A New Kind of Love | Emotionally Healthy Spirituality - Part Four | Sunday Service

How many love what God's doing in our church?

Hey man.

Can we just do this for just a moment?

Um can we just take a moment and honor our lead pastor, Pastor Jeremy?

Will you just put your hands together for him?

How many of y'all love our shepherd?

Our leader.

God's doing amazing things in our church.

And um, Pastor Jeremy, we love you.

We thank you for your leadership.

We really do.

We love you.

We are in a series called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

How many of y'all have enjoyed this series?

Oh, let me ask.

How many have enjoyed this series?

There we go.

And uh what we're talking about is how our emotional life is connected to our spiritual life.

How many of those two are connected?

Amen.

Our emotions and how healthy we are spiritually are intricately connected.

And uh, so today we're bringing this series to a close.

Last week, Pastor Jeremy preached the house down and talked about rhythms and pace.

How many of that challenged you last week?

Rhythms and pace and just how we're living our life is connected to our emotions and our spiritual life.

So last week was all about rhythms and pace, and then today we're gonna talk about relationships today and how we love well.

Everybody say love well.

We're gonna talk about love today, relationships.

No, relationships are complicated.

That's the most profound thing I'm gonna say all day right there.

Just out the gate.

Relationships are complicated, and uh, so we're gonna look at them today.

Will you stand with me?

Stand with me for God's word.

1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

If you got your Bible, grab them.

Open to 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

We're gonna look at a familiar passage today.

We're gonna take this morning, we're gonna break this down.

As we really lean into how to really love the people that are around us every single day.

1 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 1.

1 Corinthians 13:1

We're gonna read for just a moment.

Here's what it says in verse 1 if I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.

Verse 2, if I had the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of God's secrets and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but I didn't love others, I would be nothing.

Verse three, if I gave everything I have to the poor, and I even sacrificed my body, and I gave everything away, and I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I would have and gained nothing.

Verse four, because love is patient and kind, and it's not jealous or boastful or proud, verse five, or rude.

It does not demand its own way, it's not irritable.

I love that one.

It keeps no record of wrong.

Verse six, it does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Verse seven, because love never gives up.

I'm gonna read that again because love never gives up.

And love never loses faith, it always is hopeful, endures in every circumstance.

In every circumstance.

Today I want to speak to us uh from the topic a new kind of love.

A new kind of love.

Just turn to somebody around you, say it's a new kind of love.

It's a new kind of love.

Let me pray.

Father, we thank you for today.

We thank you for God, you're moving in our hearts.

Father, I'm asking that when we leave here today, Father, we would be, God, covered in a new love.

Not our love, God, but your love.

And we would grow, God, emotionally and spiritually.

We ask all this in Jesus' mighty name.

Amen and amen.

You may be seated.

If my mic is messing up here.

There we go.

Okay.

If I threw out the idea of love and the definition of love, we would all have different answers.

We would all have a different measurement for what love is.

Love is talked about every single day, but I think that love is one of the most misunderstood words in our English language.

If I asked us all what does it mean, we would all have a different answer.

We would all have a different view on it.

This week I was reading an article, and the article asked kids ages four to eight years old, what does love mean?

What does love mean to a four through eight-year-old?

How many of them?

That's a wide range of answers.

And here's what some of them are.

I want you to see some of this because I thought it was, I thought it was pretty funny.

Um, Chrissy, age six, says, love is when you go out to eat and you give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.

That's love right there.

I'm gonna admit I'm 15 years into marriage and I hadn't learned that yet.

Amen.

All right, here we go.

Uh Harper, H5 says this if you love somebody, you share your snacks, but it better not be the good ones.

Don't you even think about them good ones.

Mason, h6, says, love is what makes mom and dad kiss all the time.

Gross.

Mom and dads, I'm just gonna encourage you to keep grossing at your kids.

Come on.

That's a sign of a healthy marriage, right there.

All right, let's go to the next one.

Uh Ava said, if you really love someone, you let them have the remote even when they pick boring shows.

This was not intended to be a marriage message, but I feel like it could go there pretty quick.

And then lastly, Cooper H6, he says, Love is when my dog protects me from the UPS man.

That's pretty good.

We all have different definitions of love and what love is, but here's what I do know if we're going to live emotionally healthy lives that connect with our spiritual lives, our definition of love has to be God's definition of love.

It cannot be our own definition of love.

Because we all have a definition of love that, if we were really honest, is probably contrary to what God's definition of love is.

So we're gonna look at that this morning.

