Galatians 5:22-23
On June 25, 1967 television reached an historic milestone. The first live, worldwide satellite
broadcast took place, a two-hour special filled with musicians and other
artists. Closing the show was the
Beatles, singing All You Need Is Love,
which would reach number one a few weeks later. As much as I love the song and appreciate the sentiment, I
can’t really agree. Love doesn’t
pay the electric bill or the mortgage.
I don’t think it would work if, at the grocery, I told the clerk at the
checkout that I would offer a hug and some love in lieu of payment. Some couples are disillusioned when
they discover that in spite of their great love for one another, life’s mundane
matters and pressures are a reality.
We don’t live on that wonderful cloud of romantic love all the time, do
we?
But love is undoubtedly the most powerful force in our lives. It is the
subject of numerous movies and countless songs. It has inspired artists and authors since the beginning of
time. We all long for it, and
sometimes we find it, thankfully.
As we conclude our series of messages on the Fruits of the Spirit, we come to the first one in the list, that I
have left for last – love.
As I began this message I have to confess that my first thought was what is there left to say about love? Well, there’s a lot actually. In our larger culture love is seen most
often through the lens of romantic love.
That’s a wonderful gift, certainly, but there is more to love than just
romance. I want to try and briefly
cover some of the most fundamental definitions about love from a Scriptural
perspective.
1. Love is the greatest value – Matthew 22:33-40
33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished
at his teaching.
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
the Pharisees got together.
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him
with this question:
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in
the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments.”
I
continue to be amazed at the media attention Pope Francis attracts, and the
reasons why he attracts the attention.
His call to a greater expression of love to people, avoiding becoming
entangled in theological disputes, or being defined by what the church would
oppose draws a lot of attention.
What he has done is to call for a greater expression of love. And that becomes, literally, front-page
news. Imagine that.
We
all know this passage from Matthew.
It’s one of the foundational passages of the gospel. Perhaps we’ve heard it so many times
that we lose the impact of Jesus’ words.
The Pharisees and Sadducees, in their swollen sense of importance and
pride, come to Jesus and, in essence, challenge him to declare that laws and
rules are the supreme value to a life of faith. Jesus turns the conversation into a challenge not just to
the Pharisees and Sadducees, but to every person who adopts a life of
faith. Never forget, he says, that
the supreme value of faith is that of love. Nothing supersedes love. Nothing.
Some people see Christianity as a system of
beliefs and regulations about behavior.
There are, certainly, particular beliefs that belong to our faith, and
there are standards of behavior, but there is one primary regulation, one
supreme law, and it is love.
While some people want to make faith about laws
and regulations, we must remember that doing so creates legalism, where people
want to dictate how we should think and how we should behave, but there is only
one law, and it is love.
2.
Love is not reciprocal.
Matthew 5:43 – 47.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your
neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of your Father in
heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on
the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will
you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
47 And if you greet only your own people, what are
you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
If we think about it, most of the people we
love are people who love us.
That’s just natural, isn’t it?
And it is certainly love when we love someone who loves us. But the kind of love of which Jesus
speaks, what we call agape love – the
kind of love expressed by God – is not dependent upon whether or not someone
loves us in return. It is not a
transaction – you do something for me,
and I’ll do something for you.
It’s easy, most of the time, to love those who
love us. Another person may
occasionally irritate us, but we love them and they love us, so we don’t worry
about it. But how do you love
someone who doesn’t love you in return?
Jesus says this is one of the most defining qualities of the kind of love
he advocates – love others whether or not they love you in return.
At the Last Supper Jesus demonstrates this so
powerfully. There he was in a room
with his disciples, a group composed of those about to do one of three things –
deny him, betray him, or desert him.
What did he do, in spite of his knowledge of what was to come? He takes a bowl of water and washes
their feet in an act of love and service.
Their love was shaky or missing, but Jesus loved them in return.
3.
Love is challenging – I Corinthians 13:4-8.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy,
it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It does not dishonor others, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with
the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
I have done a lot of weddings over the course
of my ministry. At many of those
weddings I have read I Corinthians 13, which is such a powerful and eloquent
statement on love that we call it, simply, the love chapter. At the heart of that chapter we read
these words – 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 (I Corinthians
13:4-8a).
Imagine using those words as a template for
everything we say and do in life.
Imagine the difference it would make in our lives and in the lives of
others. Imagine the hurts that
would be erased. Imagine the
healing that would take place in relationships. Imagine the heavy burdens that would be lifted.
But notice the challenge in those words. The good news is that love is the
supreme law, but here’s the difficult news – sometimes love is really, really
tough. Love is tough because as
people sometimes we can be difficult to love. And sometimes we don’t always agree, we don’t always have
the same perspective. We have
values and beliefs that clash and all of these differences test love.
Love is challenging. Love isn’t for wimps.
For all the beauty and wonder of love, love is tough. Love is the single greatest challenge
in our lives. Love will challenge
us to forgive in spite of our hurts.
Love will challenge us to reach across the divide of hurt and heal a
broken relationship. Love will
challenge us to embrace a wayward child or an indifferent parent. Love will ask of us what we don’t
believe we can do, but the power of love will challenge us to do so.
We talk about falling in love, and we do fall
in love. But agape love is not
automatic, it is a practiced love.
4. Love is visible – I John 4:19-21.
19 We love because
he first loved us.
20 Whoever claims
to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they
have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
21 And he has given
us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
You can’t fake love.
It is so tempting to want to sort people into
so many categories and then determine which groups we will love and which ones
we will not love. As the people of
God, that is not our option.
It is so sad to see churches deciding they will
be the gatekeepers of God’s kingdom, sorting and picking and choosing who they
will deem worthy of love. Jesus
railed against such an attitude, and it was his acceptance of all people and
his unfailing love for all people that brought him into conflict with, of all
people, religious people.
Everything, Jesus says, hangs on love. Everything Jesus said goes back to
love; everything he did was based on love.
Paul says that love never fails. I believe that. I have witnessed a lot of heartbreak
because of people failing love. I
don’t think there is a person here who hasn’t felt the heartbreak of someone
failing love. And one of the great
tragedies that occurs when people fail love is the scars that are created -
scars that cause people to pull back from one another and create a failure to
trust and create an atmosphere of hurt and bitterness.
We may fail love, but love itself never fails. Love calls us ever higher. Love calls us to live with grace rather
than judgment, love calls us to forgiveness rather than bitterness, it calls us
to move beyond hatred, it calls us to go places we would not ordinarily go, it
calls us to people we would normally shun, and it asks of us what we sometimes
feel we cannot do; but love will still ask of us all those things and more.
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