Good morning.
This morning, in honor of our Chinese friends, I would like to start with a Chinese story.
! It's the story of Liang Shanbo yu Juyingtai.
Now, in English, you can call it the story of the butterfly lovers.
Juyingtai, who let's call Julie, okay?
Julie was the only daughter of a wealthy family.
And at that time, young women were not encouraged to take up scholarly pursuits.
But Julie convinces her father to let her go to school disguised as a young man.
And so, Julie, on her way to school, which was pretty far from her home,
meets a young man along the way, Liang Shanbo.
Let's call him Leon, okay?
So, Julie meets Leon, and they begin to talk.
And they find out they're going to be classmates.
And so, they talk as they walk along the way.
And very quickly, their hearts are drawn to each other.
They actually stop on the way and take an oath of brotherhood.
For three years, Julie and Leon study together.
Now, Leon was very focused on his studies.
And so, he doesn't even notice that Julie is a young lady.
Julie, though, very soon finds herself falling in love with Leon.
Then, suddenly, one day, she gets a letter.
Julie gets a letter from her father saying she must come home right away.
And so, she has no choice but to pack everything up and say goodbye to Leon.
But she's already decided in her heart that she loves him and wants to be with him forever.
Now, Leon, being the good friend he is, decides to walk about 18 miles with Julie to see her off.
All along the way, Julie is trying to subtly reveal to Leon that she's a young lady.
But Leon doesn't pick up on any of the clues.
So, finally, her last effort, as they're about to part, is she says,
Leon, when you finish school, come visit me and I will be a matchmaker and set you up with my sister.
Well, Leon's very excited because he thinks, well, he'll get a wife and his close friend.
And they can be family.
So, about a year passes until Leon's finally able to come and visit Julie.
But when he arrives, Julie quickly runs out and confesses to him,
It's me. I'm really a woman.
Well, Leon suddenly is kind of overwhelmed with a sense of love for her.
And he thinks, this is the best possibility.
And they make this commitment to each other, kind of like until death do us part.
And so, they hurry quickly to Julie's father so that Leon can ask for her hand in marriage.
Unfortunately, their excitement is very short-lived because Julie's father reveals to both of them that he has already promised her in marriage to a wealthy merchant.
Leon is depressed and brokenhearted.
He goes home and over time his health gets worse and finally he dies from a broken heart.
And Julie agrees to marry the wealthy merchant.
But there's one condition.
She will only marry him if her wedding processional can pass by Leon's grave.
And so, it's agreed to.
And on the day of her wedding, her wedding processional is passing by Leon's grave.
When suddenly, there's a strong wind that causes them to stop.
And Julie sees her chance.
She runs from the wedding party to Leon's grave.
And she falls down and begs that the grave would open up.
And miraculously, the grave splits open.
Without a second thought, Julie throws herself into the grave.
And all of the wedding party runs up and looks into the grave.
And all they see is Leon and Julie's spirits emerge as a pair of butterflies.
To fly off and be together, never to be separated again.
Isn't it interesting how every culture has its own set of love stories?
I'm sure probably none of you had heard that story before.
But all of you have, right?
You know, every culture has love stories.
And often, there are love stories that are about sacrificial love or tragic things happening.
But our hearts are so easily caught up in the story that we really don't care if it makes sense or if it's impossible.
It doesn't matter to us if it's immoral or foolish.
Our hearts are so moved that we quickly find some beauty in the story.
You guys know that.
You can think about plenty of stories.
Whether it's like Mark Anthony and Cleopatra or Romeo and Juliet.
The hunchback of Notre Dame.
Sir Lancelot, Queen Guinevere.
Even more modern, like Jack and Rose from the Titanic, right?
You see, there's just something in us that connects with these love stories.
And I think it's because in all of our hearts, we desire to be loved that way.
To find someone that will love us sacrificially.
Someone that is willing to give up everything, even life itself, because they love us so much.
This morning, we're going to talk about the world's greatest love story.
And the good news is, it's true.
We're looking at 1 John chapter 4, verses 7 through 12.
In 2024, verse 24, verse 24, verse 24, verse 24, verse 24.
4, 7 through 12.
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.
In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world,
so that we might live through him.
In this is love.
Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God.
If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you that you have written us a love story,
that you have shown us your love.
Father, I ask that you would open our hearts and our minds
to see the beauty of your word,
to see the beauty of this love story before us,
and that our hearts would be caught,
and that we would rejoice in the fact that we are loved by you.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
We're going to look at this love story,
and on the back of your bulletin,
you can take notes if you want to. It might help.
The first thing we're going to look at is the characters in this love story.
The characters in this love story.
