Love | September 10th, 2023
Call To Worship: From Psalm 147
Praise the Lord! How good to sing praises to our God! How delightful and how fitting!
He counts the stars and calls them all by name. How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension! He covers the heavens with clouds, provides rain for the earth, and makes the grass grow in mountain pastures. The Lord’s delight is in those who revere him, those who put their hope in his unfailing love. ____________________________
Holy Harvest: Fruits of the Spirit
Love
1 John 4.7-17
CPCC 9.10.23
Big Idea : Loving God and means unconditionally loving others
INTRO SERIES: THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT.
Even though our You Asked For It series is over, the idea for our new series came from a question from our Wednesday Bible study. The question was, “When does a person receive the Fruits of the Spirit? The discussion grew into more questions about how many fruits we receive? Can we lose them? Does everybody have the same fruits? Why are they called fruits? All of these are great questions that I hope to answer through out this new series, Holy Harvest.
Holy Harvest is really a conversation about discipleship, specifically Spiritual Formation.
When we come to faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit continues to move in a powerful way in our lives. I say continues because it is God’s Spirit who invites us to come to faith in the first place. Once we do, the Holy Spirit begins transforming us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
So at the moment we come to faith, the Holy Spirit does two things: Endows us with a spiritual gift, think ability, and also empowers us to be more like Jesus, specifically the character traits of Jesus: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, what Paul calls, “the Fruits on the Spirit.” This work of the Holy Spirit is the inward transformation to align of our character with Jesus’ character.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul encourages followers to stop relying on the old Law; which is not changing their lives, and instead, be changed by the Holy Spirit. The result will be Spiritual Fruits, a phrase borrowed from nature to describe what happens when a healthy fruit tree is watered and cultivated: it produces Good Fruit. So too with Christians. A believer who is fed and cultivated by the Holy Spirit will produce Spiritual fruit. Listen to what he writes in Galatians 5.16-25
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. 19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. 22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
Today, we look at the most important Fruit of the Spirit. Without this one, you cannot experience the others.
INTRO TO LOVE:
When Carey and Grace were younger we played a game where one of us would pick a word, and then have two minutes to write down as many song titles containing that word as we could. We would score a point for every legitimate song title, not ones Grace made-up or wrote. We also had rules to prevent words like Potato or Transubstantiation, they had to be common words. When we were playing with friends who were new to the game, we would start with an easy word like Baby, or Girl or the word that seems to be in the most song titles of all: Love.
Let’s try this together. Instead of doing this alone and writing down titles, we are going to do this together. When I say, “GO!” I want you to channel your inner Baptist and shout out as many titles you can think of that contain the word LOVE.
Ready? Go!
Arn’t you glad I didn't say a word like “Potato?”
This may have been a mistake because I know some of you are going to tune me out now and keep thinking of song titles with Love in them, but for the rest of you who want to go to Heaven, we are going to spend a few minutes considering this greatest Fruit of the Spirit that God has given us, Love, a fruit that fills our Bibles, our hymnals, and hopefully, our actions.
READ: 1 John 4.7-17
7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
That passage uses the word “Love” 17-times!
A while back in Bible study, a question was asked about the way we use the word love to describe so many experiences in life. Think of the ways you use the word love.
For me:
•I love Anne with all my heart
•I love my children, Carey & Grace
•Yet, I also love lasagna, Al Pastor burritos, and Red Peppers on Pizza
•I love the ocean
•I love scuba diving under the ocean
•I love watching movies with Anne
•I love sharing meals with friends
•I love a good book
•I love watching a golf ball go long and straight down a fairway. I’m told it’s a great feeling to hit one like that.
•I love God
I could go on with this list of things I love as you could, but the point is that the English word love doesn’t always play fair.
When I say I love my Anne and I love lasagna, does she get Jealous? Does that mean I love them equally? No
We understand the limitations of English when incomes to describing the different types of love we have for people, objects, and ideas. Yet, because we say we love so many different things; hopefully, not equally, the word love becomes a bit diluted.
Can you really love a book? Does it love you back?
When we say I love you, does it mean passionate, selfless love, or does it mean I really, really like you?
ILLUS: As an experiment, watch a reality dating show and see how fast and loose they throw around the word, “Love.”
You’ve probably “accidentally” flipped around and seen one of these shows. Some good looking guy with no body fat meets an equally stunning girl. They go on a tropical date and “Boom,” the guy is confessing, “I know I’ve only known you for three hours, but I love you.”
REALLY!?
Three hours!
Is that really love?
There are many other words to describe what he is feeling, but love is not one of them.
God’s people have always been taught to love God and love each other.
