L O V E

Introduction

Good morning. It is so good to see you this morning. It is indeed a blessing for us to be able to be together in this place to worship God. Believe it or not, but this is the last Sunday of 2025. Lord willing. Lord willing. In a few days, we’ll be blessed to see 2026. And if you had asked me this time last year, if our lives would consist of living in Orlando now and working with the South Bombe Church, I would have told you.

And we’ve been blessed as a family in 2025. And I hope you have as well. It is a blessing to be with this wonderful church to be able to worship God with you and do God’s work with you, and to be able to stand in this pulpit each Sunday and lead in teaching from the Word of God. In fact, as we begin our lesson this morning from God’s Word, I want to begin by putting a word on this slide. And it’s a very important word. It is this word right here is the word love.

How often do you hear that word love used in your daily life?

For example, my wife, my bride, constantly tells me that she loves me. And my children are always telling me that they love me. And my grandmother who raised me in East Texas, she sends me a text nearly every single day telling me that she loves me. And some of my favorite songs are about people expressing love. And some of my favorite movies are about love. And all the time I hear people say things like, I love football. They say I love the Florida Gators. Or I love pizza or I love barbecue or I love to travel or fish or camp or buy and shoot guns. Or I love certain kind of cars. Or I love to ride motorcycles, or I love my dog or my cat or my goldfish all the time, every single day.

I hear people talking about love.

And so let me do that right now. Let me ask you can you do that? Can you define this word love? Can you define this word love as the apostle Peter is using it in 2 Peter 1 in verse 7? Do you understand that when Peter talks about love in this verse, he’s not using this word in the way that the world uses it? He’s not using it to describe a mere feeling. He’s not using it to just talk about an emotion or what you might see in a chick flick or a love story. He’s not using the word like we so often use it to describe how we feel about cars and football and barbecue and fishing and pizza and our pets. No, when Peter used this word love, he’s talking about something so much more.

He’s talking about something higher and more demanding. He’s talking about the same kind of love that God has for us. He is using the powerful word agape. You know what the word agape means, right? I’m pretty sure that I’m talking to a crowd of people who know their Bibles well. And many of you know exactly what agape means. Many of you know that agape is the Greek word that is commonly used for love in the New Testament. Many of you know that this word agape pops up in the New Testament over and over and over again. In fact, it is a word that is found over a hundred and fifteen in the New Testament. That’s a big deal. It is all over the place, and it is a word that involves action.

It involves doing something. It involves making a choice to be benevolent and affectionate and selfless towards other people. It is a kind of love that is that is one directional. It is one directional. By one directional, I mean that agape love is not based upon the response of the other person. It is not based on the other person loving us back. Instead, this kind of love leads us to actively seek the well-being and the best for another person, regardless of how that other person feels about us. Regardless of how that other person treats us, regardless if the other person loves us back, we are going to love them. Agape love is one directional, it is unconditional. And as we prepare to wrap up our theme this year, as a church family, we need to end this series by talking about that.

1. Agape Love Towards God

We need to end this series by exploring that more deeply. We need to understand that if we’re going to truly be transformed people who are more like Jesus Christ, then it is not enough for us just to be people of virtue. And people who have knowledge of the word of God, and people who have self-control and perseverance and godliness and brotherly kindness. No, if we’re going to truly be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, we also got to be people of love. We also have to be people of agape love. We got to have agape love in our hearts. And that starts, that starts with God. We got to have agape love towards God. And the question is, how do we do that? How do we do that?

How do we have agape love towards God? Well, I submit to you that in order to understand what it means, to have agape love towards God, we need to first understand what it means for God to have that kind of love toward us. And so go into your Bible, please to 1 John. Go on your Bible, please, not to the gospel of John, to the little epistle towards the back of your Bible and 1 John. 1 John chapter 4, please. 1 John chapter 4. A love here in those pages turned. That is just a wonderful thing for a preacher to hear. And we’ve been going through this chapter and this verse with our teenagers in their Bible classes. And in 1 John chapter 4 and verse 8.

