Sermon to Market Street Residences an ALF in Tarpon Springs, Fl (Keep in mind as you read this sermon it is for those who have dementia or other memory disorders)November 3 2019
A sermon on love
Prayer
Welcome to worship at market Street where we are the church. Why do I say we are the church? Because those of us who believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of the living God have God’s Holy Spirit living in us and that means we are the center of worship or better yet we are the worship center. Our bodies are the temple of the living God. The worship center is not the church building next door to us it is us.
So because we have this gift from God that is God’s Holy Spirit living in us we are comforted and consoled when we need comfort and convicted when we do something outside of God’s will.
There are many benefits of having God’s Spirit living in us, because not only are we the church (the temple of God), Not only does He comfort us, console us, pray for us and convict us, He testifies to our spirit that we are God’s child. We are privileged because we are called the children of God.
When we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God and we have God’s Spirit living in us guess what Happens?
We begin to bear fruit because the fruits of the Spirit who lives in us are: Love, Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control.
Today I want to talk about the first fruit we gain through the Holy Spirit. The fruit of LOVE and share with you some love stories
Do you like love stories?
You see a real love story is about sacrifice, it is about caring and of course it is about serving.
The first love story I want to share comes from a short story by O. Henry written in 1905. It is a story about Jim and Della Dillingham. They were very poor; Jim made $20 per week and at end the end of every week there was more bills to be paid then money to pay them.
Read this part of “The gift of the Magi by O. Henry
Della Jim’s wife knows Christmas is coming and she tries to save every penny she can to by her beloved Jim a special Christmas gift. Jim and Della each owned something they treasured for Jim it was a gold pocket watch owned by his grandfather and his father. He so would love a silver or gold chain as a watch fob to hold his watch, but that was a luxury Jim never dreamed he would have. They had to meet the basic needs of living as poor people. Della’s treasure was her long beautiful hair. The only shopping Della could do other than for food was “window shopping” and one of the stores had beautiful hair combs on display. She knew it would never be more than a dream
Christmas Eve arrives and Della is in the kitchen counting the pennies she had saved for months all total it was $1.50. She goes shopping and soon realizes a $1.50 is not going to buy a very special gift. But sure enough as she window shops she sees a silver chain of silver rings a perfect fob for Jim’s treasured pocket watch. Problem is she is $20 short of cash. As she walked along she spotted Madam Sofronies the sign read” meeting all of you hair needs”. She ran up the steps and asked “do you buy hair?” “We do”, Madam Sofronie said, let me take a look at it. She bought Della’s hair to make a wig for $20. Della ran back to the jeweler and bought the silver chain watch fob and turned over $21.50.
She races home anxiously for Jim to come through the door, she does what she can to fix her hair but no matter how hard she tries- she looks like a school boy. Jim is running a little late because he also wanted to get Della a special Christmas gift-that is how much they loved each other.
The door opened and Jim stepped in. He looked thin and very serious. Poor man, he was only twenty-two and he had to care for a wife. He needed a new coat and gloves to keep his hands warm.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a dog smelling a bird. His eyes were fixed upon Della. There was an expression in them that she could not read, and it frightened her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor fear, nor any of the feelings that she had been prepared for. He simply looked at her with a strange expression on his face. Della went to him.
"Jim, my love," she cried, "do not look at me that way. I had my hair cut and sold because I could not have lived through Christmas without giving you a gift. My hair will grow out again. I just had to do it. My hair grows very fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let us be happy. You do not know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I have for you."
"You have cut off your hair?" asked Jim, slowly, as if he had not accepted the information even after his mind worked very hard.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Do you not like me just as well? I am the same person without my hair, right?
Jim looked about the room as if he were looking for something.
"You say your hair is gone?" he asked.
Jim seemed to awaken quickly and put his arms around Della. Then he took a package from his coat and threw it on the table.
"Do not make any mistake about me, Dell," he said. "I do not think there is any haircut that could make me like my girl any less. But if you will open that package you may see why you had me frightened at first."
White fingers quickly tore at the string and paper. There was a scream of joy; and then, alas! a change to tears and cries, requiring the man of the house to use all his skill to calm his wife.
For there were the combs -- the special set of objects to hold her hair that Della had wanted ever since she saw them in a shop window. Beautiful combs, made of shells, with jewels at the edge --just the color to wear in the beautiful hair that was no longer hers. They cost a lot of money, she knew, and her heart had wanted them without ever hoping to have them. And now, the beautiful combs were hers, but the hair that should have touched them was gone.
But she held the combs to herself, and soon she was able to look up with a smile and say, "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
Then Della jumped up like a little burned cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful gift. She happily held it out to him in her open hands. The silver chain seemed so bright.
"Isn't it wonderful, Jim? I looked all over town to find it. You will have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim fell on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let us put our Christmas gifts away and keep them a while. They are too nice to use just right now. I sold my gold watch to get the money to buy the set of combs for your hair. And now, why not put the meat on."
Now this a love story isn’t it? Selfless love one for the other.
But guess what in this book I am holding, in this book is told the greatest love story of all time.
It is a story about our God, a God who sent His one and only son straight from heaven to earth to teach us for a little while, and then to be mistreated and mocked and nailed to a cross. It is God’s son Jesus who paid the penalty for our sins at His own expense. Who does that? I will tell you who a God who loves you and me.
Jesus gave us the greatest commandment and that was to love the Lord our God will all our heart, mind and strength. The second commandment He gave us is like the first we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
I would like to close with a little bit of Scripture before we close today’s meeting with a song.
1 Corinthians 13
13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body [a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 [b]bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails;
Let’s pray
The context of the love story was taken from a short story "The Gift of the Magi" written in 1905. Henry, O., and Henry Morris. The Gift of the Magi: An O. Henry Gift from Henry. The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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Title: The Gift of the Magi
Author: O. Henry
Posting Date: December 17, 2011 [EBook #7256]
Release Date: January, 2005
[Last updated: April 5, 2015]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by Susan Ritchie. HTML version by Jose Menendez.
Scripture taken from the NASB
NASB copyright 1960 by Word Publishing, Grand Rapids MI 49418
