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R edeem er Bible Church

Unreserved Accountability to Christ. Undeserved Acceptance from Christ.

Loving God, Part One:

The Imperative of Loving God
Selected Scriptures

Introduction
If I had to distinguish what it was about Christianity that was most compelling for
me at my conversion, I would say that it was that Christianity is true. Now this may
sound a bit obvious, looking as we do at our faith from the other side of conversion. But
from my unbelieving perspective, the idea that the Christian faith was wholly true was
absolutely revolutionary.

And being convinced of Christianity’s truthfulness, I felt compelled from within to

study and understand the whole of Scripture. In fact, I felt compelled from within almost
literally to devour my Bible. I read the Scriptures voraciously—a low estimate would be
that I read them three hours a day. I could not put the Bible down. For me it was the
quintessential page turner.

Then, about three years after my conversion I became acquainted with the pastor
who would ultimately be my mentor in pastoral ministry, a man named Joe Babij.
Pastor Babij, like me, loved the word of God. I was astonished to find out that he spent
his entire week just studying the Bible, preparing lessons and sermons, digging deep
into divine truth, plumbing the depths of the Sacred Writings.

Under his influence, I became even more enamored of God’s word. I began to
perceive Scripture in a new way. I came to appreciate its absolute sufficiency for faith
and practice, its power for transforming our lives, and the necessity of the church
teaching and preaching its every word. The Bible became to me something that was
exceedingly lovely, excellent, and delightful. Every text seemed more thrilling than the
last one I read, and I found myself affirming with Luther the adage “Peace, if possible;
truth, at any rate.”

For me, the Christian life was all about truth; it was all about doctrine. But then,
five years later, something happened. I severely injured my back playing basketball on
my birthday. To this day, I don’t know what precisely I did to suffer such; but the result
of my injury was that I had to be carried to my car, I had to use crutches to walk, and I
could not find a position in which I would be free from pain…save one. If I prostrated
myself on the floor—you know, face down—and put a pillow under my stomach, I felt
fine.

Well, in the providence of God, during that time I had a break from my regular
preaching and teaching duties. The result was that I had an opportunity to do some

Loving God, Part 1: The Imperative of Loving God © 1999, 2004 by R. W. Glenn
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reading that I had been meaning to do, but for one reason or another, had failed to
accomplish. As I read, the Spirit of God got a hold of my heart, and brought about a
change that I can only describe as falling in love with God. Of course, this is not to say
that I had not loved God for the first eight years of my Christian life. I mean, what
defines the Christian is that he is one who loves God: “If anyone does not love the Lord,
he is to be accursed” (1 Corinthians 16:22). But what happened to me was that my love
for God became real and fresh to my soul.

And it became real and fresh to me in two different ways: first, my love moved
from love for truth in the abstract, to love for truth in the person of God himself. I no
longer loved the Christian faith, as much as I loved the personal God of that faith. I
began to see God himself, not simply his word, as exceedingly lovely, excellent, and
delightful.

Second, my love for God became real and fresh to me in the sense that it moved
from my head to my heart. In other words, my love for God was transformed from
approval of the truth into affection for him.

You see, before this transformational experience, since I had placed a very high
premium on the truth content of the Christian faith, I had unwittingly reduced loving God
to obeying him. After all, hasn’t Jesus himself said, “If you love Me, you will keep My
commandments” (John 14:15)? And doesn’t the Apostle John echo this teaching in 1
John 5:3: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments”?

Prior to that time, I took verses like these in an absolute sense: love = obedience.
But during the rehabilitation of my back, the books I had read caused me seriously to
rethink what I have since come to see as unbiblical and reductionistic—reducing love for
God to obedience to his commandments and nothing more. The books I had read
challenged me to the core of my being and were used of God powerfully to transform
my life and ministry.

By now, you are wondering what those books were. Well, there were three;
three books coming from a trinity of men named John/Jon. The first comes from the
prolific pen of the 17th century Puritan, John Owen, called, Of Communion with God the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Each Person Distinctly, in Love, Grace, and Consolation;
or, The Saints’ Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Unfolded. How’s that
for a title?

The second book is the product the 18th century New England theologian,
Jonathan Edwards entitled, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections: In Three Parts.
And the third is the defining work of the contemporary pastor-theologian, John Piper,
called, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist.

Though these are not the only works that the Lord has used to revolutionize my
love-relationship with him, I cannot begin to express my indebtedness to the Lord for
allowing these men to influence my walk with Christ. Before encountering these books,
although I intuitively understood that there is more to love for God than the carrying out
of religious duty, I had always felt uncomfortable saying the words, “I love Jesus.” Oh, I

Loving God, Part 1: The Imperative of Loving God © 1999, 2004 by R. W. Glenn
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would say them, but to me it was almost unnecessary. “I strive to obey the Lord,
therefore I love him. Why do I need to get so mushy?”

