Formed by His Love

Let’s open our bibles to I John and find with me chapter 2. Last week I mentioned that we would be entering into a new chapter together and we began with a sermon called, How people change. The emphasis was on maturing as a Christian. A big part of maturing is getting more clarity on who you are and who you’re not. I would assume if anyone here is like me…

I have spent little time watching, and measuring and defining who I am. Most of my active life, is made through automatic life choices and many of those choices are ingrained into my life through habits. And, so I began asking myself this question… what makes me, me? What makes me do things even without knowing why I do them. Why, every time I eat dinner, that although I am right handed, I move my cup from the right side to the left as one of the first things I do when we begin to dig into the meal.

Just one aspect of a disciple of Jesus, that I believe is highly important for us, is that we learn to examine our lifestyles, and our habits and ask ourselves, why do I do the things I do? Is there anyone here that doesn’t want to be formed into the image of Christ? If it’s safe to say, we all want to be formed into the image of Christ, then how does that happen?

Last week we learned that God puts the Spirit of His son into our hearts, and the Spirit changes us from one degree of glory to another through faith. We also learned that Jesus used Rabbi methods to form the 12 disciples. That they were formed by His love, by His life and by his leadership. So this morning, we look at being formed by is his love. Next week is his life.

And the week after that, we’re gonna learn how to be formed by his leadership. Let’s read our Scripture in 1 John chapter 4. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. —1 John 4:16 CSB I want to focus on two words from this Scripture…

and it’s to know and to believe. Think about what that means when it comes to understanding those two words when it comes to intimacy and relationship. Knowing is the accumulation of knowledge about someone over time. It involves understanding their likes, dislikes, quirks, dreams, and fears. It means a state of being aware and informed. Believing, on the other hand, goes beyond knowing and accumulating knowledge about someone or something.

It involves trust and faith. Believing is accepting what you know. And there is one truth about both of these words… I can know something but yet, not believe it. Think of it like this… the enemy of our souls, Satan. He knows Jesus is king, but chooses not to believe it. He rejects that truth. And so, even in our lives we can know a lot about Jesus and still reject him because we don’t believe in HIm.

What we see is that there is a huge gap between what you know and what you believe. One of the greatest deceptions of the modern age is this belief that the only problem we have is a lack of knowledge. In today’s society we just assume that If we just get educated, we will change. And, I’m not sure if I believe that. I don’t believe we change through educational informational transfer.

I’m not against education. I’m not against obtaining a higher degree of knowledge, but I just don’t believe it’s the greatest avenue of change. And I don’t believe that because I know How I learn. I don’t learn in classrooms, I learn by touching, and doing and practicing and making mistakes and trying again. My personal learning isn’t about giving me things to know, and that knowledge changes my mind. A lot of people would say well, “change your mind and you will change your life.” I think that’s hogwash.

When was the last time you knew you shouldn’t do something but you did it anyway? Did you ask yourself why? Think about telling someone who’s homeless… if you would just change you mind you would change your life. So I want to ask… if changing your mind isn’t changing our life, then How many of us are still stuck with sinful habits? How many people are still stuck in shame and condemnation, even though we know all the right things, we still don’t do all the right things.

I think of Paul in Romans Paul says, I don’t realize what I’m doing. I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 I don’t do what I want to do, but I agree that God’s standards are good. 17 So I am no longer the one who is doing the things I hate, but sin that lives in me is doing them. DO you get what Paul is saying?

He’s saying, I know and realize this is bad, but I keep doing it? It’s the same with us, We know what is right. But perpetually we fail to do what is right. So what do we do? The answer is, meaningful discipleship with Jesus. I mentioned this last week, our desire is to change because that’s our life long purpose as disciples. Our framework for discipleship, our vision is that you and I would be changed more and more into the image of Christ, and as a church as the body of Christ together.

