Walking in Love, Part 1 B

You want to please God? You want your life to rise to God's nostrils as a sweet-smelling savor? Then let it be a life of love. Let it be a life that's characterized by unconditional love, which forgives and forgives and forgives. And you know, then we're not going to have any grudges and any bitternesses in any of those angry times and malicious times. It's all God's. This ought to characterize your life. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. The story is told of a soldier named Alexander who served in the army led by a general also named Alexander, Alexander the Great. The soldier was brought before the general for being cowardly in battle.

What happened? Alexander the Great looked the soldier in the eye and told him, drop your cowardice or drop your name. That's a point well taken for the Christian life. If you're going to name the name of Christ, if you're going to call yourself a Christian, you need to walk as Christ walked and love as Christ loved. John MacArthur helps you see what walking in love means on this edition of Grace to You as he continues a study he calls the portrait of a new life. It's all about cultivating the traits that honor God and strengthen your Christian testimony. So turn now to the fifth chapter of Ephesians as John begins the lesson.

In Ephesians chapter 5 verses 1 through 7, we have one of the most wonderful and helpful passages in all of the book of Ephesians. I want to show you four points out of these seven verses. Four points, the plea, the pattern, the perversion, and the punishment.

The plea, first of all, verses 1 and 2a, be therefore children or rather followers of God, mimics of God, as dear children and walk in love. Stop right there. There's the plea. The plea is for us to live a love life. And let me take that and kind of force it into your mind a little bit.

Listen to me. Measure your love today, would you? There are a lot of ways we could talk about it, but let's deal with the text as it appears. Measure your love today by the thought of forgiveness, will you? Because I really believe, now hang on to this, I really believe that as far as we're concerned, the greatest measuring rod of love in your life is forgiveness.

Okay? So first of all, the depth of your love is indicated by how much you forgive. Now think about it. You hold a grudge against somebody in your house, it isn't their problem, it's your problem. Your inability to forgive belies your love. And I say to you, if this is characteristic of your life, you're not a Christian, because if you don't have love, you're not God's child.

Think about it. Second thing I want to say about this. First is the depth of your love is indicated by how much you forgive, and secondly, the depth of your love is indicated by how much you know you've been forgiven.

Did you get that? First of all, you can tell a person's love by how much they will forgive somebody else, and you can also tell by how much they know they've been forgiven. Tell you something. I never cease to be amazed that it is inevitably the people who have the greatest sense of forgiveness in their lives, who grant to others the greatest forgiveness. You ever notice that? It is always the smug, self-righteous, religious people who can't forgive somebody for something in the past, who can't let them off the hook. You know, you get a person in the church, for example, who's a former drunk, alcoholic, prostitute, criminal, and they come to Jesus Christ, and then a little later on, somebody comes along with a terrible, deep, sinful problem. That kind of person will say, well, forgive me. After all, the Lord did to me. The Lord did that to me. On the other hand, you get somebody who's gone to church all my life. I've been in the religious.

Somebody comes along, somebody's got a little, I'm down on that person. The riff-raff in the church. Yeah, you know, the fact of the matter is that that guy's sin is probably worse than prostitution, because religious superpiosity was the worst thing of all. But you see, it's the people who know they've been forgiven the most who are able to forgive. Now, let me show you an illustration of this. Look at Luke 7. And you see these two people contrasted here in Luke 7. And we see a beautiful picture of our Lord. Verse 37, verse 36 sets it up. One of the Pharisees, by the name of Simon, not Peter, but another one, Simon desired Jesus to eat with him, and he went to this Pharisee's house and he sat down to eat.

Now, watch what happens. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner. Now, here's a woman who's an evil, vile, no doubt a prostitute, just really a rotten, wretched woman. When she knew Jesus was eating in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster box of ointment.

