As I go through these verses and look a little more in depth, I want you to ask your self a couple questions?
What is Love?
Am i being Love the way we called to be Love?
1 Corinthians 13
When i go out to eat am I being patient with my waitress at the resteraunt?
Am i envious of others possesions?
Or boasful about my own?
Am I slow to anger or do I get mad and puffed up when someone offends me?
Could You imagine if Jesus had lacked in love?
It was his Love that carried my and your cross up calvaries mountain?
It was his love that nailed him, a perfect sinless man to a tree.
It was his love that held him on that tree, where he bled and died for me.
Nothing is free and sin is the same way.
It was paid for because of Jesus uncoditional love for me and you.
Every law we are called to follow stealing, anger, lust, lies, envy and so much more.
Every single sin in the bible hangs on Love.
Instead of trying to follow all these rules, lets just try this church..... just love.
st. augustine "love God and do as you please"
That sounds insane.
Just think about it though. if love is what every law hangs on we are called to love first and foremost.
If you love your brother or sister you arent going to steal from them or do something to hurt them.
If you Love Jesus you are going to try to live by the bible to the best of your ability, yes we all mess up.
Paul said i have "fought a good fight" can you say you are fighting a good fight that you may loose the occasional battle but not the war.
Because if you are here today and cant say that you are fighting the good fight.
Maybe its cause you dont love.
Maybe you are holding a grudge on someone.
maybe you are more concerned with yourself then you are others.
Matthew 22:37-40
The gospel of matthew says to love the Lord your God and love others as yourself.
Upon these 2 comandments hang all the law.
tell greg laurie story
a couple had been married for 20 yearsthe wife decided she wanted a divorce. She goes to the divorce attorney and tells him she wants a divorce and wants to make it a miserable on her husband as possible. sot eh divorce attorney says to go back home and love her husband like she has never loved him and care about what he cares about and just do everything in her power to show him love. so she does that. 6 months came and went 7 months came and went 8 months came and went then 9 moths came. the divorce attorney called the lady back and asked if she was ready to get the divorce filed and the lady goes what divorce my marriage has never been better, we are going on our second honeymoon.
You see love is special it can change things.
Love to a friend can change a critical mistake they are about to make.
Love to a spouse can make your marriage something great instead of something terrible.
Love to Jesus can turn your life around
Lets look back earlier in the mesage I asked a few questions and kinda let them linger.
Are you love to the waitress at your restraunt when she messes up your order or spills something or is to slow with your food.
Just think about this for a minute if I told you that waitress had been kicked out of here apartment because she couldnt make rent and feed her young child and herself at the same time.
Her husband left her and she was working every hour she could to barley make the bills and eat. would you still be mad at her?
You see you dont know peoples backstories or what they are going through.
It is simply your job to love.
If you dont love, what kind of light are you showing.
I would not want to be the guy on judgement day who God looks at and says. He/she needed your love but you shrugged it off because you let your anger get the best of you.
On all the laws hang love, wihtout it we are nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
Jesus has to be at the center of our christian walks and that puts love at the center of our christian walks.
After all Jesus is love
How can we be Gods hands and feet if we dont love?
We look around in our world and sin is everywhere.
Did you ever think that maybe we are in the world we are in because christians havent done there job.
We live in a selfish world not a loving world.
a world full of hate and selfishness and greed, and so much more.
The very opposite of love.
After all that Jesus has done for you and me.
After all the love he had for us, what do we do?
Go to church for a couple hours on Sunday, sing a few hyms and try not to cuss throughout the week.
There are 268 hours in a week what do we give God 2 or 3 maybe 4 think about it.
I am not trying to guilt you into anything but i have a few stats here that are going up instead of down.
If we did our job they would be going down
around 2.5 million kids are homeless in America.
45 million americans dont know where their next meal will come from
3 Billion people in the world live on less then $2 a day.
A big part of that is because Jesus's people don't love. all because we dont love.
We as christians should hate sin but love people, but often times we love sin and hate people
(if comfortable tell story about girl showing love to homeless boy in I am not ashamed)
the movie was a true story based on a teenager who had kinda fell away from jesus she had fallen into peerpressure and kinda had a come back to Jesus moment if you will.
When she had straightened out she became a part of a church group and a strange boy started coming to the group.
She was curious about him and why he came and just left.
One night she decided to follow him out and see where he came from.
When she followed him she was shocked to relize he was actually homeless and living on the streets stealing what he coould to eat.
As she got to know him better and as she tried to help him he became more comfortble with her and along with that became more comfortable with the group.
While he was at the group one night he admitted to the whole group about being homeless and stealling the food.
About his dad leaving him and his mom and him becoming homeless.
He admitted that he was trying to get a job but it was really hard because he didnt have a physical address.
He left the group upset because he was afraid of what they would think.
But at the door one of the boys from the group met him and invited him to move into his basement.
Now with the help of the group and a phyiscal address he was able to get a job and turn his life around.
We are the body of christ but oftentimes I feel like we have amputated the legs and arms of the body and all thats left is a mouth.
Why do we think it is ok to sit and bask in all his blessings and do nothing.
Do you realize how much God sacrificed to show his love for you.
Alot of you have kids grown up or still a child.
Just think about this for a minute
When they drove the nails through Jesus's hands they drove the nails straight through Gods heart.
Could you imagine sitting there and watching your child who did nothing wrong deal with the unbearable pain that Jesus dealt with.
Thats how much he loves you that he was willing to allow his own son to go through hours of miserable unbearable pain.
That being said do we love like Jesus has called us.
He calls for unconditional love for anyone at anytime.
We are called to love our enemies as ourself but do we do that.
1 corinthians 13 tells us that love is of a higher power then spiritual gifts.
people need our love for their physical and their spiritual needs
Christians without love are useless.
So maybe you are here today and you havent been the friend you needed to be to someone. You havent loved them the way you should have.
whether it be the spiritual or physical need of a friend or family member real love cares to much to let your friend or family member make a terrible decision without saying something.
Real love cares to much to not tell someone the truth about the gospel.
Real love is Jesus
Are you being love like Jesus is love.
