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Sermons

June 16/17, 2018

The Unstoppable Agenda of Christian Love

Dave Zuleger (South Campus) | 1 Timothy 1:1-5

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,

To Timothy, my true child in the faith:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.—1 Timothy 1:1–5

The Unstoppable Agenda of Christian Love – 1 Timothy 1:5

Introduction: What Agendas Rule Your Heart?

As I was thinking about what a young pastor might say that would be helpful to a people on the verge of a new building and therefore what probably feels a like a “new era,” I just kept coming back to 1 Timothy 1:5, where the Apostle Paul tells a young pastor, Timothy, what he should hope for the church in Ephesus. 

And what stands out about the charge Paul gives to Timothy is the profound simplicity of it. Paul says, the end goal is “love.” In other words, Paul wants the agenda of the church and the people at Ephesus to be love. Love for God that overflows into love for people.

There are false teachers in Ephesus with distracted agendas rather than love. There are practical matters in the church that need to be carried out in love. The goal of teaching and practice must be love, or it’s not meeting the ultimate Christian agenda.

And so, as Bethlehem South prepares to march into a “new era” in a new building, the call of Christ to this people in this moment is the call to love, which means we should start by examining our souls for other agendas. 

So, let’s ask our souls some questions about our agendas. When you interact with your spouse do you go into every conversation with the agenda of your heart being to love them? What about when they don’t see things your way? What about your children? What about when they’re not listening? What about your co-workers? What about your neighbors? What about people that point out sin in your life? What about when you have to point out sin other people’s lives? What about people that slander you? What about people that you have to ask forgiveness from because you’ve hurt them? What about people that are hardest for you to forgive?

In all of those situations is the agenda of your heart; “I want to love this person with the love of Christ right now?”

Now, where you can’t answer “yes” I don’t want you to hear this as a condemnation, but rather as an invitation this morning from the word of God to walk in the freedom of Christlike love.

You see, when we come to all these situations with agendas that don’t match the agenda of love, life becomes incredibly frustrating. Our spouses disappoint us. Our children disobey us. Our co-workers dismiss us. Our neighbors distance themselves from us. Our sin dismays us. Others’ sin against us distracts us. 

Our souls grow weary and tired with our eyes fixed on our failed agendas instead of on our victorious Savior. But, Paul would call you this morning, as a people entering into a new building and a new era to be marked by the old way of Christian love and set free from failed agendas to carry out the unstoppable agenda of Christian love. 

Remember Your Identity in Christ (1:14–15) 

Now before we dive into verse 5, I want to take you to verses 14–15 because I think underneath Paul’s call to Christian love is the reality that God in Christ has loved him. In other words, he calls the church to love because he knows so personally the power of the transforming love of God:

The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

Over and over again, Paul sees his main identity as “in Christ.” He’s united to Christ by faith. He’s a sinner saved by grace. And that grace overflows in faith and love.

This is important in our call to Christian love for a couple reasons. First, if you begin to try to love from your own strength, you will certainly fall into the ditches of prideful self-exultation and or paralyzed self-pity. You will be puffed up when you love well and you will be paralyzed in pity when you fail. Even something as good as love—when it becomes an identity marker for you and when you’re measuring yourself based on how well you love—can become an idolatry. 

But, for Paul, the call to love was not a call to love for an identity. It was a call to love from an identity. The call therefore is not, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and love.” The call is, “You’ve been loved in Christ. You, the foremost of sinners have been loved in Christ. And now, you are united to Christ by faith with God’s love poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, love others with the love of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit.” 

When we love from our identity in Christ, it feels like walking in the freedom of who we already are in Christ.

The second really practical reason this identity is important is that when you think of yourself mainly as “the foremost sinner saved by the grace of God” it is much easier to approach others in humble, self-giving love. There is no pride in being a sinner saved by grace. There is no bravado in being a sinner saved by grace. There is no manipulative power play in being a sinner saved by grace. There is just joy and a desire to help others see and savor the Savior that has saved you by his grace.

So, the first way to throw off our false agendas and move toward an agenda of love is to remember our identity in Christ—sinners saved by grace and walking in the freedom of Spirit-empowered love. 

Remember to Keep Your Gaze on Christ (1:5b)

 As we remember who we are in Christ and seek to walk in love, we must remember to keep our gaze on Christ. Look at the second half of verse 5 where it points us to the fountain of Christian love:

From a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

In other words, no pure heart, no good conscience, and no sincere faith means no Christian love. We need hearts that are continually cleansed from sin, consciences that are continually calibrated by the gospel of Christ, and faith that is continually confirmed in the gospel of Christ. Let’s take those one at a time. 

