True Love
Notes
Transcript
Well good morning New Day Pasadena, it is a pleasure to be with you guys. If anyone is new and visiting with us and I have not had the opportunity to meet you yet, my name is Colby Johnson. I am the Lead Pastor here at New Day Pasadena. If you joined us Wednesday night for the vision night then you know how amazing it was to see this room filled up, worshiping and fellowshipping together. It is always beautiful when we have that kind of opportunity and the best of all was spirit of the Lord was there in our midst, was he not? Amen.
So today we are continuing our sermon series better together and last week we talked about the renewing of our minds and how we are to be one unified body giving our gifts to one another. And this week we are talking about how we genuinely love one another and conduct ourselves between one another and God.
Genuine, True, Sincere, Unhypocritical love.
This is a touchy subject because if we are honest this is one of those topics that we tell ourselves, “Oh I know that I show genuine love to everybody” but my question for all of us is “do we really? Genuine Love? All the time? Or do we only show genuine love in some circumstances but not consistently in our lives?”
One time as a kid, I was acting up and my parents had gotten on to be so many times and idk why but I kept pushing my limits until my mom got really upset because I wasn’t listening and went to give me a spanking. And my uncle was at the house and he was like “Hey you shouldn’t be getting on to him like that because he is just a kid.” Then a few hours later I found myself going through some CDs. And I didn’t know how a CD player worked so I had my finger prints all on these CDs, putting them in upside down and on one of the CDs I accidentally hit the CD player too hard and it made a laser mark on the CD and wouldn’t play anymore. Come to find out later that those were my Uncles CDs and he was so mad and said “Are you kidding me? You need a spanking” and my mom popped her head around that corner and was like “NOPE! Remember you shouldn’t be getting on to him like that!” Moral of the story is things change when they become real and personal.
All that to say is I feel as a society we want to act like we know what true love is and what it should look like until something bad happens to us or something effects us in the real world and all of that love that we once had is out the window because it was never a sincere love.
Like foreal, lets be honest with ourselves for a moment, after all we are all at church, do you firmly believe we all give true love 100% of the time? Even when we face problems? Absolutely not.
Which is why it has be written in the Bible several times because God knows and Paul knows that we severely lack the ability to consistently show 100% true sincere love every day. We like to talk about it but we struggle with being about it. And that is why its so important for us to tackle this today right after the amazing vision night that we had.
So flip with me to Romans 12: 9-13
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit,[a] serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
So starting in Romans 12:9- Let love be genuine.
It is important to start here because just like back in the biblical times, we as humans tend to be…..well....fake! We take what the Bible says and instead of demonstrating real love, we demonstrate fake love. Love that on the surface looks great but once you turn your back we are whispering over to spread the gossip. “Essentially spreading gossip not gospel”.
That was one of my saying for my youth group a few years ago. When talking to one another are we spreading gossip or gospel? Are we spreading hate and division, or Jesus and unity? I encourage you to steal that saying for your life.
But maybe you are like well, I am not fake! I will tell you how it is. And we kind of like to be known like that right? Like what his face or whats her name is REAL! He or she will just tell you how it is. And I kind of like that to be honest, to certain point. But the line that we balance on that circumstance is when we do that, we end up going over to the complete opposite side of fake love….which is genuine hate.
We don’t like things or something or someone gets on our nerves and we don’t show fake love, we just show genuine hate towards them and we aren’t afraid to tell them. Then we like to cover it up with the “well I’m just being real and honest.”
Sometimes we cover up our genuine hate by looking at verse 9 and say well I am just abhoring what is evil. Which essentially means to detest. I detest the way that person is.
Or I detest this decision. But the bible says to abhor what is evil. To detest things that are not good biblically, not preferencially.
And so this is kind of where we find ourselves in is usually we show a fake love that is just surface level but trying to show it as a deep love, or we are brutally honest (tough love) and end up showing genuine hate.
The problem comes in when we as a church act like a family but arent really family. Because then we are acting as the bible tells us not to be. Which causes division and hate amongst ourselves.
So I want to show you through our text why we need a heart check to start having a genuine heart full of real sincere love for one another. And how this will help us grow tremendously in our spirit.
POSITIVITY
So number 1 is that having true love for another brings positivity.