And the main character you'll see very quickly is God.
If you read that passage,
it's a huge number of times that we see the word God.
If you count up all the pronouns and everything,
I think it's about 13 times.
God is the main character,
and if you include his son, it's even more than that.
And notice what we learn in these verses about God.
It tells us God is the source of love.
In verse 7, we see it says love is from God.
God is the source of love.
It also tells us something even bigger than that.
That God is love.
In verse 8, God is love.
Now, I think we should stop for a minute and clarify.
There really are two kinds of love.
There are two kinds of love.
The first is self-centered love.
Now, think about it.
We say, I love pizza.
Or, I love sleeping.
I love my job.
Even, I love you.
But think about when you say that,
what does it really mean?
It means, I really enjoy eating pizza.
I really like the way sleeping makes me feel.
I find my job is very satisfying.
Or, I like my colleagues.
Or, it pays me a lot of money.
And, even when we say, I love you,
much of the time, what we really mean is,
I love the way you make me feel.
You see, at the center of all of those uses of love
is myself.
It's all about me.
Right?
Doe, but doe.
Doe.
But, there's a second kind of love.
It's God-centered love.
And, if we looked at this in the original language,
which is Greek,
it was written in Greek,
we would see the word here is agape.
That's the Greek word used for love.
Agape.
And, agape is a very special word for Bible writers.
They used the word agape to talk about the love that God has.
It's a love that's focused on others, not on self.
Probably the best description we find of that kind of love
is in 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 through 8.
1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 through 8.
It says,
And, when we're talking about love today,
that's the kind of love we're talking about.
A God-centered love.
A love that is not focused on me,
and what do I get,
but a love that is focused on others,
and on doing whatever is best for others,
no matter what the cost.
We also see about God in verses 10 and 11,
that God loves us.
Or, we see in 10 through 12,
that God desires an intimate relationship with us.
But God's not the only character in this story.
Let's look at the secondary characters.
That would be you and me.
You and me.
Notice it talks a lot in this verse about you or us or we.
And it shows us several things that are important.
We see one,
we need help loving.
We need help loving.
In verses 7 and 8,
it tells us God is the source of love,
and that we can only love this way
if we get that love from God.
We can't love that way on our own.
It also shows us that we need help living.
In verse 9,
Notice it talks about that God sent His only Son into the world
so that we might live through Him.
We need help living.
We can't even live right on our own.
Notice in verse 10,
it says,
We don't love God.
Verse 10,
In this is love,
not that we loved God.
Let's look at another passage in Romans chapter 3.
Romans chapter 3,
verses 10 through 18.
Romans 3, 10 through 18.
And it says,
As the scriptures say,
No one is righteous,
not even one.
No one is truly wise.
No one is seeking God.
All have turned away.
All have become useless.
No one does good,
not a single one.
Their talk is foul,
like the stench from an open grave.
Their tongues are filled with lies.
Snake venom drips from their lips.
Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.
They rush to commit murder.
Destruction and misery always follow them.
They don't know where to find peace,
for they have no fear of God at all.
You see, we don't love God.
We also see, in verse 10,
that we have sin that has separated us from God.
We have sin that has separated us from God.
It says,
But God loved us and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins.
Now, propitiation is a big word.
But what it basically means
is that we have done something wrong
and caused someone to be angry.
And something must be done
to take away that anger
and restore our relationship,
to fix our guanxi.
Let's look at Romans chapter 1,
verses 18 through 32.
It says,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men,
who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them,
because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes,
namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived
ever since the creation of the world
in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse.
For although they knew God,
they did not honor him as God
or give thanks to him,
but they became futile in their thinking.
And their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise,
they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images resembling mortal man
and birds and animals
and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up
in the lusts of their hearts
to impurity,
to the dishonoring of their bodies
among themselves,
because they exchanged the truth about God
for a lie
and worshiped and served the creature
rather than the creator,
who is blessed forever.
For this reason,
God gave them up
to dishonorable passions,
for their women exchanged natural relations
for those that are contrary to nature.
And the men likewise
gave up natural relations with women
and were consumed with passion
for one another,
men committing shameless acts with men
and receiving in themselves
the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit
to acknowledge God,
God gave them up
to a debased mind
to do what ought not to be done.
They were filled with all manners
of unrighteousness,
evil,
covetousness,
malice.
They're full of envy,
murder,
strife,
deceit,
maliciousness.
They're gossips,
slanderers,
haters of God,
insolent,
haughty,
boastful,
inventors of evil,
disobedient to parents,
foolish,
faithless,
heartless,
ruthless.
Though they know God's righteous decree
that those who practice such things
deserve to die,
they not only do them,
but give approval to those who practice them.
