God’s Love Has Definition

 

Two dimensions of God’s love that are lost to our generation are its self-sacrificing nature and its knowledge and discernment. When you think of love, do you think of knowledge and discernment? Most of us probably don’t.

 

Can you think of a popular song about love that sings of knowledge and discernment? Can you think of a popular Christian book that focuses on love’s knowledge and discernment? When is the last time you heard a sermon about love’s knowledge and discernment?

 

Our culture, including the culture within the professing church, tends to view love as a feeling without form, as something nebulous and ambiguous. It is like water poured on the ground rather than into a vessel – it is poured out, it dissipates, and it is gone.

 

Think about these words from Philippians 1:9 – 11:

 

“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

 

What do you see in this passage? What can we learn about love from this passage?

 

Note that love is to “abound still more and more in real knowledge and discernment.” That word “discernment” can also be translated “judgment”; love is to “judge”, to discern, to make distinctions. It is not to accept everything, it is not to approve everything, it is not to go along with everything, it is not to give its approval to everything – this should not surprise us because God’s love does not do these things – God’s love judges justly, it makes distinctions, it does not go along with everything – in fact, God’s holy love teaches us the difference between righteousness and sin, between good and evil, between the holy and the profane.

 

We also see that love is to abound in “real knowledge.” We often confuse information with knowledge and wisdom; information is simply data, but what is it to really “know” something and to know how to interpret and apply and integrate what we know? As love grows in real knowledge our real knowledge includes seeing all things in the light of Jesus Christ, for only in Him do we know people and events and things for who and what they really are.

 

Can we see that as love grows in knowledge and discernment that we are to “approve things that are excellent”? This is the antithesis of the notion that love approves all things and accepts all things. This is more than about approving things that are good, or things that are even better – this is about approving things that are the best, that are excellent. This can be a challenging thought in our generation when we are focused on the immediate, on the pragmatic, on things which will give us bang for the buck and instant results.

This passage shows us that true love, God’s love, has definition, it is not ambiguous, it has a form and a substance. We can learn to know God’s love when we see it and when we experience it, and as it grows within us. Love does not instantaneously grow in us; its maturation process takes a lifetime. It begins as an acorn, it can grow into an oak tree. It does not grow without pain, challenge, and self-sacrifice. It does not grow absent obedience to Jesus Christ. It does not grow without repentance.

 

It does most certainly grow as our lives are lived in koinonia with Jesus Christ and with one another, in fact, this is the only way it grows.

 

What else do you see about love in this passage?