What is True Love?

Luke 22:31-38 & John 21:1-19

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Transcript

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Hello everyone, and this is Chapman Boyles. Welcome to Soldier for Christ Podcast, episode number 21. And today, in particular, I'm gonna single out one particular disciple, and I want to explain something that is rather deep and rather important, I think, so you can really understand the differences of love that Jesus gives us and the difference of love that we as human beings express to God. And it's important that we understand what love is, because uh human love, as I mentioned before, and God's love are very different things. In fact, uh there are a particular theologian and author, and probably one of the most brilliant men of all time that ever lived, a guy named C.S. Lewis talked a lot about love. And I want you to understand, I guess, today a little bit of what Lewis was talking about, how human love is fierce. It can be like passionate and it can be fire, it can be, you know, desire and all that wonderful things, pressure and uh you know, emotions. But human love is generally a self-centered love, a selfish love. That's what I want, an emotional love, which is what I want you to understand. And all the all the disciples of Jesus, even when they were walking with Christ for three years and with him every day, um, their love for Jesus was very much a self-centered love until they really understood the love of Jesus himself at the cross. And when they understood that, and when their faith became real, when their faith became real, their love became real. And as I've always mentioned, the highest hallmark of the Christian faith is love, right? How do you know you're really a Christian? Well, you know you're really generally a Christian when you're born again and you have the ability, just simply the ability to love like God loves. Okay, so your love goes, let's say, from human love, a selfish love, to a divine love, a true love. Um, it's no longer a fake, uh, spurious um claimant, let's just say. It's not a, it's not a it's not a counterfeit, it's not fake. It's not just simply an emotion, it's not just simply a nice feeling. Um it is something that is like it is absolutely like a steady rock. It's a nail, it's a hammer, it's it's it's ride or die kind of thing. So I'm gonna try to explain that today in detail, okay? So you truly know, I mean, as I always mentioned, you truly know what Christ has done for you and the love that he has for you. Because I've mentioned before, and I'll mention it so many times, um, Jesus loves us unconditionally, okay? Unconditionally. What does that mean? That that means that he does not set conditions or stipulations on our love. Um I'm sorry, on his love for us. He does not make um kind of like an idea that if you do certain things, I love you, um, and if you don't, then I stop loving you. Okay. He doesn't say, for example, like, I only love you um six days a week, but not the seventh day, or he doesn't say, like, I only love you when you're perfect, or I only love you when you're good looking, or I only love you when you pray, or I only love you when you go to church, or I only love you when you're rich or when you're poor, or when you're up or when you're down. He just decides that he loves us no matter what. Okay. And when you know that, when you really understand that kind of love, you can really understand how that is that kind of love transforms your life. Okay. Life is the meaning of life, is God's love. That is the meaning of our whole existence on this earth. It's about really nothing else. Because when you understand God's love, you can have genuine, perfect relationship with God. When you have genuine, perfect relationship with God, then you are generally truly born again and never ever the same. Okay. So let me go into um inside here. Let me go into the our prayer this morning, and then we're gonna go into the scripture reading for today. Um, but I will, yeah, let's go in. We're gonna dive deep. And again, this is gonna be kind of my, I guess, my Easter sermon message to you all, uh my late Easter sermon message to you all, and then uh we're gonna go back into the book of Revelation and finish that head, we're gonna finish that strong because as I as I've told you before, I truly believe that we are at right now at the final end times of of mankind. So wherever you are, if you don't mind, uh please uh pray with me before we start. And then we're gonna go into the book of Luke this morning, uh starting at Luke chapter 22, verse 31. But let me pray for you first thing, and then we're gonna get into this. Thank you, Lord Christ, for a wonderful day. Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with your incredible, unfailing love. Help us, Lord, to be completely changed and to understand your love and to live in your love, to abide there, that we can be radically different and changed, and that we too can love others, Christ, as you want us to be loved by yourself. Help us, Lord, to continually grow in our faith, to grow in our wisdom, to repent of sins, to have a true transformation of the mind under the power and the lordship of the Holy Spirit and yourself. And help us, Lord, to live with passion and purpose and meaning that you have given us not a counterfeit, but a genuine, true transformation. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. Okay, so let's go into Luke 22, verse 31. And this is at the end of the what's called the Last Supper, as we talked about, uh, where Peter and the disciples are sitting down with Jesus at the last meal. Jesus has broken the bread, he's also distributed the wine, he's talked about the new covenant, which we talked about in detail last time. And at the end of the last supper, okay, and again that very difficult meal, uh, they get up and they are about to go, Jesus is about to go to the Garden of Ghosemen, he's about to go and start praying with the communing with the Father. Um, but as they get up from the supper, uh Peter, and remember, and I want you to truly understand this guy, because this Peter is just, he is just the most common Christian man, and it reminds me so much of myself that you'll ever meet, okay? I pick on Peter a lot because why? Because Peter's love, you have to really get it, is a very emotional connection, okay? He struggles with identity with himself. He struggles with his own sin and his pride, he struggles with insecurity, he struggles with being just he wants like he wants to be connected to God, okay, but he has reservations and doubts, he has fears and trepidations, he has all this stuff going on in his heart. And so he comes, and this is from verse 31. This is what Jesus says. Jesus says to Peter, he says, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. What does that mean? Jesus is saying to Peter, his name is Simon, he says that the devil himself wants to destroy each and every one of you, all of these disciples, all of his disciples. The devil, by the way, as we always know, wants to destroy us and wreck our relationship with God and send us straight to hell. And he will be successful only if we allow him to do that. But Christ says this in 32. He says, But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when, see, he knows already, when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers. Okay, so Jesus is saying to Peter that he says, Look, I know you're going to you're going to fail, but not completely, that your faith, your faith will not fail. And when you have a change of your mind and you can you really convert and you really are connected to me, he says, when you really turn to me again, okay, because many Christians, by the way, fall away from Jesus. This is common. Many Christians have seasons in their life where they walk away, um, they had an emotional connection with Christ, but Christ wants a true conversion. So Peter is right at the precipice, he's very close to having a genuine, complete repentance and complete trust in Christ, but not yet, not not fully. Um his faith is still very fragile. But Jesus knows that there'll be a time where he will come back, and not only will he come back to him, but he will strengthen all of his brothers, all the other disciples as well. Now, 33, it says, Peter said, Lord, I am ready to go to prison with you and even to die with you. But Jesus said, Peter, let me tell you something. Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me. Okay. So Jesus is telling Peter a pretty tough thing, but he knows everything. He knows our lives, he knows every detail of our lives before we live it, he knows every thought we we think, before we think it. Every one of our days is already written in his book, which is a very comforting thought because when God has complete control of your life, that means that He will He will hold you in His hand, even if you try to run away, He will still bring you back to Him. So what Jesus is saying here, he's saying that I know you're gonna fail. You're going to deny that you knew me three times before the sun comes up, before the rooster crows, okay? Then Jesus asked them, When I sent you to preach the good news, did you not have a did you did you not have money, a traveler's bag, or extra prayer of sandals? Did you need anything? No, they replied. But now he said, Take your money in a traveler's bag, and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. For the time has come for the prophecy about me to be fulfilled. As he was counseling among the rebels, yes, everything written about me by the prophets will come true. Look, Lord, they said, We have two swords among us. That is enough, he said. So what is Jesus saying? He's saying here that when the disciples were with him, they needed nothing. They didn't need money, they didn't need a traveler's bag, they didn't need an extra pair of sandals. When you're with Christ, he completely sustains you. He is the author, finisher of your faith. He supplies you with everything that you need in this world, uh, with exactly what amount of money you need, with the life that you need, with the resources that you need. Okay. When you're with him, he is your your Lord, your sustainer, your strength in your in your salvation, of course, your salvation. When he is