What's love got to do with it?

Life Verses

Good morning, I am so glad to be able to talk with you this morning.

As we hang out I want to talk about this journey that I have been on for such a long time, but I don’t think it is just my journey, I am hoping that you will also find yourself along this same journey.

As I was trying to think of a title for what I wanted to talk about, the title to a song flashed in my mind. Whats love got to do with it?

I apologize ahead of time if it puts a tune in your head, but the worship team will fix it with our last song today.

The song starts like this; You must understand, though the touch of your hand makes my pulse react. That is only the thrill of boy meeting girl, opposites attract.

It is physical, only logical, you must try to ignore that it means more than that.

Oh-oh, whats love got to do with it? Whats love but a second hand emotion? Whats love got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

When you read it you can almost hear Tina Turners voice as she sang it.

Most of us can all sing the words rather than just reading the lines.

But what a twisted song it is from God’s perspective, because for Him, love is the very reason we exist.

Remember Jesus words when He was asked what the greatest commandment was?

Mathew 22:37-40

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

It sounds much different than the words to the song doesn’t it.

Whether we want to admit it or not, our hearts' are involved in the decisions we make, the part we must decide is who takes first place in that love?

My life verses are played out in the book of 1 Corinthians but before we go there won’t you pray with me.

Pray

I want to give you a little of the back story behind why Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth.

The city of Corinth was situated at the crossroads of many trade routes, much like the airport in Seattle. People come from all around the world to Seattle not as a destination but as a hub to connect to wherever it is they are going.

With that comes many different cultures and people groups and ways of thinking.

There is a church in the city of Corinth, or many small churches that met in many different houses.

What happens when you get many different people together from different backgrounds and ways of thinking and doing things?

It is more than likely that eventually there will be some kind of a disagreement, that if let run it’s course would create a major conflict.

I don’t know about you but I can have that argument all by myself depending on who’s love I let be in charge, my twisted sense of love or Gods perfect love.

As Paul is writing this letter, he is addressing many different conflicts within the church.

For instance;

1 Corinthians 1:10–11 ESV

10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

there are Jews and Gentiles, wealthy and poor people, there are well schooled or wise people and some not so wise.

There were even arguments over what leader was best.

As you read through the chapters Paul talks about all of these arguments and how the church is to deal with them.

From sexual immorality in the church, people suing each other, to who is the most gifted and talented.

As we arrive to chapter 12, Paul starts dealing with Spiritual gifts and that everyone has spiritual gifts in the church but they are all supposed to work together to create a healthy body.

1 Corinthians 12:25-26

English Standard Version Chapter 12

25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Did you catch that?

Let me say it again

English Standard Version Chapter 12

25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

So why is it that what is supposed to bring us together, to create unity, causes the greatest conflicts?

Or how about jealousy? People being perceived as more important because of the gift that they have?

In a dating relationship, it is often that the opposite things that attract us to someone else, become the very things we don’t like or want to change in the other person later on?

Could it be the very same difference between the song I read from and Gods viewpoint on love?

The song says go thru the motions but don’t let your heart get involved, and God says let your love for others be shown as an overflow of the love that I have for you!

I suffered from this for years.

When Stacy and I met we had both just gone thru terrible divorces.

In a very desperate place in life I had made a vow that I would never let anyone that far into my heart ever again for fear of it getting broken.

I wouldn’t even tell her I loved her for the first year we were together.

She made a joke out of it by saying, “I know you don’t want to hear this but I love you.”

It wasn’t until God reminded me about that vow as we were praying together one day, and when I repented and asked her to forgive me, something in my heart came fully alive.

I felt like the grinch

It was like when David came to the place when he asked God to create in him a clean heart and renew a right spirit in him.

And here we arrive at my life verse and then the application of how it gets played out in our lives.

1 Corinthians 12:31

English Standard Version Chapter 12

31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

The Amplified Bible says it this way:

But earnestly desire and strive for the greater gifts [if acquiring them is going to be your goal]. And yet I will show you still a more excellent way [one of the choicest graces and the highest of them all: unselfish love].

The NLT

So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

There can be so much conflict in this verse or maybe a better word is tension.

