Fruit of the Spirit—LOVE (3 lessons)
Series: Fruit of the Spirit Teaching Series
Chuck Sligh
February 2, 9, 16, 23, 2014
Fruit of the Spirit—LOVE
(Part 1)
TEXT: Galatians 5:22-23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
Q. = Discussion QUESTION for the class / A. = ANSWERS or possible answers
INTRODUCTION
The last two lessons were an introduction to the fruit of the Spirit to lay the foundations for our examination of the characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit, which we will not examine one-by-one. What I’m calling “the graces of the fruit of the Spirit” are the characteristics of the Holy Spirit’s fruit found in verses 22-23 – “Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”
Q. By way of review, what has stood out about what we’ve learned so far.
A. Specific things to review if not mentioned:
It’s called the fruit (singular) of the Spirit.
It’s the fruit of the SPIRIT, not the work of our flesh.
Manifested as we walk in the Sprit and are led by the Spirit, which means to be continually “filled” or controlled by the Spirit.
The first grace we will look at is LOVE. We live in a world that desperately needs love. Even though society glorifies the subject of love in their music, television and movies, there is little evidence of real selfless love in our world today.
Why is that?
1) Well, first of all, I think we’re MISGUIDED.
• Society seems to equate SEX with love.
Yet many engage in sex without the slightest thought of love.
Q. Why is sex not the same as love?
A. [NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWERS]
THOUGHTS TO ADD TO DISCUSSION: All too often it’s a means of self-gratification and exploitation, the very opposites of love.
• Others think that INDULGENCE is love.
We have children and we buy them all kinds of things they don’t need—expensive clothes, $200 athletic shoes, expensive toys and games—and we find it hard to say NO to our kids about material things. We believe they will think we don’t love them, when in fact, teaching them to work for things they want is one of the supreme acts of love you can show to your children. Instead, we’re tempted to try to buy their love with gifts.
Illus. – I remember reading a sad story in a Tennessee newspaper that shows the tragic consequences of overindulging your children. The news story told of three young people who were killed when they tried to outrun a train at a railroad crossing in their car, and didn’t make it across in time. The parents of the fifteen-year-old driver were grief-stricken over the loss of the son they loved. In fact, they loved him so much that they had bought him his own Trans-Am before he was legally old enough to drive. They loved him so much that they also let him drive the car illegally while he was still underage and didn’t have a driver’s license—right across the railroad tracks to his death. No, indulgence is not love.
• Many people also mistake TOLERANCE for love as well.
It’s the popular credo of our times to be tolerant of any belief or vice without judgment or criticism. No matter what one’s lifestyle or beliefs might be, we’re not supposed to judge or criticize.
> If a person chooses a homosexual lifestyle or if a girl wants to have a baby out of wedlock, we’re not supposed to condemn them, but to tolerate one’s lifestyle and choices.
> If a person believes in a religion that rewards him with Paradise with 72 virgins for eternity for killing himself along with scores, hundreds, or thousands along with him, we aren’t supposed to criticize or critique his religion; we’re supposed to tolerate it.
Q.
Why is this kind of tolerance not really love?
A. THOUGHTS TO ADD TO THE DISCUSSION:
According to the Bible, if someone is living a life or believing something that is leading him to hell or doing something that will cause him major heartache, then if I REALLY love him, I MUST do everything I can to help him turn from the error of his lifestyle or belief system and lead him to the truth.
Alas, the world’s view of toleration goes only one way. We have to tolerate everything else, but we’re thought to be intolerant if we share the Gospel. But to share the Gospel with a lost person is REAL love, not intolerance.
So first, I think we’re MISGUIDED about what love is.
2) Second, the nature of love is MISUNDERSTOOD.
One of our problems is the English language. Most other languages, including the Greek language in which the New Testament was written, have several words to express different kinds of love. But our language has just one word that we use in many different, sometimes conflicting and confusing ways.
• For instance, if we see two people locked in an embrace underneath a palm tree on a beautiful moonlit night, we might hear one of them whisper in their beloved’s ear, “I LOVE you.”
• Later we might see the same couple in a Mexican restaurant and one of them will say, “This is SO good. I just LOVE fajitas”.
