What relevance does a close to 2,000 year old book have for our sexual expression today? All that’s in this book is “Don’t,” “Don’t commit adultery,” “Don’t have sex before marriage,” and just to be safe, “Don’t have sex at all.” If that last one isn’t in there, it should be.
Why would God give us such a strong sexual desire and then give so many restrictions? Consider the words of 1 Corinthians 7:36, “36 If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his fiancé, if his passions are strong, and so it has to be, let him marry as he wishes; it is no sin. Let them marry.”
I want to give you a new perspective on this, God is not restricting this desire he is telling us how to derive as much pleasure from it as possible! Believe it or not, modern sociology backs this up! USA Today in the last few years and Rolling Stone magazine in 1998 both revealed studies that discovered the most sexually satisfied people in America where those in monogamous marriages.
Marriage was created to be a blessing and it is this commandment that seeks to protect it.
A great email came to me this week about the challenge I issued Sunday where I asked all the married folks to make a tangible expression of love daily for their spouse and the single people to make a tangible expression of their love for Christ. The question is, “How do you make a tangible expression of love for Christ?”
Great Question! It’s a bit vague isn’t it? Tangible expressions of love for God…how do we do that? I don’t have this figured out entirely which is why I asked for people to share their experiences with me (if you have suggestions leave them in the comment section below). I do have a few guiding thoughts on this. First, the goal is to do something that physically shows your love for God, move it out of the cerebral realm and into reality.
Second a few tangible suggestions:
- Journal, write out a prayer to God or write him a letter
- Send a postcard to someone who needs encouragement or whom you have a strained relationship, let them know about your faith and conviction to care for them
- Help someone anonymously, buy groceries – leave it on the doorstep and run include a note letting them know it came from Jesus
- If someone asks you to pray for them stop and pray with them right there
- If you’re artistic or crafty make something for God then give it to someone or the church
- Make a sacrifice this week financially and give the money to the Salvation Army or the church (even if it’s five dollars)
- Go serve at the Salvation Army for a meal
- Pray and ask that God would show you something you’re supposed to do and then do it!
This is a short list, I’m sure you can add to it. Let me know how this goes.
Only God’s love is so strong that it is absurd to our natural minds, only God’s love sends a Son to die for the unworthy. Only God’s love remains faithful in the midst of a nation’s adultery. Only God’s love can be considered Fireproof and ours can only be when we have his love as our own.
As Caleb’s dad said in the movie, “You cannot give what you do not have.” So, true!
A fireproof love comes from God. (1 John 4:7-12)
- Notice the intimate language describing loves relationship with God. Love is “born” of God and “knows” God. Our practice of love makes God tangible according to verse 12.
- Love is such a defining characteristic of God, that if you don’t know love – you can’t know God!
- His son is the fullest expression of his love. How do our expressions of love compare?
- We are so quick to quit, when someone is unworthy.
- We are so quick to quit, when someone is undesirable.
- But as scripture says and the song celebrates we have never been unloved!
- You might tire of hearing this about love but the Apostle John seemed to have the same redundancy problem. (Read quotation from Jerome’s commentary on Galatians by clicking here.)
A fireproof love is sustained by God. (1 John 4:13-16)
- What does it take to sustain this love? John makes it clear in verse 15 that God abides, along with his love in those who confess Jesus. We must have a relationship with Christ in order for a Fireproof love to be sustained. Too often we try to love people of our own strength. It just doesn’t work.
- As I searched and searched this week for a good story that would fit as a fireproof love sustained by God. I found lots of great love stories. Stories about people giving kidneys to their spouses, stories about wives waiting for their husbands to return from WWII, stories about marriages that survived an affair.
- The problem was that fireproof love isn’t dramatic. Sure dramatic things can happen with fireproof love, romantic things often happen with fireproof love.
- The truth is that often fireproof love lacks scandal and drama. There’s nothing dramatic about turning off the TV and saying, “Honey I want to hear what you’re saying without being distracted.”
- There’s nothing dramatic about doing the dishes for the 1,000 time and only getting a thanks – or nothing at all. But that’s what a Fireproof love is!
- You see fighting over an affair –that’s dramatic. Fighting over money – not so much. Redemption from prison – dramatic. Redemption for the stupid things we say everyday – not so much.
- If we allow our love to be sustained by God so many of the truly painful problems our sin brings into a marriage we can avoid! I’d rather see God sustain my marriage than save it from the brink of destruction.
- I believe that the true test of a great lover or romancer is not how many times you can save your marriage from the brink or how many partners you can attract but it’s keeping the same partner interested for a lifetime. That’s the test of a truly great lover.
A fireproof love has no fear. (1 John 4:17-18)
- If you’re serving your spouse because you’re afraid of their judgment – it’s not love. If you’re loving your spouse because you’re afraid of their choice for the future – it’s not love.
- Love serves courageously for the other person – no other reason.
- We are afraid of what we don’t know. Love drives out that fear. Sometimes we have these communication break downs that leave us wondering, “What are they thinking?” or “Why did they do that?” If we don’t communicate then we can’t know.
