired and just fuss between themselves. Or, the issue between everyone is so long that no one really knows how it began.

Today, you are estranged from your family or long time friend or co-worker. Today, imitate God's self-giving love and take responsibility to act so that the relationship can be restored.

Second, God took on the guilt involved so that there could be reconciliation. The guilt that Jesus assumed was not His own. In truth, He had done no wrong. But He willingly became considered as guilty so both parties could be reconciled.

Do not misunderstand. This is not advocating being a scapegoat or acting as a victim. I am not about to say that if your husband is a cad then let it be your fault. Jesus did not let our sins become His fault. He did not run up to us and say "Oh, please, it is my fault that you got angry. I bored you in the garden or else the snake could not have enticed you." Instead, He counted our guilt as His own so reconciliation could start. Let's see this as we go.

Now as a married man I have been trying to learn that at times it is best just to plead guilty as charged and move on. I am sure that married women would testify to the same. This is similar to that but it is deeper. ILLU: Last week's issue between Mary Ann and I in which I wanted to appear faultless (not perfect). I so loved myself, that my own faultlessness was more important to me than she was or even being in harmony with her.

What stops reconciliation so often is our personal need to be faultless. But if we take on the guilt instead of insisting upon our own innocence, we could move on.

How can I accept being guilty when I have done nothing wrong? The way Jesus did. Count the other's offense as your own. Consider it, think of it as your guilt. Then ask for forgiveness.

What do I do? When two parties are at odds, both tend to see themselves as the innocent party and the other as the guilty. Even when people say, "I'm sure that I'm not perfect..." they still see themselves as more perfect than the other. This is a model for us to begin the reconciliation based upon the divine model of reconciliation. This is not all the Bible says about this subject but it is a beginning for some and an imperative for others today.
· Do not present a case against the other party. If you have offenses - even justified - let them go for now. In fact, relinquish your desire and right for justice.
· Communicate to the other party your desire to reconcile. "I want us to be in a healthy relationship." Healthy is not perfect. Sometimes healthy may be like Jacob and Laban, with such distrust between them, they had to trust God would guard between them. But they could move on as family and be civil and cordial to one another whether they were ever chummy or not.
· Take on the guilt. "So we can move toward reconciliation, I want to ask forgiveness for my imperfections and faults. I am certain they are more than can be numbered."
· Normally, with God's grace, this opens the heart of the other person. They see you being vulnerable to approach them. Normally, they can then drop their defenses and moved toward you to do the same. And then you can begin to rebuild the relationship by earning trust again, developing closeness. That will take time but it can begin.
· Occasionally the other party may be angered by you and lash out, taking advantage of your vulnerability. This happens if the breach has been neglected for too long, or the degree of the damaging words said and acts done is very great, or satan has had allowance to grow bitterness. They are not willing or ready to reconcile. They want justice not reconciliation. You cannot do anything about that but be patient until the work of God is complete in them. Let them have their justice and you trust God for yours.

What does this have to do with love? We will not take on another's guilty unless we love them. One cannot take on another's guilt and be in love with self.

Today, this is a call to love as God does. Die to yourself and be responsible to see that something is done to bring reconciliation. Die to yourself, and take on the guilt so that you can move past the sticking points.