• As they drive away from the restaurant, we see a bumper sticker on the back of their car that says, “I love New York” or “I love the Dallas Cowboys”.
• And then later they go home and watch their favorite TV show and the woman tells her beloved, “I just LOVE this show!”
• The next Sunday, this couple goes to church and hears the pastor read in the Bible to “LOVE one another.”
Well, how exactly are we supposed to “love one another”?
• Like you love your sweetheart?
• Like you love fajitas?
• Like you love your hometown or your favorite football team?
• Like you love your favorite TV show?
I agree with Ralph Stockman who said, “Love is an overworked word for an underemployed emotion.” He’s right. We use it all the time, but we really employ it like we should. No wonder society misunderstands what love really is! Not only are we misguided about love, and not only is love misunderstood.
3) Third, love is all too often MISSING.
• Look no further than terrorism in our world.
• Look no further than the increasing number of cases of domestic violence and divorces across the land.
• Watch the news any day of the week, and you see the lack of love in our society through stories of neglect and abuse by parents, tragic acts of robbery and murder, and the exploitation of young people through drugs.
• Kids often join gangs to find a semblance of love and acceptance because of dysfunctional and non-existent families that lack love.
• People join cults and the New Age movement because they’re starved for love.
Illus. – I recently read of a New Ager who talked about her relationship with her crystal and the love she receives from it, and how she even sleeps with it. When she wakes up in the morning, she can feel love emanating from it. When I read that I thought, How sad to be so starved for love as to sleep with a ROCK, and to think that it could ever be a source of love!
Q. Can you share an illustration from your experience of something you observed of the lack of love some people experience in this life?
The world is starving for love, but too often it’s missing—and tragically, that is all too often true of believers as well as non-believers.
Illus. – I remember when a family from our church in Bicester, England PCSed to the States, they were being transferred to Charlston, SC. We have some supporting churches there, so I recommended one that was close to that base.
I had no idea what I was getting them into! Some dear friends of ours in the church called and told me about how the pastor finally got tired of struggling with leaders in the church who were not willing to follow his leadership that he resigned the church. When he left, the church invited an interim pastor to take the church until a permanent pastor was chosen. There was a power struggle among this carnal group of church leaders and the interim pastor who was trying to lead the church back to biblical principles and the scriptural foundation upon which the church had been built. At one point this interim pastor got a death threat on his answering machine.
This was in a supposedly Bible-believing church! Well, he finally left the church, and in his final meeting, he got up and very lovingly, but very truthfully, told the church the error of its direction and the sin in those in leadership. One of the deacons ran up to the interim pastor and punched him right in the face right there in the meeting. When the interim pastor left the building along with some faithful supporters, the wives of the deacons were high-fiving one another.
This was in a CHURCH—a church that contributed to my support! What a tragedy! What hypocricy!
Q. How do we Christians show the world that we are Christ’s disciples?
Turn with me to John 13:34-35 and look what Jesus said to his disciples: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
How would people know if we are Christ’s disciples?—
• By how often we attend church?
No.
Illus. – Jim Peterson, in his book, Evangelism as a Lifestyle tells of witnessing to a neighbor who watched his family go to church three times a week. – She said, “Jim, I would become a Christian, but I wouldn’t have the time.”
• Will they know we are believers by how holy we are?
Well, NOT being holy is definitely a hindrance to the Gospel. However, cult members can live an outwardly holy lives, and some nonbelievers act more holy than many Christians.
• What is the supreme proof to a nonbeliever that our profession of Christ is real?—When we show true, genuine sincere love.
A preacher can preach hell, fire and damnation, and that NEEDS to be preached too for that kind of message is the only kind of message that will reach some people. But nothing will reach most folks more powerfully like a heart of love!
Even the Bible says that. Look with me at Jude 22-23: “And of some have compassion [that’s a form of love], making a difference: 23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”
Some others save with fear, but it’s compassionate love that makes a difference!