The verse I want us to sit at is from verse 10
“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”
Meaning lifting each other up instead of tearing eachother down.
One thing that we know from the bible is being positive towards God and his children (us) is that the power of positvity can change the heart, soul, and spirit.
We see this wisdom from the Proverbs of Solomon in Proverbs 17:22
Proverbs 17:22 (ESV)
A joyful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Positivity uplifts the spirit. It helps us see the good things that God is doing. Because sometimes God is doing something amazing in the life of the church or in your personal life and instead of celebrating that and honoring that we are too caught up in the small things that don’t truly matter because our hearts are filled with negativity. Negativity that comes from this world.
That negativity crushes our spirit and seperates us from God and his will for our lives.
This love and positivity that you can have today can change everything in your life because it helps us refocus on the things that truly matter. And that thing is having sincere love for one another.
The opposite side of this unfortunately is negativity. The negative spirit. It kills us. It brings hatred towards people. It brings division amongst the church. And even worst, it blinds the soul.
Negativity within us robs us from the joy that God wants for our life.
One way we can do this is by outdoing each other in honor. What would it look like that no matter what we preferred or liked. Everyday that we saw one another we uplifted each other? Linda, that was a great Sunday School class. Danny, that was a wonderful night of community. Phil, that was amazing worship. I love that song!
How quickly I believe we would see a difference within our personal lives, our homes, and this church family.
Another thing we see from positivity is that it helps us overcome worries. These worries come from the flesh and not of the spirit. We see this in Galatians written by Paul
Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Paul speaking to the galatians who were having troubles he hits this topic of the battle of flesh and spirit and he gives this verse as an example of walking in the spirit.
So as positivity helps mend our spirit, it also helps us walk in spirit. And the first thing he says by walking by the fruit of the spirit is Love.
Sincere love brings positivity.
FAMILY SPIRIT
Next we see that Genuine love brings a genuine Family Spirit within us. Nothing better of a shining example of loving people then when someone comes around us and they can feel the Family Spirit.
I told this story on our vision night but for those not there, I once went on vacation with my family and we brought one of my friends with us. My friend comes from a broken home and so when he went with us he really experienced sincere love because we are very very close. And when the vacation was over he told me before we dropped him off at home that “He wanted to be apart of our family” and I remember just simply telling him that he already was. But to further that story because we were 10 years old when this happened. He was in my wedding and he is a lifelong brother of mine who still comes by to see us from time to time.
What a difference Family Spirit can be for the world.
Family Spirit only comes from sincere love. And that family spirit will bring us 3 things that we will be able to see in our lives and within our church.
1.) Connection- Just like our real DNA related families outside of church. You will begin to feel just as attached to the people that we genuinly love within the church. It gets us connected into the body. It also makes everything more real because for example.
I love my sister. I will do anything for my sister. I will defend her. I will go above and beyond for her. She knows that I am 1 phone call away if she needs me. And if she does something to offend me then I know that I can have a real heart to heart conversation with her. I won’t start going behind her back to talk to my mom or dad about her but I will speak with her directly. Because genuine love brings accountability and honesty between us.
For us as believers this is very important because every Sunday and any time that we do life together, we are a bunch of imperfect human beings coming in the room with different problems and backgrounds, trying to live life with one another.
And if we don’t demonstrate genuine love, instead of having hearts to hearts with one another and defending one another. The fakeness and the negativity will start to creep into the foundation of our relationships and just like a house. It will start to create breaks, cracks, and damage within our heart and spirit.
The more we allow negativity and individuality that we see the world pushing onto us and into our foundation the more the cost is to fix the damage.
2.) Belonging- Just as my friend in the so try. Loving one another not only develops our relationship but we create an inviting atmosphere for people wanting to be apart of. In acts 2 at the end of the chapter, after writing about how the church should conduct itself faithfully. It says the Lord added to their numbers day by day. And the main reason was that they joyfully wanted to spend time together. And that joy of wanting to genuinly love eachother brought a atmosphere that was inviting for so many people. Which leads me to my last point of how the family spirit will change lives is...
3.) Displays Gods Love- When we genuinly love eachother, it is showing the world what Gods love looks like.
