OPEN: A visiting Revivalist was impressed by an older couple in the church where he was holding Revival. The wife seemed to be half-turned toward her husband holding both his hands in hers. Every time he looked toward them he was impressed by the fact they were holding hands.
After the service and remarked, “You 2 are an inspiration. Acting like teenagers in love! You even held hands all through the service.”
The wife, with an exasperated look, retorted, “That’s not love, preacher. It’s the only way I can keep him from cracking his knuckles.”
APPLY: The wife had declared… “That’s not love…”
I. (pause…) Well… what is love?
ILLUS: Years ago, there was a woman named Helen Keller. She had completely lost her sight as a child because her doctor had given her wrong medication. Just 3 months shy of her 7th birthday, she met a woman that changed her life - a teacher named Ann Sullivan.
Helen tells about their 1st meeting:
“The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll… When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word, D-O-L-L. I was excited when I finally spelled the word myself. And I ran downstairs to show my mother.”
Several days later, Miss Sullivan spilled cold water onto Helen’s hand and THEN spelled out the word W-A-T-E-R. In this way, Helen Keller learned to spell 100s of words.
Then one day Sullivan spelled out the word LOVE in Helen’s hand. Perplexed, Helen spelled back “W-H-A-T I-S L-O-V-E?”
You’d think that as much as people SENSE the need of being loved and TALK about being in love, that there would be an “easy” definition of what love is.
(pause) But apparently there isn’t.
ILLUS: Some time back, there was a book written based upon an extensive study of the topic of love in psychiatry and psychology, and the authors wrote that “in spite of a few remarkable contributions, we can definitely state that love has NOT been the object of much psychological or psychiatric research.
Most of what we know about it comes either from our limited private experiences or from the insights that poets, novelists, playwrights, and artists...
With rare exceptions, in the indexes of most psycho-analytic, psychiatric, and psychological books and textbooks we do not find an entry for the word love.
And even such important cultural media as the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Columbia Encyclopedia has no articles about this subject.”
Why? Why would love be so hard to define?
I believe it is because the psychiatric world wasn’t looking at love as an “objective reality” that could be measured. It was looking at love and seeing an emotion. It was seeing it as a subjective experience that came in different ways to different people. Thus (I suspect) since they couldn’t measure love empirically, they found it hard to study and hard to explain scientifically.
II. And yet God apparently believes that love can be understood, because God made LOVE the law of His Kingdom
James wrote: “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well” (James 2:8)
John wrote: “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.” (1 John 3:11)
Paul wrote: “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.” (Romans 13:8)
Peter wrote: “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22)
And, of course Jesus said “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:9-12)
And so God commands us to LOVE.
God believes love is definable and measurable and that it can be understood and obeyed.
(pause…) But if God believes this…why would worldly disciplines like psychology and psychiatry have such a difficult time explaining Love?
I suspect there are a couple of reasons:
1st – I don’t believe they think about love the same way God does. To them love is a warm fuzzy feeling you get when you look at a certain someone… a physical attraction for a person or an animal or an object.
AND indeed, a couple yrs ago Scientists showed several people pictures of their loved ones while charting their brain waves with an MRI - and they discovered 4 different parts of the brain literally lit up the screen.
But they were still studying the effects of the “emotion” of love
God has an entirely different concept of love. To God love is not so much something that happens to us. It’s not something that we experience. Love is something we DO.
John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world, that he (what?) He GAVE his only begotten Son…”
When God loved us He got involved with us. He DID something. He didn’t talk about love. He did love.
And that is what He asks of us.
John wrote: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence” (1 John 3:16-19)
When God commands love He is not commanding an emotion. He is not commanding us to have a warm fuzzy feeling towards one another.
He’s commanding an action.
When we read that famous passage about love from I Corinthians 13 we’re not being told about the “emotion” of love. We’re being told what love DOES and DOESN’T do.
“Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails."