not, when he is distanced and he is not in your life, then you're going to need to work on your own efforts and you're going to have to have your own money in Travel's bag and so forth, and fight yourself, fight battles and so forth by yourself. So that it's just his way of saying that you're, you know, I'm going to leave you and you're going to have to be in the world without me. And then that's a bad thing. So the picture there is that without Jesus, you're in trouble. With Christ, you don't need anything. He will supply all of your needs. But here's what I want you to understand today. This is the most important thing I want you to get. Our love for Jesus always starts off extremely weak. Why? Because we are weak, pathetic creatures at the end of the day. Our love and our faith starts off very small. Very small. Okay. It grows because Jesus plants the true gospel in our hearts. He disciplines and he fertilizes and he waters and he develops in us this genuine love. So even a half-hearted love to God is enough for him to start taking a nasty person and converting them to a strong, a strong believer. Okay. Kind of like if you if you look at agriculture, if you go to a field full of just, I guess, rocks and weeds and trees and just full of everything, just a wild, untamed land, Jesus looks at us like a wild, untamed lamb, but he clears the land and he removes the rocks and he digs the soil and he gets the soil right so he can plant and grow and produce things. It is a process where he takes our half-hearted love, like Peter, who, if you can see, has an ambition to love Jesus, but his heart is not all the way in. Okay. Now, let's fast forward because as you know, Christ died for our sins. No mystery about that. I've preached that a thousand times. He was crucified in the most horrific of ways. Um, I, you know, I've seen all the movies on the crucifixions of Jesus, uh, the Passion of Christ, and so forth. No movie really actually actually accurately depicts the true crucifixion of how terrible it was. Um I won't go into extensive detail, but let me just say this. Um when the Romans crucified anyone, uh, crucifixion itself is a death of suffocation. So when they when they nailed um a man to a cross, typically, they would nail his his um, they would find the most painful way to nail um, there's actually the through the wrist, and they would tie your arms and they would nail your feet, and then they would they would put um your buttocks on a kind of like a small platform, and that was used to to allow you to push your body up because you had to be able to breathe only by pushing your feet and your body uh in a position where you could get air to your lungs, and by just pushing your body uh through with the nails in your hands, uh your wrists give me your feet, and by just that act of doing that, just by lifting yourself up, was excruciatingly painful. In fact, many criminally many people who were being nailed and crucified by the Romans would intentionally try to dislocate their hips and fall off that little platform on the butt and just suffocate to death because they'd rather just do that than struggle to breathe. So, what the Romans also did in many cases to mock criminals and um certainly with Christ is they would actually even nail the genitalia of the criminal uh to that platform so they could not dislocate their hips. So, what I'm saying is that um the crucifixion of Christ was unbelievably horrible. But I want you to know that that crucifixion was the price the Lord paid for your salvation. It was where you should be, you should be on that cross. You and I belong on that cross. We are the ones that sin, not Christ. We are the ones who transgress God's law, not Christ. We are the ones who blew it again and again, we are the ones with the with brokenness everywhere in our mind and body and spirit. And he took the full burden of our sin. Um, he was lashed uh brutally, he was mocked, his beard was plucked out, he was driven. Um there were crowns of thorns driven through his head, he was spat on, he was jeered, um, he carried all of that, and even his own father rejected him. God the Father turned his back on him, broke relationship because he took all the sin of the world. And I think that was the most painful for Christ of all, right? To have his own father uh turn his back on him and took all that sin and then died and then went to hell and then resurrected. So he he took all of that upon himself, okay? Descended into Hades, as Paul says, but did that so that you could receive the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of God Himself. Now, you always have two choices in this life. You can either choose the justice of God or the forgiveness of God. Um, you you have to choose that. And it's it's it's it's you know, now Christ ultimately knows what choice you're gonna make because he knows everything about your life, and he's called you to make the choice of forgiveness, and that's why he died. But most people, which I don't understand why, choose God's justice instead of forgiveness, and they have, and so they decide that I want to take on the full wrath of God and instead of allowing Jesus