Intro:Love That is Out of This World

Models of Holy Love- Communion & Agape Feast

Models of holy love: Jesus for Peter; Paul for Timothy; Ruth for Naomi; Jonathon and David

God’s holy love is like the love of Jesus for Peter, with an unswerving commitment to truth, the forgiveness of wrongs, a desire to be together, patience and understanding, and the pursuit of Peter’s growth and maturity.

God’s holy love as displayed in Jesus is like the love of Paul for Timothy, marked by testing, challenges and charges, admonishment, and instruction.

On the other hand, we see unholy love in the relationship of King Ahab and Jezebel, marked by manipulation, weakness, a love for evil-doing, and the rejection of the Lord and his ways. We see unholy love in Samson and Delilah, Solomon for his foreign wives, Judas for Jesus.

God’s holy love as displayed in Jesus is like the love of Ruth for her mother-in-law Naomi, marked by a servant’s heart, humility, unselfishness, and commitment.

God’s holy love as displayed in Jesus is like the love of Jonathan and David, marked by righteous loyalty in the face of evil attacks.

Holy Love has a characteristic that is not normal in the context the world’s culture:

Jesus declared his expectation of what it meant to love him: John 15:12-13

John 15:12–13 (ESV)

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

John and his understanding of holy love:

1 John 3:15–16 (ESV)

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Getting beyond affections.Holy love is a reality!

more than feelings, adrenaline, emotions.

Holy Love: Paul’s declaration:

1 Corinthians 13

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. CHAPTER 14:1 Pursue love

Consider the Impact of Holy Love: What it is; What it does; What it changes; What it empowers; Who it is.

Love Festivals of the Cultures: Pagan rituals, shrine prostitutes, etc. They used the corrupted elements of love and attempted to make them holy by a ritual. Culture cannot define love. Such a love is an forgery.

Celebrating Holy Love: Communion. “Love Feast” when expressed in non-religious settings.

The Love Feast, or Agape Meal, is a Christian fellowship meal recalling the meals Jesus shared with disciples during his ministry and expressing the koinonia (community, sharing, fellowship) enjoyed by the family of Christ.

Although its origins in the early church are closely interconnected with the origins of the Lord's Supper, the two services became quite distinct and should not be confused with each other. While the Lord's Supper has been practically universal among Christians throughout church history, the Love Feast has appeared only at certain times and among certain denominations.

John Wesley first experienced it among the Moravians in Savannah, Georgia, ten years later. His diary notes: "After evening prayers, we joined with the Germans in one of their love–feasts. It was begun and ended with thanksgiving and prayer, and celebrated in so decent and solemn a manner as a Christian of the apostolic age would have allowed to be worthy of Christ."

It quickly became a feature of the Evangelical Revival and a regular part of Methodist society meetings in Great Britain and throughout the English–speaking world. As Methodists immigrated to North America they made Love Feasts an important part of early American Methodism. (https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/the-love-feast)