Love is the Foundation
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 7 viewsNotes
Transcript
Handout
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Good morning. Well 4 days until Valentine’s day. Men, this is your public service announcement. Just be ready. That’s all I am saying.
Did you all enjoy last weeks message about Demo day? I had some more pop into my spirit about that so I will share a little bit about it today. But it was so good. Last weeks service was just amazing. All 3 of them. lol
I am expecting us to continue to build. The momentum to never stop. We are never meant to go backwards in our walk. So we must go from last service and use that momentum to go to the next one. To use the last glory as a launching pad not a landing one.
But let’s jump into this service.
This service is all about love. Now don’t worry. If you are single becuase this message is for you too. In fact, I found this video that you need to watch if you are single. It is the perfect app for you.
https://vimeo.com/161967874 (Settl APP SNL)
Now that really isn’t for any of you. Do not settle. Seek out who God has for you and then go for it. Know the traits you want. Write down who you want to be with. Include every. Make sure they have the spiritual qualities you want. Then wait on God to bring him or her to you.
But truly this is all about love. I want you to know whether you are single, married for 50 years we can all love better. It is just like the foundation folks. Your house ages, it settles and the foundation gets rocky. Cracks appear. Doors don’t shut. Windows don’t open. So you have to fix the cracks. Solidify foundation. Then the house works as it was designed. Sometimes we have to make those adjustments in our relationships.
I want you to have healthy relationships. We are going to start not where you normally would think in talking about love. We are going to start in instead.
Let me give you a bit of context about this scripture. Jesus has gathered all the ones that He loves to himself. The 12. He is about to go to the cross and He figures that he might as well leave them with some advice before he goes. This is going to be the last things he says before his death. If you haven’t really studied , , , , then you are really missing out. It is some of the most powerful teaching of Jesus.
This is the summary of what Jesus has been teaching for the past 3 years. So let’s start in
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
John 13:34
A new commandment I give to you. Not necessarily new as we know new. It has always been there. It has always been the commandment. But it wasn’t expressed this way. We didn’t have the example like this. This was always the underlying foundation of the commandments. So this is a new commandment that I give to you. That you love one another. Now that word as you can assume is not the same kind of love that we say all the time. I love pizza. I love Wednesday’s weather. Didn’t love the polar vortex cuz it brought no snow. But it isn’t that kind of love. It is the word that we all know and all have heard before. In the Greek there are four words for love. And this one is
Agape: Selfless, Sacrificial, Unconditional
But here is what we need to understand about Agape. Jesus says love as I have loved you. Jesus did not walk around with butterflies in his stomach. Jesus didn’t have googley eyes when he looked at the disciples. I think your beautiful and I feel really warm when I’m around you and my tongue swells. That was buddy the elf not Jesus ok. I just felt head over heels over you guys. That is not how God does or describes love. I am so thankful that God didn’t look at the disciples that way. He didn’t feel that way. Because Agape isn’t a feeling. By the way you know that word is in the New Testament 147 times to describe God’s love for us.
It was never mentioned in any of those times a feeling or a thing. It is an action. The great philosopher John Mayer said it best that Love is a Verb. It is in your notes this way.
Agape is not something you SAY or FEEL. It is something you DO!
It is the doing of God. God loved us so much that He gave. Jesus loved us so much that He did.
Some of the most famous verse in scripture completely change when you think of love in this context. Look at this.
John 15
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Or this one
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Or what about this one. It might hurt a bit.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
So if I feel good about God. If get goosebumps when I am around him. If I get googley eyes for him then things will work out for good. NO!!! For many will say Lord Lord. See when you put the right context on the word it changes what was actually meant. But it is those that have the action type relationship.
THen to finish John, Jesus says this in verse 35
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
If you have love. If you have agape. If you have actions of affection towards each other. You cannot just say I love you but then do the complete opposite in action and expect that to mean something. It doesn’t. If you don’t have the action then we cannot know that you are actually His disciples.
You want people to know who you are or who you belong to. Quit worrying about the not tos. We are so focused on what we can’t do. What we are against. Jesus doesn’t say they will know you are my disciples by what you don’t do or what you stand up against or what you call a sin. He says they will know you are my disciple by what you do.
We shall not be known by our LAWS but by our LOVE.
But I tell them all the time I love them. I tell my kids that I love them. I tell my wife that I love her. But when is the last time that you showed them? When is the last time you actually sacrificed to prove it.
Let me tell you a little story about how important love is. So a gentleman lets say his name is Christoph. Christoph was renting a car one time. You know how they do. They will tell you don’t worry about filling up just bring it back and we will fill it up. Now if you bring it back with a quarter of gas, they will charge you for the whole tank. So if you are going to win the battle and beat the scam you have to bring it back empty.
So Christoph said he was going to show them. He said i’ll bring it back without a scrap of gas in it. Like sucking fumes. So the morning of the return. His wife says you may need to get some gas. Nope. I can make it. The light just came on, that means I still have 5 more gallons at 17 miles per gallon that like....enough gas. Because men know right? He passes the gas station. He can see the building of the car rental location. He knows he has it now. Then the car begins to sputter. The sweat begins to role down his face as he can feel the glare from his wife heat up his cheek bones. Then it dies and he coast to side of the road. Instead of walking to the car rental he walks back to the gas station. He doesn’t buy the container because he only needs a little bit of gas. So he buys the big gulp cup. Styrofoam. That should work and be enough for him to get there. As soon as he pulls the handle to allow the gas to flow what happenes? Gas flows all over his hand and onto the ground because gas eats styrofoam....
