Faith, Hope, and Love #2

12/22/01 and 12/23/01

LOVE

1 Corinthians 13:13

3 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Review:

Last week we began this series about faith, hope, and love by talking about faith. We talked about:

Faith for petitions

(This is wanting prayers answered.)

Faith for purpose

(This is wanting God’s will for YOUR life.)

Faith for His presence

(This is wanting God.)

We go from:

This is the stuff I got from my Father to>

This is my Father’s world to>

This is my Father.

Petition faith says, “I trust your promises”.

Purpose faith says, “I trust your purpose”

Presence faith says, “I trust you”.

-We are going to talk about love today with this being the weekend before Christmas.

-THE REAL MESSAGE OF CHRISTMAS IS LOVE.

-How important is it? / Without it, we wouldn’t be here at all.

-God’s love saved the world.

-This time of year they show emotional movies about people sacrificing for others. There are some good movies out there.

-The only problem with that is that it isn’t usually connected to its source-God.

-It is usually attributed to the “spirit of Christmas”.

1 John 4

7 ¶ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1. WE NEED TO LAY HOLD OF REAL LOVE

-How do I do that and what is real love?

-You accept God’s love by humbling yourself and receiving God’s gift: JESUS.

-The first step is to accept God’s love on the basis of His character alone.

-You accept it before you deserve it. You can never deserve it.

-You humble your heart and let God’s love extend to you.

-Humility is the ability to receive what you don’t deserve.

-Pride, which is really the attempt of an insecure person to justify himself, leads you away from the love of God.

1John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”

(NRSV)

-Of course the first step is to be born-again, to give your life to Jesus and accept what He did for you.

-It doesn’t stop there. You need to intentionally accept the LOVE, ACCEPTANCE, AND FORGIVENESS of God to keep from getting a warped personality.

-Everything begins with the love of God. Everything in life pulls that truth from you.

-You have to keep telling yourself the truth. You have to shout it above the noise of life: GOD LOVES ME.

-Let’s define love according to 1 Corinthians 13.

-The word used here in the original is a very unique word.

-There are different types of love revealed in Scripture.

Philadelphia-brotherly love

Phileo-tender affection

-This use of the word is unique. Listen to the definition of the original word.

Agape- “.., Agape lies at the heart of the Christian faith. In the New Testament it expresses a love that wills to initiate a relationship and show kindness and self-sacrifice regardless of whether the object of the love is worthy or even likable. Thus it is a love that does not depend on emotional response. Rather, it is an expression of the nature and character of the one who loves.” (CBL)

-This comes from God and nowhere else.

-A person without Jesus loves their children. The love of a child is natural to a father and mother.

-Just look at a mama bear. That is commendable but agape love is higher than this.

-We see soldiers die for their country and parents die for their children.

-I heard about an organ donor donating for a girl they didn’t know.

-That is commendable.

-We have examples this year of those policemen and firemen dying for strangers.

-Agape love dies for the person who is your enemy. It is dying and sacrificing for the person that doesn’t want it.

-Jesus died for His enemies. He stretched out His hand to those who didn’t seek Him.

-This is greater than the love of a parent. It is willing to sacrifice for the neighbor’s kids, not just your kids.

1 Corinthians 13- AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION

-The Bible itself gives a wonderful expression of what love is in this passage.

2. WE MUST DEMONSTRATE LOVE IN OUR ACTIONS

-Love is perfectly expressed by the action it prompts.

-God didn’t love the word so much that he wrote us a love song.

-He didn’t love us so much that He told us He loved us.

John 3

16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

-Agape love is demonstrated. If it is real it has to come out somewhere.

-Jesus was MOVED WITH COMPASSION and He healed.

2Corinthians 5:14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

-Real love moves us to action.

-Real love moves us to giving.

-Love is perfectly expressed by the action it prompts.

-In Galatians 5 we have the fruit of the Spirit.

-This is as if Jesus sat for a portrait and someone described Him.

-These fruit are the expression or action resulting from love.

Galatians 5

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

JOY IS LOVE’S STRENGTH

PEACE IS LOVE’S SECURITY

PATIENCE IS LOVE’S ENDURANCE

KINDNESS IS LOVE’S CONDUCT

GOODNESS IS LOVE’S CHARACTER

FAITHFULNESS IS LOVE’S CONFIDENCE

GENTLENESS IS LOVE’S HUMILITY

SELF-CONTROL IS LOVE’S VICTORY

AGAINST SUCH THINGS THERE IS NO LAW

(OPEN BIBLE NOTES)

-Christmas is a demonstration of God’s love to the world.

-That baby came from heaven as a gift from God.

-He came to live and die for us so that we might have life.

-Christmas is a demonstration of the love of God for you.

1 John 5

1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished (lavish means to extend profusely) on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!…”

prayer