to take on the wrath for me. But I pray today that you will never take God's justice because it's terrible, that you would take and accept his forgiveness. Now, Peter, we know, denied Christ not once, not twice, but three times. Denied he knew him, ran away, uh, wept bitterly, and he really thought, you have to understand, that his life was over, that Jesus wanted nothing more to do with him. Um, not he didn't want to ever see him again, he just rejected him totally. Judas and Peter both had a very, a very shallow relationship with Jesus. In fact, I think all disciples did, but the difference is that Judas sold Jesus out, betrayed him completely, and then hung himself. Peter denied him three times and ran away. Now, in my opinion, Jesus, because of his incredible love for us, his unconditional love for us, if Judas had not hung himself and had repented, I believe Christ would have forgiven him completely. Absolutely. Peter ran away after denying Christ. In fact, all the disciples ran away because they were all terrified of losing their life, terrified of the Jews. Now, when typically when somebody goes through trauma and their expectations are not met, and they wanted and they desired even something from God that was not, that did not come to fruition, let's say, people tend to regress, they tend to backslide, they tend to go back onto their old lifestyles and habits and vices and sins. It's very common. Um, even people who have walked with Jesus for a long time, when something typically bad happens to them, they want to blame God, be angry with God, or run away from God, or are they confused and they don't understand God's big plan. And that's what happened to Peter. He he will he locked himself behind closed doors. Um, and then he decides to go back to his old job and profession because he thinks that his life with Christ is over. Okay, so I'm gonna turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 21, so you can really understand what's going on with Peter and the disciples, and all the disciples, by the way, and what the love of Jesus did for Peter and his life. So it says here John 21, later Jesus appeared again to disciples beside the Sea of Galilee, and this is how it happened. Several of the disciples were there: Simon Peter, Thomas, nicknamed the twin, Nathaniel from Canaan and Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, that's James and John, and two other disciples. Simon Peter said, I am going fishing. Well come to, they all said. So they all went to the boat and they caught nothing all night. Okay, it's kind of similar to how Jesus first met Peter, because he also was trying to catch fish and he caught nothing. It says here in verse 4, At dawn, as soon as the sun came up, Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn't see who he was. He cried out, Fellows, have you caught any fish? No, they replied. Then he said, Throw your net on the right hand side of the boat, and you will get some. And so they did, and they couldn't haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. Then the disciple that Jesus loved, that's John, said to Peter, It is the Lord. And when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic, for he had stripped it off, he jumped in the water, and he headed to shore. The others stayed on the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore, for they were about a hundred yards from the shore. When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them. Fish cooked over a charcoal fire and some bread. Bring some of the fish you have just caught, Jesus said. So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore. There were one hundred and fifty-three large fish, yet the net had not torn. Now come and have some breakfast, Jesus said, and none of the disciples dared to ask, Who are you? because they knew it was the Lord. Then Jesus served them bread and fish. This was the third time Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he had been risen from the dead. After breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, and he said, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Peter replied, You know I love you. Now, when Jesus asked this paramount question, by the way, he asked this question to each and every one of us, and it's a question that we all have to answer. When he asked Peter, which his name is Simon, and he was a son of John, Do you love me more than these? What he is referring to is he's saying, Do you love me more than these fish that you have just caught, which Christ allowed him to catch, those fish, of course. Do you love me more than your boat? Do you love me more than your job? Do you love me more than your life itself? Okay, what is your first? Love. What is your number one love? Now, you have to know that in this world, the God gives us the desire to love, but he will never allow any worldly thing to satisfy that desire. Okay. What I mean by that is that the ability to love comes from God. Desire comes from God. But nothing in this world can satisfy that desire. Nothing. Okay. You will get thirsty and you will desire a drink of water. You will get hungry, you will desire to eat. You will