So our sin has separated us from God.
So that's the characters.
We have God and his son.
He is the source of love.
He is love.
He wants to pour that love out
and be in relationship with us.
And we have us.
We are in need of help loving,
of help living.
We are not lovers of God
and our sin has separated us from him.
Now let's talk about the plot of the story.
The plot of this love story
is summarized in verses 9 through 10.
9 through 10,
where it says,
In this the love of God
was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only son into the world
so we might live through him.
In this is love,
not that we've loved God,
but he loved us and sent his son
to be the propitiation for our sins.
The truth is,
even in these two verses,
we find probably
one of the most clear summaries
of the entire Bible.
In those two verses,
all of the essence of God's love story to us
is there.
Very short, very quick,
but it's all there.
The best way to understand God's love story
is to read the whole book.
It will take us 80 hours.
Let's begin.
Since we don't have 80 hours,
I thought the best thing I could do
is to tell you a story.
A story that will give you
a little more summary
of God's love story to us.
It's the story of the great emperor.
There was a great and glorious emperor,
Shang Di,
who ruled over a perfect and wonderful kingdom.
He provided everything his people needed.
He treated them like they were all his own children.
Even the laws that he had
were written for the good of the people.
However, the people chose to be selfish.
They wanted more than perfection.
You see, they believed in themselves,
and they thought they should be able
to be their own emperor.
They wanted to do whatever they wanted,
anytime they wanted.
Well, the emperor told them,
if you want to live this way,
it's not good for you,
and you'll have to leave the kingdom.
So the rebellious people left.
They moved out to the place
where the kingdom dumped all of its trash
and lived on a giant pile of trash.
And without the emperor
to lovingly rule over them,
the people began to use each other.
They would lie to each other
and steal from each other.
They actually would find ways
to hurt each other
in any way imagined.
And not only that,
but living on the trash pile
caused them to get sicknesses
and diseases
and many other problems started.
The emperor could see all of this
from his palace.
Even though he was angry
because of their actions,
he still loved them
and cared for him.
He would send out food,
water, medicine,
and other things
that they needed.
And even though
the people
should have been thankful
for all the emperor was doing,
they ignored him.
Instead,
they chose new rulers,
new leaders,
and they thanked
these new leaders
and they worshipped
these new leaders
even for the very things
that the emperor
was sending to them.
The way that the people lived
dishonored and shamed
the emperor.
And the emperor
would send out
workers from the palace
to remind the people
of all the good
the emperor offered them,
to challenge them,
to turn away
from their selfish living,
and to restore
their relationship
with the emperor,
to return to his kingdom.
Yet,
every time
one of the emperor's people
came out
to the trash people,
the trash people
would grab them
and torture them
and kill them.
One day,
the emperor's only son,
the prince,
came to him
and said,
Father,
I know that you love
these people,
even though
they turned away from you.
They've lived selfish,
terrible lives.
They've brought shame
on you
and your kingdom.
I know that you love them.
So,
I want to go out
and live with them.
I will spend my life
teaching them
the truths
about you
and your love
that they have forgotten.
And in the end,
I will take
the punishment
that they deserve
for their actions
so that they can be
restored to our kingdom.
Even though
the emperor
loved his son,
more than can be described,
he honored
his son's desire
and let him go
to live among
the trash people.
Every day,
the emperor would watch
from the palace
as his son
lived among
the trash people.
He watched
as the prince
would love them
and care for them
and teach them
about the emperor's kingdom.
And every day
that passed,
more and more
of the trash people
became sorry
for the way
they had treated
the emperor,
how they had
dishonored him
and brought shame
upon themselves
and their kingdom
and wanted to change
how they were living.
However,
the trash people's
hearts were changing
and the leaders
saw that.
They began to hate
the prince
even more
than they hated
the emperor.
And as their hatred
grew,
they began to plan
how they would
destroy the prince,
the emperor's
precious son.
The emperor
watched all of
these things happen
day by day.
And then
at the perfect moment,
the emperor
went to the trash pile.
Everyone gathered
together
and the emperor
said to them,
I am a good,
honest,
righteous,
and just emperor.
Shame
and dishonor
has been brought
upon me
and my kingdom
by your actions.
You must all
be justly punished
for your crimes.
At this,
the prince
stepped forward
and said,
Father,
I am willing
to take
the punishment
for these people.
The emperor
asked,
Who will hold
the prince
while he is punished?
Well,
with great excitement,
all the leaders
of the trash pile
rushed forward
and grabbed
the prince.
They stripped him
of his royal coat
and forced him
to his knees.
