16th February 2024 Infill Service - What is Love?

That we set an expectation sometimes about what God's going

to say to us and through. So I want to

give you time to read these You've never seen these before.

I don't think they're unscriptural. I don't think they're wrong,

but I just I do want you to own it

rather than me just tell you to read it. And

then so please read through the words. And we're going

to read them all out together in a moment, because

I believe that the word of God changes us. If

the word of God he's preached, scripture said, the Bible

says that you know signs and wonders following. It's okay, Lorraine,

it's just this one slide. It's just this one slide.

Thank you. So okay, it's just the one slide. Cherian, Cherion,

It's just the one slide. Don't worry about it. Okay,

We're going to read this together. I believe the Holy

Bible is the unique word of God. I am what

it says I am. I have what it says I have,

and I can do what it says I can do

today as we learn the Word of God here in

this spiritual family. I am blessed, healed, and anointed for

holy and victorious living. I will never again be the same.

In Jesus' name. Amen, have I sat expectations? Yasmin, are

you ready to come and share with us? You using

the handhold, Jonathan and she using the handhold? Yeah, okay,

pard to share your word with us this morning, Father,

as you anointed her in preparation, Lord, anoint her as

she speaks now in Jesus name. Amen, thank you.

I believe good morning, start well, and I believe the

Lord wants me to start with a word for at

least one person in the room as well as online.

Waiting for a breakthrough can be really challenging, be it

a breakthrough in finances, health, in a situational circumstances, or

awaiting the fulfillment of a promise that the Lord has

made to you. The fact that we can't see or

feel any progress doesn't mean that nothing is happening. God

does some of his best work in secret. He delights

in surprising his children, and whether you know it or not,

he is busy bringing good things to pass for you

right now. And he made a point that I had

to say that just give him time and you will see.

In the meantime you don't have to sit it out,

either passively or in frustration. This time doesn't have to

be wasted. You can minister from the stepping stone. For

some people, the stepping stone can be a place of

fertile ministry, although it's important not to get so comfortable

that you settle for the stepping stone and don't move

on when the time is right. For others, the stepping

stone may be a place to regroup and recharge heal,

even especially if the previous season in life was one

which led you to feeling or being spent physically, spiritually,

and or emotionally. If this is you, recognize and acknowledge

the stepping stone, be at peace, whether it's a place

of ministry or recharging, and stay open to the Lord's leading.

Whatever's next, be it the fulfillment of a word from

the Lord, like Abraham and Sarah as recorded in Genesis,

waiting for the child he had promised despite their ages,

or something as yet unknown to you. Bury in mind,

for example Ephesians two ten, for we are His workmanship

created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand,

that we should walk in them. I believe the verse

that the Lord wants you to focus on to anchor

yourself on is in Isaiah twenty six, verse three. That's

Isiah twenty six, verse three. You will keep him in

perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he

trusts in you. I'm going to say that again. You

will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed

on you, because he trusts in you. Moving on to

the word for today, this month's theme is love your Neighbor,

and the title of this morning's message is what is Love?

I realize for some of you that may bring to

mind a song from the eighties by Howard Jones, and

some of you are looking at me blankly, so I

will move on. But what is love is a question

that people have debated and written about for centuries, so

obviously I won't attempt to cover it comprehensively, but just

the points that I believe the Lord wants us to

think about today. Before I move on to the famous

passage in one Corinthians thirteen that defines love, I just

want to briefly mention the context in terms of the

first few verses of that chapter. The apostle Paul who

wrote this basically said that great knowledge and spiritual gifts

such as prophecy and faith, no matter how amazing, are

meaningless without love. Good works, even at a sacrificial level,

are meaningless unless motivated by love. So my first point

is love only. Love gives meaning and value to our actions,

big and small, and without it they're meaningless. The Greek

word used here in my experience is generally pronounced agapey

or a gape, But I have it on good authority.

It's a happy and I hope I've done it justice.

That's why we say agapey. Its meaning includes brotherly love, affection,

and good will. Once in a previous job, someone gave

me flowers, and it was clear from her manner and

the way in which she gave them to me that

from her perspective, this was a duty prompted by good manners.

I appreciated them, don't get me wrong. But compare that with,

for example, a young child who picks a daisy and

runs up to you with a big smile and says,

I got this for you, which has more meaning. Which

is the better example of loving your neighbor. It's obvious

it's not the size of the gift that matters, but

it's the attitude of the heart. I'm aware that sometimes

loving our neighbor may be a duty prompted by good manners,

and that's the best we can do at the time,

and it's definitely better than doing nothing. But something small

and simple may be more effective, or at least just

as effective, if it's from the heart. Who is our neighbor?

