Let God’s Love Overflow through Us

During the last two months, and especially this last week, I have experienced a whole range of emotions from anger, frustration, sadness, confusion, disappointment. I have heard many of you going through similar feelings. I am perplexed, stressed, and fatigued. I am struggling with many questions. And this election year may bring more anger, hatred, tensions, and conflicts if things are going as they are going now. It is okay to have these feelings. Acknowledge them. Feel them. They are real. But we must not allow our feelings to overwhelm and control us. That eventually leads to sin. We must give our feelings over to the Lord, and ask the Holy Spirit to help us work through them. 

Times like these expose our strengths and our weaknesses. I have been shocked and amazed at the thoughts I had and the actions I contemplated. I have been shocked and amazed at the things I have seen and heard across the nation, in our own community, and even in our own church. This is a time of testing for God’s people. How are we going to respond to what is happening? Are we going to endure and remain faithful to who we are? Are we going to endure and remain faithful to our calling?

How should we respond? Love! Love God above everything else and with our whole being, and love others as ourselves. God’s love has been poured out into our hearts. That love should overflow through us into the world. Self-giving, dying-to-self love, that is how we as kingdom people are holy, counter-cultural, radically different from the world, and that is how we overcome the world. 

1. We Have Peace with God

We can love because we have peace with God. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v.1). Jesus Christ our Lord saved us. By his blood and death, our sins are forgiven. By his resurrection, we have new, eternal life. Through Him, we have been reconciled with God. We have peace, shalom, with God. Jesus Christ not only reconciled us with God but also with one another. Jesus himself is our peace. He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility and so made peace. He created in himself one new humanity, the people of God that transcends ethnicity, race, color, nationality, political, and all other affiliations. We are all children of God. In one body he reconciled all of us to God. He came and preached peace to all of us, and now through Him, we all have access to the Father through one Spirit (Eph 2:14-18; Gal 3:26-29). When the Prince of Peace rules our hearts we can and we will love others no matter who they are. 

2. We Stand in God’s Grace

We can love because “Through him we have also gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (v2). We have a new status, a new identity. We are children of God. We are kingdom citizens. We have experienced, and now stand and live in the presence of God’s amazing grace. We are surrounded and filled with his love, his power, and His glory. This is huge! We have been born again. We are new. We are different. And this is only the beginning of something so much bigger. The complete, full glory of God is coming. 

3. We Rejoice in the Hope of God’s Glory

And that is why “we rejoice, we boast, in the hope of the glory of God” (v.2). That glory is the new, eternal glorious, perfect life we will have when we are resurrected. That glory is the full glory of God that will be revealed when our Lord comes back and his kingdom rule is restored in the new creation. God’s love, the peace we have, the grace we stand in are all a foretaste of the much greater glory that is awaiting us. With creation, we hope and wait in eager expectation. And our present sufferings are not worth comparing with that glory (Ro 8:18-25).

4. We Rejoice in Our Sufferings

And therefore, “not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings” (v3). We experience suffering because we live and serve God in a broken and sinful world. Satan and his evil powers oppose and oppress us. The world despises and rejects us. But we rejoice in our sufferings “because we know that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope” (vv.3-4) We persevere, we endure because we have peace, we stand in God’s grace and we have hope. We endure because we know that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character. The Greek here means more than our usual understanding of character — a noble character with good virtues and qualities. It means proven character. It means we have withstood the test, passed the test, and have proven to be the real thing, true followers of Jesus. We have remained faithful to God. We have grown stronger in who we are as God’s people. And our hope of the glory of God has increased and strengthened.

5. Let God’s Love Overflow through Us and Flood the World

And this hope “does not put us to shame, does not disappoint because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (v.5) This hope is real because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. Note—it means poured out into our hearts. There are no limits, no holding back. God poured out his love into us abundantly. It is filling us, overflowing in us. This love is described in verses 6-11. God revealed his love in Jesus Christ. We have received the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit makes God’s love real in our lives. And nothing can separate us from that love (Rom 8:38-39). 

And God calls us to love others as He loves. We are the reflections and channels of God’s love. When we do not love, we hinder God’s love from flowing to others. God’s love must overflow through us into the world. We must pour out, flood this world with God’s love. How do we love others? Instead of me trying to explain, let us listen to what God’s Word teaches us on how we should love others. Romans 12: 9-21 — Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:  “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Blessed— we lived and worked with 5 different cultures. In cross-cultural studies and practice the only way to learn and understand other cultures & a person is empathy— That is, to place yourself in the other person’s shoes, to try to see things and their experiences through their eyes. Love does not mean that we agree on everything with one another, but that we listen, try to understand one another, respect one another.

No matter who the other person is, we are called to love them in the same way God loves us. We are in a time of testing. The time has come for us to hear and obey God’s Word.

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness (1 Jo 2:9). Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister (1 Jo 3:10). Anyone who does not love remains in death (1 Jo 3:14). Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 Jo 4:8). We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen (1 Jo 4:19–20).

Every time when someone tells me they cannot love so and so, my heart my soul cringes. We don’t have a choice to love or not love. As God’s people, we will, we must love. We are being tested at this time. And the choice before us — are we going to persevere, be faithful as God’s people and love others, or will we disobey our Lord, live like the world? Will we block God’s love or will we allow God’s love to flow out of, to overflow from our hearts into the world and to others? We can love because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts. What is our choice going to be? What does the Lord require of us? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). To love! 

Blessing

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope and love by the power of the Holy Spirit.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.