What Love Does

April 12, 2015

Morning Worship

Text: John 13:34-35

Subject: Love

Title: What Love Does

I’ve been talking to you for a little while now about love. Love is a subject that has stirred the interest of mankind from the beginning of time really. There have literally been hundreds of thousands of songs written about love and as many novels… not to mention how many movies have at least an underlying theme of a love story. Let’s face it – love has been and will continue to be a hot topic.

Elvis – Love me Tender – 1956

The Supremes – Stop in the Name of Love – 1965

Huey Lewis – The Power of Love – 1985

Not to mention country songs…

One of the classic country songs is,

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places…

And that title leads us to where we want to be today. The general perception of the world is that love is an emotion to be felt rather than a lifestyle to be lived.

John 13:34-35 (NKJV)

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

I believe this is God’s word…

I believe it is for me..

I accept it as mine…

I appropriate it to my life today…

We have to begin today then by trying to find out what love is and what it isn’t. The world’s definition of love is that strong emotional feelings that we might have for another person. Love is not an emotion but true love will stir the emotions.

We have to go to the bible to understand what true love really is. A couple of weeks ago I told you that in classic Greek literature there are four words that are translated love. Of those four words three of them are used in the New Testament. “Phileo” love – theaffectionate love you have for others; “thelo” love a fondness or desire for or to delight in something; “agape” love or the unconditional kind of love that God has for everyone. The word “love” is used 175 times in the New Testament not counting the times “loved” is used. Of those 175, 155 times the word “agape” is used. 19 times “phileo” is used, and only once the word “thelo” in Mark 12:38, And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and [love] salutations in the marketplaces…

Every time the word of God in the NT talks about God’s love for you, your love for God, or your love for one another the Holy Spirit used the word “Agape”.

Now for us to understand what is required for you to love the way God loves we have to understand the way that God loves…

John 3:16 (NKJV)

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Did you ever do anything that was good enough to earn God’s love?

Was there anything in you that made God love you?

No. God loved the world because that is who God is. Of all the different characteristics that we can understand of God through the scriptures the center of all of them is God’s love.

Is God faithful?

Is God just?

Is God holy?

Is God powerful?

Is God consistent?

All of those things find their foundation in the loving nature of God.

1 John 4:16 (NKJV)

16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Going back to John 3:16 – what is the one thing that is the manifestation of God’s love for the whole world? HE GAVE… So if we are called to love one another as Christ has loved us how do we show that kind of love? We give… our time, our talent, our treasures… in reality we give everything we are to God and to one another. Can we do that? It’s easy for God, since that is his nature. But can a Christian love with the same kind of love that God loves with?

First of all we have to understand this principle. The Lord has never commanded anyone to do anything that He has not already empowered them to do.

Second, we have to understand this. Is the Holy Spirit living inside of you? Is the Holy Spirit God? If so then isn’t love living inside of you? If love is inside of you then the only thing that you have to do is allow love to flow out of you.