Opening Prayer: Oh Lord, we need to know how to Love, we need your help to Love, and we so easily miss opportunities to demonstrate Love. Help us! We are a broken & imperfect people but you've called us to Love. Teach us what you mean by Love, teach us the importance of Love, and help us to live out lives that demonstrate Your Love. Amen!
INTRODUCTION: How do you feel when you're indoors & and your smoke detector goes off? It's an ear-piercing noise, and most times is a false alarm, so it's annoying. That's the sort of idea that Paul was trying to get across in the passage from 1 Corinthians 13 that you read this week as part of your lesson. If we are out "doing good" but with the wrong motivation (without love) it's like that false alarm from the smoke detector, it's just noise, it doesn't do any good.
Doing "Good" - Love = Doing No Good
There's another combination that matters as well, one you read in 1 John 3:17. It says that if we see a need but don't have compassion we don't have God's love in us. I think another passages says it even more clearly - read James 2:15-16.
Say we Love + Don't Act = Doing No Good
In fact, if we had read on for another verse (James 2:17) we'd have learned that such inaction indicates faith that is dead.
[Clarifications below were added due to questions asked during class - Thank You Gloria for challenging me to clarify, I hope this helps.]
The word for Love here is Agape - this is a perfect love, a love that only comes from God and through man by virtue of the Holy Spirit. This love does God's will no matter the cost, it is a self-sacrificing love - sacrificing for God's will, and doesn't necessarily have feelings of affection tied to it.
When I say "Good" in quotes I mean good as viewed by humans - good that is kind & charitable & self-sacrificing. When out of quotes, Good, I mean something that is good as viewed by God - good that is doing God's will, good that lasts for eternity (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). Mark 10:18 tells us no one is Good but God alone, and Revelation 5:1-5 clarifies further the unworthiness of all but Christ, this is a higher standard than what we broken humans see as "Good". So how do we, as humans, do Good? Only by the power of the Holy Spirit from God working through us, and not by our own effort/strength.
For each of the Fruits of the Spirit there can be confusion if we see these Fruits as the world sees them, and not as God sees them. Each of these things - Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, etc. - can be experienced in a "Common" way, just as God sends rain & sunshine for all people (Matthew 5:45). The struggle we face as we study these fruits is to see them as Spiritual Fruits, Fruits made by virtue of God's Holy Spirit at work in the lives of believers, and not simply as "Common" Fruits.
We all know people that we think of as "Good" people, and acts that we think of as "Good" acts, and we want to think those things matter. But as followers of Christ we know that without God we are nothing, and we can do no good apart from the power of Christ at work in us - John15:5.
PRINCIPLE: The Spiritual Fruit of Love requires Action
The word for Love that is in the list of Spiritual Fruits in Galatians 5:22 is the Greek word Agape. In Greek there were 4 words for Love, but I'm not going into that today, what you should know is that the word used here denotes Perfect Love, the kind of Love that God has toward man, the kind of Love Jesus lived out. As we read in 1 Corinthians 13, Agape Love takes action & Agape Love never fails.
I. God is Love
The love of God underlies all that He has done, is doing, and will do. Even if we can't reconcile something in this broken world with the love of God, that is due to our limited understanding. Read 1 John 4:7-10, God loved us & sent Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for us - without us first seeking or loving Him. This is a Big Love, this is a love that we grasp at but is not possible for us to completely fathom. This is the kind of love that we can only begin to understand by the power of the Holy Spirit, and a love that may take eternity to explore. This is a Love that holds on to believers & won't allow anything to separate us from God. Passages like Romans 8:35-39 & 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (words of Paul) & John 17:12 (words of Jesus) tell us this, people sealed by the Holy Spirit cannot be separated from God's Love.
PRINCIPLE: Love is God's defining attribute.
Love defines God, Love is how God operates toward man. How ought we to respond, those who have been sealed by the Holy Spirit? We also ought to Love others in an unconditional manner. Ephesians 4:30 tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit who has sealed us for the day of redemption, I wonder how often we do just that by failing to demonstrate love.