Illus. – Bill Faye, the author of the best series on evangelism I have ever seen, tells his own personal testimony. He had been arrested for running a house of prostitution in a large U.S. metropolitan city. When the news of his arrest hit the local news stations and newspapers, he was suddenly persona non grata. The only person who called him was a Christian who had been witnessing to him. And when he called, he didn’t bang him over the head with a Bible and preach to him what he needed to do. He simply said, “Bill, how are you doing?”
Only one person in the whole world cared for how he was dealing with this situation in his life, and that was a compassionate, loving Christian. That led directly to his salvation. The love of a Christian was the final straw that broke his resistance to the Gospel.
Q. I wonder if you have a story you would like to share that illustrates the power of love to bring a person to Christ, or that shows the reality of our discipleship, or that shows the power love has to transform and affect people for the kingdom of God.
So if love is so important, we need to see what the Bible says about it. Over the next couple of weeks, we are going look at four things about love.
• First, how it is a COMMAND.
• Second, how love is a conscious CHOICE, not merely an emotion.
• Third, we’ll examine the CHARACTERISTICS of love.
• And finally, we’ll discuss the CONDUCT of love—how it manifests itself and plays itself out in the Christian life.
CLOSE IN PRAYER
Fruit of the Spirit—LOVE
(Part 2)
Q. = Discussion QUESTION for the class / A. = ANSWERS or possible answers
TEXT: Galatians 5:22-23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
INTRODUCTION
REVIEW OF LAST LESSON: Over the last weeks we began by examining how confused we are about love in our society.
• We saw that we are MISGUIDED about it by so often mistaking sex, or indulgence of our children, or tolerance of evil behavior or other religions as love.
• We saw that love is MISUNDERSTOOD because our language is so imprecise with regard to the word “love.” – We use the same word when we talk of liking food, or our attachment to our favorite football team, or romantic feelings toward another or the kind of love God wants us to have toward Him and toward one another in the church. (“I love you” or “I just love fajitas” or “I love the Denver Broncos” or “I love God.”)
• Then we discussed how love is so often MISSING in society and how many hurting, damaged people there are in the world because of it.
• Finally, we talked about how love is meant to be THE primary distinguishing feature of Christians before the world.
Jesus said, “By THIS shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.” (John 13:35) And Jude says, “And some have compassion, making a difference.” (Jude 22) And Paul rhapsodize about the supremacy of love above all other virtues when he says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 – “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”
Now this week and next, we want to look at the command to love, the choice to love, and the characteristics of love. But first I want to begin with a discussion question?
Q. Is love an emotion or a choice? Please answer the question, and give the reasons for your answer.
Okay, let’s explore the question by looking at our first two points in detail:
1) FIRST, NOTICE THE COMMAND TO LOVE
The Bible has a lot to say about love:
• Proverbs 10:12 – “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.”
• Proverbs 17:9 – “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.”
• Proverbs 17:17 – “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
> We are commanded to love our neighbor:
• Leviticus 19:18 – “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD.”
• Matthew 19:19 – “Honor thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Q. How are some ways we can love our neighbor?
> We are commanded to love our enemies – Luke 6:31-35 – “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. 32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. 33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. 34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.”
Q. If you had an enemy (for instance, someone who opposed you at work, a neighbor who despised you, someone who stabbed you in the back) what are some practical ways you could love your enemy?
> We are commanded to love the brethren (Christian brothers and sisters)
• John 13:34-35 – “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
• John 15:12 – “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”
• 1 Peter 4:8 – “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”
• 1 John 4:7 – “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”
Q. How can we love the brethren?
> We are commanded to love our spouses.
• Ephesians 5:25 – “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”
• Colossians 3:19 – “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.”
• Titus 2:4 – “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children.”
Q. Husbands and wives, share with me some ways you can love your spouse.
2) NEXT, LET’S CONSIDER THE CHOICE OF LOVE
Notice that in each of these verses we just discussed, we’re COMMANDED to love. Love is not only an emotion, although it includes an emotional component (as we discussed earlier), it’s first and foremost A CHOICE—A DECISION OF THE WILL that is expressed in ACTION, not words or feelings.
Explaining this concept has been an immeasurable help to people’s marriages and other key relationships.
