Sermon Central
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Love Is The Greatest
Contributed by Glenn Pease on Mar 17, 2021 (message contributor)
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1. Everything Minus Love Equals Nothing
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
In this great love chapter Paul makes it clear that love is the supreme gift. All of the human relation problems in the world are caused by a lack of love, and only love can lift us above the hatreds in the hearts of mankind.
Where love is absent hate will reign. This is true in every area of life for individuals and groups of all kinds. We are grateful for those who give their lives to protect us from enemy forces, but we cannot thank God that their sacrifice was necessary, for we would not have needed such ...read more
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2. Love Is A Choice
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
Every choice in life can be evaluated by asking, is this a loving choice? If it is not, it is a bad choice. All sin is a bad choice, for it is a violation of love for God or others. Everything that is right is so, because it is loving.
Missionaries often get into complicated cross-cultural issues. Such was the case of the missionary to Africa who had the chief of a tribe all ready for church membership. Only one barrier blocked the way. The chief had 50 wives, and the church would not admit him to membership until he dismissed ...read more
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3. The Expression Of Love
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
God inspired Paul to give them this great love song as the greatest tool in history to aid men in the expression of love. Paul tells us what love does, and what it does not do. He reveals to us how to express love.
Predicting the unpredictable is what weather forecasting is all about. There are so many variables that nobody can be sure what tomorrow holds. Back in 1816 Mt. Tambora in what is now Indonesia erupted with a blast 80 times greater than that of Mt. St. Helens, and sent a massive cloud of volcanic ...read more
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4. God-Like Lovers
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
Patience is so loving and God-like because you never know what changes life will bring that makes a bad thing good. This is often true in the world of love and romance.
Homer, 900 years before Christ, wrote his famous epic The Odyssey. The hero Ulysses had been gone for 10 years, and his faithful wife Penelope had been waiting even though there were many suitors trying to win her love. Finally she feared he must be dead, and so she promised she would marry the ...read more
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5. Positive Attributes Of Love
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
Love does not just patiently put up with people. It also positively puts out for people. In other words, it is not enough to just turn the other cheek. You must also walk the extra mile.
The theme of love has been associated with the Lord's Supper down through the centuries. The early Christians had what came to be known as an Agape feast before they partook of the Lord's Supper. This was a time in which they ate a full meal together in an atmosphere of Christian ...read more
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6. Love Is Kind
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
Moody learned from experience that kindness was no minor value, but was the key to evangelism, and one of the reasons we do not win many to Christ is because we are not kind to those outside of Christ.
Clovis Chappell, the great Southern preacher, told this story of a Christian man who bought a lovely home in the suburbs in one of the big cities of the South. He had his furniture moved in one day, and the next day he arrived and was out walking over the wide lawn of his new property. His next ...read more
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7. Love Does Not Envy
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
I envy, but love does not, and so only as I and love become one can envy be eased out of my life. It may not be easy, but we must work at it.
Sometimes the best way to say what something is, is to say what it isn't. If a child asks you what a smooth surface is, you would probably say it is a surface with no bumps and no rough spots. Bumps and rough are not what smooth is, but what smooth isn't. It would be hard to describe what ...read more
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8. Love Is Not Proud
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
When Jesus came into the world He did not come in pride to dominate, and to have His own needs met. He came in love to serve and meet the needs of others
Ignorance may be bliss, but it is a fools paradise when others are in the know. General Motors learned this the hard way back in the early 60's when they launched a campaign to sell their new compact, the Chevy Nova, in Mexico. It was a flop, and the sale figures were appalling. That is when ...read more
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9. Love Is Not Rude
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
A rude person who is not courteous and polite is a liability in every area of life. But one who has these qualities is always an asset.
The ship Tecumseh was engaged in a battle with the ship Tennessee. A torpedo struck the Tecumseh and it began to sink immediately. Out of a crew of 114 men, 93 went down with the ship because it sank so fast. Tunis Craven was the Commander and at the time the torpedo struck he was in the tiny ...read more
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10. Legalism Versus Love
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
We are in a world of great religious competition. We will all tend to follow one of these two strategies: The legalistic or the loving, the rule book power, or relationship power.
We live in a world where competition is a master motive. When the news reach Russia in 1945 that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Stalin ordered secret scientists to find a way to catch up to the U.S. Andrei Sakharov was only 24 years old then, but his brilliant mind was ...read more
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11. Body Love
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
This body we dwell in is the first part of man that God made. Man was a body before he was anything else. As Paul says in verse 46, the natural comes first than the spiritual.
I don't care how widely traveled you are, I know you have never sailed among the Island of Langerhans, or drifted lazily down the Aqueduct of Sylvius. Nor have any of you ever strolled along the banks of Hunter's Canal, or watched the sun go down behind McBurney's Point. None of you ...read more
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12. Educated Love
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
If we link love and learning we will have life with a capital L, for it will be the abundant life Jesus came to give us. Educated love will love according to priorities.
The best of Christians make their share of mistakes, but John Turner was apparently trying to get a large portion of his quota of mistakes out of the way all in one day. John was a conscientious pastor who got to his church early one Sunday morning, and he discovered that he had left his sermon ...read more
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13. Love's Limitations
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
All of life is a competitive battle between the love of the eternal and the love of the temporal. One or the other must win, for one excludes the other. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
"Atlanta's Race" is the title of Sir E. J. Poynter's most successful paintings. The story behind the painting is from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Atlanta was the daughter of Schoenus of Boeotia, and she was famous for her matchless beauty. She was also so swift of foot that none ...read more
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14. The End Is Love
Contributed on Mar 17, 2021
Paul took very seriously the exalting of love to the supreme place in the Christian life. In all of his letters it is the supreme goal, for to be filled with agape love is to be filled with Christ.
Someone has said, "You can never win in the game of life if you don't know where the goal posts are." You can't win in any game if you don't have a goal. Great men in every walk of life have been those with a goal, and a determination to reach it. It is difficult to ...read more