I failed at demonstrating God's Agape Love this week, I had an opportunity to show love in a real & tangible way, in a way that would have demonstrated selflessness, and I hesitated. I wanted to find a way to help a person in need, but I wanted to do it in a manner that didn't make me as uncomfortable - in other words, to lesson the cost. I should have been more like King David 1 Chronicles 21:24 who insisted on paying the full price & refused to give a sacrifice that cost him nothing. I helped, but lost the opportunity to really demonstrate Love.
II. Who would Jesus Love? (WWJL)
I was thinking about this while listening to Pastor Shaun's sermon on being Courageous Risk Takers, so I wrote down "Who Would Jesus Love?", and decided to search the New Testament for ideas. This is what I found:
Then Now
Woman Caught in Adultery (John 8:3-10) LGBT & those caught in sexual sin
Zacchaeus & Company (Luke 19:1-10) Cheats & Criminals & Addicts & such
Paul (Acts 8:3, then called Saul) Those who violently oppose the Gospel
Lepers (Luke 17:11-19) Homeless & Helpless & Outcasts
Peter & James & John (tough guys) Those who are coarse
I stopped at this point, because I realized I could have gone on & on... All People are people Jesus would Love!! Jesus Love is Inclusive.
PRINCIPLE: Our Love for the unlovely/unlovable must follow Jesus example.
It's not easy to love like this, let's face it that we've all dealt with those who are unlovable or unlovely. I have a personal story that I'm not sharing in the online version of this lesson, it involves 2 people who hurt & betrayed me in terrible ways. One eventually repented, accepted forgiveness, and there has been restoration of Christian brotherhood. The other is an unknown, there is no contact for the sake of my safety.
Believe it or not I can Love both of these people, not in any affectionate or romantic kind of way (that would be Phileo or Eros in the Greek), but I can still Love as God has called us to. Part of that Love was forgiving, and in both cases that was difficult, and in one case that forgiveness was eventually appreciated & accepted. For the other Love has been simply to pray when something brings them to mind, not to dwell on past wrongs but instead to ask God to work in their heart & mind. I prayed not knowing if either of these two would ever benefit, but through those prayers God was able to work in my heart & my mind to do His work of Sanctification & restoration in me.
We are all broken, we all need God's Love, and sometimes the unloveable or unlovely need it the most.
III. The Standard of Agape Love
Agape Love, as spoken of in Luke 6:27-36, says to Love our enemies & do good to those who hate us & pray for those who mistreat us. We are to accept insult, injury, and humiliation without retaliation. We are to give (lend) to our enemies when they ask of us & not expect anything in return. What? Why? Because (see vs.35-36) we are to do like God does, we are to be kind to the ungrateful & wicked, we are to be merciful because God is merciful.
Wow, that takes things up a notch, I don't think I can meet that standard. Not to worry, we're in good company because Peter felt the same way. After Jesus resurrection, Jesus took a bit of time with Mr. foot-in-mouth-himself Peter to set him back on track - mind you this is before Pentecost, so before Peter had been in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. Read John 21:15-17, in the first two of these cases Jesus is asking Peter if he Agape-Loves Him, and Peter responds with telling Jesus he Phileo-Loves Him - that he has great affection for Jesus but knows that he doesn't love Jesus at the standard of Agape. The third time Jesus asks Peter if he Phileo-Loves Him, and Jesus asking this way grieves Peter, Jesus is asking Peter to meet him at the standard of Phileo. It would be terrible if that's where the passage ended, but Jesus knew that by the power of the Holy Spirit Peter was going to do great things & express Agape Love. Read John 21:18-19, Jesus tells Peter just what lengths Agape Love is going to push him to - and from church history we know that Peter was crucified, but crucified upside-down because he felt unworthy of dying in the same manner as Jesus.
PRINCIPLE: Only God can work out perfect Love through imperfect people.
Last week, when I spoke of the Fruits I mentioned that we can't do them of our own strength. I think this is most obvious with Love, and I think Love is the foundational fruit upon which God works in and through us. When God was going to work through Zerubbabel (Zechariah 4:6) He told him "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit". That is how God works, God works through His Spirit, not by the might or effort of man. Only God can work out His perfect Love through us.
CONCLUSION: How do we grow the fruit of Love in our lives? We choose to do what God has asked, we submit to Him, we trust in His power... we certainly can't do it on our own.
Closing Prayer: Thank You God for your great Love for us. Help us to work out that Love through the power of your Spirit. Amen!
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