get tired and desire to sleep. And even if you have the greatest water, the greatest food, the greatest sleep in your life, it will never completely satisfy because you will get tired again. You will get hungry again, you'll get thirsty again. You will get lonely. Even if you achieve monetary success, wealth and home, there is nothing that can ever desire, that you can desire that can that this world, that this, this life can ever satisfy. Peter was a fisherman, but all the fish in the world could not, could not fulfill the desire of being a great fisherman. This is a paramount thing that you must know. You must know this, okay? You must know this because Jesus has put the real desire of heaven in your heart. The real desire that God puts in your heart is for himself alone. Only Christ can fulfill the absolute, the heart-wrenching desire that he gave you in the first place in your heart. That is why he is asking him specifically, do you love me more than these? Because it's a test of his faith now. And he says, Yes, Lord Peter replied, You know I love you, then feed my lamb, Jesus told him. That's his instruction. Your job now is to take care of the ones, feed the ones, shepherd the ones, love the ones that are my lambs, my people that I will give you. Because Peter will be will be starting the church. Jesus then repeated the question. He said, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord, Peter said, You know I love you. Then take care of my sheep. Jesus said. A third time he asked him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Now Peter was hurt that Jesus had asked him this question a third time. He said, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you, then feed my sheep, Jesus said. Now, why did Jesus, of course, ask Peter three times, Do you love me? Because Peter denied Jesus three times that he ever knew him. Christ never gave up on Peter because his love for us is unconditional. He converted Peter. He changed Peter. He reorganized Peter. He transformed his mind. He brought him into the right relationship where he made him aware that nothing in the world can satisfy him, that only himself, only Christ Himself can satisfy. And that the love that he was seeking wasn't love for fish, it was love for himself. Okay. When you know that, that only love comes from God, and there's nothing this world can do to satisfy that. There is no woman or man or thing or object or dog or cat or whatever, that there's nothing in the world that can satisfy that. When you know that, then you know the only thing that matters in my life is the love of Jesus Christ. Okay, the love of Jesus Christ. And the only thing I meant to do in my life is the work of Jesus Christ, which is, of course, feeding his sheep, his church, his people. There are the highest commandments of the Lord, which is simply to love the Lord God with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love others as you love yourself. That's it. That's all the prophets and everything are summed up in that right there, that that right there. Um 18, he says here, I Christ says, I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked. You dressed yourself, you went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you do not want to go. Jesus said this to let him know what kind of death he would die to glorify the Lord. And Jesus told him, Follow me. So Christ tells us here that when we're young, we we do what we want. You know, we we we we whatever we like, we we we chase after it, we dress ourselves, we go where we gotta we want to go, we do what we want to do. Um God gives us grace for a long time. He allows us to be lost sheep, and and he allows us to date him, to be emotional, to be selfish, to be self-centered until he brings us to the fold, he disciplines us, he reorganizes us, he he creates in us a clean heart and a right mind so that we can love him and have genuine relationship. And then he says, when you're old now, and you come to maturity, um, yeah, you were gonna stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you do not want to go. He's saying there is that Peter ultimately what's gonna happen is that you're gonna die for me. You're going to die for Peter was going to die for the Lord Jesus Himself. In fact, he was going to be crucified, just like Christ was crucified backwards by himself to take, to, to show. I mean, so the wildness of all that is that Jesus told Peter here that your faith is real when you're ready to die for it. Your life, your love is real when you are ready to put your life on the line for what you love. Okay. People don't die for things that they don't love. People, if if people, this is just absolute true. If people are emotional about something, uh dramatic about something, they may, they might yell and scream, and they might, you know, buy fancy things, maybe even a car or whatever. Uh they might do extravagant things and so forth, give, you know, give extravagant gifts or vacations or something, but they will never be willing to die for something that they don't truly love. Okay. Um, people will die, however, for things that they absolutely, genuinely 100% love. Um