Title: Invitation to Love
There will be many things that Lee needs to live in this world. Among them, I think the most important thing we need is love. We live our lives wanting to be loved and wishing to be loved. Truly we wish to eat love, drink love and live in love. Love is the subject of many songs. It has become the subject of many stories. steamy love! A love that makes my heart overflow just thinking about it! Today, we live in hope of this love.
By the way, dear saints! What I want to share with you this morning is that we are already loved ones. The fact is that we are already prisoners of love. We are the protagonists of the deep love we long for and want. I want to shout this to you over and over again. Today's reading is a confession of the Lord's love for us. This is a loving invitation to us. Today, at this time, I want to invite you to the love of the Lord through these words.
1. The Lord invites us into His love (verse 9).
The Lord loves us. Verse 9 says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” It is a confession that the Lord Jesus Christ loves us. Because our Lord loves us, it is a loving invitation to abide in His love. To “abide in my love” means to live in the love of the Lord. In other words, it means to eat the love of the Lord, drink that love, and live with that love. Even if it goes forward, it is that love. Even if it goes backward, it is that love. Whether you sit or stand or walk or lie down, that is the love. Live captive to the love of the Lord. It means to live by falling in love with the Lord. It is the Lord's invitation to live while singing "Oh, my love, my love."
But, folks, how did the Lord love us? Verse 9 says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”
The first is gracious love.
“Because I also loved you.” The Lord loved us. Who are we? They are not worthy of the Lord's love. They don't deserve to be loved. We have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They were not loved as sinners, but those who would be judged. This is how the Lord loves us. That He loves us with grace.
The second is eternal love.
It means that the Lord loves us “as the Father has loved me.” Here, “Father” refers to God the Father, and the words “me, me, and me” refer to Jesus Christ. The Lord explains his love for us with the relationship of God the Father and God the Son, the unity of the mystery of the Trinity. There is no division or separation between the Lord and God the Father. One forever. I honestly don't know. Can I, a creature, a mortal, and a sinner, know the relationship? However, I believe that it is the mystery of love and the secret of love with imagination. But what is even more surprising and surprising is the fact that our relationship with the Lord is similar to that of the Father and the Son. This is surprising and surprising to me. The Lord and we are inseparable. Is it true? It's true. It is the word of the Lord. Then the Lord's love for us is eternal love. It is a love that never changes.
Third is the love of the cross.
The Lord's love for us is a mysterious love. It is eternal love. But it is a love revealed in history. He said that I loved you as the Father loved me. All the verbs used here are in the aorist tense. It is a verb tense that is not found in Korean or English grammar. The aorist is meant to indicate only one event. In the English Bible, both are translated into the present perfect, but in the Korean Bible, one is translated as the present and the other as the past. What is this? It tells us that the Lord loved us decisively in the past. When did the Lord decisively love us? It is an expression of the one love that has appeared in history, namely: the cross. The Lord's love for us was not confined to eternity. Mysterious, but not in the mystery, has appeared to us. The Lord has come to us to show this love. He came to us and showed us love through the cross.
Gentlemen, our Lord loves us with this kind of love. Even now, the Lord is inviting you into His love.
2. The Lord invites us to His commandment (verse 10).
“Just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in love with him, so if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love.” Verse 10. It's a natural process. Who is really loved
You will understand the words easily. What is our first reaction if we have someone we love? I miss you and I want to be with you. And you want to do the favors of your loved ones. The Lord was loved by God the Father. He wanted to keep the commandments of God the Father. He was soon in love with God.
Our relationship with the Lord is similar. We have been loved by the Lord. We want to see the Lord, we want to walk with the Lord, we want to please the Lord's heart, we want to please the Lord, we want to obey the Lord's commands. Those who are loved by the Lord will desire to keep His commandments. If you confess that you love the Lord and are indifferent to the desires of the Lord, you cannot say that you are living in the Lord's love.
But what is “my commandment” here? It is the will of the Lord and the desire of the Lord. The commandment of the Lord is in verse 12. What is? “As I have loved you, so be you and love one another.” Gentlemen, if we receive the love of the Lord and love the Lord, if we do not keep the Lord's commandment to love one another, then it is a contradiction. It can't be. If we do not love one another, we are not living in the love of the Lord. Folks, the Lord loves you. He commands us to love one another. As a result, he invites you to live in your own love.
3. The Lord invites us to his joy (v. 11).
For what purpose did the Lord invite us to his love? Why did the Lord invite us to His commandment? Verse 11. “I give these names to you, that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full.” The Lord wants us to know the secret of His joy. Soon you are inviting us to your own joy. The Lord is full of joy. How are you full of joy? You are full of joy because you are loved and loved. This is the secret of joy.
Folks, this is a very simple fact. “When you love, you become beautiful. No matter how ugly a girl is, if she loves her, she becomes pretty.” When you love, you become beautiful. Everyone, if you fall in love, won't only your face be prettier? How do we feel? full of joy So the Lord is telling us this. We too can live a life full of joy. The Lord wants this from us. We are receiving love as Lord. We live in love if we obey the Lord's commandment, “Love one another.” Our hearts will be filled with joy like the Lord.