The idea of a pure heart is a heart that is not polluted by sin and is therefore able to see God.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.—Matthew 5:8

A heart that is pure and can be happy in seeing God is the kind of heart that can love God and others. And the more our hearts see God clearly, the more they are cleansed afresh from sin. It is hard to love God and overflow in love to others when we can’t even see God because our vision is clouded by sin.

Our consciences are the instruments given to us that tell us whether our motives and actions are honoring to God or not. So, the idea of a good conscience means that our tool for evaluating our motives and actions has been calibrated rightly to help us discern if we’re honoring God.

A conscience that is calibrated rightly is the kind of conscience that can help us love God and others. In a world whose basic definition of love is “do whatever you want and I will accept you,” it will take a calibrated conscience to love people toward the truth of the gospel when it flies in the face of culture. Christian love for others must point them to the glory of God as their greatest joy, even when the pressure to compromise is strong. It is hard to love God and overflow in love to others when our conscience is weak or defiled. 

And finally, the idea of a sincere faith is a faith that is the real deal; it’s true. 

Our faith initially saves us from sin by uniting us to Christ, but then it sanctifies us and is confirmed in us again and again as we continually trust the promises of God and rely on his presence and power in our lives.

A faith that is sincere is the kind of faith that by its very nature is “working through love” (Galatians 5:6). So, if there’s no sincere faith, there will be no outworking of love. If there’s no practical trust in promises of God, there will be self-preserving protection rather than self-giving love. 

So, in order to move toward an agenda of Christian love, we need cleansed hearts, calibrated consciences, and a confirmed faith. 

So, the question is, how does that happen? How do we cleanse our hearts so that we can see God? How do we calibrate our consciences so that we can rightly evaluate our motives and actions? How do we confirm our faith so that it can “work through love”? 

And Paul’s counter-answer to all of the impure hearts, seared consciences, and shipwrecked faith of the false teachers—and Paul’s answer to how to practically apply love in all the church situations in Ephesus—is a commitment to keep the pure doctrine of the gospel of Jesus in front of their eyes! Paul, throughout First Timothy, keeps calling Timothy to stay faithful to the main point of gospel and not be distracted by other things. Let me overwhelm you with evidence so you can be overwhelmingly convinced of the importance of us keeping the gospel in front of our eyes:

  • In 1:4, he calls Timothy to devote himself to “the stewardship from God that is by faith”—that is, the gospel.
  • In 1:10–11, he says the law is for those who are out of step with “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.”
  • In 1:15–17, Paul recounts the personal, saving work of the gospel that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.
  • In 2:5–7, Paul calls for prayers to be made for all people, including rulers, because there “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.”
  • In 3:2, Paul says that elders, the leaders of the church, must be “able to teach,” and we can assume that he means the clear gospel message that has been passed down from him to Timothy.
  • In 3:9—deacons must “hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.”
  • In 4:3–5, he combats false teaching on marriage and food by saying that it was created to be received with thanksgiving by “those who believe and know the truth” of the gospel.
  • In 4:6, Paul tells Timothy that he is a good servant if he puts before the people “the words of faith and good doctrine.”
  • In 4:13, Timothy is to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching of the gospel.
  • In 4:16, Timothy is called to keep a close watch on himself and the teaching to save himself and his hearers.
  • In 6:2–3, the church is warned of folks who “teach a different doctrine that does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
  • And the book ends in 6:20 with a call for Timothy to “guard the deposit of the gospel entrusted to him.” 

Why the saturated call to gospel faithfulness and teaching? Because Paul knows that the way we have our hearts cleansed, our consciences calibrated, and our faith confirmed is to keep our eyes on Jesus in the message of the gospel and not be distracted by other things.

Paul knows that fixing our eyes on the gospel—on the person and work of Jesus —is the only hope we have for true transformation from the inside out that empowers love for God and overflows in self-giving love to others. Yes, the church must stay faithful and preach the gospel, and the pastors must set an example of the love of the gospel, but this is also a call to dive deep into the word of God which points to the gospel and prayer to God through the provision of the gospel and daily be transformed as we fix our eyes on Jesus.

When we continually keep the self-giving love of the gospel before our eyes, when we keep the gospel as our main message, over and over again, we are reminded of the love of Christ and we are empowered by the Spirit to see Christ, be changed into his image from degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:16–18), and walk in the freedom of the love of Christ. 