Illus. – If love is primarily an emotion, then your marriage is in big trouble. It is possible to not feel “in love” many times in anybody’s marriage. If love is an emotion, then you can fall in and out of love several times a day.
No, you may not FEEL “in love” at times, but when you make a conscious choice to SHOW love your spouse through specific ACTIONS even when you don’t feel “loving” at the moment—that is a love that is infinitely deeper than a shallow emotion.
Illus. – I recall a man in our church in Wiesbaden who came to me and said he was leaving his wife because he no longer loved her. I shared with him this truth we’re discussing now—that love is a CHOICE, not first or foremost an emotion—and that the deepest kind of love can be exercised even when you don’t “feel” love for a person. He couldn’t grasp it, so I told him to go home and try it.
I said, “Go home and choose in every situation you face to ACT lovingly toward your wife, no matter how you FEEL about her on the inside. DO loving things despite your feelings. Buy her some flowers even if you’d rather retaliate. If she likes a certain restaurant, take her out to eat there, even though you feel she doesn’t deserve it. If she dislikes certain things you do, just stop them, even if you think her reasons are silly. When she speaks harshly to you, speak kindly and lovingly to her as you did when you were ‘in love.’ In the end, you may not feel any different, but you will have shown biblical selfless love and obeyed God’s commands to love your wife as Christ loved the church. If nothing else, you’ll have a clear conscience.”
He looked at me like I had rocks in my head, but he went home and did it anyway. The next week he called me and said, “Guess what—it worked! I’ve had some rough spots, but you know what?…I not only feel good about it because I’ve been obedient to the Lord in this area, but I actually think I I’m starting to feel a love for her again.”
That couple is in the ministry now and their marriage is doing great.
There is a progression that the Bible teaches us concerning love: First is to CHOOSE to love. – This is like a train engine. That must be followed by loving ACTIONS. – This is like a car attached to the train engine. The final component is the EMOTION of love. The emotion of love is the caboose at the end of a train. A train can run with a caboose, but it can function just fine without it as well. Likewise, love can be validly EXPRESSED even if our FEELINGS do not follow. At any rate, the EMOTION of love always FOLLOWS the CHOICE to love and the actions EXPRESSING love.
But, you say, “Pastor, HOW can I do this?” It goes against our human nature to just sit and take abuse. In our own strength, it’s only natural to react to those who do wrong to us; respond in kind to slights; and retaliate when we are hurt.
We cannot love in these types of situations the way God commands us to love in our own strength and power. So we’re back to relying on the Holy Spirit again, aren’t we?
Remember, we talked about two weeks ago that the fruit of the Spirit is just that, the fruit OF THE SPIRIT. We talked about the importance of being filled with the Spirit, which simply means to be CONTROLLED by the Holy Spirit. We said that to be continually, moment-by-moment filled or controlled by the Spirit is what Paul means when he tells us to “walk in the Spirit.” And we said that the only way to accomplish that is to surrender or yield to the Holy Spirit in each situation in life. Only as we surrender to GOD’S will in our lives; only as we yield our own thoughts and desires to the LORD’S will; only when we walk in the SPIRIT by responding to life’s situations in HIS power all through the day—only THEN can we “do ALL things through CHRIST who strengthens us!”
My prayer for you and me this next week is that you will CHOOSE to love—to choose to love when we don’t want to love; to choose to love the undeserving of our love; to love the unlovable; and then follow through with ACTIONS that prove our love.
Fruit of the Spirit—LOVE
(Part 3)
Q. = Discussion QUESTION for the class / A. = ANSWERS or possible answers
TEXT: Galatians 5:22-23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
INTRODUCTION
We’re continuing our study of the fruit of the Spirit. Last week we began examining the first characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit—LOVE, mentioned in verse 22. In our introduction on the subject, we saw that as a society, by and large we are misguided about love, we misunderstand it and it’s all too often missing in life and in many families.
This led us to our first two major points in our examination of the kind of love Paul talks about in Galatians 5:22-23.
• First we talked about the COMMAND to love.
Love in the biblical context is not simply some ooey-gooey, emotional thing—it’s something we are COMMANDED to do. We’re commanded to love our neighbor, our enemies, other Christians and our spouses.