Perhaps you are wondering the same thing. How many times have you heard
that love is an action and not a feeling? Or how about this: “Love is a choice not an
emotion”? I had heard this many times in my Christian experience, and many passages
were cited to show that this was in fact the case. Christian love is not sentimentality. It
is not an emotion. It is the activity of self-sacrifice for the greater good of another and
for the glory of God.

Well, this morning I hope to show you with help from Owen, Edwards, Piper, and
others that this conception of biblical love is not true. But knowing you as I do, appeals
to great works of Christian theology and devotion will never suffice. Nor should they!
Unless what we assert (or what has been asserted) is rooted in the Bible, we have
nothing. So although Owen, Edwards, Piper and others will help us on our journey, they
do not have the last word. God does. So we begin with the Scripture. And we begin
first with this principle: emotions, feelings, or affections are not optional in the Christian
life.

Emotions Are Not Optional

Jonathan Edwards begins with 1 Peter 1:8: “And though you have not seen Him,
you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly
rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” And he says that “the proposition or
doctrine, that I would raise from these words is this, TRUE RELIGION, IN GREAT PART,
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CONSISTS IN HOLY AFFECTIONS.”

He argues that since the Apostle Peter sets forth love and joy as evidence of the
genuineness of the Christian’s faith, holy affections (like love and joy) are a necessary
component of true Christianity. And I wholeheartedly agree. Yet, as I said earlier, I
don’t agree simply because Edwards has said it, but because the Scripture everywhere
affirms that true religion consists in holy affections.

In this connection, we observe two cardinal truths. The first is that the saints of
God are characterized as those who are affected by the things of God and especially by
God himself. We have already heard 1 Peter 1:8: “And though you have not seen Him,
you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly
rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” Real love and inexpressible joy are
affections and they are the proof of genuine faith under fire.

In Psalm 51:17 David affirms that that “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A
broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” True saints come to the Lord
in their sin with feelings of grief and contrition.

1
Jonathan Edwards, “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections” in The Works of Jonathan
Edwards, Vol 1, edited by Edward Hickman (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1998 reprint of the
1834 edition), 236, small caps in original.

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Second Corinthians 7:9-10 says much the same: “You were made sorrowful
according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.
For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret,
leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.” God produces in the
heart of Christians the emotion of sorrow for sin that leads to a change of life. The
Apostle Paul teaches us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
Who would deny that at least some of the fruit of the Spirit is emotional? And since
emotions like love, joy, and peace are the fruit of the Spirit, and since the presence of
the Spirit is what defines the believer, it follows that the presence of these emotions are
not at all optional.

In Paul’s letter to Titus we are reminded about what God’s salvation has affected
in the lives of the Lord’s people. Titus 2:14 says that the Lord Jesus “gave Himself for
us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own
possession, zealous for good deeds.” We are not simply a people that does good
deeds, but a people that is zealous for them.

And this is because the nature of the New Covenant is that its participants have
been born of water and the Spirit. We have received a new heart—a heart of flesh to
replace our heart of stone. God puts in us not simply a list of rules to observe, but an
entirely new inclination, one that is sorrowful for sin, contrite of spirit, and that responds
to God’s forgiveness and beauty with love, joy, peace, hope, and zeal for him.

I love what the 19th century Scottish divine, George Smeaton says in this regard:

The knowledge of God, taught by the Spirit, is invariably connected with a

new spiritual relish, or a new sense, which inclines the mind to rest in God as
better than the creature,—to regard sin as repulsive, and holiness as the element
in which the mind delights to dwell. The heart is weaned by the revelation of the
surpassing excellence of God, and so drawn by the cords of a man, by bands of
love, that the supreme God is not only accepted as its portion, but enthroned as
its Lord, to whom every power must be subjected, and who is nearer and dearer
than self.2

So the reason why affections or emotions are not optional in the Christian life is
because Christians are those who by definition are affected by the things and the
person of God. If a person is not at all emotionally affected by the truth of God and
especially God himself, he or she is not a believer.

Yet there is another, even more direct reason why emotions are not optional in
the Christian life. God demands that we relate to him emotionally.

God Demands Your Affections

Edwards goes on to say that if you are not moved emotionally by the things of
religion, then your religion is unacceptable to God. He says,
2
George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974 reprint of
the 1889 edition), 255.