Remember to Overflow in the Love of Christ (1:5a)

So we finally get to Paul’s call to make the “aim of our charge love.” When we remember who we are in Christ and keep our gaze on Christ so that we are continually transformed, we can begin to love God and love others like Christ has loved us. 

We can begin to lay down all of our other agendas and move forward in the agenda of Christian love.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he said this: 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”—Matthew 22:37–39

So, the call has not changed. Paul is calling for the same thing from this church in Ephesus. The call is to make the goal of all of our teaching and all of our practice love for God and love for others. And these two loves cannot be separated. 

I think what marks Christian love for others is that Christian love always seeks to help others know and love God. So, Christian love is always seeking to know and love God and then overflowing to help others know and love God with them. 

Pastor John Piper has said it this way in Desiring God:

Love is the overflow of joy in God which gladly meets the needs of others.

So, how do we find our joy in God? We remember who we are in Christ. We keep our eyes fixed on Christ in the sound doctrine of the gospel so that our hearts are cleansed to see God, our consciences are calibrated to right motives and actions in line with call of God, and our faith in confirmed over and over again in the promises of God.

And as we love God and see that the greatest joy is to see, savor, and spread his glory, our silly agendas fall aside and we are set free by the power of the gospel and the Spirit to approach every interaction, every class, every neighbor, every co-worker, every conversation with our kids and spouses, and every hard situation of extending or receiving forgiveness with the agenda of self-giving love.

Application: The Unstoppable Agenda of Christian Love

This isn’t always easy. It’s not easy to love someone with the love of Christ by confronting areas of sin. It’s not easy to admit you were wrong and ask for forgiveness. It’s not easy to pray for someone who has slandered you. It’s not easy to endure situations where you are misunderstood. But, the agenda of Christian love is unstoppable. 

Now, here is why I call this the “unstoppable agenda of Christian love.” It is unstoppable because no one can stop you from loving them. Think about that. 

You are not called to perfectly resolve every situation. You are not called to save your children. You are not called to fix all the flaws in your spouse. You are not called to be joyfully accepted by your neighbor. You are not called to save the unbelieving barista or server. You are not called to make the other person repent. You are not called to defend your actions when you’ve done wrong.

You are simply and deeply and profoundly and always called to love. And no one can stop you from acting in the self-giving love of Christ. So, if your other agendas are frustrating you, here is one that cannot be frustrated.

Even in the areas where Bethlehem is trying to “strengthen the core,” the areas of spiritual gifts, ethnic harmony, gender complementarity, and more, how will Bethlehem navigate these issues together in a way that will speak to the glory of God and the realness of the gospel that unites us if every person in every conversation does not have the agenda of love, even when there’s disagreement?

But, let me end this way, by simply pointing to a vision for Bethlehem South Campus as a people about to plant their roots in a new building.

What if, while moving into a new building in Lakeville, the main thing that marked this people was self-giving love? 

What if the main way Bethlehem Baptist South was known was as a people of unusual self-giving love?

What if the South Suburbs knew beyond a shadow of a doubt this people must be disciples of Jesus because of how you love one another?

What if the South Suburbs saw a deep faith that was always working through love to meet the needs of one another and its neighbors?

What if the South Suburbs saw the self-giving love of Christ in a people glad to lay down their lives for each other and for the world around them? 

Listen, you cannot fake this. It comes from an identity in Christ. It comes from a people whose gaze is fixed on Christ. It comes form a people whose constant agenda is the love of Christ. It can’t be conjured up or carried out in the flesh.

But, what if what marked this people was a love that was truly patient and kind. A love that truly did not envy or boast. A love that truly was not arrogant or rude. A love that truly did not insist on its own way. A love that truly wasn’t irritable or resentful. A love that truly did not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoiced in the truth. A love that truly bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things?

That kind of love would be a picture of the self-giving love of Christ to save sinners and a foretaste of the face-to-face love we will have in the presence of Christ one day. That kind of love would be the kind of love that produced deep commitment to hearing the gospel, deep fellowship, deep commitment to prayer, deep service to one another and, as the world saw it, and it was genuine, it would be attractive. (See Acts 2:42–47.)

So, South Campus, my call to you is to remember who you are in Christ, remember to keep your gaze on Christ, and remember to have your agenda in every situation be the self-giving love of Christ. And perhaps as the neighbors here in the South see and experience the unstoppable agenda of Christian love, and God moves in them to be drawn into it themselves, a beautiful cry will go up through the neighborhoods of the South Suburbs:

To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.—1 Timothy 1:17