Loving the Right Things
I Cor. 13:1-13
Introduction:
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and risks of love is Hell”-C.S. Lewis (Four Loves)
Love can hurt, especially when the wrong things are loved or counted on to provide peace, comfort and happiness. When we count on the wrong things to love and meet certain requirements in our lives we can count on getting hurt. Many love and invest in things like: money, toxic relationships, popularity, health, selfish motives, even things like weather and food. However, when we love and invest in “things” like these, we realize, usually sooner than later, that these “things” always change and dissipate. And if we have loved and invested in these “things”, when they change or dissipate, so do we.
What we need is to love things that are based on the Word of God and the God of the Word. And while “things” may come and go, our Lord and His Word “endureth forever”, hence we can find power, assurance, safety and security in loving the right things.
Things like:
Our Life-
If anyone ought to enjoy their life and the place that God has given for them, it should be the born-again, blood bought, redeemed believer! Tragic that so many “Christians” are running around this world miserable, defeated, going from paycheck to paycheck and simply “surviving”. King Solomon wrote, “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.” –Ecc. 2:24 and “Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.” –Ecc. 5:18
What is Solomon talking about loving and enjoying?
How about our:
• Country: I love America! I make no apologies for my love for this country and believe still, even with all of her faults, America is still the greatest nation in the world. I love America for the Christian principles on which she was founded. Never buy into the liberal, toxic, anti-Christian propaganda spread by ungodly organizations such as the ACLU that our founders were deists, atheists and agnostics. Oh no! America was indeed founded by bible-believing Christians and based on Christian principles.
When they founded this country, the Founding Fathers envisioned a government that would promote and encourage Christianity. All but two of the first 108 universities founded in America were Christian. This includes the first, Harvard, where the student handbook listed this as Rule #1: “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."
In 1777. Continental Congress voted to spend $300,000 to purchase bibles which were to be distributed throughout the 13 colonies! And in 1782, the United States Congress declared, “The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in ALL schools.”
And while we have come quite far from this direction, we still have many freedoms that other countries do not have. We are able to worship our Lord, on His day, in public. We are able to purchase and own as many Bibles as we desire. We are able to stand on the street corner and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ without fear of government intervention and physical persecution. Oh we may be looked at in a funny way when we bow our heads at Olive Garden. We may be laughed at when we bring our Bible out for lunch time devotions. We may even be ridiculed, like Tim Tebow, for our outward love for our Lord. But, we have religious freedoms in America that are found nowhere else in the world. And we are still the largest missionary sending country in the world. And because of these things, I LOVE MY COUNTRY!
• Career: I love my job! I know that some complain about their work and how, every week, they can’t wait until Friday. You know that “working for the week-end” philosophy. However, for the Christian we should not dread our work but “whatsoever ye do, do it heartily (with all your heart), as to the Lord, and not unto men” –Col. 3:23 If you have a tough job, or a jerky boss and find it hard to enjoy your vocation, simply change who you work for. (ILL> Working at the VA in the kitchen!) Once you start doing, whatever job you have, for the Lord, only then can you claim Deuteronomy 33:11, “Bless , LORD, his substance, and accept the work of his hands..”-Deut. 33:11a You don’t have to dread going to work, you can desire to serve God by your work! Work can be an offering you bring to our Lord that is blessed by Him everyday. I LOVE MY JOB!
• Cross: I love my sacrifices! I know that may sound foreign and weird to you, but the closer I get to my Lord and increase my understanding of His Word, the more I appreciate every opportunity I have to suffer in His name. Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” –Matt. 16:24 I said last Sunday that for many folks the greatest sacrifice they make is to simply come to church each week. How tragic. When we consider what Christ has done for us (suffering and death on the cross), how can we not have a desire to show Him our gratitude in fleshed out life. As the Apostle Paul said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” –Rom. 12:1
Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, caught the practical implications of sacrifice: “To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others…to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom-I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory. We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1,000 bill and laying it on the table-“Here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all.” But the reality for most of us is that He sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listening to the neighbors kid’s troubles instead of saying, “Get lost.” Going on church visitation. Giving a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul.
But for those who go beyond average Christianity and realize a life of sacrifice is more than just coming to church once in a while, but sacrificially giving your time, talent and tithe, God will “open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” –Mal. 3:10. Oh to discover what so many others have, you can’t out give our God!
Our Loves:
• Flame: I love my wife!
Several years ago, the Saturday Evening Post published an article entitled “The Seven Ages of the Married Cold.” It revealed the reaction of a husband to his wife’s colds during their first seven years of marriage. It went something like this: The first year: “Sugar dumpling, I’m really worried about my baby girl. You’ve got a bad sniffle, and there’s no telling about these things with all this strep throat going around. I’m putting you in the hospital this afternoon for a general checkup and a good rest. I know the food’s lousy, but I’ll be bringing your meals in from Rosini’s. I’ve already got it all arranged with the floor superintendent.”
The second year: “Listen, darling, I don’t like the sound of that cough. I called Doc Miller and asked him to rush over here. Now you go to bed like a good girl, please? Just for Papa.”
The third year: “Maybe you’d better lie down, honey: nothing like a little rest when you feel lousy. I’ll bring you something to eat. Have you got any canned soup?”
The fourth year: “Now look, dear, be sensible. After you’ve fed the kids, washed the dishes and finished the floor, you’d better lie down.”
The fifth year: “Why don’t you take a couple of aspirin?”
The sixth year: “I wish you’d just gargle or something, instead of sitting around all evening barking like a seal!”
The seventh year: “For Pete’s sake, stop sneezing! Are you trying to give me pneumonia?”