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That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in
weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference:
God, in His word, greatly insists upon it, that we be in good earnest, ‘fervent in
spirit,’ and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion....
If we be not in good earnest in religion, and our wills and inclinations be
not strongly exercised, we are nothing. The things of religion are so great, that
there can be no suitableness in the exercises of our hearts, to their nature and
importance, unless they be lively and powerful. In nothing is vigour [sic.] in the
actings of our inclinations so requisite, as in religion; and in nothing is
lukewarmness so odious.”3

And throughout Scripture, this is precisely what we see. We see the saints of
God being commanded to be affected by the things of God and to be affected by God
himself. Turn with me to Romans 12:6-15:

Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of
us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his
faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who
exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with
diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy.
Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly
love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence,
fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation,
devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who
rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

Here we have a series of commands, some of which are simply commands to

feel certain things; others are commands to do things with certain feelings. Look at all
the feelings in this text: cheerfulness, hatred, love, fervency, joy, hope, and weeping.

The psalmist commands the people of God to “Serve the LORD with gladness”;
and to “Come before Him with joyful singing”; and to “Hope in God” (Psalm 100:2; 42:5).

Paul commands the Philippians and the Thessalonians to “Rejoice in the Lord
always” (Philippians 4:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:16). He commands the Colossians in
Colossians 3:15 to let the peace of Christ rule in their hearts.

And how could we fail to consider the Jesus’ summary of the Law of Moses: “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind…And you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

So then, not only are we characterized as those who are affected emotionally by
the Lord, but we are also commanded to express such feelings. This much is clear.

3
Edwards, “Affections,” 237-38.

Loving God, Part 1: The Imperative of Loving God © 1999, 2004 by R. W. Glenn
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Now even though you may be convinced that holy affections are a necessary
component of true religion, you are not yet convinced that biblical love is emotional, that
it involves the affections.

Biblical Love Is Affectionate

After all, we have already heard this from John’s first epistle: “For this is the love
of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not
burdensome” (1 John 5:3). “This is the love of God”: doing what he says. And when it
is recorded in John’s gospel that God so loved the world, the text does not say that God
so loved the world that he felt, but that God so loved the world that he gave. He gave
his only Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Even the Apostle Paul’s magnificent definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 shows

that love involves action. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is
not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not
provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in
unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Every facet of love that Paul delivers in this powerful text is active. Perhaps you
have heard that Paul uses no adjectives when describing love, only verbs and
participles. In his Study Bible, John MacArthur is quick to point out, for instance that
“[i]n these verses, the fullness of love is described, in each case by what love does.
Love is action, not abstraction.”4

Although this is true, as we unpack this text just a bit, we’ll find that an appeal to
the verbal definitions of love is no argument for the emotionlessness of love. Look
down to verse 3: If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my
body to be burned, but do not love, it profits me nothing. Paul is saying here that
donating all his possessions to feed the poor and even surrendering his body to
martyrdom can be loveless deeds. What does this say about the nature of love?

Well, at the very least it says that we cannot rightly equate love with sacrificial
action. If love and sacrificial action were the same thing, then you could never give
away all your possessions or give up your life without being loving. You would always
be loving by doing so. But Paul says that if I do these things but do not love, it profits
me nothing. Put a bit differently, he says that we can do these sacrificial things
unlovingly.

This idea runs counter to the common notion that love is not what you feel but
what you do. This is not to say, however, that the idea is entirely without merit. In fact,
the popular teaching does affirm two thoroughly biblical realities: (1) feelings of love are
no substitute for acts of love. Listen again to the Apostle John: “Whoever has the

4
John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1997), 1750.

Loving God, Part 1: The Imperative of Loving God © 1999, 2004 by R. W. Glenn
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world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does
the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17).

And (2) the popular teaching also affirms that we must be diligent to make efforts
of love even when we lack the proper emotions. We are not free to disobey God simply
because we don’t “feel like it,” or because we’re “not in the mood.” To do so would be
to complicate our sinful state. Rather than simply sinning by lacking love in the
performance of a good deed, we add to that sin failing to perform the deed. We turn
one sin into two: lacking proper emotions + neglecting a good deed.

But even though it is true that feelings of love are no substitute for acts of love
and that we must be diligent to make efforts of love even when we lack the proper
emotions, it would be woefully inaccurate to conclude that love is not what you feel but
what you do.

In fact, Paul’s very definition of love in this chapter shows that love is much more
than our actions, but involves our feelings as well. Verse 4 says that love is not
jealous. Verse 5 says that love is not provoked. Verse 6 says that love does not
rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Verse 7 says that love
hopes all things. What are all these things but feelings?!

So although it is true that love is more than feelings, it is not less than feelings
either. So if you feel things such as unholy jealousy and irritation, and take joy in
unrighteousness; or if you do not feel things such as joy over the truth and hope in all
things, then you are not being loving no matter how many selfless acts you perform.