ILLUS: I love how my Sunday School teacher taught me to remember this. She drew a cross on the chalkboard. On the vertical line she wrote, God at the top, and Us at the bottom. She described our relationship with God as God reaching down with His love for us. Then on the horizontal line she wrote Us on the left, and Others, on the right. She explained because Jesus’ first loved us, [waving up and down], we can love others as ourselves. [waving sideways back and forth]
Here’s how Jesus emphasizes this: Luke 10.25-28
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
The man answered, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
Jesus calls us to really love God and others… and it’s not a suggestion.
John 13.34-35
I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
When Jesus says: Love each other Just as I have loved you, this clarifies HOW we are to love.
While this may seem like semantics, HOW we love God and others becomes a problem when we claim we Love using our words, but our actions say something else.
Let’s Unpack that.
How did Jesus love us?
Compassionately
Graciously
Sacrificially
So is Jesus saying we have to love God and love others the same way?
Yes
If you were reading today’s passage, 1 John 4 in the original Greek, it would probably mean:
1. You went to Seminary and were forced to learn the language.
2. You would see that the word for love used throughout the passage are variations of the word Agape. Jesus uses this same word in His commandment in John 13 to love one another as He loves us.
Agape is Godly love, selfless, sacrificial love. It describes giving all of our love to God and loving others with a selfless love that only God can make us capable of giving.
The Greeks rarely used the word agape because their gods weren’t agape-love kind of gods, but in the New Testament, we find it 320 times.
Agape love is an action. It is relational and given freely.
When we love others the way God loves us, we are using Agape love.
When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, despite knowing that so many would reject him, that was the ultimate act of Agape love.
In the New Testament, Agape is both a noun and a verb. God is love and God freely gives us His love.
Agape love is not an emotion that comes and goes, it is constant. It happens when we live in God’s grace and love, and give it back by loving God and others. It is a living demonstration of God’s presence with us.
You don’t Agape love lasagna and red pepper pizza, but you should Agape love others as God Agape loves you.
Think about this: On our own, how many of us can truly love as God calls us to love?
We can’t. We need the Holy Spirit to fill us with this particular fruit to be able to receive the rest of the Fruits of the Spirit.
Listen to what that looks like from 1 Corinthians 13.4-7:
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
That’s exhausting!
We would much rather do things our way and get our way--but the result of living without the Spirit’s love is disastrous:
•We live in an age with record numbers of broken relationships between spouses, parents, children, and families.
•We live in a new reality of division and “canceling” because of differing ideologies.
•We have christians who show no love for other Christians over political differences.
We desperately need more Agape in the world…
and Jesus says that’s exactly what we are to provide as His followers: Agape One Another as He agape’s us.
Jesus’ love is unconditional. It something we give regardless if we are going to receive it back.
Consider this:
How would your marriage be different with more agape love?
or your relationship with your children?
or your friends and neighbors?
With people who disagree with you?
The Point is to show Jesus’ sacrificial love to someone who needs it regardless if we like the person or not. After all, Jesus did this for us before we knew Him!
Romans 5.8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners
I know some people have been burned by love. When you talk about love, they think of a person who withheld, or manipulated, or abused their love. They have become hardened to love. Yet, through this powerful Fruit of the Spirit, God’s love breaks down those walls. It shows the person that your love is real and not based on what you are going to get out of it.
It can change their life.
I may talk about Jesus’ love all day long, but if I never show Jesus’ love, what am I?
In the opening of 1 Corinthians 13.1-4 Paul tells us:
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
Without showing agape Love we are a Noisy Nothing.
With agape we are everything. We are living and loving like Jesus.
Who needs you to show some agape love to them this week?
I want you to make a New List:
Write down three ways you can show more agape love this week and then put a name next to that.
For example:
When your spouse says something that upsets you, respond with love instead of anger.
When a person says something annoying, respond with kindness.
When someone insists on their way, graciously agree.
When a friend says they are supporting a candidate you can’t stand, smack them in the head, call them a name, and never associate with them again… or… agree to disagree and find ways to show love to that person as Jesus loves you.
1 John 4.7 & 16-17
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God… We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.
Loving others like Jesus loves us takes practice. It is not intuitive, but with practice it becomes a habit—a good habit.
If we make it a practice to show God’s unconditional, sacrificial love, it becomes easier to love those who are difficult, or disagreeable, or unloveable, and invited them to experience the Fruits of the Spirit like we have, by showing them what God’s true love looks like.
So instead of song titles with the word love, let’s strive to discover ways we can SHOW Christ’s love so others will see and experience the love of Jesus in the way you live and show love to others.
1 Corinthians 13.13
Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
Make it your goal to show God’s greatest love to someone else this week.
Pray
BENEDICTION 2 Corinthians 3.11 & 14
Dear brothers and sisters… Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you…
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
HYMNS
Opening:
#66 To God Be the Glory v.1-3
#480 Open My Eyes, That I May See v.1-3
Closing Hymn
#560 I Love to Tell the Story v.1-3