A Journey into Self-Emptying Love

I am reminded that John , in this particular verse , in these letters , is giving us some really important reminders , or reframing Some of it reminding us because we've been following for a while , but some of it , if you can imagine , that spirit with us even now . Some of you feeling it , some of you hoping to feel the evidence of spirit .

But John tells us this in the first letter , chapter 4 , verse 12 . No one has ever seen God . If we love one another , god lives in us and his love is perfected in us . This verse has a lot of hope . But again , this whole letter , I encourage you to read it . It's not a long read . Read the whole of 1 John , or read at least 1 John , chapter 4 .

And immerse yourself in the fact that there is this call to love , there is a reminder that we ourselves are loved . But even in John's letters here he's reminding us of the power of love through the triune God . And then John tells us no one has ever seen God .

So before anyone tells you they absolutely positively know or they have seen , they haven't , but he's giving us an indication of what we can know God in .

If we love one another , god lives in us , and his love is perfected , and what it means is matured in us , and so this is the call for all of us to allow our love to be matured , to allow God to be seen among us in love .

This is when we talk about what the world needs now is more of God , and that means more love , and we are the people who are fully equipped to be able to show this kind of love .

Imagine your life in a commonplace of just overflowing love and the moving of the Holy Spirit .

I think that if you and I could take this season and though it's not celebrating , you know one of the amazing accomplishments and things that God has done for the church that for us to realize just in our everyday life , he has given us this great power of love and the power of the Holy Spirit , and so , if I can let that light shine on me , I can see

so much of my life that I don't allow that love to rule , that I don't allow the Holy Spirit to take precedence . Now , that's just me . So stretch your hands out towards the poor pastor and needs to work on some stuff , or maybe do all of us allow this season to shine light and to remind us wait a minute .

There's a greater power inside of me of God's love and His Spirit , and I better maybe pay attention or surrender to this beautiful wooing and this gentle call to love that is being offered to me .

One of the other portions of scripture it says let your love be sincere , let it be real , let it be without wax is really what it's saying in that one . But this idea of no pretense , but really love people .

But I think the problem is or at least one of the problems is we've confused what Christ is bringing us with maybe power or fame or something greater , and what Christ has shown us here in the love is that this is the top , this is what it's all about .

That love wins that when Jesus picks up a towel and a basin and washes someone's feet beloved , that is the pinnacle of love . When we are self emptying , when there's this process of canosis where we say the love that I have I'm willing to give away . I don't have to hoard it , I can give it away . God lives in us and his love is perfected in us .

Well , I can't understand why my children can't figure out how to put dishes in the dishwasher and I can't figure out how they don't at least want to run some water on the plate so that the stuff doesn't harden on there . You know , I can't understand it . You know , and I have preached oh , have I preached and yelled and screamed and did whatever .

And it occurred to me over the past couple of years you know , this is a shocker to me that maybe there's a path that's different than just screaming and yelling and trying to be mean and trying to teach somebody something . Yeah , it's a shocker to us both , robert , that what if I just start washing those dishes and not saying anything ?

And then I thought for sure , two or three weeks in they'd push me aside and go oh , dad , no , no , dad , no , dad , don't , don't get your hands in that water , don't do it .

But something greater happened to me , that in all of those arguments inside of my head well , they better figure this out , they better learn this too that all of a sudden I started to see that it was my gift , and then I wondered . I wondered how long I'll have to do this before they figured out .

And then I started wondering how long will I get to do this ? Because everybody's shaking their heads here somebody that has a child that's no longer in their house , and what would you pay to be able to pick up after them , you know , and so I think that we miss that , the self-empting love .

It's done something so transformative in me to end an argument that was unwinnable , to have a place of such joy .

And you might look at me as the fool who's being taken advantage of , but I am the fool that is more in love with my wife and my children than I've ever been , and I'm finding something in self-empting love that Christ has promised all along that I've been arguing and fighting against my whole life , trying to make sure I get my own and I get my way and I

get what's owed to me . When I can turn loose that , in the moments I wish I was perfected in this area , but in the times where I can find the grace to surrender to this kind of love . It is the most beautiful experience for myself and for those that are around me . Somebody in this place help me out

.

I love these kind of verses because here's your little check , here's your gauge . When you drive a car and there is a fuel gauge , you don't have to guess how much fuel is in there . There's a little needle that tells you how much when you need to refuel . This is the same thing he's saying . How do you know if you abide in God ?