I know Dave spoke about it previously, but just simply put,

our neighbor is any person with whom we interact, be it,

for example, because we live with them, or someone whom

we chance to meet. So moving to one Corinthians thirteen,

verses four to eight, which gives us such a great

definition of love. That's one Corinthians thirteen, verses four to eight,

and I'll read it from the NIV. Love is patient,

Love is kind. It does not envy, It does not boast.

It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. 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, and always perseveres. Love never fails or comes

to an end. As it's sometimes translated. Love by its

very nature always involved people or animals, unless we're talking

about coffee. So how we live out these different aspects

of love almost invariably affects other people and always affects us.

I say it almost invariably affects other people because there

are times when we will do something for someone else

and they'll never know about it. They'll never know what

it's cost us in terms of time, energy, patience, etc.

And it's right that it should be so. But God

always sees Colossians three twenty three is a verse. I'll

mention again later, but I'll read it now in the

Passion translation Colossians three twenty three. Put your heart and

soul into every activity you do as though you're doing

it for the Lord himself, and not merely for others.

Put your heart and soul into every activity you do

as though you're doing it for the Lord himself, and

not merely for others. I said, how we live out

different aspects of life always affects us, because if we're,

for example, impatient, unkind, etc. It puts us under stress.

A very quick Google search on the effect of impatience

on the body brought up a number of articles, none

of which were Christian, but all recognizing the negative impact

that impatience can have on us, especially over a prolonged

period of time, all of which are symptoms of stress,

for example, raised blood pressure and raised levels of stress

hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. One woman spoke about how

it had wrecked some relationships. I'm primarily going to look

at just one aspect of love in the definition in

one Corinthians thirteen, and that's in verse four, which is

my second point. So one Corinthians thirteen, verse four, love

is patient. So what does it mean to be patient?

The Dictionary definition of the Greek word used here, which

I won't attempt to pronounce, includes to be long suffering,

to be patient in bearing the offenses of others, to

be slow to anger, and slow to punish. It's pretty comprehensive,

and thankfully but not surprisingly, describes God, our heavenly Father,

who is love. At a basic level, patience love might

be our attitude waiting in a queue at a supermarket

or whilst being kept on hold on the phone. Simon

had to call his mobile phone company yesterday and he

spoke to a guy from Newcastle who said to him,

thank you so much for being calm and polite. I've

had a tough day. That's the difference it can make.

It wouldn't have been appropriate for Simon to directly share

the gospel, but he could show Jesus to this guy

and make a difference by expressing patients in being calm

and polite. So how many different factors come into play

that can affect our attitude, How patient we are, how

long we have to wait, whether we feel we can

afford to wait, or do we have lots of other

things competing for our time, or do we need to

be somewhere else. Is it someone else's fault that we're

having to do what we're doing and then have to

wait as well? I know these are ouch questions. What

is it costing us in terms of time, energy, and

or money to be patient? The Bible doesn't say to

be patient only when it's convenient. In other words, the

Bible doesn't say to love your neighbor only when it's convenient.

This is a good time to remind ourselves that God

never calls us to do anything on our own strength,

but is able and willing to help us. We only

have to ask so many verses in the Bible tell

us that this is just one. In two Corinthians twelve,

verse nine in the Christian Standard Bible, it says, my

grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected

in weakness. So here's a question for you. Why do

you think patience is the first aspect of the definition

of love listed in one Corinthians thirteen. Obviously it's not

a definitive answer, but if we're patient, it helps us

to stay calm and live out the other aspects of love,

be kind, not be envious, or dis honor others, or

be easily angered, etc. All obviously with God's help, although

depending on your character, you'll probably find different aspects of

love come more naturally to you than others. Patience and

never giving up are the two bookends, so to speak,

of the definition of love, they start and finish it.

Love is patient in verse four and love never fails

in verse eight. That tells us something about the enduring

nature of love and loving your neighbor. If you then

consider what it means to sacrificially love your neighbor, that

takes it to another level, doesn't it. And so to

my third point, love costs, I'll leave you to debate

the point to whether it's always sacrificial in table talk.

