Love is NOT blind, Part 1

Agape is not fickle.

It isn't temporary. It isn't driven by the emotion of the moment. It is determined by the will, the loss of this kind of love, this agape, commitment love in our culture today is the reason that you can now lease a wedding ring one year at a time. Biblical love isn't about attraction, it's about determination. It's not a matter of working it up, it's a matter of willing it out. What does it mean to love in the way the Bible defines it?

It's an important question, isn't it? The Bible commands that we demonstrate love toward one another, and we need to know how to do that well. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davy.

Stephen is continuing through his series entitled After Darkness, Light. Today he has a lesson for you from the epistle of 1 John. Have you ever heard the phrase, love is blind? We use it to communicate that love doesn't see the faults and flaws in another.

Well, Stephen is teaching a different perspective. Today's lesson is called, love is not blind. I have read that in the United States somebody goes blind every 20 minutes. There are now 25 million adults living in America, according to the National Federation of the Blind, who suffer with significant vision impairment of some sort or another, including total blindness. In fact, for years before her death, my godly mother-in-law was legally blind as a result of diabetes.

My wife still displays in our home her Bible and the magnifying glass that my mother-in-law would use as she held up her Bible really closely to her face and then with her magnifying glass was able to read those verses of Scripture that meant so much to her. My wife and I had lunch some time ago with a couple where the wife was learning to manage now that she was legally blind the condition that had developed since birth. Talk to a gentleman some time ago in our church who was undergoing extensive testing because of the ever-impending threat of blindness. If you and I were told by God to choose a physical disability, I'm quite positive that very few of us, if any, would choose to live with blindness. According to the letters of John, this aged apostle, it struck me as I studied this particular paragraph we'll look today at 1 John 2 that he's concerned about blindness of the heart and the spirit. In fact, according to his letters, we'll find out today, the Christian makes decisions every single day that affects his ability to see. He makes decisions that either allow him to walk in the light where he can see or to walk in the darkness where he cannot see. In one of his most hard-hitting paragraphs, he opens at verse 7 as he begins to challenge us to put away the darkness of hatred and live in the light of love.

He's going to challenge us to leave the shadows behind. You notice at verse 7, he begins this paragraph which is going to be really hard-hitting with his first word, and it is the word, the term, beloved. It's an affectionate term.

He's going to use it six times in this letter, and I think it's fitting here. As he begins this hard-hitting message, he calls us his beloved. He says effectively, I'm going to tell you to love, and by the way, I love you. Kind of like a parent saying, I'm going to give you a spanking, but it's because I love you. The child says, I wish you didn't love me so much.

John says, I'm going to hit you pretty hard, but before I do, I want you to know that I love you. And he begins with this wonderful phrase or this wonderful term, agape toy, beloved. You immediately recognize agape toy in the noun form agape, don't you? It's the Greek word for deep, faithful, self-sacrificing, in it for the long-haul kind of love. Agape is selected by God's word as opposed to the culture of the first century.

It uses this word to refer to relationships in the home and in the church between God and man. Agape is not fickle. It isn't temporary. It isn't driven by the emotion of the moment. It is determined by the will and the will that acts bears the fruit of emotion and affection. The loss of this kind of love, this agape, commitment love in our culture today is the reason that you can now lease a wedding ring one year at a time.

Why go all out? To the average person on the street, love is something as changeable as the weather and a pair of shoes. It's no different in the first century.

In fact, it's probably worse. Seneca the Roman philosopher who lived during the lifetime of John the Apostle wrote that Roman women of high society named their passing years with the names of their passing husbands. They came and went like seasons. To this day, the world is still enamored with the idea of falling in love, isn't it?

Just go to the grocery store and read the tabloids. I mean, it's all about that. But the world falls out of love as quickly as it falls in love. That's why God uses a word that doesn't talk about falling in love. He uses a word that talks about choosing to love. Warren Wearsby comments on this term here by writing that biblical love isn't about attraction, it's about determination.