Now, we don't have time to go into all of it that signifies, but that thing would be very costly. And it may have been also purchased by her with money that she gained from her trade, which would be prostitution, so it's kind of a strange situation. So she comes in the house where the Pharisee is entertaining Jesus, and she stood at his feet behind him, that is Jesus, weeping, broken in the contrite spirit, mourning over sin. And she began to wash his feet with tears, and she did wipe them with the hair of her head, and she kissed his feet, and she anointed them with the ointment.

Now, that's an absolutely shocking scene. If she had done that to the Pharisee, he'd have turned around and slapped her across the mouth, he'd have had his servants pick her up and throw her in the street. How dare you touch a clean person, you vile, filthy woman. And verse 39 indicates that, when the Pharisee who had bidden him saw it, he spoke within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that touches him, for she's a sinner. All this self-righteousness is incredible. He didn't have any forgiveness in his heart.

You know why? He didn't think he needed to be forgiven for anything, and you will forgive in measure as you comprehend your own forgiveness. You will love as you comprehend that love of God toward you. And the deeper your sin, the greater your sense of forgiveness, and the more magnanimous your love and forgiveness to someone else.

Well, he didn't have any sense of sin, so he didn't have any sense of forgiveness. And I like this. He was saying it in himself, not out loud, and then Jesus answered him. Isn't that great? Oh, boy, a few of those deals and you'd be shaking.

You've got to read your mind. And Jesus answering said in him, Simon, I have somewhat to say to you. And he got his pious voice and said, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor.

Jesus was a master of illustrations. There was a certain creditor, and he had two debtors. The one owed him 500 denarii.

Denarii is about a day's work. And the other 50. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Nice guy, right? Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most?

Hmm. Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Dost rightly judged.

Yeah, he got the point, see. And he turned to the woman and said unto Simon, Simon, you see this woman? I entered into your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she's washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet.

My head with oil you did not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.

Oh, what a terrible indictment. The reason she loves me so, the reason she's doing this to me, the reason she's responding like this to me, you see, is because she loves much. And the reason she loves much is because she has a deep sense of sin and seeks a deep forgiveness. And Jesus turned to her and he said, verse 48, thy sins are forgiven. You forgave her much and she loved much. You see, the ability to love depends upon how deeply you sense the love of God.

The ability to forgive somebody else is dependent upon how much you know you've been forgiven. Here was a smug, self-righteous Pharisee who thought he was so righteous and so good and so wonderful that he didn't even need forgiveness. He didn't even talk to Jesus like that woman did. He wasn't interested in washing Jesus' feet. He wasn't interested in serving Jesus in the way she did.

All he wanted was a theological discussion to find out if this guy was who he was cracked up to be. And from the very beginning, he didn't believe it anyway because he said, ah, if he was a prophet, he wouldn't mess with this woman. His own self-righteousness damned him. He never needed Jesus. He had no ability to forgive a harlot because he had no sense of forgiveness in his own life because he had no need. He had no sense of sin.

And the point is this, people. That man should have realized that if those two sinners were met side by side, he was the greater one. Because it is the ultimate sin to say, I don't need God.

It's the ultimate sin. And so I say to you that dependent upon the depth of your own sense of forgiveness will be your ability to forgive somebody else. You love little because you sense God's love a little. You love much because you sense much love in your forgiveness.

Beautiful story. Here's a broken sinner who knew she desperately needed forgiveness. And she would need much forgiveness.

And on the basis of much forgiveness, there was much love. Sometimes I think those are the kind of people that ought to populate the church more than the others. We don't need people who think they don't need anything.

We don't need people who already think they're okay. And so what is going on here in Ephesians, now you can look back at it, is our Lord is saying this. God loved us and forgave us.

And that's the way we ought to be with each other. No bitterness, no anger, no wrath, nothing. And in great measure, beloved, your ability to forgive is absolutely dependent on your ability to love. And you will love and forgive little if you see yourself forgiven little. If you see yourself as a vile, broken sinner, poor and destitute and desperate, forgiven much, then you will forgive much.

