Love Is Found in Deeds… Not Words | Tony Evans Sermon Clip

you expect the refrigerator to keep stuff cold You're Expecting the stove to make things hot you expect the toaster to pop up some bread and if they just sitting there they don't understand why they're here Christians need to understand why we're here we're here to be him in the world and he defines himself as God is love and we are to represent that in the world so the question is what do we mean by love um this word gets thrown around a lot I love chocolate cake I love ice cream I love that movie you know I love that place we confuse the word love with like involves an emotional attachment to something when I like something it means I enjoy it that's the word like but it gets substituted for the word love the biblical the Greek word for love is agape it's verb form agapao and it has to do with a decision biblical love does not start with an emotion it starts with a decision like starts with an emotion because it's how you feel about it biblical love may or may not include an emotion that's why God can command you to love your enemies he's not telling you to feel good about somebody that hates you he's talking about making a decision so let me give you a formal definition of biblical love biblical love can be defined as the decision to compassionately righteously responsibly and sacrificially seek the well-being of another let me say that again biblical love is the decision to compassionately righteously responsibly and sacrificially meet the need of somebody else okay love is a decision that's why it can be commanded Jesus called it the the Commandment what is the great commandment you should love the Lord your God and your neighbor he says love is commandable and you Command Decisions not emotions you can't you can't command your emotions but you can command a decision so the love is to decide something what you are deciding in biblical love is to be of benefit to somebody else that has a need you're making a decision to execute compassion because of a need okay so there's a need you're going to be compassionate about it and you make the decision once the decision is made and the action taken love has been expressed even if there's no feeling attached to it now you want feeling because you want to like what you love and that's good we should want to like what we love but we can also love what we don't like because biblical love or God so loved the world that he gave he wasn't doing flips about the death of his son but it's our need and because he saw a spiritual need he made a decision even though it was costly to his son so love a Biblical love not cultural love not Hollywood love but uh God's love starts with a decision and often grows into a like okay when a man says I don't love my wife anymore the woman says I don't love my husband anymore what they're generally saying is I don't like him or the emotion is gone the fire is gone the passion is going that's what the and what they do is they turn like into a love decision but biblical love start with a decision and it can grow into an emotion he says in first John chapter 3 these words verse 16. we know love by this that he laid down his life for us he did something they based on our need and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren but whoever has the world's Goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him how does the love of God abide in him little children let us not love with word or with tongue but indeed and in chance love is not just what you say it's what you do and the way you know you're not loving is you have the capacity to do it the opportunity to do it and you make yourself not do it he says you close your compassion as you force yourself I'm not going to do it you can you should There's an opportunity to but you say oh look you force yourself away from it that's why he says in verse 16 verse 17 You Close Your Heart shut it down you decide not to love you decide not to express it he says when that happens the love of God is non-operative in you that you're not operating with God's definition of love because like has gotten in the way I don't like that situation but the key is that you have to understand you were saved to be an aqueduct not a reservoir you were saved to be a a not a cul-de-sac but a conduit when God put his love on you and me he wanted it to flow through you not stop with you the moment he sees his love to you stops with you then the there is a stopper in the sink of how God will relate to you because you're no longer being like him in the world you know you're being the opposite to the love that he defines and so we are operating against the will of God now chapter three again verse 20 of first John in whatever our hearts condemn us for God is greater than our heart and knows all things beloved if our heart does not condemn us we have confidence before God he says when you love like I am defining love the decision to compassionately responsibly righteously sacrificially meet the need of someone else stay with me here he says the guilt you feel the condemnation you feel for the stuff you've done the failures you've had the regrets that gnaw at you the things you wish you could do over again the do-overs that you can never ever go back and fix the people you wounded the mistakes you've made the sins that have drove you down he says when your heart condemns you God is greater than your heart in other words your heart is messing you up it's it's driving you crazy he says but when you love like I say love the god who's greater than the condemnation that's killing you will overrule a heart that doesn't want to obey and he says I will be greater than the heart messing you up so if you look back at yesterday and you've got regrets and pains and mistakes and failures and you can't do it over again and it knows that you keeps you up at night when you see it being played on the television and it reminds you of who you were and who you are he says God says I can overrule that but I'm not just going to overrule that because you pray I'm not going to just go over all that because because you uh go to church I'mma overrule that by the love I see but how I am you are in the world when I see that then I'll overrule your heart which is being condemning you because of your actions the thing that will motivate God to override yesterday and move you into tomorrow and even the condemnation that comes with it is when he sees the love because you want to be right with him our government allows for charitable deductions not words when tax time comes you write your deductions and part of those deductions are gifts you've given to charity um the money you give to the church is a charitable deduction and so you owe the government this much but when they see you gave to this and you gave to that you gave to that and of course you tied the old cliff when he sees that you did this and you did this and you did this your tax bill shrieks your tax bill your obligation Uncle Sam gets smaller because of your charitable contributions your failure my failure our failure with God may be like this but when he sees love here love here love here and love here and love here and love here and love here and love here and love here he counts them as charitable deductions and so even though you owe this much when he looks at the love that you have demonstrated and shown he then counts that against the obligation of our failure giving us the opportunity to repair the Bible says we were saved for good works Ephesians 2 8 9 by grace are you say if you faith that none of yourselves this is the gift of God not according to the works of No Man's your boast verse 10 for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he hath created beforehand that we should walk in them he says I saved you in eight nine so you could go to work in verse 10. I saved you for you to do something you didn't you don't you don't purchase an appliance for it to sit there you expect the refrigerator to keep stuff cold You're Expecting the stove to make things hot you expect the electric can opener to open some cans you expect the toaster to pop up some bread and if they just sitting there they don't understand why they're here Christians need to understand why we're here we're here to be him in the world and he defines himself as God is love and we are to represent that in the world but many of us are like teenagers who only come out of that room when they want something that's when they're gonna come out the room we come to church when we want something God says I want something and I want to see I want to see your love being expressed God is Not Looking for celebrities he's looking for Kingdom servants [Applause] he's looking for people who will represent him with what he calls good works first uh Titus Chapter 3 Verse 4 says it is the kindness of God that should be your motivation salvation is the biggest kindness but there's everyday kindness the regular stuff yeah that's the big stuff we talk about but their God is God is so good and so regular you get used to it until something goes wrong good works well I needed to find good works because we are his workmanship created for good works a good work is more than a good thing Sinners can do good things atheists can do good things you can have a person who hate and hates God but is a good neighbor in other words you don't need a religion to do a good thing but that's not a good work a good work in the Bible is a good thing to which God has been attached Matthew 5 16 says let your light so shine that men see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven if God is not attached it's a good thing but not yet a good work so a good work is the attachment of God to a good thing now because God has been brought into the equation and God is love and you are representing God by The Loving act that you do now God is attached to the ACT making it a good work for which you get credit for the future and also repair of the past because now you are involved in Good Works you're involved in Good Works

Channel: Tony Evans

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Id: rAlbNbwl_N0

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 12 2023