It's not a matter of working it up, it's a matter of willing it out. The surprising thing is that this kind of self-sacrificing love isn't just for spouses and family members, it's for the entire body of Christ and beyond. And so John begins by reminding us of what true love is, and he opens by telling us that he loves us too. I think that this probably surprised John's childhood friends and his early adult year friends to hear him using such affectionate terminology. Like my little children and beloved, this isn't the John they knew. John was nicknamed early on as he joined the disciples. Remember, Jesus nicknamed him the son of thunder, this fiery-tempered man. In Luke chapter 9, it was John who wants to call down fire from heaven on a village that had refused to give them shelter for the night.

Lord, let's torch them all. What do you say? Jesus said, that's not my spirit, John, speaking.

Oh, rats. It was John's mother who came to Jesus and said, what do we do to make sure that James and John, these brothers, these sons of mine, get to sit right next to you in the kingdom? They want to be at the top of the ladder, fiery, passionate, self-centered, judgmental. Now as an old man, he's telling people he loves them.

Isn't that a wonderful progression to pursue? So though he will still be passionate and fearless and confrontational, he tells us first and foremost that he loves us. Now with that, he begins to tell us how to make sure we avoid the darkness and walk in the light. Look at verse 7. Beloved, I'm not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment, which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard.

It's going to reveal this idea of loving. The concept of love and the commandment to love is not new stuff, right? The truth is, by the time John wrote this letter, the command to love God and one another certainly wasn't new, but it was neglected, it was buried. The rabbis had spent several centuries, as they had started centuries earlier, to create their vast commentary, which would be known as the Talmud, on the law. They would go to the books of Moses, the Torah, and they scoured it, looking for every command, every mandate, every charge, every regulation, every rule. And from them, they created many of the traditions that now bind them, long lists of do's and don'ts. For instance, they cataloged 613 commandments from the Torah. They believed that those 613 commandments matched the 613 components that make up a human body, and I'm not sure where they got that from and didn't want to research it, but that's what was exciting to them. And they cataloged 365 of those 613 negative prohibitions, one for every day of the year.

Oh boy, we get to get up today and not do something. They love that stuff. The problem is that stuff had buried love. John says, let's just kind of dig our way through the mound, and let's go back to the core of it, that old great commandment. Of course, they would have all remembered the greatest of them, the core of it all, to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, strength. Love your neighbors yourself, Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19 combined together.

They prayed that every morning and every evening. In all of your lists, have you forgotten the old commandment, to love? Well let's unbury it. John says, let's dust it off. Let's bring it out into the light of day. Let's take it all the way back, because it goes all the way back to God's original design.

And so at this point, for the Bible student, you're saying, I'm tracking with you, John, and I know exactly what you're talking about. You're right. It isn't new. It's old. It goes all the way back to the beginning, and that makes perfect sense, and now let's go to the next verse where he says in verse 8, on the other hand, I'm writing a new commandment to you. You're thinking, no, wait a second.

He just turned completely around on me. I thought it wasn't new. Well the word John uses for new, it's difficult, the English translation for us, in fact it confuses us, so you might write into the margin of your Bible this. He's not referring to chronology new as in reference to time.

He's using a word that refers to new as in reference to quality. There's a new quality to agape. There's a brand new, fresh way of looking at it. This is what Jesus meant when he told his disciples, a new commandment I give to you that you should love one another, let's know about that, even as I have loved you. Oh, it's a new, fresh, unique demonstration of agape that is like none other, right? And it really simplifies everything for us. It doesn't make life easy, but it does make the goal visible. So John, perhaps in his mind and maybe to the Jewish readers, don't let your list of 613 commandments, you know, your 365 prohibitions and your 248 affirmations get in the way of what matters most. Give it a fresh new look.

Give it fresh new demonstrations. And who do we look to to find out what that's like? Jesus. In fact, he says that effectively here, middle part of verse 8, he says, this is true in him.

Oh, it is. And in him we see the model of agape, love. The world will not know what to think when they see that kind of demonstration. And neither will the church. John is writing the church. He's writing the believer.