Before we really get into the heart of the message, I I want to look back at 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Because 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is the love chapter, but the word for love is a profound word.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

It is deep, it is meaningful, it's significant, and it's a word that is found all throughout the New Testament.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, when we read it, here's what has happened is we automatically think of romantic love.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Right?

We think of wedding love.

Come on, 1 Corinthians 13 is the most wedding-quoted scripture in the whole world.

Right?

We think of romance and we think of wedding, and and and we think of a Netflix rom-com show, and we think of a Hallmark movie that ends with all of the feels.

Come on, somebody.

Right?

But that's not the kind of love that 1 Corinthians 13 talks about.

1 Corinthians 13 is all about a God kind of love.

Everybody say a God kind of love.

It's the agape love of God, and it carries different meaning.

It's significant, it's weighty.

And I want to just define this for you because I want us to have a standard for what the definition, the biblical definition of God's love looks like.

Okay, agape love is the word that is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and here's what it means, okay?

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Agape is selfless, unconditional, sacrificial love that seeks the good of the other, regardless of their worthiness or response.

It's selfless unconditional, regardless of their worthiness or response.

And I want to show you this all throughout the New Testament, because whether we realize it or not, not only is that how we're supposed to respond to other people, that's how God has responded to us.

So we see this, and I'm just gonna give you a few instances in the New Testament in Romans chapter 5, verse 8.

Romans 5:8

It says, But God demonstrated his what?

His love.

The agape love of God for us while we were still sinners, Christ died.

That's a sacrificial love.

That's an unconditional love.

In 1 John chapter 4, verse 9.

1 John 4:9

Whoever does not love, that word love right there is agapeo, it's the verb tense, does not know God because God is what?

It's a different kind of love.

1 John chapter 4, verses 16 and 19, we know and we rely on the agape love of God that He has for us.

1 John 4:16

God is love.

Right?

Okay.

All I'm trying to get you to do is see that God's kind of love is a different kind of love.

It's different all together than what our culture has preached of what love is and what love should be.

And if we're going to be not just emotionally healthy, but spiritually healthy, we have to live out of this love.

This God-centered love.

So I want you to write this down because the real test of emotional maturity is this.

Do people around me experience God's agape love through me?

Okay.

This is really where we're going this morning.

Do the people around me experience the agape love that God has in my life that flows through me for our friendships, for our marriages, for our coworkers, for our family?

Are they experiencing this type of love?

So this morning, I want us to look at the impact that emotionally healthy love can have on our life and in our relationships.

And this morning, I want to give you an acronym for love.

I want to give you an acronym that I think is going to help remind us of what love is.

And the L stands for love is the measure.

Everybody say love is the measure.

If we're not careful in Christian circles, we can have a wrong measure of what spiritual maturity looks like.

We can look at somebody on the outside that looks what we would deem as spiritually mature, but may not fully be living up to what God's definition of what maturity looks like.

And I want you to see this this morning.

Um there are in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 1 through 3, there are six descriptions that Paul gives us.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3

Okay?

And if we saw someone operating in these six things, we would automatically say, that person's mature.

Okay?

Let me let me let me read these to you.

Okay.

So here's what it says in verses one through through uh three.

Paul says this.

He says, You can speak in tongues.

You can prophesy, you can have faith that moves mountains.

How many of y'all want faith that moves mountains?

I want that, right?

You can understand mysteries.

How many of y'all have some mysteries that you would like to know?

Right?

Okay.

You give away all of your possessions.

You even sacrifice your body.

Okay?

But here's where Paul goes in verse 3, and he says this, but if I didn't love others, I would have gained what?

Nothing.

If I did all of those things, if I can prophesy the best, and I can speak in tongues, and I can have faith that moves mountains, and I can know all of the mysteries, if I have all of those things, but they're not covered in the agape love of God, then we've got things out of order.

And that's what Paul is trying to communicate here is that it really is the agape love of God that is the great foundation of our life.

And this is a different perspective.

Okay?

I I want you just to write this in your notes because I think this is critically important for us to know is that the most spiritual thing about you and me isn't our gifting, it's our love.

Don't throw stones at me in a Pentecostal church, okay?

I'm all about the gifts and I want the Spirit of God to move.

But if we are gifted, but we don't love people, and our gifts are not covered in the agape love of God, then are we operating fully in what God's called us to operate in?

Are you getting what I'm saying this morning?

So Paul says, you can do all of those things, but if love is not the foundation, then we've got it wrong.

Okay, and I love the sequence of 1 Corinthians chapter 12, 13 and 14.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Because in chapter 12, he breaks down all of the gifts.

And he has this beautiful description of what the gifts are and how they operate.

And we've taught on those here.

Last summer we did a full teaching on all of those.