In 1 John chapter 4 and verse number 8, the Apostle John says, the one who does not love does not know God, for God is what? God is love. God is love. Notice very carefully what the Apostle John says there in that verse. Notice how, according to John, if you want to know what real love is, if you want to know what agape love is, if you want to know exactly what this kind of love is that we’re talking about this morning, then you don’t need to pull out some commentary and read the thoughts of a man.

You don’t need to use Siri or Google or Chat GPT to help you. No, John says all you need to do is look at God. All you need to do is open up your Bible and learn what the Bible says about God. All you need to do is understand that everything about God is love. God is love. God’s nature is love. God’s character is love. God is the source of love. All of his actions are driven by love, and they are the ultimate expression of love.

John says, God is love. And we learn this all throughout the New Testament, do we not? For example, in the in the most famous verse, most well-known verse, and all the New Testament, John 3 16, what does it tell us? It says, For God so loved the world. That’s everybody. Agape love. God so loved the world that he did something. That he gave his only begotten son, that he who believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus puts it this way in John 15 and verse 13. When he says, Greater love has no one than this, that one laid down his lays down his life for his friends. And the apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 5 and verse 8.

When he says, For God demonstrates he does something, he demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And are you still in 1 John? Look at 1 John 3.16. Not John 3.16. 1 John 3.16. Because in 1 John 3 verse 16, the apostle John says, We know love by this. That he, Jesus, laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Notice how in all these verses we learn the same thing.

And then he does something to address that need. He gave up something for us. He gave us not what we deserve, but what we needed. He gave us his best. He gave us Jesus. That’s what the Bible says about God’s love. And you and I both know that that’s very different than the kind of love the world offers, right? You and I know that’s that’s very different than the kind of love that is that is offered to us by our culture and our society. While God’s love involves selfless actions, it involves sacrifice. The kind of love that the world offers us is cheap. It is easy. It is really nothing more than a temporary good feeling or an emotion. It’s not costly. It’s not sacrificial, it’s not rooted in benevolence and always seeking the best interest of other people first.

The world does not offer us this kind of love, but God does.

Jesus answers it this way in Matthew 22 and verse 37. What’s the greatest commandment? What’s the great commandment? Matthew 22, 37, Jesus said to him, 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 foremost commandment. You see what Jesus says there? Notice how the greatest commandment God has given us in his word is the commandment to love him. To love him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. What does Jesus mean when he says that? Well, before I tell you what that means, let me first tell you what it doesn’t mean. First, let me submit to you that when Jesus says we are to love God with all our heart and our soul and our mind, he is not suggesting that we need to spend the next 30 minutes slicing and dicing that passage all up.

He is not suggesting that we need to spend the next few minutes making all these distinctions about heart, soul, and mind and waste our time trying to figure out what every part of that means. Instead, all the Lord is simply saying is we need to love God with every fiber of our being. We need to love God with everything we are. We need to hold nothing back. We need to love him with everything we possess. We don’t need to just walk around saying we love God. We don’t need to just walk around telling our friends we love God and telling our neighbors and our family members and our co-workers we love God. We don’t need to just express love for God with our mouths or on our social media pages.

No, we need to love God like He loves us. We need to love God with our actions. We need to love God by doing. We need to love God by sacrificing and by being obedient to his word. That’s what the Bible says. That’s what Jesus said. John 14 and verse 15, Jesus makes it very clear. When he says, if you love me, if you love God, you’ll keep my commandments. Jesus says, if you love God, if I love God, then we’re going to do what he says. We’re going to open up his word. We’re going to study it, and we’re going to obey it. That’s the test for true love for God. And John said that same thing in 1 John. Go back to 1 John.