How do you know if God abides in you ? Beloved , this is how he's given us his spirit and we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior , or as the Savior of the world . God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God and they abide in God . We have known and we believe the love that God has for us .

I think this is the place where we hang out for a really long part of our life , or at least I'm assuming this that we begin to believe the love that God has for us and we allow that belief then to just absolutely direct the way that we live , direct the way that we think about ourselves , direct the way that we think about others .

God is love , god is love . That's all . God is , god is love . God is not . God is love and God is love , god is love . That's the whole story . God is love , and those who abide in love abide in God , and God abides in them . And this , beloved , is what Jesus prayed for In John in 17, .

Jesus said Father , make us one , make them one , make them understand that you love them the same way that you love me . And so Jesus is praying this . And then John tells us the same thing Beloved .

This is how we'll know when we stay in love , stay in love with the world , when we love ourselves and when we believe that God loves us and that matures us and brings us into a new hope . We were reading in the scriptures earlier in the service , in 1 Corinthians , chapter 13 , the scriptures that talk about what love is .

And he begins to say something like when I was a child , I thought and I reasoned like a child , but when I became a mature . I put away childish thoughts , I put away childish reasoning , and this is what John in the gospel is calling us to understand that real maturity is understanding that love only ever expands .

Our love should be deeper and greater , that love is the only thing that's going to last and that love is what marks someone who is in God .

We want to have some insurance , we want to have some things , and we're still like that today . Let's be honest . And Jesus says , no , love me with your whole heart , love God , love your neighbor as yourself , and in this you fulfill all the yeah , but there's got to be more . And then they're like come on , jesus , why don't you ?

Let's take over this Roman government , because we got to get into politics , because we know that that's what the Christians are going to do to make influence , and that's how we're going to do it , guys . So come on , let's go , jesus . And Jesus is kneeling down and he's washing their feet like a servant . You know love is it's .

You know your natural tendency is not going to be this . This is something to surrender to and it's really important to see that .

That's in me , that resistance to it for whatever reason , and that I'm always going to want to run to some rules for certainty and I'm going to want to run to a system and try to develop a system that's external and outside of me , when God's saying the truth has always been inside of us , that it's love and that is greater , and that is victory .

And it's upside down and it doesn't seem to be so . We want to argue and go and he's saying no , listen , if you'll believe me and will trust me in this , there's going to be . There's going to be transformation . That's going on . Are you excited about that ? Isn't that a beautiful idea ?

And yet we continually , in our human , just humanness , we get so distracted with this other stuff . And so I remind you in this ordinary time , as God is reminding me , that this is what is important , this is what has eternal value .

Heather used to always say this to me all the time when I was frustrated about something the kids were doing and I was like man , we need to address this . And she said will it matter in eternity ?

And then you got to think to yourself well , maybe if their room wasn't clean today , that's not going to matter in eternity , but what would matter is the loving relationship that I have with those people and how that could be severed over a room , and not that I'm saying anyone who's listening to me that lives in my house that your room should be messy .

Disclaimer that's not the point , right . But the point is that love be the greatest thing and in that we find a balance in all of those things .

Our real home is in God , in eternity , in this understanding that we will not die . And so there is for us a hope in expanding our thoughts of God , of self , of the universe , and understanding that sometimes the things that we get tripped up on or frustrated with are not the things that matter most .

And so we come back to John , who says to us love matters most . God is love . Love is expanding , and if you are finding yourself getting a more narrow or a smaller version of love than beloved , god wants to meet you . Because God's love is expanding . It is unruly , god's love is divine , and God's love can do nothing other than make whole .

So when we allow God's love in our lives or in the lives of others , we are participating in the wholeness that Spirit has been creating over the chaos since the very beginning . God is love , and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them .

Love has been perfected among us in this way , and this is again these words love being perfected among us , love being matured . That's the reason we come together and why community is essential , because we don't get to choose community .

Community just comes because God is building his family , and so you might be in community with someone who doesn't look like you , who doesn't eat the same foods that you eat , who doesn't vote like you vote .

And this is the hope that in community , our love will be matured , our love will be stretched , our love will be asked to grow bigger and we'll learn each other's stories and our love will grow exponentially . But love is perfected among us that we may have boldness on the day of judgment , because , as he is , so are we in the world Beloved .