• Second, we saw that though love has an emotional element, it is not primarily an emotion, but a CHOICE manifested by actions, not mere words.
That’s why we can be commanded by God to love. You cannot command an emotion, but you can command actions. Thus, we can choose to do loving actions, even if we do not feel loving feelings toward a person, and God is pleased by it. In fact, loving emotions very often, if not always, follow loving actions.
So that’s a quick recap of last week’s lesson—love is a command, and love is a choice.…
3) THIRD, LET’S LOOK AT THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LOVE.
The Greek language was much more specific in identifying the different types of love. Actually there are 4 major words in the Greek for love, but only two are specifically used in the New Testament, although all the shades of the concept are expressed in other ways in the New Testament.
Let’s look at these four Greek words:
• The first is eros – (body)
This is physical love It is designed by God only in the context of marriage. Outside of marriage it is lust and immorality.
Although the Greek word eros is not in the Greek New Testament, God wants there to be a healthy physical relationship between a man and a wife.
1 Corinthians 7:2-5 (EXPAND AS LED) – “But, because of fornications, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render unto the wife her due: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4 The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife. 5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent for a season, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer, and may be together again, that Satan tempt you not because of your incontinency.”
• The second is storgē
Storge is family love, the bond among mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. As with eros, this Greek term does not appear in the Bible. However, many examples of family love are found in Scripture, such as the love and mutual protection among Noah and his wife, their sons and daughters-in-law in Genesis; the love of Jacob for his sons; and the strong love the sisters Martha and Mary in the gospels had for their brother Lazarus.
• The third Greek word is philía
Philía literally means “brotherly love” and refers to close friendship or companionship in Greek. The city of Philadelphia is named after this Greek word. Philadelphia means “city of brotherly love.” It is essentially a selfish love – “I’ll love you if you’ll love me.”
• The last and most important word for love in the Greek language is agape.
This is a godly, selfless, giving love which expresses love for someone independent of whether they love in return, or even when the recipient of this love shows hatred or unkindness in return. This kind of love cannot be conjured up within ourselves; it is a supernatural love. It must come from without ourselves, from God.
Let’s look at a DESCRIPTION of agapē love which is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
Let’s examine Paul’s description of what agape love looks like in real life verses 4-8.
> Verse 4:
• “Love suffereth long…”
This means patience with the one loved. It’s being able or willing to overlook many failings and faults. Not easily roused to resentment.
Q. How are some ways we can manifest agapē love by “suffering long?”
• “…and is kind…” – Q. How are some ways we can manifest agapē love by being kind?
• “…love envieth not…” – That is, it is not jealous
• “…vaunteth not itself…”
It doesn’t sound its own praises; it’s not boastful. Proverbs 27:2 says, “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.”
• “…is not puffed up…”
That is, it’s not swelled with pride; not arrogant.
Q. How does pride reveal itself in a marriage?
> Verse 5:
• “Doth not behave itself unseemly…”
It’s not rude. It shows respect for others by being courteous and showing manners. Sometimes, as we grow closer to people in a relationship, we feel that because we can “let our hair down,” we can stop showing courtesy and manners. This can chip away at the relationship.
• “…seeketh not her own…”
In other words, not seeking your own rights or your own way. It’s not self-seeking, self-centered or selfish.
Q. How are some ways we can manifest agapé love by “not seeking our own?” or how has someone shown “not sought his or her own” and thus shown agapé love in this way to you?
• “…is not easily provoked…” – That is, not touchy or fretful or resentful.
• “…thinketh no evil…”
JOKE: Not like the man at a wishing well: Another man walks up to him excitedly and say says, “Sir, did you know your wife just fell in the wishing well?!” The man at the well replies, “Wow! I didn’t know those wishing wells really worked!”
“…thinketh no evil…” can mean one or both of two things:
It might mean not being unreasonably suspicious. But probably the most likely meaning is that it doesn’t keep track of past offenses suffered. The spouse who brings up past offenses every time there are problems is not showing agapé love.