That's it, people. Measure your love. You love because you've been forgiven much, and you love and that causes you to forgive others much. So we are in this sense to be like God. And the Spirit can do it. You might say like Zophar said, oh, to be like God. Can't stop by searching, find out God? His ways are past finding out. How can we be like God?

It's impossible. If we take our world's definition and we think God is a benign Santa Claus, maybe we have a shot at it. But if we take the Bible definition, we must say with Peter, oh, depart from me, oh Lord, for I'm a sinful man. We must say with John, I see him in Revelation chapter 1, he has a vision of Christ.

And he says, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as a dead man. To be like God. Incredible.

How could such a thing be? Luke 6, 36, as your Father in heaven is merciful, you be merciful. 1 Peter 1, as he is holy, you be holy. Matthew 5, 48, as he is perfect, you be perfect. 1 John 4, 11, as he is loving, you be loving.

Be like him. Is it possible? Sure it is. Number one, it's possible by regeneration. 2 Peter 1, 4 says that when you were regenerated, you became a partaker of the divine nature.

That's incredible. You can be like God because God lives in you, right? You're a partaker of the divine nature by regeneration. Number two, by sanctification, as the Spirit of God works in the life of the believer to conform him to the image of God. And beloved, Paul is saying, you know, if you're going to call yourself a child of God, act like it, will you? You name the name of Jesus and you name the name of God, then walk like he walked. Isn't that what 1 John 2 says? He that says he abide in him ought even to walk as he walked. 1 Corinthians 16, 14 sums it up, let all your things be done in love.

Love is to qualify everything in our life. This has always been God's standard. God is... You say, is this a New Testament thing?

No, no. It's always been God's standard. The heart of everything is love. From the very first time God ever laid out a standard, it was love. You say, well, wait a minute, the Ten Commandments, boy, that was crushing law, legalism. No, it was love. Did you know that? Did you know that the Ten Commandments are nothing but ten aspects of love verbalized?

That's all they are. Ten aspects of love verbalized. Look with me at Exodus 20 and I'll show you, very briefly, maybe something you never thought of before. Ten aspects of love verbalized.

It's a fabulous thing. First of all, toward God and secondly, toward others. Love toward God in the first four commands, love toward others in the last six.

Are you ready? Here they come. First, love is loyal. Love is loyal is what he's saying, verse 3, thou shall have no other gods before me. That's the way love is. Love is loyal. Not fickle, but loyal.

God is just saying, would you love me enough not to leave me for some other god? Second, love is faithful. Faithfulness is loyalty extended. Love is faithful.

Don't make any graven image, carved image or anything in heaven above and in earth beneath or in the water under the earth. Don't bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord thy God. I'm a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy on thousands of them that what?

That what? That love me. In other words, love is loyal and love is faithful. And God's saying, if you love me, you're not going to be fickle. And if you love me, that's the negative. You're not going to leave me, but you're going to stick to me.

You're going to be faithful. And then third, love is reverent. Verse 7, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain. I've heard people say, you can't talk about my wife like that.

Boom, you know. You can't slander my friend like, do you feel that way about God? Love is reverent. If you love God, you're not going to use his name in vain.

You're not going to drag his reputation through the gutter. Love is reverent. Fourth, I love this. Love is intimate. Love is intimate.

Beautiful. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it, thou shalt not do any work, nor thy son, thy daughter, manservant, maidservant, cattle, stranger in thy gates, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and so forth.

The Lord blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it. Love is intimate. You know what love does?

It draws aside for intimacy. God is saying, you know, if you love Me, you don't just go live your life. You come apart to Me. You want to be with Me.

You want to fellowship with Me. You want to drop the cattle and the activities and the land and the busyness and you want to be with Me. And that's the way love is. You see, love is loyal and faithful and reverent and intimate.

