[PLAY VIDEO “LOVE IS EPISODE 3]
-first off, let me say “Happy Father’s Day.”
-for this entire month we are taking a look at I Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Unfortunately, most people don’t really read it anymore. We know the good part, the one we hear at weddings. And because of that we’ve kind of downgraded it to be a passage that only applies to couples starting out in marriage. Even those who have been married a while, doesn’t matter, they’re done being patient and kind.
-but this chapter wasn’t meant for that. It was meant to be a guide for all people as to how to treat each other.
-for the first week we took a look at how love is the language of God. How what we do doesn’t matter nearly as much as how we do it. If it’s a hollow act, it means nothing. But if it is from the heart, if it is done in love, it means everything.
-then last week we talked about how love means putting others first. In reality, it is impossible to truly love someone while still looking out for your own interests. You have to put yourself down a peg and lift them up.
-today, on Father’s Day, we look at our heavenly Father. How understanding love and loving others is the only true way to know God.
-our section in the Love Chapter continues:
**I Cor. 13:8-10 -> 8All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end, but love goes on forever. Someday prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge—these gifts will disappear. 9Now we know so little, even with our special gifts, and the preaching of those most gifted is still so poor. 10But when we have been made perfect and complete, then the need for these inadequate special gifts will come to an end, and they will disappear. (LB)
-if I had to sum up that section in one line, it’d be seek the Giver not the gift.
-it just reminds me that we know so little about God. Paul’s saying that even with the Bible, with prophecy, with God speaking directly to us, we still know so little about God. When we know God fully, we won’t need those gifts. We need them because really, we know so very little about the Person who is giving them to us.
-so that makes me wonder, how can we really know God? What else can we do to grow in our knowledge of who He is and what He wants for us?
-and that’s where we come back to our part of the series for today. Love is one of the ways we can know more about God. Simply because:
1. LOVE IS WHO GOD IS
-if you want to know more about someone, you learn about the things that made them into the person they are.
-so let’s take me. If you wanted to know more about me and you couldn’t talk directly to me, well, you could start by learning about the culture where I grew up. If you were to find out stuff about Canada, you’d probably learn a little about me and things would make more sense. One example I saw last month when I visited my sister. About half of all that’s on TV in Canada is hockey or the Simpsons. Tell me, do you see it?
-so to learn about God, where would you turn? One place would be to learn about love.
**I John 4:8b -> 8God is love—so you can’t know Him if you don’t love. (MSG)
-God is love. It’s that simple. If you want to know more about God, you learn more about love.
**I John 4:16 -> 16We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (NLT)
-learn about love. If you are loving someone, if you are treating them as better than yourself, if you are in some way showing love to someone else, you are learning about God.
-C.S. Lewis’ book The Last Battle talked about this. It sounds like it may never be made into a movie, but I hope it does, it’s a good one. But at the end of the book, Aslan, the Jesus-figure, is talking with a Calormene, the people trying to take over Narnia. And this Calormene can’t understand why Aslan is talking to him since he never believed in Aslan, but the evil Tash. And Aslan talks to the boy and tells him how his good acts, his acts of love taught him about Aslan. He says basically you can’t do evil and attribute it to Aslan any more than you can do good and attribute it to Tash.
-do see where it’s from? In Matthew 25 Jesus tells the story about people visiting him in prison and when He was sick, and they all don’t realize they had visited Jesus. But what did He say?
**Matt. 25:40 -> 40“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’ “(NIV)
-if you want to know God more, to understand who He is, love others. Love is who God is. In the same way that is how God speaks to us.
2. GOD HAS SPOKEN TO US IN LOVE THROUGHOUT HISTORY
-we talked about this a little bit two weeks ago, how God speaks to us through love. I mentioned how even in the history of the Jewish captivity and the Babylonians taking the people prisoner God was still showing love in all He did.
-see, if God is love than everything He does has to be done in love. Even if we don’t see it or understand it, it is all done in love.
**Ps. 31:21 -> 21Praise the Lord, for He has shown me the wonders of His unfailing love. (NLT)
-this Psalm of David’s, it’s not a Psalm of praise, it’s called a Psalm of distress, things are going wrong and he’s calling out to God, but in it all David recognizes that God knows what He’s doing and is always showing His love to us.
-here’s one from God Himself:
**Mal. 1:2a -> 2The Lord says to His people, “I have always loved you.” (GNT)
-God has always spoken to us in love.
-Even the placement of the temple is based on love. There is a Hebrew legend of two brothers who lived side by side on adjoining lands. One was the head of a large family, the other lived alone. One night, the former lay awake and thought: “My brother lives alone, he has not the companionship of wife and children to cheer his heart as I have. While he sleeps, I will carry some of my sheaves into his field.” At the same hour, the other brother reasoned: “My brother has a large family, and his necessities are greater than mine. As he sleeps, I will put some of my sheaves on his side of the field.” Thus the two brothers went out, each carrying out his purposes and each laden with sheaves—and met at the dividing line. There they embraced. Years later, at the very place stood the Jerusalem temple, and on the very spot of their meeting stood the temple’s altar. (3214, Encyc. of 7700 Illustrations)
-even where people gave their offerings to God, it was based on an act of love. Because all of God’s acts are just that, based on love.