This is what mature love looks like , that we would look like Jesus when Jesus was here in the world . And love looks like following the Father , following Spirit , following wisdom and then loving and serving the world . You've read the stories , as I've read the stories . When someone was hungry , jesus fed them . When someone was sad , jesus wept with them .

When someone was hurting , jesus brought comfort , and this is what love looks like , not our own agenda , in fact . Jesus kept saying this and lived this Not my will be done , but yours , and so love understands that God's good and beautiful will is what is hoping to be accomplished in this realm of love .

But I think , five different times Heather and I were expecting a baby and we were never going . You better produce , boom . There was such a different spirit about the joy of expecting what was gifted to us . Do you see the difference ?

And so expecting maturity in you isn't come on , you're not stepping up , but the joy of birth , the joy of something coming into your life greater than what is currently there and stronger than what we can currently accomplish and do .

That's what God is offering here in this verse , and so it doesn't bring a heavy handedness , but just it shifts it , because then , you know , I'm kind of looking at my performance here to kind of stepping out here and going . The stage is set , god , what are you going to do ? Isn't that exciting ?

And there's , so could we maybe look at that maturity in our lives in a different way ? Well , you better better grow up . So this is a natural process that God is promising you . So those areas that feel like maybe you're never going to get right , he's going to bring them right . Amen .

He's going to do what he said he's going to do and I love that surrender to his gift to us , amen .

If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast , visit us online at firstlovechurchorg , reminding you to like , follow and subscribe . There was love and a big , healthy dose of fear , like fear was somehow going to keep you in line , and I want to tell you , beloved , that doesn't work .

It hasn't since the very beginning . Here are the choices that God gave our first fathers , adam and our mother Eve . You can choose relationship or you can choose the knowledge of good and evil , and we walked away from relationship and we chose for ourselves what we thought was right and we avoided what we thought was wrong and we missed the relationship .

We see this also what Jesus is showing us in the father in when he has the son who leaves the house . Beloved . That's the sin , not the list of things . He did . It was leaving the father's house , and the elder brother did the same thing . He also left the house .

Now the prodigal goes and he leaves and he does the list that we all know , but the one who is the elder brother , he also leaves the house and misses the relationship . He does all the things he thinks that he should and in fact , when the father comes out and says , come into the feast , come back into the relationship , he starts saying you know what ?

I don't think everyone's doing it as the hard mode . We were talking about this because our kids play video games that you can choose the hard mode . I think that's awful , but maybe after you played a long time like maybe you're really good at it and you want the hard mode .

But sometimes in life I think people choose the hard mode sometimes and I think God is saying there is a way beloved , and it's love , and love is the mode that wisdom gives us and spirit gives us . There is no fear in love , but perfect love casts out fear , for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love .

And I will tell you , for years this verse tormented me because I could feel fear . I can feel it in my body and at the back of my neck , and sometimes fear wakes me up at night , and sometimes fear won't let me sleep at night , and sometimes fear keeps me from saying something , and sometimes fear makes me say things I don't wanna say .

So I wanna tell you , beloved , that this is not a verse that condemns us . This is a verse that is an invitation to us . In any of those scenarios , we're invited to let love in .

Where has love not yet reached us ? Where have we not allowed the good news of Christ who said I am love and I am here and God is in you . Love is here . There is an invitation to leave that false self behind and come into this new life of constant love , of communion with love and of understanding that that love is already in us . Christ , already in us .

Paul the Apostle says this the love of God has already been shed abroad in your heart . Through Christ Jesus , you already have God's love in you . So allowing that love to supersede that fear , this is the hope of Christ .

This verse , you know , and it worked and it really has been such a gift to me . This verse , you know , because it's so bad that panic attack , and when it would come on me I would just find that scripture and I'd quote it and I'd meditate it on it and I'd focus on it . But you know , there's a deeper truth than just that beginning place of it .

That is , the promise that in love there is no fear . And so the offer isn't just that . I'd have this verse as a safety net , and though it has been for me for most of my adult life , do you see the deeper picture that's in it ? And what's offered , you know , is that there's in love there is no fear .

You know , and as I fall in love with him , I fall away from all the expectations I think that I must fulfill in order to make him happy , and inevitably viewing myself falling short and then focusing on that and fear overwhelming me and I fall back into that torment . That fear brings Anyone else with me . Or am I talking to myself here ?

