The
Gift of God III: Love
2
Timothy 1:1-7
A
Sermon Preached 2/16/97
Dr.
C. W. Powell Powell
Introduction
The third
benefit of the gift of the Holy Spirit is love. Please note several things:
God had prepared Timothy in a wonderful way to do the work of the
Gospel. He had given Timothy the gift
of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy
Spirit who renews our minds--saves our minds so that we can think clearly. "Commit your works unto the Lord, and
He will direct your thoughts," is the way Solomon puts it. We were not created to live apart from
fellowship with God: and that includes the Christian: we are to live lives of meditation on God's word, fellowship with
God's people, and submission to the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
The gift of the Holy Spirit was given to Timothy to energize him
for the work. "Power" here is
ability or might. You can do the work
God has called you to do, but the Holy Spirit does not make you autonomous, as
though you can do the work of God in yourself.
No, He unites you to Jesus Christ, and your enabling comes from living
in fellowship with Christ and being united to the body of Christ. Jesus said that we can do nothing of
ourselves; we must abide in the Vine, and derive our strength and power from
Him.
So now we come to love: the more excellent way that Paul spoke of
in 1Corinthians 13. There are several
things to say today concerning the Spirit of love.
I. The Impossible Task is described by the
Heidelberg Catechism:
Q. 4.
What does the Law of God require of us?
A. Christ teaches us in sum, Matt. 22: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength. This is the first and great
commandment. And the second is like unto
it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets."
Q.
5. Canst thou keep all this perfectly?
A. No, for I am prone by nature to hate God and
my neighbor.
I am commanded to do something that it is impossible for me to do
in myself. In fact, my natural bent is
contrary to this. I am bent by nature
to hate both God and my neighbor. Now,
there is nothing in nature that keeps me from pretending to love God and my
neighbor. That is easy to do. The impossibility for the flesh is of the
same order as for a lion to lie down with a lamb without harm to the lamb, or
for the child to play without harm on the den of the adder.
The Root of
Sin.
The root of sin is the turning upon one's self. God Himself shows us what is good for
us. It is God's nature to shine forth,
for God is light. He created all
things, and takes care of all things.
His glory makes the glory of the sun, moon, and star to pale in
comparison, yet He humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and
in the earth! (Ps. 113:6). He raises
the poor out the dust and is not too proud to lift the needy out of the
dunghill (Ps. 113:7)
Though glorious, He humbles Himself to save sinners. "Though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."
(2Cor. 8:9) God has never commanded us
to do anything that is not an expression of His Own nature. God has commanded us to do something that we
can by no means do; but we must do it if we are to go to heaven. God's work in us must terminate in love, or
it is all vanity.
Sin is the seeking of our own, and not the things of God. Sin is seeking to serve ourselves in others,
rather than serving others. This is not
to say that the essence of sin is selfishness, for that is to misrepresent the
law of God, but certainly our lawlessness and wickedness terminates in love for
self and not for love for God and our neighbor.
God's Free
Work of Salvation
By His grace, God freely takes me to Himself, because Christ died
for me. God makes me His own. He does this through the gift of faith,
which by the Holy Spirit draws me to Himself.
Because I belong to Him, He gives me the Spirit of Adoption, which
makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him. (HC 1). God does not save me because He sees faith
in me, for salvation is of His free election to eternal life, but the gift of
faith is evidence that He has taken me unto Himself.
Two Spirits
There are two spirits that work in you. This is certain. There
is the Spirit of the World. This spirit
is described in Eph. 2:1-3. This is the
spirit of disobedience: you love
yourself and you seek your own way. You
insist on your own way; you expect everyone to make you happy; you get very upset
if the world doesn't fulfill your expectations; you run from one quarrel to
another because of this; and although you may have the word love in your mouth,
yet your heart is filled with strife and anguish, wrath, strife, envy, and so
forth.
Just look around you: this
is the spirit of the world; this is the spirit of disobedience; this is the
spirit of the flesh, and it cannot be anything else but that. The Ephesian Christians had been like this
at one time, but by faith (vs. 8-10) they had been captured by a new spirit, in
order that they may fulfill God's eternal, predestined plan for them.
How do you recognize the spirit of the world? Paul says it clearly in Galatians 5:24-26.
"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with
the affections and lusts. If we live in
the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one
another."
