" LOVING HIM BACK "
Look Up: John
17:13-19
Sermon preached by Dr. Wayne
Poplin, Senior Pastor of
Carmel Baptist Church, Matthews, NC
INTRODUCTION:
Do you express your
love as much as you should to your mate [or the ones that you love—children,
mom, dad, sister, etc.]? That is in both the things you say and the things
you do [saying it but not showing it is not enough; showing it but not saying it
is not enough. A healthy expression of love needs some balance between
these]. We expect both, don’t we? You can find out very easily the
answer to this question about do you express your love as you should to the
one(s) you love. Ask her/him/them. They know the answer.
But, we are reluctant to ask her/him, because we know the answer too.
Let’s ask the same thing about another love relationship? Do we express
our love to the Lord as much as we should? That is in both the things we
say and the things we do? A healthy expression of love needs a balance
there as well. You can find the answer to that question by asking Him.
We learn how to love Him back by looking at His commandments [If you love Me,
you will keep My commandments]. I think we get cues in seeing how the
church is described—the metaphors that are used in referring to her. I
think we find out in hearing what He prayed for.
I think a lot of the time in our love relationships we are
like Simon Peter when the Lord asked him if he loved Him. Peter replied,
“Lord, you know all things; you know that I love You” [John
Last week we talked about an expression of love to our Lord—loving Him back in
worship. That’s what His church does. Now let’s continue to talk
about some other love expressions. I want us to go back to His High
Priestly prayer and hear it and also take note of a metaphor used for the
church.
Look with me at another portion of Jesus’ prayer in John 17.
I am coming to You now, but I say these things while I am still in the
world, so that they may have full measure of My joy within them. I have
given them Your Word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world
any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that You take them out
of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of
the world even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is
truth. As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world.
For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified [John
From Jesus’
prayer request, how does He want us to express our love to Him? He wants
us to be sanctified. The first thing that probably comes to your mind when
you hear that word is “holy” [pure, without sin, etc.]. That is true,
but that is not the basic meaning of this word [understanding the word leads us
to the “holy” idea as a derivative]. “Sanctified” actually means
to be set apart. Notice in verse 19 that Jesus sanctified Himself for us
[you see in this statement that “sanctify” must mean more than holy or
pure]. That’s how He proved that He loves us. Now He wants us to
be sanctified to show that we love Him back.
In the Gospel of John, being sanctified is always being set apart for a mission,
for a purpose. The Father sanctified the Son by setting Him apart
for His own purpose—for a mission. Jesus sanctified Himself in that He
set Himself apart to do exactly what the Father assigned. That sanctifying
was an expression of love [God so loved the world [Jh.
I love Him back when I am set apart for Him in this world. This is where a
metaphor used for the church comes in—the picture of the Bride. Jesus,
the Groom, says to His Bride, “BE MINE.” She says, “I will.”
And she is set aside with Him for a purpose, for a mission. Isn’t that
what happens when we get married. We set ourselves aside for one another.
A man says to the one he loves, BE MINE. If she accepts and they marry,
the two of them are set aside for one another. Whether you are single or
married, we know that marriage is to be exclusive and permanent.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to
His wife, and they will become one flesh [Genesis
The exclusive relationship of a bride and groom set apart for each other says,
“We love one another.” “We want to spend our lives together.”
He said, BE MINE, and I said “Yes” and now everyone knows that we are a
couple that loves each other. That’s the testimony. As a result,
we don’t date other people anymore. We don’t flirt. With all of
the other women/men around, I belong to one. I give myself to one.
When anyone or anything else seeks to come between us, we say, “I’m
taken.” We are faithful and loyal to one. BE MINE. Be only
mine.
So the church, who is the Bride of Christ, who has become the Bride because He
sanctified Himself, now in this world [John
We typically stop calling our mate “bride” or “groom” after we get
married. But when you hear someone refer to their mate as “bride” or
“groom” after years of marriage, there is this ring of specialness to it.
It brings to mind a love that is fresh, a love that would move mountains to
please the other, a love that would sacrifice, a commitment that was when
made as sincere as we knew how to make it, the joy of a relationship, etc.
I think that is the power of the Bride metaphor for the church. The church
has been around for 2000+ years, but she is still the Bride and He is still the
Groom. There is freshness and excitement there. We live to please
Him. We will move mountains to please Him. Sacrifice is not an
issue. We gladly do it. We love the One Who said, BE MINE.
So, back to the question we began with today. Do you express your love to
the One you love as much as you should? And is the expression not only in
what you say but in what you do? Does a healthy balance exist?
Let me first say that when we talk about the church loving Him back, the
practical expression of that love happens in the local church. Almost
every time the word “church” appears in the New Testament it is referring to
a particular gathering of people. It is in that setting where we have
opportunity to express love by what we say and by what we do. That is
where we express the healthy balance of love [just saying it without showing it
is not enough and just showing it without saying it is not enough]. Let me
illustrate that with our discipleship tract of Worship, Connect, Grow and Serve.
Worship, Connect, Grow and Serve. That is our tract of discipleship
[explain meaning of these words and the continuum]. That is our tract for
becoming and doing what the Lord wants us to do. We become
“sanctified” by doing not one of these, two of these, or even three of
these, but all of these. These 4 things picture what a set apart person
does. Our discipleship tract is not infallible [other churches have
similar things, maybe worded differently, but are just as good]. But it
represents those biblical disciplines that express love to our Groom. This
is a good diagnostic tool for us to use to determine if we are properly
expressing our love to Him and if we have a healthy balance to our expression.
For example, if I tell Him that I love Him but not show Him that I love Him,
then my expression of love is not balanced [those who worship but are not
serving or connecting or growing]. If I seek to show Him that I love
Him but I am not telling Him that I love Him, my love expression is not balanced
[those who serve but do not worship]. If I tell Him I love Him and there
is no connection with His body, the expression is not balanced. The truth
tells me that I am a child in a family, a stone in a temple, a part in a body,
and that I love Him by loving my brothers and sisters.
For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love
God, Whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever
loves God must also love his brother [I John
If I tell Him
that I love Him but the relationship is not growing and deepening, the
expression is not balanced. In a loving relationship, love changes.
It deepens. You become soul-mates. You put time and energy in
getting to know each other and moving to deeper levels of intimacy.
Use Worship, Connect, Grow and Serve to measure the healthiness of your love
expression to the Lord. Let it be your guide in bringing balance to loving
Him back.
We can also use Worship, Connect, Grow and Serve as a guide in helping us find a
local assembly to belong to. It is practically in the local assembly where
we express our love back to the Lord. And our love expression needs to be
balanced. It should flow across all of these areas. So, if you are
where you cannot worship or only worship but are not connecting, growing, and
serving, your love life is out of balance. If you are where you cannot
connect or are only connecting but not doing the other, your love life is out of
balance. If you are where you cannot serve or are only serving and not
doing the other, your love life is out of balance. When things are out of
balance, you wobble. Parts wear out. Things are strained. Your
alignment is off. You need to be where you can express your love back to
the One Who loves you in balance. That is important. It is the
nature of love.
Jesus said to us, BE MINE. For those who answer, I will, what if we were
all expressing our love to Him both in saying and doing? What if there
were this healthy balance? Then the world could get the message about the
love of God.