Misdirected Love (2 Timothy 3:1-9)

A song by Marillion had these lines

Now when you climb into your bed tonight, And when you lock and bolt the door, Just think about those out in the cold and dark, 'cause there's not enough love to go 'round, No there's not enough love to go 'round.

But Paul explains to Timothy that the reason for bad things in the world between people is not a lack of love. It’s just that love is pointing in the wrong direction.

If we direct our love away from God and towards ourselves (mostly) and just a few others (slightly), then all relationships go wrong and people are boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unforgiving, slanderous, without self control, brutal, treacherous, rash and conceited.

It all starts with misdirected love. It’s the explanation for all that’s wrong in the world. We love ourselves and pleasing ourselves more than God and that’s just not natural! I so need the gospel, because self love threatens my relationships every day. I need forgiveness for my failure to love right, and instruction how to love right.

Sadly this same attitude can creep into the church. Some leaders have a “form of godliness. They are religious but it’s just an outer coating. They don’t really believe and depend on the power of God.

Beware religious gurus – teaching and preaching for the buzz of it. Beware becoming a religious groupie. Beware becoming just religious. Maybe you talk a good religion but in your heart you the deny power so you don’t pray to express dependence and you rely too much on the strength of intellectual argument.

We need the good news of Jesus Christ to tell us who to love, how to love, how to call others to love and when we fall flat on our faces He still loves us.

You can hear the full sermon here...