In Love
Grow Up • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 18 viewsLoving God. Loving one another. Loving our brother. Loving our neighbor. Loving our enemy. Loving ourselves. What does love look like? Are there people on this list that you’re struggling to love? Do you love people more or less than you did this time last year? What barriers exist in your pursuit of the kind of love God wants you to have.
Notes
Transcript
Micah and I had the chance to play tennis this week with Josh and Elliot Rockwell. While we all figured out that none of us are particularly good at tennis, we did enjoy ourselves, and even between randomly hitting the ball to places we never intended, we had an interesting conversations about dinosaurs and what they might have actually been like. Something we all sort of batted around was the short arms of the t-rex. What were those all about? Giant, mighty predator that we call the “great dinosaur king”, but he’s got these little bitty arms.
I jokingly said, that’s question #763 for when Jesus comes back, “What was up with the t-rex.” Josh, asked, “Well, what do you think question #1 would be? Was John really getting a crack in at Peter when he points out that the disciple whom Jesus love got to the tomb before him?
One question I wouldn’t want to ask… But I might have to…
Did I love well?
The word agape or one of its forms is used about 143 times in the Greek new testament depending on the manuscripts used in translation. In fact, there are only five books in the New Testament that don’t use this word: Acts, Philippians, 1 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.
ἀγάπη: to love, to regard with affection, loving concern, charity, benevolence
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:37–39 (ESV)
And he said to him, “You shall ἀγαπήσεις the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall ἀγαπήσεις your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 5:43–48 (ESV)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
How do we grow in love, though?
How do we grow in love toward:
Our children’s school teachers.
Our co-workers?
City council members?
People who don’t drive the speed limit?
People who do drive the speed limit?
People who don’t love themselves?
People who love themselves a little too much?
On the paper in front of you, I’d like for you to write down the names