That's all He's talking about here is loving them. That's all He wants. Why, when it was all summed up, when the whole deal was summed up, Jesus said the whole thing can be summed up in these words, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Right? That's it. And the second part of the commandments are toward men. And what is He saying there? Toward men it's love again.

Look at verse 12. First of all, love is respectful. Love is respectful.

Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Love is not lawless. It is not rebellious. It is respectful.

It gives honor to people. One of the great characteristics of love is love always seeks to say the best about everyone. Love always seeks to aid and help and assist and honor. Love is respectful. Love is harmless.

Where there is true love, there would be no injury and so He says in verse 13, thou shalt not murder. Love wouldn't murder. Love is harmless. It hurts no one.

It helps. Next one, love is pure. Oh, love always seeks the purity of another, so thou shalt not commit adultery. Adultery defiles, but love seeks only purity. And then another love is unselfish, he says. Love is unselfish. Thou shalt not steal. Love doesn't steal.

Love what? It gives. It gives.

It doesn't take, it gives. And then number nine is in verse 16, love is truthful. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Well, if you lie against your neighbor, you're trying to hurt him. If you love your neighbor, you say the truth. Love is truthful. Finally, love is content. Love is content. It doesn't want its neighbor's house.

It doesn't want its neighbor's wife, nor anything he has. It's content. It's content in this sense. Love says, I'm so glad you have that stuff. My happiness is in your possessing it.

Do you see what I'm trying to say? Love toward God. Love is loyal, faithful, reverent, intimate.

Toward men, it's respectful, harmless, pure, unselfish, truthful, and content. You see, even the Ten Commandments, beloved, say the same thing. Be like God. God loves. Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and thy what? Neighbor as thyself. You love your neighbor, I'll tell you something. You'll respect him.

You'll never harm him. You'll treat him with purity, unselfishness, truth, and you'll be content not to have what he possesses. That's all Jesus was saying in Mark 12.

He made that statement, summing up the law. No wonder Paul said, the whole law is fulfilled in this, love, love, love. Be like God, people. Love like God loves.

And God forgives people who offend him. So we see the plea, walk in love. Now I want you to see the pattern very quickly and we'll close. The pattern. As Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling Savior.

Now listen. Here's the pattern. You say, love like God loved? How does God love? Well, God loves in this way.

He forgives sin, and it doesn't matter how bad the sin, how continuous the sin, He forgives it. Well, who's the example of the pattern? It's none other than Christ. And I want you to see something here.

It's very important. Listen. As Christ also hath loved us.

Now catch this one, people. I believe, and I've said it a lot of different ways in years past, and I want you to get the message. I believe that biblical love is not an emotion. Please, it is not an emotion. It is never defined as an emotion. It is an act of self-sacrificing giving. I'll tell you, if we had a little of that kind of love in our marriage, does it make a difference? People say, well, I don't love her anymore. Then you're a sinner.

That's right. At least once in your life, can't you commit yourself to love somebody, not for what you get out of it? Just one person, God says. Find one person and cleave to that one person and give yourself to that one person if you never got anything out of it. And you'll know what it is to know the love of Jesus Christ, who didn't love us because of what he'd get out of it, but loved us in spite of the hurt. You see, it is a love that doesn't exist on the basis of reciprocation.

That's the point. It's that humble, obedient, self-giving, self-sacrificing love that says I love. I love, not for what I get out of it, I love because it's my nature to love.

If you don't love somebody, if you've dissolved a friendship or a marriage or something else and you don't love somebody, that's not their problem, that's your problem. That's a sin. Love – biblical love – is not conditional.

It is unconditional. Our dear Lord is washing the feet of the disciples in John 13 while they're being so unloving to him, so indifferent to him. He's going to the cross. They could care less. They're arguing about who's going to sit on his right and left hand in the kingdom. They want to know who's going to be glorified in the kingdom, which of them are going to be the hotshots, and he's going to the cross.