But anyway, the ultimate example of sacrificial love, of course,

is expressed in John three point sixteen. And I'll read

this from the Passion translation. So John three point sixteen,

For here is the way God loved the world. He

gave his only unique son as a gift. So now

everyone who believes in him will never perish but experience

everlasting life. Out of love for us, our heavenly Father

gave us his precious only son, Jesus, who was tortured

then died. Jesus paid the ultimate price when he took

the punishment for the sin of each one of us,

when he was nailed to a wooden cross, a Roman

form of execution. Praise God, Jesus rose again. And because

he lives, we too can live not only in and

for him on earth, but then eternally with him in

Heaven when we physically die. I'm just reading the autobiography

of the son of Richard Aberhart, an American poet who

was nominally Jewish as far as I can tell, but

at the point when he surrendered his life to Jesus,

he states very simply four questions his pastor friend asked him,

and his response, do you believe that Jesus Christ is

the son of God? Yes? Do you believe that He

died for you to pay the penalty for your sin? Yes?

Do you believe that God will forgive you and accept

Christ's death as payment for your sin? Yes? Do you

want to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior? Yes,

It's that simple. If you've said yes to all those

questions for the first time, you can pray. In other words,

talk to God and ask Jesus to be lord of

your life. Going back to one Crintiins thirteen, just looking

at the beginning one Quintin's thirteen verse four, it says

love is patient, love is kind. So what does patients

look like when it's sacrificial? What does kindness look like

when it's sacrificial? We could go through all the different

aspects of love listed in this passage and ask these

SAME's questions. But I don't think the Lord wants me

to do that right now. But I did come across

a great example of sacrificial love. I'm going to test

your art history now, has anyone heard of the Renaissance

artist Albech Dura, Well, I'll teach you a very tiny bit.

He was a German painter and printmaker who lived in

the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, whose pen and ink drawing

of praying hands was a result of an amazing friendship

between him and a guy you will never have heard

of called Franz Knigstein. And this is their story. As students,

both worked as part time laborers to try and earn

enough money to carry on their studies. However, the economic

climate of the time was such that there was no

way that either of them could both study and have

time enough to earn enough with casual part time jobs

to survive in this way. So they decided to draw

lots to settle which of them should find full time

employment and support them both, while the winner would then

devote all his energies to his studies. However, when Dura,

having become a great success in his field, came back,

he discovered that Kinnigstein had made that the sacrifice that

Kinigstein had made was far greater than either of them

had foreseen. Through hard labor, Kinnigstein's fingers had become twisted

and bent, so he could no longer delicately control paint

brushes and could never hope to become a great painter. However,

Kinnigstein displayed no bitterness. He was glad to have played

a part in his friend's success. One day, Dura found

this friends Franz Kinigstein, at prayer, and was so struck

by his hands that he sketched them and later completed

one of the great masterpieces of the early Renaissance period

that we now know as the Praying Hands. So Franz

played an even greater part in his friend's success than

even his more obvious sacrifice. And it was in prayer.

The command in Luke ten twenty seven to love your

neighbor as yourself carries with it inherent sacrifice that often

only God and sometimes those closest to us see, but

at times are viewed by a wider audience, which serves

to inspire and edify us year after year. Franz made

this sacrifice without complaining. The only way is possible to

maintain a right attitude over a period of time like that,

in my opinion, is to choose to do two things. Firstly,

as it says in Philippians two, verse fourteen, and I'll

read from the New Living translation. That's Philippians two fourteen.

Do everything without complaining and arguing, And the message turns

it around and says, do everything readily and cheerily, cheerfully.

It's very easy for me to stand here and say this,

and you to sit here and nod in agreement. And

I'm speaking to myself now. But when you consider that

word everything in the Greek means everything. It's important for

us to be honest with ourselves and the Lord, and

to see if there are any areas where we haven't

yet applied this or apply it sporadically. So one question

is what would help. There may be some practical answers

to this, depending on your situation. It may be about

actively choosing our thoughts our perspective on the matter, so

we don't habitually go down a negative path. But for example,

choose an attitude of gratitude. What can you thank the

Lord for in this situation? For example, if you're frustrated

in your job, you could thank the Lord you've got one.

It's worth noting that you can raise an issue if

one needs to be raised, without being impatient or complaining.

Years ago, Simon and I were out one evening with

friends having dinner, and we'd all got our food apart

from one couple who sat patiently waiting for theirs. They

said nothing for ages and ages, and eventually realized the

food was ready and had been for some time. But

the person calling their name wasn't English and the pronunciation

of their name wasn't readily recognized, and so they'd been

waiting unnecessarily. Hindsight is great, but basically they could have

gone up to the staff before then and politely asked

where their food was and realized what the issue was

and got their dinner sooner. There are times when it's

right to raise an issue, Oh the right people won't

know that there is one, and the matter won't be resolved.

