(Continuing my sermon notes from the series “Fruitfulness in the Life of a Believer.” This one is pretty long.)

It is appropriate to begin with love. Love takes the first position in Paul’s list found in Galatians 5:22-23. From other scriptures we find that love is one of the fundamental characteristics of what a Christian is.

1 John 4:7-8 we learn why love is such a basic part of being a Christian. It says,”Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

John is saying that if there is no love, then there is no being born of God, because God is love. If we are in the family, then we will have the family resemblance. Love is so much who God is that John can simply say that God IS love.

Some take love and say that love is God’s primary attribute, but that is not so. There are many attributes that make up who He is. There is so much more to Him than love. What John is saying is that in order to understand love, then we must understand God. Love doesn’t tell us everything there is to know about God, but God tells us everything there is to know about love. Love is characterized by God and His actions and what He has done in the world. Isn’t that what we are shooting for? We are after God-like character, Christ-likeness. Love is a primary characteristic of God and we should want to mirror this characteristic of God.

In Galatians 5, Paul is not talking about how God loves us. What he is talking about is how Christians express love. So, we must consider how we love others and how we love God. Loving God and loving others. That statement sums up the two greatest commands. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus says, “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 commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

When Paul says that we are to have the fruit of love in our lives, he means that we are to be a people characterized by love. And our love moves in two directions. We are to have a passionate love for God and a selfless love for others. Even though we know these things, we need to be reminded because the love we have and express is not perfect. We have not arrived at a place of complete love.

We need to have a passionate love for God. How do we do that? What Jesus said in Matthew 22 was not a new command. He was quoting Deuteronomy 6, the Old Testament, which says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” All God-fearing believers, for all time, have been a people characterized by loving God.

It is impossible for us to love God without His loving us first. The motivation and the power to love God comes from God Himself. What a wonderful gift of His grace!! John 15:16 says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…” The relationship that we have with God is all because he loved us first. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” He has sent his love abroad in our hearts, sent His Spirit to change us, to make us a new creation in Him, and it is impossible for us to love Him without him first loving us. Paul teaches in Romans that we were enemies of God, we were at enmity with God, we were hostile to God (Romans 5). It was not until God shined His love in our hearts that we now love Him. We respond in love to Him because He first showed His love to us. The very possibility to love God comes from Him. The example of how to love God comes from Him. What kind of love did God show? He showed us a sacrificial love (John 3:16). While we were sinners, he died for us (Romans 5:8). It is sacrificial, it is unconditional, it is eternal. If God can do that for us, then that gives us the example of how we should love Him. Jesus laid down his life for his people, his friends. How can we ever think that that is too much for us to offer Him? That should never be the case because He has shown us the example and He has given us the power to love Him in return.

How can we love God? It involves making God the ultimate goal of our desires, passions, and ambitions. God is to be all in all in our heart. Jesus taught that we cannot serve both God and money, that we must leave father and mother and home. A lot of times we have rivals and competition in our heart–pleasure, rest, ease, careers, praise of men, etc. More than anything else we should want to desire Him, we should want to know Him and the power of His resurrection, we should want to read His word, we should want to see His character replicated in our lives. How much do we want God? How much do we want to commune with Him? How much do I want to read His word? How fervent am I in prayer? Recall Psalm 42. He must be focus of heart and mind.

How do we love God? Loving God involves obedience to his word. One way that making Him the focus of our hearts and minds manifests itself in obedience. This goes back to the Old Testament as well. Deuteronomy 6 continues, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” His commands are to be on our hearts and minds! God’s truths are intimately related to loving Him with all of our hearts and minds. Jesus says in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” A practical way that love works its way out in life is in obedience to God’s commands. 1 John 5 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” God does not put a heavy yoke upon us. Jesus says his yoke is easy, his burden is light. Obedience demonstrates that I do love him with all my heart and mind.

How do we love God? It involves hating what God hates. Romans 12:9 says, “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” Here is where putting off and putting on: put on righteousness and put off evil and sin. 1 Peter 3:10-11 says, “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good.”

How do we love God? It involves loving people. Sometimes we think that people can get in the way of our ultimate pursuit to love God. Sometimes we think that it might be people, maybe we love a person too much instead of God. Loving God and loving people are not contradictory IF we understand “loving people” the right way. He used the example of a live-in relationship to make his point, which is really a conflict between loving God and loving yourself. Real love desires righteousness and the holiness of the other person. When you understand loving people the right way, there is no conflict between loving God and loving people. 1 John 4:20-21 says, “if anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must love his brother.”

How do we love others? We really can’t love others except for the fact that God loved us first. His loving us first enables us to love others. He gave His spirit, and His spirit is producing this love in us.

Love must be accompanied by action. We can’t just speak words and then not demonstrate it with deeds and actions. 1 John 3:14-18 says, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that now murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” God laid down his life for us and so we are to lay down our lives for the brethren. It is one thing to say it and it is another to show it in actions. This has many applications: church, homes, workplace, extended family, neighborhoods. The new testament prescription for love is universal. Everyone I encounter is my neighbor.

Loving others also involves loving those who are sometimes hard to love. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘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 is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than other? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48). We are to love our enemies because that’s what God does! (Remember: I was once God’s enemy).

Loving others necessarily involves the other fruits of the spirit. Compare the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5 and what Paul teaches about love in 1 Corinthians 13. There is a relationship to these other fruits and love.

God is at work in us, His children, and we must exercise diligence in participating in the process.

To develop a love for God we must know who He is: read His word, pour out yourself in prayer, identify areas in your life that are competing with God for the ultimate position in your life.

To cultivate love for others: stop thinking of self all the time, think of what others need, ask yourself what you can do for someone today. What can I do today for _____ to show I love him/her? To love my spouse? Be specific and put it into action.

Pray and ask God to continue working in us.