These are NOT descriptions of an emotion. These are descriptions and measurements of what love really looks like. And I believe that’s why disciplines like psychiatry and psychology have trouble defining love. They’re focused on emotions… God focuses on actions and deeds.
Now, you might suspect that I’m ridiculing the disciplines of psychiatry and psychology. I’m really not. These sciences are looking at love as they look at many human behaviors. They’re looking at what people experience and what they do naturally.
And that is the 2nd reason I believe psychiatry and psychology have trouble defining love. They are trying to understand what people naturally do.
One author observed:
"Contrary to the sentiments expressed so often when we say ’I love you,’ love is NOT simply passion, affection, close ties, and friendship.
Love is more accurately described by words like unconditional and sacrificial.
They take us beyond a view of love as easy and natural.
True Love causes pain, and we by nature back away from pain.
Love requires sacrifice, and we by nature avoid such sacrifice.
Love demands unconditional commitment, and we by nature fear committing ourselves so completely.
Love exposes our fragile natures."
Marbury E. Anderson in James W. Cox, The Minister’s Manual: 1985, New York: Harper & Row, 1984, p. 149
LOOK AGAIN at Galatians 5:22 “But the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness”
In other words: Love is the fruit of God’s Spirit within me. It isn’t something that we do naturally. It is the result of God’s Spirit working within my heart and mind.
The Apostle John said it this way:
“Dear friends, let us love one another, FOR LOVE COMES FROM GOD. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
What that tells me is that God’s kind of love doesn’t generally come naturally to you and me. Love in its purest form comes from God. And without God’s kind of love in our lives, our own concept of love will be a pale echo of His.
So if true love doesn’t come naturally to us… what does? Colossians 3:1-10 tells us what is really “natural” for men and women. It goes thru a whole litany of sinful behaviors like anger, rage, malice and slander, and filthy language… and then it says “You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.”
III. The Bible teaches that even the nicest person has a selfish streak… just below the surface.
It’s kind of like the story I read about a zoo that housed a lion and a monkey in the same cage. A visitor marveled at this and asked “How do they get along?”
The zookeeper responded “Well, usually ok… but occasionally they have a disagreement and then we have to get a new monkey.”
What was that zookeeper saying? He was saying that things were generally going to be ok until that lion began acting like a lion.
Common sense tells us unless lions can be made to stop acting like lions
* that zoo was either going to need a good supply new monkeys
* or they’d have to stop putting those monkeys in the cage with the lions.
And the Bible tells us, that UNLESS the Spirit of God guides us in our lives
Unless He continually teaches us to love one another we will revert to our old selfish, self-centered nature. The lion going to come out and somebody’s going to get hurt.
ILLUS: Now, I personally like to think of myself as a pretty nice guy. How many of you think of me as a “nice guy?” Yeah. I’m easy going. Easy to get along with. I’d generally give you the shirt off my back… BUT NOT the food off my plate.
My wife discovered this shortly after we were married. She playfully reached over with her fork and took some food off my plate. I was not happy about that. I didn’t like the idea of sharing my food with anybody – even the woman that I married – the woman I had said I wanted to share my whole life with. I was willing to share just about everything with her… except the food on my plate.
I didn’t growl at her. I didn’t snap at her. I just got edgy and irritable. I became “unpleasant” Why? Because - just beneath the surface – I’m just as selfish as the next guy.
God says we are ALL selfish… just beneath the surface.
And so the Bible repeatedly tells us again and again and again… “Love one another”
IV. But God doesn’t just “tell us” to love one another He gives us His Spirit to help us learn how to love His way.
Galatians tells us that love is part of the fruit of having God’s Spirit within us.
When you and I became Christians we formed a “contract” or a covenant with God.
Our part of the contract was
1. Believing that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
2. We acknowledged that we were sinners and we wanted to repent of our past and start living for God.
3. We confessed that Jesus was now going to be our Lord and Master of our lives
4. And we were buried in the waters of baptism and rose up to live a new life.
That was how we “signed” our part of the contract with God.