-after all, what’s the ultimate act of love?
**Ro. 5:8 -> 8But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners. (NCV)
-remember from last week, there is no greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends? That’s what God did for us, even when we didn’t deserve it, He died so we could become His friends.
-Rabbi Julius Gordon said it like this: Love is not blind—it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.
-God knows all about who we are, good and bad, and His love for us just seems to continue to grow and grow and grow.
-from the moment of creation, when God decided He wanted to know us, to Jesus’ death on the cross, to the end of Revelations when we’ll be living forever in a new heaven and new earth with Him, it’s all been out of love.
-so how do we learn to love then? How do we learn more about God?
3. LEARN TO LOVE BY LEARNING GOD’S WORD
-goes back to that whole Canadian thing. If you want to learn more about me, one thing would be to listen to these sermons, to read my blog, to see the stupid little things I add in the Sr. High newsletter.
-one way to learn more about me would be to look at what I say.
-it’s no different for God.
-His Word helps us become ready to love others.
**II Tim. 3:16-17 -> 16All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing people what is wrong in their lives, for correcting faults, and for teaching how to live right. 17Using the Scriptures, the person who serves God will be capable, having all that is needed to do every good work. (NCV)
-to do every good work, to be doing the acts of love that God calls us to do.
-I know it sounds cliché and it’s the good ole’ Sunday School answer, but really, if you want to know God better, you need to spend time with God. And one way to spend time with God is to actually read what He has written to you.
-I know, me and my radical ways.
-but I think it’s more than just actually reading the Bible. That’s a great start, but there’s a little more:
**I John 2:5 -> 5But if someone obeys God’s teaching, then in that person God’s love has truly reached its goal. This is how we can be sure we are living in God. (NCV)
-we have to be doing what God’s Word says. We need to be living out this love. And that’s another way we learn what love is.
4. LEARN TO LOVE BY LOVING
-the philosopher Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
-if you want to be more loving, if you want to know God and His love, continually be loving people.
-earlier we read a verse from I John 4, but the chapter doesn’t stop there:
**I John 4:16-17 -> 16We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. (NLT)
-because we live like Jesus here in the world. Because we are living out love, not just saying we love people, but actually doing it and showing it.
-because I’m sure we all know that head knowledge and books are a great way to learn, but it still falls short of experience.
-I think of it like when I got my driver’s permit. I read the manuals and rules of the road, I was in Driver’s Ed., I did all that. But then when I first sat behind the wheel, those manuals didn’t help much. The first time I drove stick, oh my gosh! You can read about that all you want I made such a nice grinding sound with that clutch.
-because the best way to learn is to do. If you want to learn about love, start loving people and serving them.
-this is why I wholeheartedly believe that when you serve people, when you love them, when you help out at the food pantry, when you go on a missions trip, when you help someone carry their groceries to their car, if it’s done in love, you are getting way more out of it than they are. You are literally learning what it means to love and learning more about who God is and what He’s like.
-that’s why Paul prayed this prayer for the church in Thessalonica.
**I Thess. 3:12 -> 12And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. (NLT)
-Paul gets it. We love you, that makes us know love more. So we want you to love others so you know love more.
-I think one of the problems we have in the church with this is we seem to emphasize mass and volume. We like to push big examples of love. Go on a missions trip. Volunteer for a weekend at a shelter. But really, those things are all good, but sometimes I think for us to understand love better we don’t need so many big, huge, glamorous things, but lots and lots of little acts of love.
-”The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness.” (Anonymous)
-we need to not focus on doing a big act once a year, but little acts every day. Not just spending time learning about God’s love in big exciting church service once a week, but spending time looking for Him every hour.
-because it’s in doing the small things that God asks of us that we take great steps towards Him.
**II Thess. 3:4-5 -> 4And we trust the Lord that you are putting into practice the things we taught you, and that you always will. 5May the Lord bring you into an ever deeper understanding of the love of God and of the patience that comes from Christ. (LB)
-that’s what we want for you here today. To come to a deeper understanding of the love of God.
-by knowing and living out the love of God more, we end up knowing and living in Christ more. We get to know God more by loving.
-as we end here today, I don’t know where you are with God, but that’s our prayer, that you would grow in Him more, have a deeper understanding of Him.
-and to do that, there are all the answers you have heard before, read your Bible, pray, come to church, and they’re all good, but can I suggest a new one. Simply love people more. Do what goes against our selfish nature and just start loving. And amazingly, you will start to see God in places you would never expect to find Him. You will start to know God in a way that you never expected.
-love God and love His people, and in that way you will have more of God in you.