And I'm telling you that as you fall in love with him and find out that he is not the judge that we thought he was , but he is the redeemer and the savior that we always wanted and we've desperately needed , then you can rest in that love , in a place where that stuff falls away .

And I find that the thing that you focus on is the thing that you will experience in your life . And so when I focus on that kind of trying to toe the mark and that behavior thing and I inevitably focus on the fact that I can't do it and there it is , that fear just stays in that place .

But when I can shift my focus on him , his completed work and what he's offered me and what he's brought me into , that he has made us righteous , he has redeemed us Then in that place of love and focusing on that , that other stuff , it falls away and I just I hope that you see the beauty in these scriptures and what they offer you and how deep and

wonderful that love is that is offered . Amen .

There is something that is called replacement theology , and it is this idea that sometimes we need to take ideas or traditions that we have and replace them with something bigger and higher .

And it is in fact what Jesus offered to all of us when he called us to a life of repentance , not a life of saying I'm sorry , because that's not what repentance is , but a life of having thoughts that are higher . Come up here , my ways are higher than your ways , my thoughts are higher than your thoughts .

And this idea , this invitation , is that we would allow love to absolutely transform us , and not when we deserve it and not when we've earned it , but thus that God loves us . In John , chapter four , verse 19, . We love because he first loved us . He loved us as we are made in his image and fully human .

Sometimes it feels to me , like someone has said to me and though they haven't actually used the words but that somehow my humanness was something that I needed to get over or get past or get on from , but I wanna tell you that God was fully present in Christ , as he was fully human .

So our humanity is not something that we need to diminish , but that we need to allow love to intersect with , and that we would say in my humanity that God lives in me , that love lives in me and that I am welcomed in love's presence . We love because love loved us first . That's hopeful and love continues . Love does not stop .

There is nothing you can do to make God unlove you .

Doesn't that ring true sometimes , if you're being honest and how you see yourself ? We love because he tolerated me , he loves you . Your worst day , your worst thing , he's still

. You are his child and you know , and for me that's been the struggle , because it's that humanity , that part of me that is just sin and fallen short of the glory of God .

I just despise it and so I spend this time and I have despising me and it's like you are who God created , just like you , you know , and so sure that you've messed around in the mud and you've done some things , you know , and we've made some mistakes , but we've mishandled this .

But it's the you that he loves and so why would we despise what he has made , you know ? And so , yeah , we gotta allow some tweaks and things in there , but there's beauty in that because it's like this car is worth salvaging . It's got good bones in this house or whatever they say .

You know , and it's like you are good because he lives on the inside of you and he made you , you know , and so I'm excited about that and I think that I really can't fully believe this . Loved me , you know , until I can kind of go , okay , I can love me , and you can't have fresh water and salt coming out of the same .

Well , do you understand that if you can't love yourself , then you're not gonna really ever understand his love for you . You can't have that in there and so , for your own good , turn loose of it . It's not serving you . You thought it did and that's why you're doing it .

You thought maybe if you beat yourself enough , that it would produce good behaviors in you . But it's trapping you and I amen . And so if we can just go wait a minute , he's worth trusting and he said he loves me just as I am , and so I wanna decide to do that and that's a practice . And the things that we're offering today are not a light switch .

We wish they were Heather and I'd write a book and go on a book tour . But it's just a practical , it's the everyday stuff . But I'm telling you there's a way of escape for that torment of fear and that lie that you are not good enough and somehow you are less than everybody else .

I like that old Pentecostal saying it's a lie from the pit of hell that smells like smoke . I don't know how accurate doctor that is , but I like saying it . That stuff's just not good . Amen .

And those thoughts beloved are from God , because God is love , and learning to love what God loves is an invitation into relationship . We love because he first loved us . Those who say I love God and hate their brothers and sisters are liars . Well , yeah , you figured that out , didn't you ? I like that . He just came out and called him a liar .

I'm sorry , you know . Didn't say they don't really know , or they haven't learned it yet , or they haven't been matured . It just said hey , you're lying If you don't love your brother and sister if you say that you love God .

I mean , there were a lot of people around there and Jesus didn't write his own gospel , but John was like , since I'm writing it , I'm gonna tell you something about me . I am loved and I'm fast , and he wanted us to know that .