No matter how good the car is, without gas it will not run. Most relationships are at the place they are becaues the tank is empty. They are not expereincing the love a they are supposed to. Marriages are failing because the love tank is empty. Let’s get the tank full. Can I be honest, your walk with Christ is sitting on the sid eof the road stalled not because Christ left you but because your tank is empty of love. Look at this.
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
So you see faith works through or by love. Love is the fuel to engine called faith. You want your marriage to work agape more. You want you kids back agape more. You want friendships back, agape more. Here is the first step.
Quit being SELFISH and be SACRIFICIAL.
Our selfishness always leads us to being broke down on the side of the road. Do whatever makes you happy. Follow your heart. Look out for number one. Then what happens? You don’t have relationships that work. You end up being alone. Here is why.
When you only look out for NUMBER one, you become the ONLY one.
When you are only looking out for yourself, then yourself is all you can see. Then you will be the only one looking out for you. See I know that my wife has my back. If no one else does she has mine and I have hers. That’s what we do. We know this. I know that my kids will defend me. They may tak about me all day long but if you try, they will defend me. They know I have them too. Because we love each other. If I didn’t love them, my marriage would fall apart and my relationship with them would cease, then I would be the only one looking out for myself. 99.9 percent of all problems come because someone was being selfish. Adultery, selfish. Money problems, selfish. Discipline of kids, selfish. Irreconcilable differences, selfish. Friends let go, selfish. Look at what the bible says about Jesus. He was not selfish. At all.
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Jesus didn’t just say I love and let me know if you need something. He did something. He is our example.
True love is sacrifices its SELF interest for interest in OTHERS.
Its not about me. Its so much easier for us to show this stuff with our kids then with our spouse. Half of the stuff I do with my kids, I wouldn’t do without kids. I mean think about it for just a moment if you saw me swinging on a swing by myself. 37 years old. That guy is creepy. Or if I was at Disney waving at characters screaming hi at them. He has problems. But I do it with my kids because I want them to be happy. When they are happy, I am happy. When is the last time that you did that with your spouse. Completely put all of your priorities, your inhibitions, your desires, your pride aside just to make him or her happy. I know it will cost me my attention. I know it will cost me my desires. But it will fill the tank. In my house we actually call it love bucket. We say my love bucket is empty. That means whoever you are talking to needs to give you a hug. Maybe you need to institute that in your home. Whenever you are feeling down, just say, my love bucket is empty. I am not going to keep score. Be sacrificial.
2nd: Be INTENTIONAL!
No one reaches 50 years by accident. No one raises great kids who are serving God and just say, well it kind of just happened. You have to not only be sacrificial but also be intentional about it. You know with valentines coming up, I could sacrifice and get my wife a vacuum. The robot one. That would be sacrificial because I would be spending the money for it. She wants it. But would it be intentional?
A great marriage and family takes great WORK.
The love of God is all about the work he did to show us. We have to demonstrate that love to each other. We are starting a small group in march talking about the 5 love languages. One of the greatest things you can do is to put in the work to learn their love language. And learn yours so that you can tell your loved one or future loved one. We want you to go through it together with us. Learn how to actually love each other. You will learn more about that at our small group launch party coming up in a few weeks. But here is what I want you to do. Talk with your family.
Find out what fills the tank of your family and put in the TIME and EFFORT to fill it.
Here is a suggestion that I talked about this last year and I think we as a family did pretty good about keeping for the most part. But it bears repeating and I will implore you to do implement this rule in your house.
7, 7, 7 rule: Every 7 days have a DATE night Every 7 weeks have a DATE day Every 7 months have a DATE trip.
That cost way to much money. Well let me tell you this.
You are either investing in your marriage or investing in your divorce.
Now you don’t have to go nuts with it. But wouldn’t it be better to be working on keeping your marriage healthy and strong. I don’t mean that all of those in the 7 rule have to be without kids. Your kids need to know you love them too. So date them. Allow your daughters to see what its like to be dated by a real man. How are they supposed to be treated. Let your sons see how a woman should act on a date, so he doesn’t begin looking for anything else.
Whatever you feed GROWS. Whatever you starve DIES.
1 John 4:
In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
In other words God SHOWED us his love. Then he sacrificed for us. So how do I get to it. How do I get that agape love. I don’t feel that way any more towards him. I don’t love her like I used to. Here is how you do it.
3. Stay close to the SOURCE
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
There is a source of love and that sources is God. Look at that. God is love. If you want to grow in love, grow in love. If you grow in Him you grow in love towards them. Get closer to Him and you will see that loving the unlovable becomes easier. Once you realize that you were an unlovable, yet he loved you then you will begin love the others. His love has been perfected among us. He did it in you. When you focus on him something amazing happens. You begin to love your wife better. You love your kids better.
Let me speak to the person in here right now it may be you. You are wondering how in the world God can fix your marriage. How can he make it better. That love I once had is not there any more. I don’t feel love from them any more. Yes my brother or sister, God can fix that if we get closer to Him we begin to look and act more like Him.
Hear the gospel message. God gave his son. Put into action his love for you who was unlovable and full of sin. His son laid his life down on purpose to prove to you that he loved you. The rose again to show you that his love was pure and free from all self motivation. Then he is an advocate for you and for your life. Not just your eternity but for your life here on earth. Not that everything will be rosey but that you have the ability to have your best life trials, tribulations and all because your life is honoring to him. That is the gospel message. That is the truth of the bible. That is the story front to back.