The flesh is full of itself, living in strife and unrest. This spirit did not go away when you became
a Christian. Christian still must
contend with the flesh, but something new has been added to him.
If you belong to Jesus Christ, then He has given you the Spirit of
Adoption, whereby your heart cries out "Abba, Father." (Rom.
8:14,15) You belong to Christ and are a
child of God by faith. The Spirit of
Adoption is the transforming Holy Spirit, who changes the way you think about
yourself and the way you think about others.
Please note the following in Galatians 5.
Gal. 5:24: The death of
Christ crucified the flesh. There is no
hope for the sons of Adam. What does
God think of your natural life? He
thinks of you as crucified with Christ.
The flesh with its passions and desires are crucified: not redirected, not made into something else;
You and I must think of the sinful nature the same way God thinks of it. Don't excuse it; don't flatter it; don’t try
to raise its self-esteem. It is
crucified with Christ.
It is not that you must crucify the flesh. You can't even do that. It is crucified with Christ. "Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge
Him, and He shall direct thy paths." (Prov. 3:4,5) The true saints are those who have no
confidence in the flesh. (Phil. 3:3)
We cannot become the children of God by teaching the flesh to love
God and our neighbor; that can never be.
An Ethiopian cannot change his skin (neither can an Englishman, or a
Japanese!), and a leopard cannot change his spots. I can only love if I have been made a partaker of the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of Adoption, who makes me heartily willing and ready
henceforth to live unto Him. It is the
Holy Spirit that makes me a New Creature in Christ Jesus, so that I can be what
I was created to be.
II. Romans 6:16-19.
The conflict between the flesh and the spirit is set forth in
Romans 6:16-19. "Know ye not,
that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom
ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the
servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which
was delivered you. Being then made free
from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness."
The flesh is the servant of sin; always was, always will be. But by receiving the Gospel, we receive a
new principle: there is something in is that is the servant of
righteousness. If you are a Christian,
you not only have the flesh, the natural power that you received from Adam, but
you have the Spirit of Adoption. You
have a conflict within.
Your Members
In verse 19, Paul speaks of yielding the members, the body. Sin is revealed by the activities of the
body; so also is love and righteousness revealed. We reveal who we are by the actions of the body.
This is a basic principle of life. I cannot know your heart; you cannot know mine. We only look on outward appearance; not even
the devil can know the heart. This is
reserved by God to Himself alone.
Sometimes people say, "You must love me for
myself." I cannot do that, and
you cannot do that. This is humanistic
garbage and claptrap. I do not know who
you are, and you do not know who I am except by what I do in the body. You communicate love or hatred by the things
that you do, and so do I. There is no
other way.
This is the spirit of the world.
The Holy Spirit says, "If a man would have friends, let him show
himself friendly." The way not to
have friends or to lose the love of others is to insist that they be your
friend, to insist that they love you for yourself, whatever that might be. Even if we have enemies, we must examine
ourselves, because "When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his
enemies to be at peace with him." (Prov. 16:7)
It was the sixties generation mentality that I am to be loved for
myself. I opposed it then, and I still
oppose it. It is selfish,
self-centered, domineering, and arrogant.
The rebels of that generation behaved in the most disgusting way,
insulted their elders, trampled upon traditions and customs, showed contempt
for institutions and order, called police pigs, and spit in the faces of their
elders and parents. Then they insisted,
"You must love me as I am."
And sadly enough, the church, out of its basic humanism and rejection of
sound doctrine, wrung its hands pitifully, and moaned, "You're right. You poor babes. You haven't been loved enough." It was nonsense then, and it is nonsense now.
III. Galatians 6: Loving Burden Bearing.
The first part of Galatians 6 develops the doctrine of Galatians
5:24-26, which we looked at a moment ago.
Galatians 6:1. Spiritual
ones are to restore those overtaken in faults.
They are not to "accept them" as they are, but love them in
order to restore them. This is to be
done with a spirit of meekness, but there is also a recognition that there is
such a thing as spiritual health, and people should be healthy. This is not done by those who have
confidence in the flesh, but by those who are "spiritual," or those
who are led by the Spirit of God. In
the context of Galatians, this means those who know the Gospel of Christ, not
those who are experts in the law of Moses.
Such people know the vanity of the flesh, and consider themselves, lest
they be tempted also. There is no
confidence in the flesh or its power, but a recognition that the flesh is
crucified with Christ.