Do you remember the command that God gave to Micah in Micah 6:8? It’s this:
“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to
do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” This is not simply a
command to do kind things, but to love kindness, to delight in it.

Thus I conclude that we will not properly love God if our feelings are not
engaged. The fact of the matter is that we are commanded to love God with all that we
are, and this love must include our emotions. It must be felt. Matthew 22:37 says, “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind.” Here the term “heart” refers not to man’s inner constitution generally, but to the
seat of his emotions, to his affections.

So if we attempt to love God with obedience apart from a heart that delights in
him, we do not honor him. God is not pleased by this kind of love. He wants our
religion to be heartfelt. God loves a cheerful giver.

Would you say that I loved my wife if I came home on our anniversary with
flowers in hand and she said, “You shouldn’t have!” and I responded with “I had to; it’s
our anniversary”? Would you say that I loved my kids if I took a day off to spend time
with them and they said, “Oh Daddy! We’re so glad you’ve done this!” and I said in
return, “I had to; you’re my kids”? No way! In both cases, you would think me very cold
indeed.

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Well, then why are we so quick to think it is fine for us to love God by the duties
we perform without having to engage our hearts? Duties without delight are nothing but
drudgeries. And if I miserably perform my duty of obedience to God without any sense
of delight in serving him, would anyone ever think that I loved the Lord? Would I?

Conclusion
So then, let us begin our series on loving God this morning with this: Loving God
is carries with it an emotional imperative. We must love God and our love for him must
have emotional content.

In what has become a classic of Christian devotion, The Life of God in the Soul
of Man, Henry Scougal, writing in the late 17th century defined love for God so biblically
and so comprehensively that it is worth repeating:

The love of God is a delightful and affectionate sense of the Divine

perfections, which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto him,
desiring above all things to please him, and delighting in nothing so much as in
fellowship and communion with him, and being ready to do or suffer any thing for
his sake, or at his pleasure.5

And this is where we are going. For this is what we need. We need to love God
from the heart. We need to have a sense of God that is full of delight and affection for
him.

You may be wondering why you have been feeling dry lately, you may really be
struggling in your relationship with the Lord; you may have crawled in here this morning.
We are so burdened.

And yet the greatest burdens are not our personal problems or difficult
circumstances, our greatest burden is singular: a failure to love the Lord as we should.
For when we are loving the Lord with all we are—with heart, soul, mind, and strength—
we are able to see above the clouds of our despair to enjoy the rapture of the brightness
of the sun.

John Owen has said, “Many saints have no greater burden in their lives, than that
their hearts do not come clearly and fully up, constantly to delight and rejoice in God.”6 I
would go one step further and say that all the saints have no greater burden in their
lives than that their hearts do not come clearly and fully up, constantly to delight and
rejoice in God. We have no greater burden than the weakness of our love for God.

5
Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2001
reprint), 53.
6
John Owen, “Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Each Person Distinctly, in
Love, Grace, and Consolation; or, The Saints’ Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Unfolded,” in The Works of John Owen, Vol 2, edited by William Goold (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth
Trust, 1997 reprint of the 1850-53 edition), 35-36.

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If we do not truly love God, if we are not endeared to the Lord as a child is to his
or her loving parent, every duty of the Christian life we attempt to fulfill will become a
hideous burden. And we will feel as if the Lord is a taskmaster no better than those
appointed by Pharaoh in the days of Israel’s captivity. We need to love the Lord—for
our own sakes. And our love for the Lord has to be affectionate.

I want to ask you a very serious question. Do you feel love for God? Or are you
emotionally detached from him? Remember, I’m not asking if you obey God. I’m
asking you if you love him. I really don’t need to ask you if you obey him, because if
you love him you will obey him. But there is a sense in which you can obey him without
loving him. And this is what we must avoid if we are to ascribe to him the honor due his
name.

Some of you may be so dry right now in your Christian life that you feel
overwhelmed. You don’t know where to begin. You recognize the truthfulness of what I
have been saying, you deeply desire a relationship with the Lord that is more than duty,
but you are at a loss as to how you might cultivate a heart that loves him. That,
brethren, is what this series is all about.

In the meantime, let us begin our journey to loving God with a simple prayer; a
song, really:

More love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee!

Hear thou the prayer I make on bended knee;
This is my earnest plea,
More love, O Christ, to thee,
More love to thee, more love to thee!
—Elizabeth Payson Prentiss (1818-1878)

Redeemer Bible Church

16205 Highway 7
Minnetonka, MN 55345
Office: 952.935.2425
Fax: 952.938.8299
info@redeemerbiblechurch.com
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Loving God, Part 1: The Imperative of Loving God © 1999, 2004 by R. W. Glenn