John just says so much about this in his teaching. And in 1 John chapter 5, in 1 John chapter 5, and in verse number 2. And 1 John chapter 5 and in verse number 2. John says, by this we know, we can know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. God’s not giving us stuff that’s impossible to do. God is not giving us stuff that’s going to stand in the way of us truly loving him. If I truly love God, then I’m going to obey God. I’m going to submit to God. I’m going to do everything that God tells me to do, even the hard stuff.

That means practically that I’m going to stay committed to my spouse. And I’m going to honor my vows and not tear apart what God has joined together when we start having tough times.

And I’m going to do good towards those who try to hurt me and destroy me. And it also means that I’m going to worship God not just in any way that I want to, not just in the way that makes me feel good, not just in the way that’s going to fill the pews, but I’m going to do it in accordance to his word, according to what he’s prescribed in the Bible. And it also means that I’m going to obey Matthew 18, 15. It also means that when I got a problem with somebody, even in this church, when I feel like they’ve done me wrong, when I feel like they’ve sinned against me, I’m not going to go talk to other people about it first. I’m not going to talk to the elders about it first.

I’m not going to talk to the preacher about it first. I’m not going to talk to my spouse about it first. I’m going to obey Jesus because I love him and go to that person and talk to them about it face to face. I’m going to sit down and talk with them about it in love. And if I have not been baptized for the remission of my sins, if I really love God, guess what? I’m going to get baptized. I’m going to get baptized even though it may go against what my family believes, what my preacher believes, what my friends believe. I’m going to do it because the Bible says so. And Acts 2 and verse 38. If I really love God, I’m going to obey what the Bible says.

2. Agape Love for My Spouse

If I really love God, I’m going to obey God. I’m going to serve God. I’m going to do everything He’s told me to do. You know why? Because He loved me first when He gave me His Son on the cross. I got to have a Gopi love for God. And once I have Agape love for God, then guess what? Then I’m equipped. Then I’m equipped to properly love others. Then I’m equipped to properly love the people in my circle of influence and in my circle of life. Then I’m equipped to properly love people like my family. Then I’m equipped to properly love my spouse if I’m married. And the Bible talks about that in the book of Ephesians. Go in your Bible, please to Ephesians chapter 5.

Because the apostle Paul has something to say about this. In Ephesians, the fifth chapter, please. In Ephesians chapter 5 and in verse number 22. In Ephesians chapter 5 and verse number 22, the apostle Paul says, Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, also the wives ought to be to their husbands and everything. Husbands love your wives how? Jesus Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. Drop down to verse 20. Verse 28, he goes on to say, so husbands ought to also love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church in verse number 33, the last verse, he says, Nevertheless, each individual must also love his own wife, even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. You see what Paul is saying there.

It goes far beyond buying flowers and candy and holding hands in the park. No, what Paul talks about here is a kind of love that imitates Jesus. It comes in the spirit of Jesus. I have to love my bride in the same way that Jesus loves his bride, which is the church. How did Jesus love his bride, the church? Well, first, he sacrificed for the church. Like Jesus sacrificed for his bride. I got to sacrifice for my bride. I got to sacrifice my time for her. I got to sacrifice my pride for her and say, I’m sorry whenever I mess up. I got to sacrifice my personal desires for hers. Agape love for my wife or my spouse involves sacrifice. And it also involves, according to verse 29, nourishing and cherishing her.

Do you see those two words? Nourishing and cherishing, the root word for nourish that Paul uses there. It’s the idea of pampering. It’s the idea of continually caring for and helping flourish. And the idea of cherish there comes from a Greek word that means to warm. It means to draw someone close to you in order to protect them. It implies gentleness and compassion and sensitivity. All this means that loving my spouse involves action. It involves me doing stuff for them. I got to do the things for them that love demands. I got to be kind. I got to be patient. I got to be long suffering. I got to be sacrificial. I got to be caring. I gotta be honest. I gotta be unselfish. When I forgive them of something, I really need to do it.