Bear one another's burdens.
This means to make their load lighter.
I must recognize that one of the greatest burdens people have to bear is
to love me. Shall I cast a stone in
their path by being a jerk? Shall I
break down the door of their house, trample dirt on their carpet, insult their
children, and spit in their faces, and say to them, "Ha!! You have to love
me."
What about my duty to love them?
I am supposed to bear their burdens.
I should make it easier for them to love me.
Gal. 6:3. Don't Think Too
Much of Yourself. The flesh is filled
with self-conceit and pride, which results in hatred of God and my
neighbor. I know in my heart that I am
not worthy of love. I am not worthy of
them showing me anything but contempt.
If people could really see into our hearts, how many of us would be
loved even of our relatives. Don't
deceive yourself. The flesh knows that
it is a rebel. It knows it is unworthy
of love. It knows that if it is found
out, people will despise it and chase it from them. Because of this, it surrounds itself with walls of pride and
lies, and hates those who threaten its defenses.
Gal 6:4. Prove your own work. I am not to work on other people's love; I
am to work on my own. I am not to work
on manipulating them or forcing them to love me; but to love them. Do your own work. Your work is to love the Lord your God with all your heart,
soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Simply stated, I am not to put their love
to the test; I am to put my love to the test.
I am not to tempt God by putting His love to the test, but I am to prove
my own love to Him.
You are not to walk up to your neighbor, and put him to the test
by insisting that he love you in your most repulsive form; but you are to study to love him in his most
repulsive form. But in our selfishness
and conceit, we turn everything upside down.
The spoiled children of the sixties basked in self-righteousness because
they thought they were better than others because they "loved people for
themselves," without standards, without manners, and without morality. How self-righteous and conceited they were
in their slovenliness, dirt, drugs, and obscenities.
It is wrong to expect my neighbor to love me no matter what I
do. This is to add to his burdens. Love makes the burdens of others
lighter. My self worth is not revealed
by the number of people who love me, but by the number of people I love.
Gal. 6:5: Bear your own
burden. My burden is to bear his
burden. My burden is to make myself
lovable. The example we have is Christ
Himself. He didn't stay in heaven and
insist that we love Him; No he came down to earth and loved us. We love him because He first loved us; it
works the same for us. Men will love
us, when we really love them, and show it by what we do. The only way they will know that we love
them, is by what we do. Loving actions
only reveals intentions.
You will not be judged by the number of people that loved you; but
by the number of people that you have loved.
This is your burden, and mine:
Not to be loved, but to love.
Man's basic need is not to be loved, but to love.
Prove your own work. Prove
your own work by showing that you love others.
Do you want to be secure in the love of your spouses? Then love them greatly, and show it by what
you do. Do you want to be secure in
your children's love: then love them. Not in a manipulative way, but freely, unselfishly, as Christ
loved you, so ought you to love one another.
But remember, only God knows you as you are. All the rest of us know you only by what you do.
Deliverance from fear. God has not given us the
spirit of fear. 1John 4:9-21. Fear is concerned first of all with
self. I am afraid that people won't
love me. I am self-conscious, which
simply means that I am very conscious of myself. I always think of myself first.
How will this look? What will
others think? How do I appear? I hate them, for I suspect they think badly
of me. Do they love me? They better love me; I will hate them if
they don't love me. I know I do lots of
things wrong, but they better not judge me for them. I hate it when I think they judge me. I hate them for judging me.
I hate them for not loving me. I
hate them. I hate them. I hate them. Fear makes us resemble the man who buried his talent, because he
feared he could not please the master.
"Why should I try to please them; I can't please them anyway. They are hard and cruel, and expect too
much. I will hide in this hole here,
covered up with a napkin, and if I am ever called to account, I will let them
know how I feel. I hate them."
This is all backwards.
This is the turning into and upon oneself that is the very opposite of
the love of God. God's nature is to
shine forth, to open His heart and His hand.
He does good to all men. He
fills the earth with abundance. He
doesn't sit in heaven nursing his wounds, and fretting about whether or not
people love Him. He showers the earth
with blessings. He Himself came and
walked among us, loving us and doing good.
This is the
Spirit that He has given to His people.
Not fear and torment, but love.
May God
bless you.
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Write:
Dr. C. W. Powell
6050 Del Paz Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
719-590-1477
email: budpow@ureach.com