How's Your Love Life?

Well, this is the week for love. I never really have understood why we have to have a holiday that is designed to remind us to love each other. I have just assumed that everyday should be a day in which we love one another. But since 270 a.d. their has been a holiday known as Valentines day. A day in which people buy over 180 million flowers on this day alone. A day in which people throw out their weight watcher points to dig into those boxes of chocolate. And so since it is apparent that the focus is on love this week, I thought it appropriate to ask you how’s your love life going.

Someone once said that if you ever want to know the truth about something then you should ask children. I love the article in the Vessel this month by our Busy Bees as they shared what love means to them. Yet, I also came across some other responses by children as to what they see love is.

Glenn, age 7 - If falling love is anything like learning how to spell, I don’t want to do it. It takes too long. (loving people takes a long time. It should take a lifetime. We should love people all our lives.)

- Kenny, age 7 - It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I’m just a kid. I don’t need that kind of trouble.

- Regina, age 10 - I’m not rushing into love. I’m finding fourth grade hard enough.

- Angie, age 10 - Most men are brainless, so you might have to try more than once to find a live one.

- Dave, age 8 - Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I’ve been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me.

- Manuel, age 8 - I think you’re supposed to get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn’t supposed to be painful.

Love is not supposed to be painful, but if left unchecked it can be. And so today as we ask the question How is your love life, I want to do it by looking at probably the most famous passage of love in all scripture. It is I Corinthians 13. For Paul when he talked about life, he understood life needed to be centered around love. And in this chapter he speaks about what real love is. And as he writes this letter he is aware that the church at Corinth has a problem with their love life and their problem is that they are not full of love.

Rather their focus was on who was the best or which spiritual gift was more important than others. They were arguing about how to do the Lord’s supper. Their was problems of immorality. Their was no love and Paul sprang into action.

Understanding all that was going on and realizing the state of things, Paul writes in the last verse of chapter 12 by saying “And now I will show you the most excellent way.”

Paul wanted the church at Corinth and he wants us to know today that our love life should be exhilarating if Christ is in the center of it. And so if I may use a phrase from both Paul and Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure, I want to share with you today how you and I can have an most excellent love life.

I. A Most Excellent Love Life Is The Best Thing In Life!

When we look at the first three verses of chapter 13, it can be summed up by saying that Love is the most excellent thing. The first three verses share that love is the best thing in life. Love should be the picture hanger upon which everything is hung. Love should be at the forefront of everything that you and I do. When we look at our priority list we need to see that love should be the most important thing in our lives.

According to verse 1 it is more important than speaking in tongues. Can you speak in a different language. I have told you that when it came time to choose a language to learn in high school and college I choose the French language. I chose it not because of it’s beautiful language but because it was the romance language and I thought I would be able to woo the girls with my parlez vous francais (said in redneck fashion).

Yet, listen whether you can say J’taime, Teiamo, Yatiblialehvu, Ani oheaosapt, or I Love you, it means noting if not spoken from the heart with love.

Eloquence in speaking was mandatory to the people of Corinth. They wanted people to speak polished and perfectly. They would not have been impressed with me as a speaker back then, and they were not impressed with Paul in his speaking. In 2 Corinthians 10:10 the people of Corinth said about Paul that “in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” And so Paul is saying listen you can be the best of speakers. You can speak with such eloquence that for a moment it might be electrifying but without love is can be as irritating as fingernails on a chalkboard or a cymbal crashing. A cymbal crashing by itself is not beautiful music but incorporate it with the other instruments and it is beautiful. Same thing with love. Words are just words but put them with emotion and feelings of love and they can be electrifying.