The Labor of Love
1 Corinthians 13
August 31, 2008
Labor Day. Originally a day set aside to honor the American worker. Now it is really a holiday or three day weekend to mark the end of the summer season. According to the movement of the earth around the sun, we still have a couple of weeks of summer. But functionally in our culture, summer begins Memorial Day weekend and ends Labor Day weekend. Vacations end. Amusement Parks close or at least cut back to weekends.
Stores used to be closed on Labor Day but not anymore. Instead they have big sales. Three store owners shared adjacent storefronts in the same building. Times were tough. In hopes of picking up sales, the owner of the shop at one end of the building put a sign over his front entrance that said, YEAR-END CLEARANCE!!! At the other end of the building, another owner responded with his own sign: ANNUAL CLOSE-OUT.
The owner of the store in the middle knew he had to act fast or he’d lose business. After careful consideration, he hung a larger sign over his front door that read, MAIN ENTRANCE.
A couple of years ago, we took the Natural Church Development survey. It is survey of questions designed to measure eight qualities of a healthy church. The idea is that we work on the lowest quality then you take it again and work on that lowest quality and so on. We had two lowest qualities that tied. It is recommended to work on only one so we chose the category of Loving Relationships. Since then we have done a whole host of strategies and things to help us all love others better: secret sisters, men and women’s breakfasts, the Series on the Mount which focuses on the Shema of Jesus: Love God and love others
We’ve done interactive worship elements to help us worship together as families and as a community. Things like the Mercy Seat and the Bread Man help us worship as a community. We’ve begun exploring what holistic community is and what it means and how we live it out. We’ve partnered with groups and ministries to show love to others like World Vision and The Upper Room. We’ve had different small groups that have met to study things like Experiencing God and the NOOMA videos. We’ve had town meetings, picnics, ball games, shopping trips, and even Kid’s Day. We’ve had time to reconnect before worship with coffee and snacks.
We’ll now is the time to see where we are at. The AD Team needs your help in two weeks to fill out our next survey to measure our progress and determine what needs to be done next. I’m also asking you to help out by filling out a quick survey on how we serve others. Many filled it out once before and this is a way that we can compare the overall average scores.
So in this spirit, I want to share with you a message of love on love called labor of love. It comes from 1 Corinthians 13, which was read earlier.
There was a couple getting married but the bride was really nervous. She was afraid that something was going to happen. She was desperately trying to think of anything and everything that might go wrong. The pastor had seen the escalation of anxiety the bride and pulled a verse to be read during the rehearsal. It was 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”
The pastor had a moment of inspiration. He knew the best man didn’t follow Jesus so he decided to have the best man read the verse hoping that his involvement might heighten his awareness of how the Scripture has such a positive affect on people. However, the best man had no idea how the bible was organized and he found John 4:18 instead 1 John 4:18.
“I know how nervous and chaotic it has been. But right now, I want you to trust in Jesus and that everything will be fine. God wants to remind you how much he loves you and speak to you at this moment. I’ve asked the best man to read a special verse for you at this moment.”
And so the best man read John 4:18, “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.”
Love is work. It is tough but it is not the weary creating and burden making work that the religious rulers were inflicting on people. Jesus said that his ways allow for rest. Divine rest. His way is the way of love. It is “The Labor of Love” which is the work of God.
This Labor of Love is where heaven meets the earth (“your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”) It is where we taste the resurrection. It is where the kingdom comes into our midst. It is God’s work in us and through us.
We are going to look at two things. What this Labor of Love is not and what it is. First what it is not.
The Labor of Love is Not a Duty
It is not something we have to do. It is not even something we ought to do. Loving God as we worship can never be done because we know we ought to do it. Now sometimes we need to fake it until we make it. Sometimes we need to do it even if we don’t feel like it. Feelings follow action. We do something and then we suddenly realize that we’ve been enjoying it.
Instead we ought to checking ourselves and if we seem not to feel like loving God or worshipping or even loving someone else, then we need to figure out with why. And sometimes this means doing what we need to do even if we don’t “feel” like it.
I suspect that all of us are similar in that our feelings come and go. There is so much dependent on how we feel at the moment: our circumstances, our drive here, what we have eaten or not eaten, meds, how work went, how our golf game went, how the Browns or Steelers did, and even the time of the month (and that is not just for women either).
So when we love out of duty, we miss out on a whole bunch of what God intends for us. It means a couple of important things.
• Love is not duty free.
