The Way To Know God Series

[PLAY VIDEO “LOVE IS EPISODE 3]

-first off, let me say “Happy Father’s Day.”

-for this entire month we are taking a look at I Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Unfortunately, most people don’t really read it anymore. We know the good part, the one we hear at weddings. And because of that we’ve kind of downgraded it to be a passage that only applies to couples starting out in marriage. Even those who have been married a while, doesn’t matter, they’re done being patient and kind.

-but this chapter wasn’t meant for that. It was meant to be a guide for all people as to how to treat each other.

-for the first week we took a look at how love is the language of God. How what we do doesn’t matter nearly as much as how we do it. If it’s a hollow act, it means nothing. But if it is from the heart, if it is done in love, it means everything.

-then last week we talked about how love means putting others first. In reality, it is impossible to truly love someone while still looking out for your own interests. You have to put yourself down a peg and lift them up.

-today, on Father’s Day, we look at our heavenly Father. How understanding love and loving others is the only true way to know God.

-our section in the Love Chapter continues:

**I Cor. 13:8-10 -> 8All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end, but love goes on forever. Someday prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge—these gifts will disappear. 9Now we know so little, even with our special gifts, and the preaching of those most gifted is still so poor. 10But when we have been made perfect and complete, then the need for these inadequate special gifts will come to an end, and they will disappear. (LB)

-if I had to sum up that section in one line, it’d be seek the Giver not the gift.

-it just reminds me that we know so little about God. Paul’s saying that even with the Bible, with prophecy, with God speaking directly to us, we still know so little about God. When we know God fully, we won’t need those gifts. We need them because really, we know so very little about the Person who is giving them to us.

-so that makes me wonder, how can we really know God? What else can we do to grow in our knowledge of who He is and what He wants for us?

-and that’s where we come back to our part of the series for today. Love is one of the ways we can know more about God. Simply because:

1. LOVE IS WHO GOD IS

-if you want to know more about someone, you learn about the things that made them into the person they are.

-so let’s take me. If you wanted to know more about me and you couldn’t talk directly to me, well, you could start by learning about the culture where I grew up. If you were to find out stuff about Canada, you’d probably learn a little about me and things would make more sense. One example I saw last month when I visited my sister. About half of all that’s on TV in Canada is hockey or the Simpsons. Tell me, do you see it?

-so to learn about God, where would you turn? One place would be to learn about love.

**I John 4:8b -> 8God is love—so you can’t know Him if you don’t love. (MSG)

-God is love. It’s that simple. If you want to know more about God, you learn more about love.

**I John 4:16 -> 16We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (NLT)

-learn about love. If you are loving someone, if you are treating them as better than yourself, if you are in some way showing love to someone else, you are learning about God.

-C.S. Lewis’ book The Last Battle talked about this. It sounds like it may never be made into a movie, but I hope it does, it’s a good one. But at the end of the book, Aslan, the Jesus-figure, is talking with a Calormene, the people trying to take over Narnia. And this Calormene can’t understand why Aslan is talking to him since he never believed in Aslan, but the evil Tash. And Aslan talks to the boy and tells him how his good acts, his acts of love taught him about Aslan. He says basically you can’t do evil and attribute it to Aslan any more than you can do good and attribute it to Tash.