3. If I Really Love My Children

I don’t need to just say it. I don’t need to bring it up and rub their face in it whenever they make me mad. Instead, I need to bury the hatchet and move on. I need to truly forgive. I gotta have a gopy love for my spouse. I gotta also have it for my kids, my children, as a parent. And Paul goes on to talk about that. Look at Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6 and verse 1. Paul goes on to say, children for all the young folks here. If you really love your parents, you got a gopy love for them. God says there’s some things you gotta do. And when he talks about children here in this context, people who are under the supervision and guidance of their parents still.

And these kids’ Bible classes we got going on. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Do what they say because they are in charge. You’re not in charge. Parents are in charge. Why? Paul says it’s just the right thing. It’s just the common sense. It’s common sense. Obey them. Verse 2, honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with the promise, so they may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Verse 4, fathers, the leaders of the household. Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Paul’s talking to people like me. Paul is saying that loving my children involves not just providing for their physical needs, but I also got to provide for their spiritual needs.

In other words, if I really love my children, if I really love my children, then I’m going to do my best to help them connect with their spiritual father. I’m going to do my best to invest time teaching them about God and how to worship God and serve God. I’m going to do my best every single day to spend some time talking with them. I’m going to do my best to be actively involved in every part of their life. I’m going to know who their friends are. I’m going to know who they’re hanging with. I’m going to know what their video games are, what they’re doing on social media. I’m going to do my best to protect their hearts. I’m going to be involved. And when they get out of line, when they disobey, when they start talking back and acting like they’re running stuff, I’m not going to sweep that under the rug.

4. Agape Love for Brothers and Sisters in Christ

I’m not going to usually brush that aside. I’m not going to turn a blind eye to it. I’m not going to come up with all kinds of excuses for their behavior and pretend as though my kids are perfect. They’re just perfect little angels. No, I’m going to step up and be a parent. I’m going to let them know that what they’re doing is wrong. That’s bad behavior, and there are consequences for bad behavior. That’s real love for our kids. The Proverbs tell us that over and over again. I got to have a God be love for my spouse, for my children, and also I got to have it for you. I got to have it for members of the church family, brothers and sisters in Christ.

In fact, this may be emphasized more in the New Testament than anything else. It’s all over the place. It especially seems to be emphasized by John over and over again. I mean, five times. Five times in the little letter of 1 John alone, John tells us to love each other. He does it in 1 John 3, verse 11, 1 John 3 23, 1 John 4, verse 7, 1 John 4, verse 11, 1 John 4 12. He also tells us to do that in 2 John 5. And in 3 John 6. John just can’t be quiet about this. He talks about it over and over again. In fact, it is John who gives us the words of Jesus. Look in your Bible, please at John 13. In John the 13th chapter, and in verse number 34.

And John chapter 13 and verse 34. Jesus says this a new commandment that I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you. You talk about a high level of love. That’s powerful. That is powerful. And I gotta work on that. Because Jesus says, I gotta love you even as he loved us, that you also love one another. By this, all men will know that you’re my disciples if you have love for one another. Notice how Jesus says, this is such a big deal. That is one of the key identifying marks of discipleship. One of the ways we show the world that we really follow Jesus is by how we treat each other, how we love each other. Jesus says, we gotta treat each other right.

And you remember what Paul talked about. Remember Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 13? You remember that. That big section about love there. Paul uses a lot of ink to talk about this. Paul talks about how love is patient and is kind and is slow to anger and it’s not jealous and bitter when I see my brothers and sisters prospering in their lives. And he also says it doesn’t produce pride and arrogance. And it’s not unselfish. And it doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but it rejoices in the truth. In other words, if I have real love for my brother or my sister, I will be driven to confront them whenever they’re in sin. I’m not going to be too afraid to do that. I’m not going to brush their sin aside, sweep it under the rug, minimize what they’ve done.

