Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Howard Thurman in Disciplines Of The Spirit, tells of one of the most unusual jobs.

A large General Hospital hired a high school girl to be there mice petter.

Her sole occupation was to take white mice out of their cages several times a day and pet them.

They had learned that when mice are made to feel loved and secure they give much more authentic results in experiments.

When they are relaxed and given a sense of well-being, they better cope without panic.

Science is confirming all the time that God is love.

It is finding that all God made needs love to be at it's best.

People who love their garden and their plants produce better crops and more beauty.

Love is the universal need of all life.

Dogs and cats can admit their need for love.

They thrust their heads into your hands and face, and demand to be loved.

But man likes to be independent and not admit to needing others, even though it is the number one need of man for happiness.

There are endless numbers of movies and novels where people delay love and even lose it because they will not admit their need.

This is the ultimate in pride, for God Himself is willing to admit He needs love.

The first commandment is that we love God with our whole being.

Paul in Romans 8:28 says that God works in all things for good for those who love Him.

In I Cor.2:9 he writes that no mind can conceive of what God has prepared for those who love Him.

In time and in eternity the best is reserved for those who love God.

Jesus did not hesitate to declare His need for love..

He needed the love of His heavenly Father, but He also needed the love of man.

In John14 He repeated His need often.

In verse 15 He said, "If you love me you will obey what I command."

In verse 21 He said, "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love and show myself to him."

In verses 23-24 Jesus sums it all up with these words, "If anyone loves me he will obey me, if anyone does not love me he will not obey me."

If God the Father and God the Son long to be loved, it is the height of folly for any man to deny his need for love.

Ashley Montague writes from the point of view of a scientist-

"The study of love is something from which scientists long shied away.

But with the increased interest in the origins of mental illness, more and more attention is being paid to the infancy and childhood of human beings.

What investigation has revealed is that love is, beyond all cavil or question,the most important experience in the life of a human being.

Show me a hardened criminal, a juvenile delinquent, a psychopath or

a "cold fish," and in almost every case I will show you a person resorting to desperate means in order to attract the emotional warmth and attention he failed to get but which he so much desires and needs.

"Aggressive" behavior when fully understood is, in fact, nothing but love frustrated, a technique for compelling love-as well as a means of taking revenge on the society which has let that person down, disillusioned, deserted and dehumanized him.

Hence, the best way to approach aggressive behavior in children is not by aggressive behavior toward them, but with love.

And this is true not only for children but for human beings at all ages."

The Scripture and science agree, the greatest of these is love.

Love is the highest virtue man is capable of giving or receiving.

You cannot give God or man any higher gift than the gift of love.

The highest goal of life is to be like Christ.

The only way to approach this goal is to be a person filled with love.

This is the same as saying one needs to be filled with the Spirit for He is the source of love.

The fruit of the Spirit is love.

The more we are filled with the Spirit of Christ the more we will have the fruit of love.

Many say that the sign you are filled with the Holy Spirit is that you will speak in tongues, but that is an experience that occurred only in Corinth and was not an issue in any other church of the New Testament.

The real sign of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the fruit of the Spirit, and the first fruit and main fruit is love.

The most loving Christian is the most Spirit-filled Christian.

Paul links the Holy Spirit and love in Romans15:30 where he writes, "I urge you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit...." In Col.1:8 he writes to them and refers to "Your love in the Spirit."

The Holy Spirit is the channel by which the love of God fills the heart of man.

Paul makes this clear in Rom.5:5 where he writes, "God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us."

The love of God that enables us to love our neighbor as our self, and to love one another, and to love our enemies all comes into our heart by means of the Holy Spirit.

He produces the fruit.

We cannot make it grow by works.

All we can do is to let the Spirit have control, and He makes this Christ like fruit grow.

We can plant and we can water, but God gives the increase.

We cannot make fruit grow, but we can provide the cooperation that makes it possible for the Holy Spirit to use our hearts as fertile soil that will be fruit producing.

We can't make anything grow, but we can provide the environment for things to grow.

We are responsible for preparing the soil of our hearts.

We do this by clearing it of the rocks, trash, and brush that makes growing anything unlikely.

Our soil gets hard and the seed cannot penetrate and take root.

We get stubborn and set in our ways, and do not yield to the Holy Spirit.

Christians need to be flexible and ever open to the winds of the Spirit, and to the new fires He may wish to kindle in our hearts.

Lawrance Kusher gives us an illustration on the human level.

"When my wife and I were first married, for example, we believed

that our "true love" enabled us to read one another's minds.

Based on

this youthful fantasy, we spent great amounts of time and energy

choosing the wrong birthday presents for one another, each pretending

we loved gifts we didn't.

As we grew older and our love matured, we gradually realized

that even great love only rarely penetrates another's soul.

Indeed,

I suspect, real loving stands reverent precisely in the mystery of

another's unknowable, unfathomable self.

And so, as an act of

love, we reached a mutual, unspoken decision: We began to drop

not-so-subtle hints about what we really wanted.

This not only

made shopping easier ("This is exactly what she wants!")

But

receiving presents became much more fun ("Why this is exactly

what I wanted!")

If you really love someone, don't make them

guess what to give you."

Love grows by communication.

God did not just let His people guess how to love Him.

He gave them clear instructions.

The Tabernacle and Temple where they were to show their love in worship, sacrifice, and praise were revealed in most minute detail-nothing was left to guess.

God gave His Word and Jesus gave His teaching so we could know exactly how to love Him by obedience.

For the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of love in us, we need to be listening to the Word and applying its truth to our daily lives.

Listening, learning, worshiping, praising, living a life pleasing to God, these are all part of the atmosphere we provide for the Holy Spirit to work in to produce love.

When love is produced in us, like other fruit it has seeds, and will reproduce itself in others.

Chuck Swindoll gives us an illustration in his book, Simple Faith.

"Among the many plays and musical performances I have attended, none has ever gripped me like Les Miserables.

When these playwrights and composers decided to put Victor Hugo's classic novel on the stage in the form of a dramatic musical, a masterpiece was created for the public to enjoy.

When my family and I saw the performance, we were moved to tears...literally.

To this day, its scenes and songs often return to mind, bringing fresh delight."

He goes on to tell the gist of the play.

Jean Valjean is released after 19 years in the chain gang, and is treated kindly by a saintly Bishop.

But his prison experience has scarred him and hardened him, and he repays the Bishop by stealing some of his silver.