Where Is The Love

“Where Is The Love?”

Mark 12:28-33 / I Corinthians 13:2-8, 13

I) Introduction

a) We as people of God, lack effective change and

progress

b) Caused by a lack of proper implementation of LOVE

c) There is no lack of love, rather a misdirection of

love

d) Story background;

1) Jesus is in Jerusalem discussing resurrection with

the Sadducees (a group of Jews who only believed

in the books of law.), when a teacher of the law

comes along, and asks Jesus, out of all of the

commandments, which is most important. Jesus

responds with what is known as the “Shema”

prayer; which every Israelite prays 2x a day.

“Hear O’ Israel! The Lord our God is Lord

alone.” “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God

with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with

all thy might.

2) He is doing this, no doubt, to show revelation and

knowledge

3) Then Jesus adds a second command: “you shall

love thy neighbor as yourself.” In effect he

makes the “first” commandment, or Greatest

commandment into a dual commandment.

(“there is no greater commandment than these

e) Even Paul wrote to the Church at Corinth re: the

importance of love (I Cor 13:2-8, 13)

1) Love is greater than gifts & even faith

2) If it’s impossible to please God w/o faith, and Paul

says love is even more important than faith,

then it might be safe to say w/o love it is

impossible to please God.

3) Verse 13; After everything is said and done, all

that will remain is faith, hope and love, and the

greatest of these is love

II) What is love

1) Think back to dating and figuring out each others definition of love

2) Paul says love is (I Cor 13:4-8)

3) The Apostle John says in I John 4:8 “for God is

Love

4) *** Repeat I Cor 13:4-8 substituting Love for God ***

5) Paul was defining a specific kind of love…

6) There are four types of Love (Storge, Phileo, Eros

and Agape)

III) Storge Love (Think Storke)

a) Family Love (parent->child)

b) Blood thicker than water concept

c) Is instinctual (unless distorted)

d) Built on relation

IV) Phileo Love (Think Philadelphia – “City of Brotherly Love”)

a) Brotherly Love

b) Commraderie (Friends)

c) Instinctual

d) Built on relation

V) Eros Love (Think Erotic)

a) Sexual / Physical love

b) Lust / Infactuation

c) Not always bad (made by God, perverted by man)

d) Intended & permissible between a man and woman

married to each other

e) Instinctual

f) Non-relational based (though it should be)

VI) Agape Love (Unconditional) The Love of God

a) Perfect and consistent

b) Reaches those you know personally (friends), and

your enemies as well (Romans 5:6-8)

c) The perfect model (John 3:16)

d) If God is love & we are created in his image, then

that means our true nature is to be love and we

need to start being ourselves…

e) we have to stop mixing up loves, it is causing a break

down in structure.