Paul says to the Corinthians, you’re living in the flesh, but The Spirit wants to Transform you, Change you into the likeness of Jesus. That’s the whole goal at our church. We don’t wanna just gather a bunch of people here in this sanctuary and be no more different than the paint on the walls of this church. So, why is this series important to us? My heart is that you and I will become loving disciples of Jesus that pursue life together so that we can be an impactful life saving force in our community, to lead people to Jesus and for them to become disciples themselves that lead others to Jesus.

And so the question is, how do we do that? Well first, we need to understand: That by default, “Our life is shaped by our love for the world.” Turn with me a couple chapters back to I John Chapter 2, can I get someone to read for us, verses 15-17. 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever. I’m reading book called, “you are what you love” by James KA Smith. It’s a great book and in this book he asked this really horrifying, but really helpful question, What if, instead of starting from the assumption that human beings are thinking.

We started from the conviction that human beings are first and foremost lovers? What if you were defined not by what you knew, but by what you desired? He goes on to say you are what you love, but here’s the scary part. You may not love what you desire. And so, There can be deep hidden desires within our heart that, at some time creep out and we go, I don’t love that, that’s not me, that’s not who I want to be.

How do we change that? How does one recalibrate and shorten this chasm between what I know and what I desire. Well the author suggest us to make careful but thoughtful examinations our hearts. Think of all the times the Bible speaks about our hearts. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart. I have placed the Spirit of Christ in your heart who cries out, Abba Father.

David writes, Search my heart oh God. Thankfully we have the Bible, which is God’s word and we have prayer to guide us through this heart change. But even as important we have Spiritual formation, practical applications we can do together to recalibrate and shorten the chasm between our hearts and our minds. And that’s discipleship. By default, our life is shaped by our love for the world. It’s by default we love the world.

Remember in romans where Paul says I do the things I not want to do? IN the message version it says, “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. Paul was admitting that his default was to be worldly, not spiritual. There’s this war between the flesh and the Spirit.

And he concludes with saying, Im so full of self, and why not? After all, I’ve spent a long time in sins prison. It’s this idea, just like prisoners who’s spent their entire life in prison, and has only known prison life, and then gets thrusted into the world that was far different than when they went into prison… and many times you hear these people talk about feelings of great isolation or depression because they’ve only come to know their old prison life.

And being free is more of a prison than prison. But John here, in first John is saying, By default, my life is shaped by our love for the world. And did you see John give three implications, or truths about this.. he said, Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride in ones possessions. What do these three things mean? Well first, lust of the flesh means this..

it’s our cravings in this world. This means it’s something that you just desire more than anything. Think of food. For example, as a human we have hunger. We all feel hunger. We all need that feeling of hunger to subside, because it’s uncomfortable to be hungry. Instead of eating something to care for our hunger, and finding satisfaction, like… I was hungry I ate this apple. It’s taking food and saying, no, it needs to meet all of my needs.

This is why we see gluttony and over eating… We see this in emotional eaters like myself. Eating has become a way of dealing with emotional pain. I mean, isn’t there anyone else who runs to food when their depressed? You see this in movies where they give the girl ice cream because she just had a huge breakup.. that kind of stuff. Does that make sense? So lust of the flesh is your body over desiring.

The second thing that he talks about is lust of the eyes. One way I would describe this is coveting. This is especially hard for us in the digital world, because it is so easy for us just to open the phone and immediately start coveting other people’s lives. And of course, on social media… no one shows the behind the scenes life. No one shows the unfiltered life. Lust of the eyes is coveting over things in the wrong way.

The last one is this, Pride in one’s possessions is comparing. We live our life just to compare. I see this in my life. Like, I want a different car. I have a nice car. I love our car, but man when I see someone with a car I really like, I want that car. Or a house. I see our house and it is not made for our family. We are a family of 5 with two dogs and a pigeon living in a house that is designed only for a family of 3 at the most.

And I see so many other peoples houses and how new or nice they are, or they have more room and I covet. I just think, oh, this would be amazing, but then you have to think, wow, Lord, I need to be grateful just where I’m at because this pride in one’s possession, it really sucks the life out of you. And everything becomes about this game. You crave, you crave things more than you need.