They are indifferent. And he gets down and blesses them and washes their feet, and he loved them in the midst of their most ugly moments because it wasn't reciprocal. He died on a cross and he said of those people standing there spitting on his face, Father what?

Forgive them. It's that kind of non-reciprocal, unconditional, not what I can get out of it stuff that God is after. In fact, it says in verse 2 – watch this – that when Christ did that and gave himself as an offering and a sacrifice, it went up to God as a sweet smelling savor. The whole act of Christ smelled good to God because it was his kind of love.

It was independent and it was unconditional. God loved that. It was sweet in his nostrils. You say, what does it mean?

What does that mean? Well, Philippians 4 18 says it, an odor of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God. It is simply a symbol that God was well-pleased. You'll remember in Leviticus chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, you have five offerings. The first three offerings, the bird offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering are in chapters 1 to 3.

These were required of Israel. Now you'll remember that the bird offering speaks of Christ's total devotion to God, how he literally gave his life. The meal offering speaks of his perfection. And the peace offering speaks of his making peace between God and man. And those three offerings are sweet smelling savors because God is pleased with the devotion of Christ. God is well-pleased with the perfection of his character.

God is well-pleased that he made peace between God and man. You see, it's that kind of stuff that pleases God. You want to please God?

You want your life to rise to God's nostrils as a sweet smelling savor? Then let it be a life of love. Let it be a life that's characterized by unconditional love, which forgives and forgives and forgives.

And you know, we're not going to have any grudges and any bitternesses in any of those angry times and malicious times. That's all God's. This ought to characterize your life.

This is God's standard. That's John MacArthur continuing his current study titled, The Portrait of a New Life. Along with being the teacher here each day on Grace to You, John is a pastor, conference speaker and chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, both in the Los Angeles area. Now, John, in this study, you've talked about the responsibility of Christians to fill their minds with new things and good things, righteous things. So let me ask you, what are some practical steps that you have taken to fill your mind with things like that? Steps that those listening right now, maybe new believers, can even put into practice?

Well, I think it's a pretty simple thing. You have to put the Word of God in your mind. You have to be saturated with the Word of God. I mean, you know this, and I know this, we live our entire lives with our face in the Word of God every single day of our lives, and our thoughts are saturated by that. And then added to that, and this is one reason why we love hymns so much, we sing our theology to ourselves all the time.

You know, there's really a moment in my life when I'm not in a conversation with somebody that there aren't hymns going through my mind. And it's biblical truth that controls you. As you think that's so you are, the Bible says, whatever is going on in your mind is going to dictate how you live your life. So saturating yourself with the Word of God is absolutely critical. And that leads me to remind you again, as we have in the last couple of weeks, about the MacArthur Daily Bible. You need God's truth in your mind every day. And this is the Daily Bible, which takes the entire Bible, breaks it into 365 daily readings, a section from the Old Testament, a section from the New, a section from Psalms, and some from Proverbs for every day of the year.

It just puts the Word of God in your mind and in your heart. So we would love to get it in your hands, particularly as we're moving toward the new year. You can use it as a great Christmas gift.

People can begin with January 1 to do this on a regular basis. By the way, you'll also find study notes throughout the Daily Bible, punctuating key truths page after page. So this is a good time to order several copies and, of course, free shipping on U.S. orders.

Use these for the folks you love as a Christmas gift. Yes, friend, this is a great resource. John and Patricia have read it together for years, and if you're married, you are sure to benefit by reading it with your spouse. To order the MacArthur Daily Bible, contact us today. Our toll-free number here, 800-554-7223.

And that number is easy to remember as 800-55-GRACE. Or shop online at GTY.org. Get the MacArthur Daily Bible and fill your thoughts with God's Word. Again, to order, 800-55-GRACE or visit GTY.org.

Also, be sure to visit our website often, GTY.org. There you can listen to all of John's verse-by-verse teaching. You'll find 3,500 of his sermons available on MP3 and in transcript format, free of charge.

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