I saw something last week where someone said, jokingly, “Any married man should forget his mistakes—there’s no use in two people remembering the same thing.” All too many couples can immediately relate to this…but it ought not to be. When we bring up past offenses, we’re failing to show agapé love.
> Verse 6: “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth”
This, of course would mean not rejoicing when something bad happens to the other person. But that’s kind of self-evident, isn’t it. Someone who rejoiced in something bad happening to another person would not just not be showing agape love, but ANY KIND of love. That would kind of be the definition of malevolence, wouldn’t it?
Some interpret to mean not delighting in that which is offensive to God; delighting in that which pleasing to God.
Illus. – I remember a lady in our church in Wiesbaden who came to me saying her husband was pressuring her to watch pornographic videos with him. He told her, “If you love me, you would watch them with me.” But in fact, he didn’t love her with agapé, self-giving, sacrificing, concern-for-the other person love, because this kind of love never tries to get the one they claim to love to do that which is offensive to God.
> Verse 7:
• “Beareth all things…”
This literally means “covers all things.” Compare 1 Peter 4:8 – “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”
• “…believeth all things…”
Ready to believe the best in a person. This really dovetails into the next quality…
• “…hopeth all things…”
Agapé live is a positive, optimistic, hopeful faith in the person you say you love rather than a critical, negative spirit. It’s the idea of, “You can do it, Honey” or “You can do it, Bud.”
Illus. – Not like the wife who says to husband, “You will never change.”
No, agapé love believes and hopes in the one loved.
• “…endureth all things.”
This is a military term that literally means “to sustain the assault of the enemy.” Indicates that true agapé love can literally endure ALL things.
Longsuffering, the first characteristic in verse 4, has to do with enduring THINGS the loved one does that we overlook out of agape love. This characteristic—enduring all things—refers to being able to endure all CIRCUMSTANCES.
It’s the idea behind the part in many people’s marriage vows that goes like this: “I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded (husband or wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” This is the idea of continuing to love someone no matter what the circumstances of life brings.
> Verse 8a – “Charity never faileth…”
In the easy time, you can count on this kind of love. In the difficult times, you can count on this kind of love.
3) FINALLY, LET’S CONSIDER THE CONDUCT OF LOVE
What are the avenues we are commanded to show our love to others?
> First, is love towards A LOST WORLD
Q. How can we show agapé love to a lost and dying world?
A. SOME IDEAS IF NOT BROUGHT OUT BY STUDENTS:
Most important – Care for their ETERNAL DESTINY.
Concern for their material well-being is also important, but must always be secondary to the eternal need of salvation.
> Love in THE CHURCH FAMILY
Love of the brethren is commanded and inferred repeatedly in the New Testament. There are many commands in the Bible for believers to love one another.
Let’s look at just a few of them:
• 1 John 4:7-12 – “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us.”
a.
• 1 Peter 1:22 – “Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently.” – Q. What extra light does this give us about the kind of love we should have for one another in the church body?
• Hebrews 10:24 – “and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works.” – Q. What extra light does this give us about the kind of love we should have for one another in the church body?
• 1 Thessalonians 4:9 – “But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.” – Q. What extra light does this give us about the kind of love we should have for one another in the church body?
> Difficult love
There are many type of difficult love....
> Such as loving the unlovely
This would include loving any of the following kinds of people:
• People who annoy you, or with whom you have a “personality clash.”
• Critical or negative people
• Dependent, weak people
• ABRASIVE people
• People with little character, no couth or manners.
• People who are selfish or self-centered.
Q. You know, I’ve found out that the Lord is faithful to always make sure there are at least some of these kinds of people in my life. Why do you think God might bring these kinds people into our lives?
A. SOME IDEAS IF NOT BROUGHT OUT BY STUDENTS:
• To use YOU to help meet some of their unique needs.
• To use THEM to build Christ’s character in you. (DIAMOND ILLUSTRATION)
> Another kind of difficult love is loving the undeserving.
For instance:
• Those who are deliberately unkind
• Those who refuse to forgive past offenses
• Those who have offended or hurt you
Here are a couple of scriptures that can guide us in these types of difficult love:
• Romans 12:17-21 – “Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. 18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”
• Ephesians 4:31-32 – “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”