This truth is fleshed out in Genesis three with eve, Satan and the tree. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food , and that it was pleasant to the eyes , and a tree to be desired to make one wise , she took of the fruit.” —Genesis 3:6 And so like we saw in the garden, John is saying, when we love the world, it leads to death.

When Adam and Eve sinned, it led to what? It led to death. What we see, when it comes to this world… it may look like a paradise, but because of sin it’s actually a parasite. It may seem like, Man If I get this, or I become this, or I have this, everything will be better. But just like how Eve was tricked into thinking that eating the fruit would be better, it led her and Adam into death.

That’s what parasites do. It’s lives in another, using up the nutrition of that species till it dies. Your heart is naturally bent towards love for the world that leads to destruction, and the world disguises itself as a paradise, but it’s ultimately, it’s a parasite. And so what do we do to reorient our life? We look to Jesus. We look to our savior. We need to be born of the Spirit.

First John, chapter four verse seven says, Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Right off the bat this language we read here is being born again language. When we are born again, we are born of the Spirit. Right? This is when you put your faith and trust in Jesus. Lets keep reading..

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. What is atonement?

Simply, it’s being at one with Christ. Verse 11: 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. That’s a huge litmus test of your love… did you know that… think about it… This is the true test to see if the love of God has taken root in your heart.

No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us. And his love is made complete in us. What he is saying is that we present God by how we love. This is how we know that we remain. Or in other words or translations, how we abide. We remain in him and he in us. That’s verse 13… Verse 13, 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.

Notice this mutual relationship he has given us of his spirit. Do we remain in our own power, as if our works count.. no! We remain only because the Spirit is in us… and we know from last week, it was the Spirit that forms us into the likeness of Jesus… Now lets read on… 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior.

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. This has been one of my deepest struggles I have always known as a Christian… My deepest struggle.. I am being way to open with you right now..

but I need you to witness the messiness of my struggles so you can realize that you are not alone in your struggles. Listen, God loves me, but my actions sometimes show that I’m still looking for love in all of the wrong places. That sounded like a country song. And I dunno about you, but sometimes I feel this falseness when I hear someone say, God loves you… God loves you…

and I’m like, I hear that all the time, but do you truly believe it… and sometimes it just feels like a cheap hallmark card, cuz sometimes, I’ve heard this a thousand times. Do you really mean what you just said? Or is it like the phrase we say all the time, I’ll pray for you but do we ever take the time to try pray for them. But the key word, is remain and that is where I want to end..

How does one remain? Well, R.C. Ryle explains it like this, “To abide in Christ means to keep up a habit of constant close communion with Him–to be always leaning on Him, resting on Him, pouring out our hearts to Him, and using Him as our Fountain of life and strength, as our chief Companion and best Friend. John 15:4 tells us: Remain in me, as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. But an important part comes in verse 5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. “Apart from me,” Jesus says, “you have no power to do anything.” You cannot even rightly love each other as I command you to love, if you do not abide in me as I abide in my Father.

He’s reminding us, that You and I cannot be formed by His love, if the source of love is not in us. So how do we remain… We remain by abiding in Christ through daily and meaningful discipleship together. Right.. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. And one way we do that is through communion.

When we take communion, it symbolizes the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf. The wine and the bread in communion represent the blood and body of Jesus that was poured out and broken as a sacrifice for our gift of salvation. If you find yourself struggling to love someone… remember the sacrifice that Christ did upon calvary so that His love can be in us. Communion reminds us of where we were when we met Jesus.

We were living in the world and we were living as the world. We were living bound to our sins. We were living with the lust of the flesh, and the lust of our eyes and the pride of our life. But because we have been born again, Christ now lives in us. And his love is in us. When we take communion, it’s a time when we collectively reflect on the covenant that binds us together.

It’s also a time to individually reflect on the price Jesus paid for us to be in a relationship with Him. So as we pass the elements out, take a moment to ask God to search your heart. And what is one thing, you know you need to give up… and give it to Jesus. *