No, if I really love my brother or sister, I’m going to go to them in love and say what you’re doing is wrong. You got to stop that. Isn’t that what Paul did for Peter and Galatians, too? That’s real love. It doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, it rejoices in the truth. And it’s willing to sacrifice. If I love my brother or my sister, I’ll sacrifice. I’ll sacrifice my time. I’ll sacrifice my resources in their times of need. And if my brother or my sister does something that seems kind of weird to me, and it’s kind of awkward, and it kind of just rubs me in the wrong way. Real love for them is going to calm me down. It’s going to calm my spirit and lead me to assuming the best in whatever they’ve done until there is a legitimate reason to believe otherwise.

5. Agape Love for My Neighbor

That’s agape love. Bottom line, like in the case of God and our families, the love we have for each other involves action. It involves doing. It involves more than just words, but actively seeking the good and the best interest of each other. I gotta have agape love for God. And I gotta have it for my family. But what about this person right here? What about my neighbor? Am I to have Agape love for my neighbor? Jesus says I should. In Matthew 22, going back to those verses, remember those verses where Jesus told us to love God with all our heart, our soul, and our mind. And the next couple of verses there, verses 39 and 40, Jesus says, You also gotta love your neighbor how? As yourself.

He says that that’s equal to the same as loving God. Both of those things are equal to each other. I gotta love God, I gotta love my neighbor. And if you remember in Luke chapter 10 and verse 29, when Jesus told a Jewish lawyer these words, that lawyer wasn’t satisfied with that. And he asked Jesus, okay, who’s my neighbor? It’s not that simple, Jesus. You say I’m supposed to love my neighbor as myself. Okay, you tell me. You tell me who is my neighbor. Jesus says, No problem. I’ll tell you who your neighbor is.

He tells him a story about a man who was traveling down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and along the way he met some bad people. Along the way, he met some violent people. He met some people who beat him and robbed him and left him to die on the side of the road, and two of his own Jewish brethren. A Levi and a priest. They saw him on the side of the road. They saw him beaten. They saw him bleeding, and they ignored him. They didn’t do anything. They intentionally bypassed him, went the other way, but thankfully, there’s a hero that shows up in the story. A hero shows up. And this hero in the story is not who the Jews who first heard this story would have expected.

This hero who shows up wasn’t a Jew. He wasn’t from one of the 12 tribes of Israel. He actually was part of a nation of people that the Jews hated. They had a racist attitude towards these people. He was a Samaritan. This Samaritan saw this Jewish man beaten and dying on the side of the road, and he helped him.

Be like him. Walk in his sandals. Understand, but he understood that your neighbor is anybody who needs your help. That’s who our neighbor is. Our neighbor is anyone who needs my needs our help. It is anyone we can be kind and benevolent towards. It is anyone we can bless and be gracious towards. It is that co-worker that we can help when we see them on the interstate with a flat tire. It is that neighbor whose grass I can cut whenever I realize they are sick. It is that waiter who, even though he messed up my order five times, I can be patient with him and still leave him a good tip. It is my kid’s school teacher that I can send an email to, thanking them for their service.

It is the people who I personally know who are not Christians that I can invite the church or invite to sit down with me and talk about Jesus. What I just want you to see is like in the case of God and my physical and spiritual family, loving my neighbor involves action. It involves doing something. It involves actively looking for ways to bless and help, even though these people may not be part of the spiritual family.

For my family, for my neighbor.

6. Love Your Enemies

Because Jesus talks about this in Matthew 5. Remember Matthew 5, Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 43, and Matthew chapter 5 and in verse number 43. And the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said this to us. You have heard that it was said, Matthew 5 43, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. And pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who’s in heaven. For he caused his son to rise on the evil and the good. And he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?