You know , and there's things I think that he probably left out and I don't know those things , but what I know is that John knew he was beloved and he held that even as he matured and as he gets to be a very old man . What he holds onto is little children , family of God . It's all about love .

In this text , john is calling us to understand that love looks like the way we treat ourselves and the way we treat people . This is where God is Between us . This is where God is In the present moment , right now God showing up in love , redeeming us , changing us , offering us . You cannot love God whom they have not seen .

The commandant we have from him is this those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also . This is what it looks like to follow Jesus , and the commandments are simple , and Jesus gave us very simple yet very difficult things to do , which is love our brothers and sisters . Do you know how close brothers and sisters get ?

They just get all up in your space . I mean , I think that's the way Jesus didn't say . Love like friends or neighbors . Neighbors have walls between them . Family gets like in your stuff and they're in your area and they're touching , encroaching on your thoughts and even on the stories you tell your brothers and sisters want to jump in and tell another story .

I mean , there's just stuff that happens between siblings that is like gross and human and wonderful all the same time . And Jesus is saying that's when love happens . It's in between brothers and sisters and , yes , neighbors and enemies . But brothers and sisters do not respect your autonomy .

They use your hairbrush and they take your things and they use your stuff and then they even encroach on your friends and their mess moves over

. And Jesus is inviting us if you love God and now this is not just for family siblings that are from the same parents .

We are the family of God , and so what does it mean for us to understand that in the family of love , in the realm of love , there will be people who get too close to you or who take things that are yours , and God's saying that's where love is , that's where I am , this is what it's gonna look like , this is how you can know Beloved .

We're all looking for wisdom and some of us wanna look for truth , and in this verses here , it says the truth is wisdom . But wisdom would tell us that love is the principle thing , that understanding . Love is what God is , and love is paramount for us .

Jesus said this as simple as this Love the Lord , your God , with all your heart , with all your soul , with all your mind and with all your strength , and love your neighbor as yourself .

This is the whole thing that we would understand that we are worthy of love , that we are loved and that that love allows us to have expansive thoughts , allows us to include more people , allows us to find brothers and sisters we didn't even know we had . And this is the hope for the world that love would rule . Amen .

The commandant we have from God , from Jesus , is this those who love God must also love their brothers and sisters also . Love matters . Most beloved , it is how we know we follow God is how much love we have in our hearts for someone else , not whether or not they look like us , believe like us , talk like us , act like us .

Where is love between us and where is love calling us to take love ? Where is love asking us to go to the margins and bring more love ? Where is love inviting us to participate in the realm of Holy Spirit and what Spirit is doing in the world today ? When I read anything in the news .

There's nothing that I cannot read that love would not fix , even climate change . If we loved the earth that God gave us , that could fix it . Love can fix everything , and this is the hope that God is love and this is our confidence that love in us can be restorative and redemptive .

And he was preaching at a prison and he heard the Spirit of the Lord as God was calling out his love for these men . He heard the Spirit of the Lord say to him that yes , I'm forgive the child molester , and he said I don't want to say it .

So he went on preaching some more and calling out God's love for these people and he heard , just again in his spirit just , you need to say this , so I'm not gonna do it Went on preaching a little bit more and he said the next thing you know it came out of his mouth without him being able to stop it God loves the child molester .

And the place became completely silent and all of a sudden you began to hear the wails of just a few men in the very back , as they began to cry and break from the spirit of God touching them in a way to bring forgiveness to a shame that they also surely were under .

And then the men began to get up and go around these men and pray for them and weep . And he said that in his lifetime of ministering he has never seen the spirit of God fall in a service or move . In a way it marked him . It's changed his entire life , the way that he ministers , everything about him .

Because what happened was in his mind God had a limit , and when God explodes your limit , your cup overflows . Do you know what I mean ? When you realize that , even greater than what you could say is the limit , god's gonna say my love is even greater . And when he demonstrates that to you , you're forever changed .

So I would ask you to maybe not hold so tightly on those limits of what you're convinced God will never do and God is not pleased with it . All those and we understand that , and that's not the doctrine we're talking about . What we're talking about is his ability to love and to move into place of forgiveness and transformation .

That is just , frankly , it is just way bigger than you . And so I believe that if we wanna see a move of God , we need to let the God who lives on the inside of us expand to where he's capable of expanding .