You have gifts in one hand

and a more excellent way, unselfish love, and a way of life that is best of all in the other

Will we allow them to live in tension with one another creating unity, or let them be a battle of conflict that destroys our life?

For so much of my Christian life I sought after gifts. You can take a deeper look at them in chapter 14 of this letter.

The church spends quite a bit of time focusing on gifts, we all have some and we learn how to use those as our part in the body of Christ.

Know Jesus

Find Freedom

Discover your purpose and

Make a difference

But what about the second half of this verse, The best way to live?

Chapter 13 gives us the solution that we are looking for.

We must remember that the reason that Paul wrote this letter, was instruction or correction is because it wasn’t happening in the church.

1 Corinthians 13:1–8 (ESV)

1 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.

The first 3 verses put spiritual gifts in the right perspective.

If I speak in tongues…have prophetic powers…understand mysteries…knowledge…faith to move mountains

Without love we are just noise makers, we are nothing, and we gain nothing

Then verses 4-7 gives us the description of how love operates.

Love is patient

It is kind

Love does not envy or boast

it is not proud

It is not rude

self seeking

easily angered

Keeps no record of wrongs

It rejoices with the truth

It always protects

always trusts

Always hopes

always perseveres

Love never fails

This list is so convicting for me and I hope for you as well.

Because we fall short in every one of them.

We may not always say it with words but what about our actions, or our eyes, or even just our thoughts?

We could spend the next 14 weeks dissecting each one of the aspects of what love is, and looks like based on these verses alone

But what might it look like if you and I just picked one at a time to work on?

To put it into practice in our lives?

Pastor Steve looked at all the different words that we translate into that one word, love a few weeks ago so I don’t want to re talk those words, but what if we began to ask God to let us love others like He loves us?

God’s perfect love for us looks just like verses 4-7

Aren’t you glad today that God is patient, or eagerly angered?

Aren’t you glad that His love for us never keeps a record of wrongs, that it always perseveres, and never fails?

But often times we might respond with, He is God, its easy for Him.

But if He knew what so and so said or did to me...

How he or she talked about me behind my back...

What if…we could love others the way that God loves us?

If you are a grandparent here this morning, you kinda understand this.

It is so easy to love them because we aren’t the ones that have to discipline them.

In fact often times my children tell me I am not being a good example to them because I act like a kid as well.

It is pretty easy to love the easy people, but what about the difficult ones?

Every year I ask the Lord on my birthday to give me a verse to work on for the next year, and this year the verse that flashed in my heart was

Mathew 5:44

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

I can’t just read one verse because context is everything right!

Mathew 5:43-45

English Standard Version Chapter 5

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 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.

What would it take for us to love our enemies, or to pray for those that persecute us?

For me it began several years ago when I began to ask God to break my heart for the things that break His heart, and to let me see people like He sees them.

Two situations helped me to change the way I think, Romans 12:2

The day that I wrote out and shared my testimony for Celebrate Recovery. At that time I had been a pastor for years, but then I was reminded that the only difference between me and the ones that were in the audience, was that I had experienced the forgiveness that God had given me. And in that instant, the same forgiveness was available for them as well, and my heart broke for joy because my story could be used as healing for someone else.

There was a greeter at Costco up in AK, he was very flamboyant. For months all I could see him through were the eyes of disgust. And then one day as I was waiting for him to go over my receipt, it was like Jesus was standing right next to me and said, “I died for him to you know”!

Again my heart broke for the things that break His.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

That is intimacy, I like to say like this, “into me see”!

Only then we can begin to, love your neighbor as our self, to love those who look like enemies, and pray for those that persecute us.

We can spend way to much time being a noisy gong and a clanging symbol.

Where are you on that journey and won’t you take the next right step to look more like Jesus?

Let us be the people of the more excellent way.

The greatest gift by the way in my opinion is to be able to love others like God loves us.

Let me leave you with this thought, What if it isn’t the abundance of evil in our world today, but the lack of love?

Pray

Lord let us really see ourselves like you see us

Show us how to love like You

Break our hearts for the things that break Yours

God you loved the world so much you gave your one and only Son, let us be Your reflection in a world that so desperately needs Your love