When you come back from a foreign country like Canada or Kentucky, you can purchase foreign-made goods up to a certain amount without having to pay the high taxes for imported goods that you normally do in the stores.
Loving God and loving others is not easy. It is one of our greatest privileges. It is part of God’s plan for us. It is what we are made for but it is not easy. Loving often takes a lot of work and sacrifices.
I always tell couples that I marry about the 50/50 principle of marriage. True or false. Marriage is a 50/50 proposition. Each partner brings their half to make a whole. It’s false of course. It is 100/100. In relationships, two halves don’t make a whole. We joke about our better half. But in reality if a relationship whether it is a marriage or friendship is based on two half people, it is doomed for failure.
Two wholes become one. And this often takes a lot of sacrifice. It is not duty-free. It takes commitment. It takes patience. It takes forgiveness. Read through chapter thirteen again and you get the picture.
• A duty of love is passionless.
However, you can’t base your love on duty. This type of love is without passion. It doesn’t move you. It doesn’t move others. If this is typical of your relationship whether with others or with God, then there is a serious problem. When you have passion, you want to spend time with that special someone. You can’t wait until you are together again. It is such a joy to see that person.
I read about a guy many years ago that served on a navy ship. He broke the rules and was given extra duty as punishment. However, he stayed passionate. His birthday was coming up and he would repeat, “They can bust me, they can fine me—but they can’t take away my birthday.”
It was July 21st and the next he would be 21. Again when he went to bed after a grueling night of KP, his last of the extended duties, he said, “They can bust me, they can fine—but they can’t take away my birthday.”
When he awoke the next morning, the officer on duty said, “Ok, men you will need to adjust your clocks and watches. In the night we crossed the International Dateline and today is now July 23rd.”
So what is love?
The Labor of Love is Our Destiny.
It is not a duty but a destiny. It is what we are created for. It is what brings the kingdom into this present reality. And it is our future. It is the language that Jesus spoke. If we are going to speak with Jesus, then it must be our language. It is the food of God’s new creation. It is the music that God has written for all creatures to sing. So we learn it and practice it now so we are ready when the eternal cantata begins. Love is the resurrection life. People who live by love know how to hope. They have faith that carries them through.
Love is what underlies forgiveness. Forgiving others is not a moral rule and duty. One forgives because one loves. Forgiveness and love is a way of life. It is God’s way of life. It is God’s way to life. If you cannot forgive then you cannot love. Asking God to forgive us as we forgive others is not a transaction or bargain or deal. God is not Howie offering us a deal or no deal in which we can hope for something better. It is life. The failure to forgive shuts down the very part of our being needed in order to love.
Love bears all things. It believes all things. It believes in you and me. It hopes all things. Love endures all things.
A pastor got up and introduced the guest speaker as someone he had know sense he was a child. The speaker was very dear to him and he considered him to be like a second father to him.
The speaker preached a good message and closed with a story that the speaker said was true. This is how it went.
“A father, His son, and a friend of his were sailing off of the Pacific Coast,” He began, “When a fast approaching storm blocked any attempt to get back to shore. The waves were so high, that even though the father was an experienced sailor, he could not keep the boat upright and the three were swept into the ocean as the boat capsized.”
The speaker hesitated for a moment, making eye contact with two teenagers who were, for the first time since the service began, looking somewhat interested in his story. The aged minister continued with his story, “Grabbing a rescue line, the father had to make the most excruciating decision of his life: to which boy he would throw the other end of the lifeline. He only had seconds to make the decision. The father knew that his son was a Christian and he also knew that his son’s friend was not. The agony of his decision could not be matched by the torrent of waves. As the father yelled out, ‘I love you son!’ He threw out the lifeline to his son’s friend. By the time the father had pulled the friend back to the capsized boat, his son had disappeared beneath the raging swells into the black of the night. His body was never recovered.”
“The father knew to whom his son belonged. He also knew his son’s friend would spend eternity apart from God and he couldn’t bear it. He sacrificed his son in order to save the other boy.”
At that the old preacher sat down and the soon after the service concluded. Within minutes the two teens came up to the preacher and very politely said, “That was nice but that doesn’t seem realistic. The father gave up his son in the hopes that the other boy might follow Jesus just sounds a little dramatic. How do you know that it is true and not some urban myth?”
“Well, I can see how it would be easy to be suspicious. But you see your pastor over there,” the older gentleman said point at the pastor.
“Yeah,” said one of the teens.
“Well, he was that boy and I am that father.”