Do not even the Gentiles, the pagans do the same. Therefore, you are to be perfect. That is, have perfect love, full maturity in your love. You are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, as God has perfect love. I want you to let those verses sink into your heart, sink into your heart for just a moment. My dear friends, I submit to you that what Jesus talks about here is no doubt the hardest part of agape love. It is the hardest part of agape love because it stretches it. It stretches it beyond what we’re comfortable with. It stretches it beyond God and our neighbors and the people who are easy to love, like our spouse and our kids. And Jesus applies this to everyone.

Everyone. He says we got to have agape love for the people who love us and care about us, and also for the people who don’t love us and don’t care about us. We also got to have this for the people who don’t love us back. We got to have this for the people who mock us and insult us and ridicule us. And they’re jealous of us and envious of us, and they they want to see us fail. They want to see us do bad. They don’t like us, they’re mean to us, they’re bullies, they’re always giving us a hard time. Jesus says you even have to love those people. We gotta love them. How do I do that? How do we do that? How do we love, have a gopy love for our enemies?

Well, let me give you a few practical things. First, if we’re gonna do this, we gotta do what Jesus is talking about in these verses. We gotta pray for these people. We show a goply love for our enemies by praying for them. Brother Frank did that this morning. We gotta pray for them. We gotta pray that they wake up. We gotta pray that they repent. Did not Jesus do that when he was on the cross, he prayed for his enemies. He had a gopy love for them. We gotta pray for our enemies. And then we also gotta do all the stuff Paul talks about in Romans 12. Remember Romans 12? Remember Romans 12, starting in verse 17. Paul tells us how to have love for our enemies.

He says we need to be kind to them. He says we gotta be peaceful. He says we gotta avoid seeking personal vengeance and do good towards them despite their actions. That’s how we show love for our enemies. And let’s just be straight up this morning. Let’s be straight up. This is hard. This is hard. You know, it’s easy to love our spouses. That’s easy. It’s easy to love our kids and our grandkids. It’s easy to love those who love us back, but it can be hard to love people who don’t love us and who hurt us and scar us. And so when we begin to struggle with this, I want to suggest we got to do two things. First, whenever we struggle loving our enemies, we need to pray.

We need to get away from everybody and say, I need a moment. And we need to go somewhere and we need to pray. We need to go somewhere and we need to talk to God. We need to say, God, please help me. God, please help me in this moment. Please help me love this person who is unlovable. Help me do your will. Help me have perfect love like you. If we’re struggling with this, if we find ourselves struggling with this, we need to go somewhere and just pray. And then after we do that, the second thing we need to do is we need to remember who we were before we became Christians. We need to remember that according to Romans 5 and verse 10, before we became Christians, we were enemies of God and we didn’t deserve his love.

And we didn’t deserve his grace and his mercy and his compassion. We need to remember that by requiring us to love even our enemies, God is not demanding anything of us that he didn’t do first. He didn’t demand anything of us that he doesn’t do every single day. Every single day, there are billions and billions of people across the globe who don’t believe in God, who don’t respect God, who don’t love God, and yet he shows unconditional love toward them. God already did this. He does it. He’s doing it right now. In fact, the number one way in which God has shown love for everybody is through Jesus. It’s by giving his son Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of the world. The question is, do you need to respond to that this morning?

Conclusion

Now that we have concluded this series of lessons, and we’ve talked about real transformation. We’ve talked about being transformed by virtue and knowledge and self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. Now that we’ve gone through Peter’s ingredients for spiritual growth and transformation. Is there anyone here who needs to respond to this? Is there anyone here who needs to respond to the love of God? If so, we’re going to give you the opportunity to do that as we get ready to sing this invitation song. If there’s anyone here this morning who needs to respond to the love of God by obeying the gospel by having faith in Jesus, repenting of sin and obeying his commandment to be baptized for the remission of sins. You can demonstrate your love for God by obeying the gospel, or if you have strayed away from God, you can start loving God again by allowing him to come back into your life through repentance and prayer.

And so if there’s anyone here this morning who needs to start loving God for the first time, or once again, this song is for you. We’ll sing an invitation song at this time. Let us stand.