Loving your neighbor and being paid is not a command

to be a doormat. How we raise an issue, and

potentially the timing of it is the key thing. So

loving your neighbors sacrificially, particularly over a period of time

with a right attitude, involves firstly doing everything without complaining,

and secondly, do everything as unto the Lord, as it

says in Colossians three twenty three, and I read it

from the amplified this time Colossians three twenty three. Whatever

you do, whatever your task may be, work from the soul,

that is put in your very best effort, as something

done for the Lord and not for men. Another translation says,

whatever you do, do from the heart as for the Lord.

It makes it sound so simple, but to maintain it

over a long period of time can only done be

done by making a decision and continue to make that

decision over and over and over again. This isn't about

being perfect. We all make mistakes, but with God's help

we can learn from those mistakes. We can dust ourselves off,

get up and keep going. We can persevere with help

from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the part or parts that

the Lord wants us to play in life are not

what we would have hoped for ourselves, but have great

value that we may or may not see. But if

we learn to do those two things, don't complain, and

do everything as unto the Lord, we'll be a lot

happier and have more peace and find it easier to

be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit as he guides us.

We can take so much from this story about Dura

and his friend. On another note, which part do you

think you'd have been able to accept most readily that

of Dura or his friend. This isn't a loaded question.

It's just about being honest with yourself. At the end

of the day, it was done fairly by drawing lots.

Nowadays we'd probably have tossed a coin or perhaps a

credit card. There's both joy and a challenge in giving

and receiving. How would you feel about going off to

fulfill your dream whilst leaving your friend to work to

support you both. This puts us in the role of receiving.

If Dura hadn't been able to receive, he wouldn't have

fulfilled his potential or been able to go back and

help his friend. How would you feel about being the

one left behind and to do the unskilled work, the

hard labor, instead of training to do the job you'd

set your heart on. This puts us in the role

of giving sacrificial giving. And this is my final point.

Love both gives and receives. We will all have been

in the position of both giving and receiving. But if

you struggle with either of those for whatever reason, your

relationships will be lopsided. They'll be imbalanced. Loving your neighbor

involves both giving and receiving. God gave his only son, Jesus,

but only those who are willing to receive the gift

of his sacrifice can be born again and live eternally

with him. Giving can be painfully costly, Receiving can be

extremely humbling. Us feel quite vulnerable, especially if we're in

a position where we feel we have no choice because

we can't meet our own needs. Different people, with different

personalities give and receive love in different ways. Some of

you will have heard of a great book by a

guy called Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages, which

it came out some years ago. For those who've not

heard of it, the premise of the Five Love Languages

is quite simple. Different people give and receive love in

different ways. As the website says, by learning to recognize

these differences in yourself and in your loved ones, you

can learn to identify the root of conflicts, connect more profoundly,

and begin to grow more close And begin to grow closer.

The Five Love Languages are acts of service for these people.

Actions speak louder than words. Receiving gifts for some people

this makes them feel most loved quality time. This is

about giving someone your undivided attention, words of affirmation, and

physical touch so appropriate physical touch makes some people feel

really loved. One or two of these love languages may

be key to what makes you feel loved or appreciated,

and others may not do anything for you, And it

may change over time for different reasons too. For example,

I know someone for whom receiving gifts was key once

she was in a happy relationship where she fairly regularly

received gifts, and I don't mean expensive ones. She wasn't

like that. It was just about a thoughtful gesture. But

once she was receiving them relatively regularly, it became less

of an issue for her, and another love language became

more important. So it can change. There's a whole series

of books based on this, including showing appreciation in the

workplace and recognizing the love languages of your children. It's

worth being aware of because it can help us to

demonstrate love in a way that's most appropriate and is

best going to be received. On another note, though, I

remember one time a friend and I were going through

a really difficult time. Neither of us was looking for

answers from the other. It was just about walking through

stuff together, loving your neighbor, can be as simple as sharing.

As I've said many times before, in my opinion, trust

is the most precious gift that one person can give

to another. We need to be wise about who we

trust with what, as well as realistic in our expectations

of other people. But that's not a reason to never

trust anyone, but simply to exercise wisdom. So, in summary,

to close my first point, love gives meaning and value

to our actions. My second point, love is patient. Thirdly,

love costs do everything without complaining as unto the Lord.

And fourthly, love both gives and receives. Let's pray, Lord,

thank you so much that we love because you first

loved us. We need you teach us to be patient

as you are patient, both with ourselves and others. And

please help us to do everything without complaining and as

under to you, because we ask it in Jesus' name.

And we're so thankful that nothing is too difficult for you. Amen,

Thanks yasmin.

Amen,