John 13:34–35 (ESV): 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So true love brings true family spirit which helps us stay better connected, creates a place of belonging for others to want to be apart of, and displays God’s love to the world.
WHY WE DONT LOVE
So now here is the issue.
If we know that true love brings us into a positive spirit and it also gives us connection and belonging between each other. Why do we as christians not push for this love enough? Especially when this is commandment for us to conduct ourselves in this way?
1.) Jaded / Pridefulness (Negativity)- We are upset or someone hurt our feelings and so we allow our pride to keep us from genuinly loving everyone.
Like any other sin: “Pride Comes Before The Fall.”
And I shared this a few weeks ago with our staff team devotion. But looking at the life of David. How did they describe David?
1 Samuel 13:14 “But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.””
“A man after God’s own heart”
But as time when on in David we saw Pride fullness in his abilities and his army and so he was unfaithful to God and cost the lives of over 7,000 Isrealites.
What we learn from any sin is that it
“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”
David experienced that, and we do to when we choose to stay negative towards people instead of responding and giving true love.
Don’t allow hate to keep you chained to a broken a spirit. You have been made free by the blood of Jesus to choose love and have a heart and soul filled with joy.
2.) Too Busy- At the Houston location we took a poll last year about what people struggled with the most in their lives. You want to know what the #1 thing on that list was?
They are just too busy.
Because the reality is Love takes 1, some, or all 3 things in each one of our lives.
-Money
-Time
-Energy
Sometimes if you really love the person then just like my wife, you just take all 3!
But loving someone will cost you something. If it does not then it isn’t true love. And when I say cost, I don’t mean that negatively. I just mean that it either takes effort, patience, or a giving spirit in order to sincerely love one another.
Look with me in verse 11
Romans 12:11-13 “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
fervent in Spirit- Energy
Rejoice in hope- Energy
Patient in tribulation- Time
Constant in prayer- Energy
Contributing to the needs- Money
Seek to Show Hospitality- Time and Energy
So in a world and time where human beings are the busiest they have ever been. We can see why genuine love is becoming one of the hardest things for us to truly give to people around us in our lives. Which is why we have to work on this because while the world is too busy to love, we are fixing the foundations of which our faith is built off. You have the option to do this today.
CONCLUSION
So as we draw to a close and the worship team comes. I want to give you a few things to add to your life today. Here are some resolutions to apply to our hearts, minds, and spirit.
1.) Forgive- Just as the Lord has forgiven you, we are to forgive the people and things that have made cracks in our foundation to love.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
As we know it is important to a christian to have an outlook of positivity and the only way to move closer is to come with a clean slate for yourself through repentance and through the forgiveness of others. We have to choose this because the world will only bring negativity that brings hate into the heart and kills the spirit. We will be going more in depth about this next week.
2.) Think Jesus- Another way to bring our minds and hearts to a more positive place filled with Love is to think Jesus, not us. The world that we live in has pushed a culture of individuality. Everyone thinks and does for themselves first before doing for others. We worry only of our own problems. We care for only our families. And its great to care and worry about those things, but that individuality will cause a separation between you and God.
In order to love people they have to be moved to the top part of our priority list. With God always in the #1 spot.
Another helpful reason to put Jesus first into our thinking is that we realize that the small things do not bother us anymore. It is okay when I don’t necessarily get what I want because it is not about me, it is ALL about Jesus. This way of thinking will mend the soul and uplift the spirit in your daily lives.
3.) Make Time- We now are living in the busiest the world has ever been. And each one of us can have pretty busy lives with work, travel, families, kids, etc. But we are struggling to make time to love because we aren’t prioritizing our time. And so what does God want us to prioritize?
“seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added to you.”
We can’t take charge of our time without clearly having the priorities in place first. Make time by planning time in advance to be with friends with family. Plan out your time to make sure you are at church with your church family and midweek ministries so we can genuinely love each other.
4.) Get Connected- Piggy backing off of making time. Get connected into your church family. Make it a priority to be apart of the body. Come to community group. Come to a connect class. Come out to our park outreach we have coming up in a few weeks. Come to the gathering on Sunday mornings. Come love each other! When you apply yourself and get connected you will find belonging in this place. You will demonstrate a family spirit in this place. You will be displaying God’s love for all to see. You will find and give true love.
Lets Pray.