Then God “signed” the contract by putting His Spirit inside our hearts. The Bible tells us part of the Spirit’s job is to “mark us” as belonging to Christ.
When you see a married man or woman, you’ll often see a wedding ring on their finger. It’s usually a beautiful ring and it has one significant purpose. It marks the person who wears it as “belonging” to someone. So also, the Spirit’s presence in our lives “marks” us as belonging to Jesus.
BUT the Spirit also has another function. He doesn’t just sit dormant in our hearts like a pretty knick knack on the shelf. Noooo… when the Spirit comes into our lives He becomes actively involved in our walk with Christ.
1. He helps us when we pray
2. He helps us to understand God
3. He comforts us when we’re distressed and discouraged
And He also does something else… He convicts us of sin.
Jesus said: “… It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: John 16:7-8
In other words… part of the Spirit’s job is to - occasionally - make us uncomfortable. His job is to remind you and me when we’re not reflecting God’s love in our lives.
But there is a caveat… there is a condition. Paul tells us that in order for the Spirit for do His job properly we NEED to: “…Walk in the Spirit...” (Galatians 5:16)
What does that mean? What does it mean to “walk in the Spirit?
It means we have to consciously spend time in God’s presence. We need to continually walk in His Spirit. That means spending time in prayer/ Bible Study/ worship. It means spending so much time with God that you and I learn how He thinks learn what pleases Him and because we spend so much time with Him we begin to start copying Him in how we treat others. We begin to “think” like Him/ and we begin to “act” like Him
When we walk close to God… when we deliberately seek to walk in His Spirit… then we can learn God’s kind of Love. His kind of love is different than what the world is used to because God’s kind of love is something you give… not something you receive.
CLOSE: Dale Galloway wrote a book called “Dream a New Dream” and he told this story:
Little Chad was a shy, quiet young fella. One day he came home and told his mother, he’d like to make a valentine for everyone in his class. Her heart sank.
She thought, “I wish he wouldn’t do that!” because she had watched the children when they walked home from school. Her Chad was always behind them. They laughed and hung on to each other and talked to each other. But Chad was never included. Nevertheless, she decided she would go along with her son. So she purchased the paper and glue and crayons. For three whole weeks, night after night, Chad painstakingly made thirty-five valentines.
Valentine’s Day dawned, and Chad was beside himself with excitement! He carefully stacked them up, put them in a bag, and bolted out the door. His mom decided to bake him his favorite cookies and serve them up warm and nice with a cool glass of milk when he came home from school. She just knew he would be disappointed -- maybe that would ease the pain a little. It hurt her to think that he wouldn’t get many valentines -- maybe none at all.
That afternoon she had the cookies and milk on the table. When she heard the children outside she looked out the window. Sure enough here they came, laughing and having the best time. And, as always, there was Chad in the rear. He walked a little faster than usual. She fully expected him to burst into tears as soon as he got inside. His arms were empty, she noticed, and when the door opened she choked back the tears.
“Mommy has some warm cookies and milk for you.”
But he hardly heard her words. He just marched right on by, his face aglow, and all he could say was: “Not a one -- not a one.”
Her heart sank.
And then he added, “I didn’t forget a one, not a single one!”
God’s kind of love is when we learn to focus less on “getting love” and learn to give it away.
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
The Unknown Quality of Love = Galatians 5:22-5:25
Plugging the Leak in your Joy = Galatians 5:22-5:25
The Prescription for Powerful Peace = Philippians 4:1-4:9
The Puzzle of Powerful Patience = Galatians 5:13-5:26
God’s Idea of Kindness = Luke 6:25-6:42
The Tree Of Goodness = Galatians 5:22-5:23
Getting A Booster Shot Of Faith = Galatians 5:22-5:23