He'll pare that even down more clearly as we get through this. Many of you perhaps know of the rise and fall of televangelist Jim Baker. Maybe you're old enough to remember the stories of the fraud and deception and financial misdealings. He was sentenced to prison where he would serve a number of years. He was interviewed by Christianity today after being released, years after being released. In fact, the interview I read is about 10 years old.

I can't believe I'm that old. But he said that Franklin Graham had visited him. I never read this before. I found it intriguing and illustrative of John's comments here. Franklin told him, you know, when you get out of prison, my family is going to sponsor you with a job and a car. He said to the person interviewing him in the Christian Journal, Baker said, I thought it over. And then I told Franklin, look, if you do this for me, it's going to hurt your reputation.

Your family does not need my baggage. Franklin insisted. When Baker was released from prison, true to their word, they paid for his lodging and a car. In fact, his first Sunday out, Ruth Graham, Billy's wife, called the halfway house, owned by the Salvation Army, and asked permission for Baker to drive to their church in Montreat, North Carolina, and attend services with them. Baker said, I got permission, and when I arrived at the church, I was seated with the Graham family, two rows of them, aunts, uncles, cousins, and they're all there.

And then in walked Ruth. She walked down that aisle and sat next to me, inmate 07407-058, and effectively told the whole world she was my friend. After church, she invited me up to their cabin for dinner just up the road.

They're in their cabin home. She asked me for some addresses, and I pulled this envelope out of my pocket. In prison, you're not allowed to have a wallet, you just carry an envelope around. She asked me, don't you have a wallet? And I said, well, yeah, this is my wallet. After years in prison, you think an envelope is a wallet.

She got up and walked into another room. A few moments later, came back and said, this is one of Billy's wallets. Here you can have it. What a fresh, Christ-like demonstration of love. And as I read that, I thought, Stephen, would you have done that?

Would you have? Maybe you noticed John's laser beam application in verse 8. I mean, we're tracking with him. We've got the example of Christ. On the other hand, he says, I'm writing a new commandment to you, which is true in him, Jesus. And we all say, amen. Oh, I'm not finished.

And in you. We all say, oh, my, right? This isn't just for Jesus, it's for all of us.

John says, look, there's actually a bigger deal going on here than you might think. We're not only demonstrating the love of Christ, but we're also demonstrating something else. It is the light that we represent. Notice the last part of verse 8, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Now, what does he mean? Luke's gospel recorded the prophecy that the coming of Jesus Christ would be like the day spring from on high. In other words, the biblical language for the sunrise is going to take place. And he goes on to say, and the light of Christ will shine upon them who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, Luke 1, 78 and 79. The birth of Jesus Christ marks the sunrise of the light, eternal life, true light, the gospel.

Now, there's still darkness, yes, we know that, we're surrounded by it. But as the light of the gospel permeates culture, darkness has to flee when the light shines. So to John, love and light are part of the gospel. We would like to say, hey, we're in the light, we got everything right. And he says, well, what about the love?

Others would say, I got love, but I don't worry about the light. Both are part of the gospel message. Now notice the warning in verse 9, the one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. Now there are some who would say, oh, now John has changed his perspective, he's now talking about an unbeliever.

That would actually be a convenient interpretation. I mean, there's no way a Christian can hate somebody else, perish the thought. The word John uses here for hate actually means to detest. It has this underlying attitude that despises somebody else, moves over to the other side of the hallway or other side of the street. Is it possible for a Christian to detest someone else?

No. So John is talking about all the sinners out there. I like that interpretation. No, that isn't what he's saying, is it? In fact, the problem with that view is that it isn't consistent with John's audience.