Peter, how do I know Peter loved Jesus? Because he did die for Jesus. He absolutely died for Christ. Um, a good litmus test of your faith is to ask yourself, am I willing? Am I willing to die for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? If the time comes when the pressures of this world are so intense that the governments of this world come, let's say, against me and they demand that I renounce Christ and they demand that I that I renounce my faith completely, or or I am, or I will be subject to death itself, right? Um, a good example of that is like, for example, is like Nazi Germany, when Hitler himself told all the clergymen of Germany, he said, you will have to accept my Nazi agenda. You will have to accept the Bible as I interpret, you will have to accept me basically as the true authority and not God and not Christ. And most clergy of Germany, over well over 80%, said, okay, well, fine, we'll we'll accept Hitler, not Jesus. Except for one great man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he died. He was sent to a concentration camp and he was hung because of his faith, because he loved Jesus more than Hitler. Now, I'm giving you a very strong example, but my my message here is very clear. What are you willing to die for? What are you willing to die for? That, whatever you die, whatever you're willing to die for, that is where your love is. If you only love yourself, you would only, you're only going to die alone by yourself. If you love Jesus, there will become a day, a moment, where your faith will be tested and others will come against you, and they may threaten you with all kinds of things, taking your job, your peace. They want you to conform to their rules or society or or or twist the scripture or whatever. And they may even threaten you with death itself. This, by the way, is part of God's plan. Faith, as I mentioned, is only real when it's tested. Love is only real when it's tested. When people get married, they speak vows to each other, typically. They should. But there will be a time of testing when there will be another temptation where a spouse will have to decide: do I remain loyal to the vows I have spoken and proclaimed in front of men and God? Or do I yield to the temptation and break my honor? Now, Jesus, again and again, because his love is so unconditional, um, he wants us to love him like he loves us. And he is working on our selfish love and making it a perfect love. It is a process. And ultimately, like Peter, he wants to get you so strong, your love and your faith so strong that when faced with those dire, difficult circumstances, your faith remains like a rock for Christ. So as I as I end today, as I end uh this podcast, uh, this episode today, let me reaffirm to you that the only thing worth living and dying for is the Lord Jesus Christ. That there is nothing in this world that will satisfy you. Okay, God gave you the desire for more. He gave you the desire for eternity, he gave you the desire for true love, but it comes only through heaven, through Christ, through through the gospel, through his love, through his blood, through his sacrifice. Jesus Himself is what you desire. Nothing in this world, ultimately, nothing in this world. Jesus is what you desire. So take hold of him and do not let him go. Do not sacrifice or shortcut or manipulate. Don't don't let anything manipulate your faith and your love of Jesus Christ. Let me pray for you. Thank you, Christ, for this day, for your scriptures, but most importantly, Lord, thank you for your love. We thank you, Jesus, because you died this terrible death for us on the cross, but you resurrected. You came to show us that you are the Son of God, the only true Son of God, and you are the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to Father except through you, that you, Lord, love us unconditionally. Even when our our love is so fake, weak, emotional, selfish, broken, it is enough for you, Lord, to begin working and creating a clean heart and a right mind and a genuine relationship. So I pray today, all that listen to this podcast that are listening and wanting to be in love with you, I pray they would just get in a place where they can feel your holy presence and the Holy Spirit blow on their life and speak truth that you love them, you have forgiven them of all their sins, that your anointing is upon them, and even when they face testing and trials and temptations, that they will be able to stand firm in that day and stand firm, Lord, in adversity and tell even their own flesh and the devil and the world that greater is he that is in us than is in the world. They will stand on the rock, which is you, Christ. Their faith will be like a rock, and their love will be absolute and genuine. Lord, today we give you all the honor and glory and praise. We pray that we would begin to turn and repent from all of our sin and evil ways, that you would clean our minds and our hearts, and that our love for you would be absolute. Pray this in your holy name in Jesus' name. We pray. Amen. Y'all thank you. Uh, I hope this episode blessed you today. I will look forward to talking to you next time. Bye bye.