So you got in 1 Corinthians 12, the gifts of the Spirit.

He talks about the body of Christ and how everybody has a role.

And then he gets to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and it's all about love.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

And he's talking about how love should be our motivation and love should be the foundation of our life.

And then chapter 14 rolls around and he addresses speaking in tongues and prophecy, and he comes back into the gifts.

And it's three beautiful chapters, right?

So here's what happens is you have chapters 12, you have chapters 13, and then you have chapters 14.

And if we're not careful, here's what happens.

Okay.

There is a light going crazy right here.

Is that the light?

Okay.

I just want to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

All right.

I want you to see this.

Try not to get distracted.

1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 1.

1 Corinthians 14:1

Okay, I want you to see this.

Because if we're not careful, we read over the spiritual gifts.

We get to 14, chapter 14, and we celebrate the gifts, but we miss verse 1.

Okay, let me read you verse 1.

Here's what uh 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 1 is.

1 Corinthians 14:1

All right.

I think it's gonna be on the screen.

It says, verse 1, let love be your highest goal.

Can we give Kevin Keeter a hand?

Come on.

Thank you, my friend.

I was my ADD was really starting to kick in there.

Okay.

I was really pushing ahead, but that was really tough.

Okay.

I feel like I can breathe now.

1 Corinthians chapter 14.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

All right, here we go.

So we get to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 1, and I want you to see this.

1 Corinthians 14:1

Because the entire entire chapter of chapter 14 is all about the gifts.

But if you miss verse 1, you miss it all.

Because here's what he says let love be the highest goal.

Don't skip past this.

Let love be your highest goal.

What's the highest goal?

It's love.

Let everything that we do be done in love.

So the ultimate measure of maturity is not really how much you know about God, it's how well you love people.

That's the ultimate measure of maturity.

It's how well are we loving people.

So love is the measure.

Oh, oh stands for if you take a note, so I want you to write this down.

Order matters.

Everybody say order matters.

Um, let me just ask you this.

Have you ever been uh trying to put something together and um you you thought you could do it without the instructions?

Come on.

Have you ever started piecing something together and you started out following the instructions and then ditched the instructions?

Come on.

Let me ask a more accusational question.

How many of y'all are just I'll look at the picture on the box type of people?

Okay, I'm raising my wife just pointed at me.

I'm raising my hand.

Okay.

A couple years ago, the kids got a basketball goal for Christmas.

And um I'm putting it together uh and I open it up, I open the box, and the instructions fall out, and the instructions are as thick as the Bible.

And I was like, this is just not gonna be good.

So I got about two hours in and to about page 13 of the instructions, and I was like, This is I'm I'm doing it my way.

So I just went.

Off the picture of the box.

That was not a good move.

That was not a good move.

It what it ended up doing, it ended up costing me more time on the backside because I did it all wrong.

And I had to go back and fix everything.

Because order matters.

And when it comes to love in our life, if we're going to be emotionally and spiritually mature, the love that we have in our life has an order to it.

There's a correct order to how we love well in our life.

And I want you to see this.

It's in Matthew chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

I want to take a moment and I want to look at the life of Jesus because he shows us so beautifully how we are to love well.

In Matthew chapter 22, verse 34, he's talking to the Pharisees, and we'll talk about that here in just a moment.

Matthew 22:34

But he says, This, hearing that Jesus silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together, and one of them, an expert in the law, tested him with the question, verse 36, teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

Verse 37.

Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and the greatest commandment.

Verse 39.

Verse 40, the entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two things.

Jesus outlines the order of our love, and it's just simply this.

We first love God and then we love people.

Everybody say this, say I love God, and then I love people.

And it's in that order.

If I first don't have a right relationship with the Lord.

This is crucial.

This is vitally important for you to understand that your love for people will always be limited if your love for God is not right.

Okay?

And I want you to understand, I write this in your notes.

Emotional maturity is learning to love well, starting with God and overflowing to people.

It starts with God and then it flows to people.

Our love for people is based out of our love for God.

Here's what happens if we try to like and love people without our relationship with God being right, it has a shelf life.

You will only be able to do that for so long.

Your love will will it will have a shelf life, and that shelf life will not be very long.

Because you cannot properly love people the way that God calls us to love them without the agape love of God in our hearts.

Right?

You will want to run people off the road on 280.

Samantha Redmond just held up her hand right there, okay.

Right?

That person at work, they're gonna get you there, okay?

Right?

It starts with a love for God.

And if we get the order wrong, here's what happens: we end up loving out of willpower and instead of out of the overflow of our love for God.

And your willpower will only take you so far.

I want to show you this for just a moment.

