Fourth Dimension Love Series

Loving In The Fourth Dimension

I John 4:7-12

A man passed by a cage at the zoo and noticed that in the cage was both a large lion and an active monkey.

He saw a zoo worker nearby and asked, ‘How does that work having both a lion and a monkey in the same cage?

It works ok for the most part. Do they ever not get along?

Every once in a while What happens then? We just get a new monkey.

That is the answer you find in many churches….in relationship Christians find themselves in…..when the church is not the loving environment that it should be we often just get a new monkey(not talking about pastor’s here)

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (8) The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

(9) God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. (10) Love consists in this; not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

(11) Dear friends, if God so loved us in this way, we also must love one another. (12) No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us.

PRAYER

1. We might ask ourselves the question as we consider how difficult it is to really love as God has loved us. The world is filled with many images of love which are not accurate.

Psychologists tell us that the excitement of being in love increases your heart rate so that your face glows, your lips look more red, and those circles under your eyes actually become less noticeable!

Heightened emotions of love cause your pupils to dilate, so that your eyes look brighter and clearer. Love is a desirable thing.

The problem is the confusion of the world’s thoughts of love.

Loving what appeals to us, what draws love out of us. What is easy to love. God’s love is very different. Fourth Dimension love!

2. We have talked from time to time about how the Greek has at least four different words that are translated by our one word ’Love’ which allows us to fool ourselves about the true nature of our love.

a. Eros ’fleshly love’ b. Phileo ’friendship love’

c. Storge ’family love’ d. Agape ’sacrificial love’

1) Most of what the world calls love is based upon the most shallow definition of love(eros) ’what appeals to my basest self’.

I might say I love my wife and children and I love

strawberry pie. I agape one and eros the other.

It would make life much easier if we spoke regarding love in the Greek terms.

If a young man parked a car and leaned over to the young lady next to him and said ’I eros you baby’. It would say exactly what was on his heart.

Most marriages fail because they can’t grow into the fourth dimension of love.

They most all have eros, some deepen to friendship

(JIMMY STEWART in Shenendoa ‘I know you love her but do you like her’?),

some even grow into family devotion but the key to a successful, long lasting, satisfying marriage is sacrificial love.

’Honey, I agape you’. ’will put you first, sacrifice my own interests, do what is best for you’.

2) Interesting that this word was almost never used in classical Greek but developed by Jesus Christ and NT writers.

It is not a word the world understands and is only

possible as God works through our lives.

LOVE IS PROVIDED THROUGH GOD (7 )Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (8) The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1. God is the source of this kind of love: love(agape) is from God…. God is love. If we are truly united to God then we will share what is true of His nature, which is sacrificial love.

church in Kansas…….. piano on the eastern side of the sanctuary….

After several months of debate.. the western party decided to take matters into it’s own hands.

So late one Saturday night,……. moved the piano…next morning …. eastern understandably upset, ..next week .. the piano back.

Each week after that the piano was moved several times on Saturday and early Sunday morning.

Eventually.. the church split…. to this day…. refuse to even speak

Not a demonstration to the world of the nature of God.

2. GOD IS LOVE: Love is possible, no matter how difficult it might seem, because God loves through us.