The emperor
took out
a powerful whip
and began
to whip
the prince.
And each strike
sounded like thunder.
Every time
he would whip
the prince,
the emperor
would call out
one of the names
of the people
on the trash pile
and say,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
This went on
for the longest time.
David Bout,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
Titus Mahaffey,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
Mark Rugsager,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
Blake Murphy,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
Huang Dandan,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
Lan Yi,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
Liu Chunya,
Your crimes
have been paid for.
Name after name,
lash after lash,
the blood
of the prince
filled the street.
No one really knew
how long it lasted.
All they remembered
was the moment
they heard their name.
the moment
they heard
their name
and that their crimes
have been paid for.
At that moment,
their hard hearts
melted within them.
When the emperor
was finished
and the prince
was dead,
the emperor
cried out,
All of you
that have had
your crimes paid for,
I forgive you
and you may return
to the kingdom
and live as my children
once again.
Well, large people,
large groups of people
immediately ran
from the trash pile
into the kingdom
and their lives
were completely changed.
They became new people
and the new people's hearts
were so overflowing
with the love
they'd received
from the emperor
that they began
to love those around them
even more
than they loved themselves.
They even found themselves
loving the people
that were still
on the trash pile.
And so they would go out
and take care of them
and tell them
about all of the love
they'd received
from the emperor
and invite them
to come back
and be one of the emperor's
children too.
As the trash people
saw the way
the new people
loved each other
and loved them,
more and more of them
wanted to become
children of the emperor.
After several days,
the emperor showed
he was even more glorious
and powerful
than the people realized.
The emperor
gave the prince
life again.
All of the people
that had returned
to the kingdom
celebrated
the prince's return,
his resurrection.
And their hearts
were filled
with even more love
because of what
the prince had done
for them.
The prince continued
to lead the people
to go out
to the trash pile
and to share
the good news
with all who would listen.
and the story
continues even today.
You see,
the best news
about the world's
greatest love story
is that it's continuing.
It's a continuing story.
And everyone
has a chapter
in this story.
Everyone in this room,
everyone in the world,
everyone that's ever lived
has a chapter
in the world's
greatest love story.
Each of us
is responsible
for our own chapter.
The question is,
will you choose
a life
of self-centered love?
Will you choose
to keep living
on the trash pile,
letting your life
be filled
with selfish love
where every relationship,
every decision,
every action
is focused
on your own
comfort and pleasure?
always looking
for something
to satisfy you
in your job
or your relationships,
your family,
but never finding it.
Forever living
with that feeling
that there's something
more that you are missing.
Or will you accept
a life
of God-centered love?
Will you accept
a life
of God-centered love?
Are you willing
to hear
the truth
about God?
Realize
the truth
of how
you have been
living a self-centered
life that dishonors
and shames God
and accept
the love
that Jesus
has shown
to you
in paying
for your sin?
Will you turn
away
from self-centered
living on the trash
pile outside
of God's kingdom?
Are you willing
to let
God-centered love
rule your life
and make you
a new person?
If you're willing,
if you're willing
to accept
God's love,
there are such
beautiful results.
The results
of accepting
God's love
are this.
One,
we have an intimate
relationship
with God
as our Father.
Look at
1 John 4
verse 12.
It says,
No one has ever
seen God,
but if we love
one another,
God abides
in us.
God abides
in us.
God lives
in us.
God becomes
an intimate
part of our lives.
He is our Father.
We are His children.
So if you accept
God's love,
you'll have
an intimate
relationship
with Him.
But the second
result is
we will truly
love one another.
When we accept
God-centered love,
our hearts
are changed
so that we can
love each other
as we should.
No longer
being selfish
in our thoughts.
What do I get?
How does it make
me feel?
Why is this
good for me?
But our hearts
are changed
so that we can
love others
and we can
think most
about them.
What's best
for them?
How can I
serve them?
How can I
help them?
The third
benefit
is if we
accept God's
love,
the world
will see God
through our
true love
for one another.
The world
will see God
through our
true love
for one another.
Again,
in verse 12,
it talks about
how no one
has seen God,
but if we
love one another,
God abides
in us
and his love
is perfected
in us.
It's made
perfect,
it's made
complete,
and the world
will see it.
In John
chapter 13,
verses 34
and 35,
Jesus tells
us that
by this
all people
will know
you're my
disciples
if you have
love for
one another.
So we have
a responsibility.
We decide
how do we
want the
chapter of
our lives
in this
great love
story to
look.
How is it
you will
let your
story end?
Will it be
a story
of self-centered
love or
God-centered
love?
Today,
I encourage
you to
choose wisely.
Let's pray.
Amen.