Love Never Fails

Sermon for 3/8/98

Love Never Fails

Introduction:

A. Love Never Fails- What a joke? Let’s join the ranks of the skeptics and see what they have to say. I dare say that one of these will hit us all.

B. Friends who are no longer friends.

1. So called friends who chum up to us to get something.

2. Friends since babies, but now once entered Junior High, no longer hang around the same crowd, no longer spend time together. See each other from time to time and remember the good times, but our heart bleeds.

3. Friends since High school, in the same youth group, Grown in the Lord together, went on youth trips, mission trips together. Went to the same Bible College, started to drift apart. Got out of college and rarely talked. When you see each other it is only at a distance and you remember the good times. Now you hear that this person has left his wife and children, and you want to go to them and talk with them, but you have drifted so far that you no longer know the address or phone #. If you did, you wouldn’t know what to say.

4. Friends in college, had a great relationship after college, saw each other and were accountable to each other. Then you begin to drift apart; you become so busy that you forget your friend, you wrong your friend or your friend wrongs you. You seek to be reconciled and forgiveness is granted but the relationship is not the same. No closeness. When you see each other there is nothing but the cold shoulder. Heart bleeds.

5. You shared a few good moments at camp or on a trip and you would like to get to know this person better. You try and try but they always put you off. You admire them from a distance and you wonder what is wrong with you.

6. This person will not leave you alone. They smother you and eventually you have to distance yourself from them. Then they never call and you wonder…

7. This Friend always tempts you to sin so you have to leave them. Your heart breaks over them.

8. Your friend becomes rich and you are still poor, your friend no longer pays any attention to you.

9. Philea love fails.

C. Families who fail us and we no longer consider them family.

1. As children and young adults they abused you and so you cannot stand the sight of them.

2. They have aband0ned you time and time again. Absentee parents. Latch Key children.

3. Gave you up for adoption.

4. They were too harsh as parents and never let you be free so now that you are free you are free from them.

5. They are always on your case about this and that so you distance yourself as much as possible…

6. They have different interests than you and so you drift apart.

7. Your parents disown you. We gave birth to you but you are not our child.

8. You have done something that is a no-no and so the whole family disowns/ shuns you.

9. Big argument and that is the end.

10. You got along well with one of your siblings when you where younger and now through a variety of reasons you can’t stand each other or at best there is an uneasiness between you. You remember the good times and your heart breaks.

11. You can deal with losing friends more than family. However, family love does fail.

D. Romantic love, eros love does fail. It is the worst of them all for breaking our hearts and ripping us to shreds.

1. All is roses on the good side of romantic love; the bad side of love is the dark side.

2. Dating is a mean spirited affair.

a) Because you do not have a gorgeous body no one will go out with you.

b) You start dating a beautiful girl and then a few weeks later she goes out with your best friend.

c) You date someone for a few months and then something happens and until your dying days this person hates you. That is the amazing thing about this love, it goes from intense admiration to extreme hatred.

d) You were friends before and then you started dating and it didn’t work out and so now you have lost your special someone and a friend.

e) You look at a special someone and wonder why it didn’t work out. The Chemistry was just not right.

f) You look at other people with their special someone’s and you are alone and you feel left out all the time.

g) You become engaged and a few weeks before the wedding ceremony, they decide to back out, you decide to back out. All of your days there are uneasiness between you.