Tony Evans - Love Is Found in Deeds, Not Words
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Summary
In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes that Christians exist to represent God in the world, and since God is love, we must express biblical love — agape, a deliberate decision to compassionately, righteously, responsibly, and sacrificially meet others' needs, not just an emotion. Drawing primarily from 1 John 3:16–20, he concludes that when we actively choose to love in action (not just words), God overrides our past guilt and condemnation, using our good works as «charitable deductions» against our failures, so we can move forward confidently in His grace.
You expect the refrigerator to keep stuff cold. You expect the stove to make things hot. You expect the toaster to pop up some bread. If they are just sitting there, they don’t understand why they are here. Christians need to understand why we’re here. We’re here to be Him in the world, and He defines Himself as «God is love.»
We ought to represent that in the world. So the question is, what do we mean by love? This word gets thrown around a lot. I love chocolate cake, I love ice cream, I love that movie, you know, I love that place. We confuse the word love with like. Like involves an emotional attachment to something.
When I like something, it means I enjoy it. That’s the word like, but it gets substituted for the word love. The biblical Greek word for love is agape; its verb form is agapao, and it has to do with a decision. Biblical love does not start with an emotion; it starts with a decision. Like starts with an emotion because it’s how you feel about it. Biblical love may or may not include an emotion; that’s why God can command you to love your enemies. He’s not telling you to feel good about somebody that hates you; He’s talking about making a decision.
Definition of Biblical Love
So let me give you a formal definition of biblical love: biblical love can be defined as the decision to compassionately, righteously, responsibly, and sacrificially seek the well-being of another. Let me say that again: biblical love is the decision to compassionately, righteously, responsibly, and sacrificially meet the need of somebody else.
Okay, love is a decision; that’s why it can be commanded. Jesus called it the commandment: «What is the great commandment?» «You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor.» He says love is commandable, and you command decisions, not emotions. You can’t command your emotions, but you can command a decision.
So to love is to decide something. What you are deciding in biblical love is to be of benefit to somebody else that has a need. You’re making a decision to execute compassion because of a need. Okay, so there’s a need, you’re going to be compassionate about it, and you make the decision. Once the decision is made and the action is taken, love has been expressed, even if there’s no feeling attached to it.
Now you want feelings because you want to like what you love, and that’s good. We should want to like what we love, but we can also love what we don’t like because biblical love—God so loved the world that He gave—He wasn’t doing flips about the death of His Son, but He saw a need. And because He saw a spiritual need, He made a decision, even though it was costly to His Son.
So love—biblical love, not cultural love, not Hollywood love, but God love—starts with a decision and often grows into a liking. Okay, when a man says, «I don’t love my wife anymore,» or a woman says, «I don’t love my husband anymore,» what they’re generally saying is, «I don’t like him or her.» The emotion is gone; the fire is gone; the passion is gone. That’s what they mean. What they do is they turn like into a love decision, but biblical love starts with a decision and can grow into an emotion.
Scripture Foundation: 1 John 3
He says in 1 John chapter 3, these words, verse 16: «We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us.» He did something based on our need, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth.
Love is not just what you say; it’s what you do. And the way you know you’re not loving is you have the capacity to do it, the opportunity to do it, and you make yourself not do it. He says you close your compassion; that is, you force yourself: «I’m not going to do it.» You can, you should—there’s an opportunity to, but you say you force yourself away from it.
That’s why He says in verse 17, «You close your heart.» You shut it down; you decide not to love. You decide not to express it. He says when that happens, the love of God is nonoperative in you. You’re not operating with God’s definition of love because like has gotten in the way. «I don’t like that situation.»
But the key is that you have to understand you were saved to be an aqueduct, not a reservoir. You were saved to be a conduit, not a cesspool. When God put His love on you and me, He wanted it to flow through you, not stop with you. The moment His love to you stops with you, then there is a stopper in the sink of how God will relate to you because you’re no longer being like Him in the world. You know you’re being the opposite of the love that He defines, and so we are operating against the will of God.
Overcoming Condemnation Through Love
Now chapter 3 again, verse 20 of 1 John: «In whatever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.»