I want you to put these in your notes.

I just want to give you four signs.

Maybe this will help you four signs that you're loving out of order.

Four signs that you're loving out of order.

And confession, I've been in all four of these.

Okay.

This was convicting for me this week as I was writing it.

Number one, it's exhausted love.

Have you ever been exhausted before with people?

All of us have.

It's loving people when it feels like it's more of a chore on a list than a joy that I get to share with God.

It's exhausted love.

It's guilty love, is the second sign that we're loving out of order.

I say yes on the inside, on the outside, but on the inside, I resent the people that I'm helping.

Number three, nice but numb love.

I'm polite on the outside, but my heart is completely checked out.

I smile in public, but I'm cynical and cold on the inside.

Our love is out of order.

And then number four, it's scorekeeping love.

I track everything I've done for people and how little they've done back for me.

Our love may be out of order.

And if you want to see a biblical representation of what love out of order looks like, it was the Pharisees.

It was the Sadducees.

They were the religious leaders of the day.

And if you love reading drama, okay, go to Matthew chapter 22 and Matthew chapter 23, because it's full of it.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention Matthew 23 · chapter mention

Because Jesus perpetually calls out these religious leaders.

And what he's trying to do is he's trying to get them to see that they've got religion on the outside, but the inside has become dead.

They look good on the outside, but they have no relationship with the Lord on the inside.

Okay?

If God's love was never forming them on the inside.

So they were never able to properly love well people well on the outside.

He says this in Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

In verse 25, he says, What sorrow awaits you teachers of the law, Pharisees, you hypocrites.

For you're careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but the inside you're filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence.

In other words, what God, what Jesus was telling them, you've got things out of order.

You're missing the critical piece of it's God first and then its people.

They wanted to look right on the outside.

And how many know we're guilty of that?

We would rather look right on the outside than be right on the inside.

And Jesus says, our order matters.

Everybody say order matters.

See, love is the measure, order matters.

V is you've got to value others.

You got to value others.

I want you to see something in John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

Jesus really reframes what love is all about.

He says this in verse 34.

He says, A new command I give you.

Love, agapeo, which is the verb tense, one another.

As I have loved you.

So you must what?

Love one another.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciple if you love one another.

This is so countercultural to what we're living in right now.

Because everything in our world is about me.

Everything in our world is about me.

Every commercial that you see is about you.

What we're seeing on social media is about you.

And our society is spending billions of dollars to hope that you feel like you're missing out on the next thing that you need to have.

Right?

It's about us and not others.

As a matter of fact, I was reading this week's studies estimate that you and I today alone will see anywhere between 4,000 to 6,000 ads.

Four to six thousand ads from web, social, TV, as you're driving down the road.

Four to six thousand ads trying to get you to consume something.

Why?

Because we live in a me culture.

But I want you to understand that's not kingdom.

And it's not the way God designed us to live as believers.

It's others first.

Jesus' message was so countercultural because it wasn't about the people listening to it, it was about them engaging other people.

It was others focus.

Agape is the kind of love, and then agapeo is the action to that.

Jesus says a couple things.

He says, love is a command, not a suggestion.

It's a command, not a suggestion.

Valuing others isn't optional for believers.

The second thing he says is we love others the way that Jesus loved us.

Can I say that again?

We love others the way that Jesus loves us with an unconditional love.

Our model is not how people treat us, but how Jesus treated us.

It's sacrificial love, and that our love, here's the other thing he said, is the evidence.

You know, tomorrow when you go to work, people are gonna know that you are a believer.

It's not by your gifts, and it's not how spiritual you think you are.

It's how you love the person that gets on your nerves.

It's how you love the person that you don't want to have a conversation with.

It's how patient you are when you're in traffic tomorrow.

It's how you love and how you value others.

Emotionally healthy love, write this down, looks like choosing someone else's good over my own.

Emotionally healthy love looks like choosing someone else over me.

It's not about me.

As believers, we lay this right down that everything is about us.

It's not about us anymore.

It's about others.

Even in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul says this, and we'll read it here in just a moment.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

But in verse 5, he says, love is not rude, and it does not demand its own way.

It does not demand its own way.

Another version says it's not self-seeking.

In other words, real agape love.

It's not as much about you and I as we think it is, it's about other people.

It's about our family, our coworkers, our spouse, our family members.

That's valuing other people.

So love is the measure, order matters.

We have to value others and then eat.

We have to evaluate our love.

There are times when we just have to pause and really ask hard questions of what does our love look like to other people.

And really, what 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is all about is Paul is as we read this, he's really putting a mirror in front of our face and saying, How are we really doing?