- Eventually we’ll start inserting our own motives, just like in the movie where Catherine assumes that the reason Caleb is changing is to get more money in a divorce.
- This intense fear of uncertainty and failure is powerful. It leads us to places that are more imagined than real. Love cuts through that, brings us back to reality.
- Love braves the dangerous because it knows it to be worth it. A beautiful quote I came across the other day said, “Christ didn’t die to save us from suffering, he died to teach us how to suffer.” In other words, he taught us how to love fearlessly.
A fireproof love testifies of our love for God. (1 John 4:19-21)
- On the flip side of all of this is the Christian who comes to church saying they love God, but hates their spouse. If we truly are believers and love God then we will love our spouse!
- Perhaps you have not done this, perhaps you’ve played church, your spouse knows you’re a fraud – no one here does. How do you rectify this? You start loving now. Notice verse 19 it says, “We love.” That’s present tense active – meaning it’s going on right now!
- There is no better time to start than now. We love our spouses for them, for us, and for God! You were never better suited for it than you are right now.
Next week the Christmas Lights series will be finished by our Youth and Children’s Minister Jared Graves and I will not be posting any notes.
The light of love is the brightest light of the Christmas season. Here in Luke 15 we see three distinct and beautiful characteristics of God’s love.
1. God’s Love Is Reckless (Luke 15:1-7)
- Shepherd who leaves his sheep, not good shepherding advice. 99 in the pen is better than one in the field. We see here that God’s love is reckless, knowing no rational thought when it comes to saving his children. This is illustrated most clearly in Matthew 21:33-41, where the father sends his son to the most violent people. The wicked tenants do to the son what they had done to the previous servants – they killed him. This is the love of God – reckless and madly in love with us.
- We are challenged to be as reckless in our love in Philippians 2:5-8 – Jesus abandoned all he had in heaven recklessly coming to save us.
2. God’s Love Is Complete (Luke 15:8-10)
- Notice the coin does nothing to be found…the onus is on God.
- We place more emphasis on repentance than grace – as though we saved ourselves. Christ descended to earth, was crucified and defeated death. He has done the work; we only need to accept it.
- God has employed believers in his search and rescue operation, we must help. We will not be able to ask God, “Why are there so many who are lost? Why did you let this happen?” He will ask us, “Where were you for them? Why did you let this happen?”
- The lost can not find God alone this is shown very clearly by the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8). He had searched for God his life, but when Philip asked him on the desert road, “Do you understand?” His reply was, “How can I understand if no one explains it to me?”
- Romans 10:14 asks, “How are they to call on one in whom they have not believe? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?” (NASB – “a preacher”) They don’t believe because they simply pick up a Bible, heaven forbid they find genocide in Joshua! They believe because of the messenger.
- God understood this, he did not wait for us to figure it out and then to come to him. Rather Romans 5:8 tells us that, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
3. God’s Love Is Amazing (Luke 15:11-24)
- Notice in each parable the value of what is lost increases. From 1 of 100 sheep to 1 of 10 coins now to 1 of 2 sons.
- Also notice, that in all parables what is lost is essentially dead – at least to the owner. The sheep is no good, has no hope without supervision and care. The coin is dead stuck in a floorboard. The son is good as dead, living a life of apostasy and starvation.
- Notice also the responsibility. We have to the first two parables to ensure that we understand God is responsible for the saving – not us. The son after all is rehearsing a speech, not of repentance but a sales pitch to be restored as a slave.
- See finally what brings about the saving for the son is his realization that he’s dead. He can not be resurrected (so he thinks) as a son – he must be a slave.
- The shepherd however resurrects the sheep to the fold and a celebration ensues. The coin to the purse and a celebration ensues. The son to the father and a celebration ensues.
- It is the resurrection power of God, not our own work, not even our sorry speech that merits life and salvation. It is the love of God
4. Can we accept it?
- The parables are the same, something is lost, someone finds and then they party. Except for the lost son. This parable has a bookend in it.
- Notice what starts this parable, the Pharisees grumbling that he eats with sinners. Finally in the last parable the Pharisees show up as a character in Jesus’ story.
- The elder son comes in, we might as well call him, “Common Sense.” Because he says what we think and acts the way we feel.
- The elder brother is offended at the father’s generosity and feels that the price of righteousness is too high. He complains he’s received no fatted calf. He complains that his brother has been restored.
- What he misses is that his brother was dead and now is alive!
- The father reveals it’s not a debt cancellation, but a funeral cancellation that has caused this party. There’s no injustice – it’s a miracle.
- What is the party celebrating? Not the brother’s sob speech but the resurrection power of the father!
- The elder son forgot that he was dead too! He also was sustained by the father’s generosity. Lamentations 3:22…
I am deeply indebted to Robert Farrar Capon’s commentary on this parable which gave me a fresh and new understanding of this very familiar parable. You can view his work Kingdom, Grace and Judgment on Amazon by clicking here.