While that is a comical rendition of the decline of our display of love for our spouse, we should constantly be placing our actions of love under evaluation. Are we really loving our spouses “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.” –Eph. 5:25-27 I have been married for 21 years and I can honestly tell you today that Laurie is still my best friend, and I am more in love with her today than I was that day I was fumbling with a ring under the table as she stuffed bread in her mouth!
• Family (Biological and Church): We are told to “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” –Ex. 20:12 and that children “are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” –Psm. 127:3-5
In an interview for Today’s Christian Woman, Carol Kent says: “One day when my son Jason was young, we were eating breakfast together. I had on an old pair of slacks and a fuzzy old sweater. He flashed his baby blues at me over his cereal bowl and said, “Mommy, you look so pretty today.” I didn’t even have makeup on! So I said, “Honey, why would you say I look pretty today? Normally I’m dressed up in a suit and high heels.” And he said, “When you look like that, I know you’re going someplace; but when you look like this, I know you’re all mine.” Nothing can replace the beauty of being together with those we love.
I LOVE ME BIOLOGICAL FAMILY!
And I love my church family! The Bible tells us that God, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”-Eph. 1:5 and “This commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.”-I John 4:21
It has always amazed me that we have enjoyed such unity at CommUNITY church. With such a diverse demographic: different backgrounds, education levels, social status’, ethnicities…and yet we have enjoyed our theme verse “Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” –Psm. 133:1 Many of us have seen what conflict in the church can do, how it can hurt, divide and cause the power of God to dissipate. And, many of us are willing to do whatever it takes to protect that unity. There are many things that I am willing to negotiate, compromise and even keep quiet about, especially preferences. However, when it comes to backbiting, gossip, critical spirits, division, conflict and disunity in the House of God, I will always take a front of the line approach and follow the teachings of my Bible. If you stir up trouble in this church, then you have offended this pastor. The Bible says “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.”-Matt. 18:15 Be assured if there is division in God’s house, I will address the source of that division with the power of the Holy Spirit and the authority of the Word of God. Why? Because I LOVE MY CHURCH FAMILY!
Our Lord: (I have saved the best for last)
• Freer: The greatest realization that you can have in this life that will affect the next, is that you are loved. I know that some of you are not that comfortable with saying “I love you”. You, like me, may not have heard those words much growing up and still struggle with them today. You may feel that you might be rejected. Or, that love must somehow be earned by your actions or history. You may believe that love always comes with stipulations or qualifications. I have great news. You DO NOT have to take the first step with God, He took the first step and was the first to say “I LOVE YOU”. He did it by sending His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to die for us “while we were yet sinners” –Rom. 5:8. What an amazing verse! While we were in bondage, sin and separated from God, He sent His Son to die for us, freeing us from guilt and shame and saving us from an eternal separation from Him. And to receive this great gift, we simply ask. The Bible tells us “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”-I John 1:9 If you want to be free, come to the cross, He is the only Freer.
• Friend: Have you ever been let down by a “friend”? I have. It can cause us to build up walls and not allow anyone else in for fear of getting hurt again. However, as the song goes, “What a friend we have in Jesus”! I have known Him as my friend for 22 years and He has never broken a promise, let me down, hurt me intentionally or unintentionally, lied to me, had a bad day and lashed out at me, been unavailable or unaccessable. To all who call on Him, He promises that He “will never leave you, nor forsake you,' so that we may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me.”-Heb. 13:6 Now that is a friend! I have experienced times of loneliness, isolation and feeling that I had not a friend in the world.
Much like the nursing home man on his deathbed visited by a passing preacher. The nurse had asked the preacher to have a word with this man as he was dying. The preacher found a not posted at the bottom of his bed that read “71 years old – no friends”. When the nurse was asked as to the meaning of this note she replied that he had no family or friends. The preacher went back to the bed, leaned close to the mans closed eyes and whispered “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear.” With that the man opened his eyes and stated “Jesus is my Saviour, my Friend.” The preacher walked away mumbling something like, “no friends my foot..HA! He is friends with the Son of God!”
Oh, if you are here today feeling misunderstood, malaligned, let down, lonely, separated, feeling like you don’t have a friend in the world, Jesus is calling saying I will be the best friend you have ever known a friend that “sticketh closer than a brother”-Prov. 18:24b
• Father: In closing, allow me to share a true story with you.
A twelve year old boy sitting on the front brick steps on a cold winter night in Massechusets looking up into the sky crying his heart out wishing he had a father that would protect him, comfort him, embrace him…love him. Inside the house his mother was on the phone with his biological father, the man that left him and his mom when he was four. They were trying to find a place for this scared young boy to live: a foster home or a group home perhaps. This young boy had called his father just minutes ago to let him know that his mom could not handle him anymore and he needed a place to live. Only to be told there was no room as he had a new family now. He was the father of two step-children now and he was moving on with his new life without his only son. So, here this young, cold and scared boy sat, calling out to the sky “If there is a God, please help me”. Nine years later this young man, with many years of drugs and alcohol, toxic relationships and a rebellious lifestyle all used to cover the hurt and rejection, still never able to find a father found himself in the back of a church (the back row for quick escape no less), overwhelmed with disappointment and rejection, heard a preacher talk about a real Father. A Father that did not require perfection. A Father that had room in His life. A Father that would love anyone, no matter what. A Father that would never leave. This young man could not have made it to that preacher that day any faster. He followed the prayer of salvation from the pastor and was instantly introduced to a real Father. The boy on the steps name is Tom McCracken, your pastor. I pray you discover what I have in Psalm 27:10 "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up."