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

It's really a description for us to look, not read, not just to read and to study, but to use it as an evaluation tool for how we're living our everyday life.

Are we living with the agape love of God?

Love is patient, it's kind.

Love is not jealous, it's not boastful.

It doesn't demand its own way, it's not irritable, it keeps no record of being wronged.

I want you just to internalize this for a moment.

It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Love never gives up, it never loses faith, it's always hopeful, and it endures through every circumstance.

I want to end this morning with just a couple heart-check questions.

Just a couple heart-check questions.

As I was reading this week, I just kind of wrote some questions down that I think can help us.

Love is patient and kind.

Here's the first question: is how do I respond when people are difficult?

Do you have any difficult people in your life?

Come on.

How do you respond when people are difficult?

Do I tend to be patient and kind?

Do I tend to be impatient, irritated, and sharp with them?

Verse 5, it doesn't demand its own way.

When I look at my love, who is my love really about?

Is it me or is it them?

And then the third question, and I think this is a really, really important one because this shows what kind of love we're live we're really living with, is how do I handle it when I'm hurt?

How do I handle it?

Do I move towards forgiveness and protection?

Or do I stay angry and bring it up later?

Do I pull away?

What's your love look like?

This week, I want you to take some time and I want you to read through 1 Corinthians 13, but I don't want you just to read it fast.

I want you to slow down and read it.

And I want you to evaluate how your love is with other people.

Will you stand with me?

Stay with me.

Emotionally healthy spirituality.

Kind of end the series with this thought.

Emotionally healthy spirituality is being changed by God's agape love until it's obvious in how we live and love people.

How many of y'all want God's agape love to change?

I want us to do this for a moment.

We're gonna have some time of prayer.

I want to just I want to take a moment, I want to pray a prayer.

At the beginning of this week, I uh took some time, was just praying, not just through the message, but I was just praying this from my own life.

Just saying, God, am I living this?

This is evident in who I am.

And I want to pray a prayer over you that I put in my prayer journal this week.

Guys, will you put that prayer up?

And here's what I just wrote, and I want you just to receive this this morning.

As God, let me be a person who walks in your agape love in every area, and in every relationship that I have.

In every area and every relationship that I have, forgive me for self-centeredness and pride.

Heal my emotions, reorder my priorities, and help me put you first in everything.

Will you just close your eyes for just a moment?

I want to take a minute.

I want to I want to pray this over you.

Maybe this resonates with your heart, with your spirit.

I believe the Spirit of the Lord is in here.

Just close your eyes if you're worshiping with us online.

I want you just to be still right where you are and just receive this again.

Father, I pray right now over your people that they would be those that walk in your agape love.

I pray there's a new love that is put inside of your people today.

In every area and in every relationship that they have.

Father, I pray forgiveness over them for self-centeredness and pride.

Heal their emotions.

I pray there's a reordering of their priorities that they would put you first in everything that they do.

Now, here's what I want to do for just a moment.

I want to call my prayer team forward today.

We're gonna spend just a moment worshiping.

And I think today, I think there's my call is some of you need just a greater measure of the agape love of God in your life.

But there's some of you you came in, and there is a relationship that needs to be restored.

There is a relationship that you came in facing today.

That if you were being honest, only the agape love of God can heal it and mend it and bring it back to where it needs to be.

Maybe you were the source, maybe somebody else was the source, I don't know.

But I believe this morning, I believe that the agape love of God, the sacrificial, never-ending love of God wants to be in every relationship in your life.

And I think some of us need prayer over that this morning.

Will you just close your eyes?

We're gonna worship for just a moment.

And maybe this morning you need the love of God to reorder some priorities, to get some things in order.

And then maybe some of you you walked in, and there's a relationship that the agape love of God needs to be in.

We want to believe and pray with you today.

That God is moving and marking that relationship and situation.

That after this morning, it will never be the same because God's love is present.

Come on, will you just lift your hands all over the house?

And if you need prayer, I want you just to begin to move out of your seat today.

If this ministered to your heart and pricked your heart, I want you just to begin to move to receive prayer.

Father, I thank you over your people today that the agape love of God is reprioritizing our life.

That we are not gonna be those that look good on the outside but have no relationship on the inside.

Father, I'm asking right now, God, for every relationship that seems broken.

I pray the agape, real love of God would be present in every work relationship, in every business relationship, with every child, with every marriage, with every neighbor.

I'm asking right now, God, that your agape love would cover us.

Father, I thank you.

Let's just spend just a moment just worshiping.

I want you just to respond.

If you need prayer, our team is up here waiting to pray with you.

Let's spend just a moment worshiping.