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. He says when you love like I am defining love—the decision to compassionately, responsibly, righteously, and sacrificially meet the need of someone else—stay with me here. He says the guilt you feel, the condemnation you feel for the stuff you’ve done, the failures you’ve had, the regrets that gnaw at you, the things you wish you could do over again, the do-overs that you can never ever go back and fix, the people you’ve wounded, the mistakes you’ve made, the sins that have weighed you down—He says when your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart.
In other words, your heart is messing you up; it’s driving you crazy. He says, but when you love like I say love, the God who is greater than the condemnation that’s killing you will overrule a heart that doesn’t want to obey. And He says, «I will be greater than the heart messing you up.»
So if you look back at yesterday and you’ve got regrets and pains and mistakes and failures, and you can’t do it over again, and it keeps you up at night—when you see it being played on the television and it reminds you of who you were and who you are—He says, «God says, 'I can overrule that.'»
But I’m not just going to overrule that because you pray. I’m not going to just overrule that because you go to church. I’m going to overrule that by the love I see, by how I see you are in the world. When I see that, then I’ll overrule your heart, which is condemning you because of your actions. The thing that will motivate God to override yesterday and move you into tomorrow, and even the condemnation that comes with it, is when He sees the love because you want to be right with Him.
The Illustration of Charitable Deductions
Our government allows for charitable deductions. In other words, when tax time comes, you write your deductions, and part of those deductions are gifts you’ve given to charity. Money you give to the church is a charitable deduction. And so you owe the government this much. But when they see you gave to this, you gave to that, you gave to that—and of course you tithe—when He sees that you did this and you did this and you did this, your tax bill shrinks. Your obligation to Uncle Sam gets smaller because of your charitable contributions.
Your failure, my failure, our failure with God may be like this, but when He sees love here, love here, love here, and love here, He counts them as charitable deductions. So even though you owe this much, when He looks at the love that you have demonstrated and shown, He then counts that against the obligation of our failure, giving us the opportunity to repair.
Saved for Good Works
The Bible says we were saved for good works. Ephesians 2:8-9: «For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, so no man should boast.» Verse 10: «For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He has created beforehand, that we should walk in them.» He says, «I saved you in verse 8 so you could go to work in verse 10.»
I saved you for you to do something. You don’t purchase an appliance for it to sit there. You expect the refrigerator to keep stuff cold, you expect the stove to make things hot, you expect the electric can opener to open some cans, you expect the toaster to pop up some bread. And if they are just sitting there, they don’t understand why they are here.
Christians need to understand why we’re here. We’re here to be Him in the world, and He defines Himself as «God is love,» and we are to represent that in the world. But many of us are like teenagers who only come out of that room when they want something. Because when we come out of the room, we come to church when we want something. God says, «I want something,» and I want to see your love being expressed. God is not looking for celebrities; He’s looking for Kingdom servants. He’s looking for people who will represent Him with what He calls good works.
Titus chapter 3:4 says it is the kindness of God that should be your motivation. Salvation is the biggest kindness, but there’s everyday kindness—the regular stuff. Yes, there are the big things we talk about, but God is so good and so regular you get used to Him until something goes wrong.
What Is a Good Work?
Well, I need to define good works. He says we are His workmanship created for good works. A good work is more than a good thing. Sinners can do good things; atheists can do good things. You could have a person who hates God but is a good neighbor. Okay? In other words, you don’t need a religion to do a good thing, but that’s not a good work. A good work in the Bible is a good thing to which God has been attached.
Matthew 5:16 says, «Let your light so shine that men see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.» If God is not attached, it’s a good thing but not yet a good work. So a good work is the attachment of God to a good thing. Now, because God has been brought into the equation, and God is love, and you are representing God by the loving act that you do, now God is attached to the act, making it a good work for which you get credit for the future and also repair of the past because now you are involved in good works. You’re involved in good works.
Prayer
Lord, help us to truly understand why we are here. Open our eyes to the needs around us and give us the courage to make the decision to love—not just with words, but with deeds. Let Your love flow through us as conduits, not reservoirs, so that we may represent You in this world and find confidence before You, knowing that You are greater than our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.