And even his vocabulary. Look again in verse 9, if he despises his brother, he doesn't use the generic term for the brotherhood of man. He isn't talking about a biological sibling. He's referring to someone one Greek scholar brought out who has an affinity of character by being members of God's family by virtue of the new birth. He's actually talking about us, brothers and sisters. He's specifically saying that if we, brothers and sisters in Christ, detest one another, hate one another, act hatefully toward each other, despise each other, we have virtually gone back into the shadows of the darkness. We represent the darkness, not the light. No, by the way, we end up doing more harm than good, not only to other people, but to ourselves. He's effectively saying, your beloved, none of you belong in the shadows, get into the light that is demonstrate the light of Christ by demonstrating the love of Christ.

Get out of the shadows of hatred and unforgiveness and bitterness and jealousy and all those things that belong in the dark. I found an interesting illustration of this in the life of Corrie Ten Boom. Her family, you remember they were caught by the Nazis and sent off to prison camp for hiding Jews in their upstairs bedroom.

My wife and I toured that home and saw that upstairs closet they created by building a fake brick wall and they would hide Jews as they would shuttle them from one safe house to the other, they were caught. After Corrie's release in the end of World War II, she sensed the Lord leading her to just simply travel as a single woman sharing the gospel in her testimony. She did that and early on, in fact, soon after the war she was invited to come to a church in Germany of all places and share testimony.

So she agreed. And as she stood before that congregation and shared her testimony, she recognized a man sitting in the audience. He was one of the most brutal guards in the Ravensbruck concentration camp where she and her sister had been placed, the same concentration camp where her sister would effectively starve to death. She wrote that it was one thing for me to talk about God's love and forgiveness and another thing entirely to be asked to demonstrate it. At the close of the service she writes, much to my dismay that man came to the front and stood in line with the others to meet me.

His hat and dark brown overcoat washed over my memory and I could still see him in his black overcoat wearing his cap with its skull and crossbones emblem. My blood ran cold. When his turn came, he moved toward me and quietly said, I have become a Christian. I have asked God to forgive me for all the cruel things I did in that camp where you were and I have come tonight to ask you to forgive me too. She writes, how can I forgive this man when my sister's emaciated face seemed to appear in the memory of her cruel death, lay an icy hand upon my heart. The former Nazi guard held out his hand and the seconds seemed like centuries and indwelling Christ prompted my response and I reached out and took his hand and immediately supernatural warmth flooded my heart and with tears coming down my cheeks I said to him, I forgive you my brother. What do you do with that? This is what John is talking about.

He blows the world's minds and ours too, frankly. This is what it means to leave the shadows of hatred's darkness behind and in certainly much less dramatic ways. Here's the point. This is for us too. We face decisions of darkness and light every single day. Will we choose to walk in the shadows or will we choose to walk in the sunrise is the question. Now with that, John provides at the back end of this paragraph two timeless principles of truth to live by in these next two verses.

Let me give you the first principle. A life of love sheds insight on the path ahead. He's going to give us an incentive and even a greater encouragement. Certainly living for Christ, modeling Christ, demonstrating Christ is good. He wants us to know that when we live a life of love it sheds insight on our path. Would you like some insight on your path?

I sure would. He writes in verse 10, look, the one who loves his brother abides in the light. What does he mean abides in the light? To abide in the light simply means to live in the light, to walk in the light, to be at home in the light. The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there's no cause for stumbling in him. You want to walk in such a way that light is shed on your pathway?

Well here's a fascinating discovery. John effectively says love happens to be the light bulb. Turn it on and it sheds light on your pathway. You want insight on the path ahead? Turn on the light bulb of love.

I know that sounds like a 60s song but that's basically what he's saying. And how bright would you like your light on that path? The brighter your love, the more insight. So the question isn't how little love can I get by with in life toward other people.

It's how much because man do I need insight on the path ahead. There's more for us to learn from this passage but we're going to pause here. We're going to bring you the conclusion to this message tomorrow. This is Wisdom for the Heart. We have a gift for everyone who makes their first contact with our ministry. If you've never contacted us before, we'd like to meet you and welcome you by sending you several issues of Steven's monthly magazine, Heart to Heart. Dial 866-48-BIBLE. Once again that's 866-48-BIBLE. We're eager to send this gift your way. Join us back here next time for more Wisdom for the Heart.