Greatest of These - Love

I pray that this semester has helped you give some clarity to the

infinite importance of Christianity.

See, I think people who feel their Christianity is moderately

important live a life that's fairly miserable because they're

not all into their faith and they're not all out of the way of

their faith.

And so being a person, whoever Christianity is moderately important

is pretty unfulfilling.

It's really kind of a nuisance to have it in your life if it's only

moderately important.

It's really a source of guilt kind of plaguing on you, but it doesn't

do much for you.

Maybe you see it as hateful and then you start to see that Christianity

is a hateful thing when the opposite is true.

Or you use it for judgmentalism.

A lot of people who have it as moderately important, they like to

be judgmental.

They post stuff on Facebook, pretty judgmental Bible verses out

of context.

Or maybe it's a struggle.

You just feel like you never make any progress with God and you

don't want to walk away, but you never really make any progress.

That's because it's moderately important.

Or maybe it's just confusing.

You just don't get it.

There are too many unknowns or maybe more questions than there are

answers.

And I think people who live in this world of moderately important

Christianity, that's their life.

And that's why I want to spend this semester on focusing on the

essentials of faith.

Because I think people who are moderately important in their Christianity

have never really focused on the really core essentials of faith.

They talk about the fringes a lot, but they don't talk about the

core essentials.

And they really haven't grasped them.

That's why this semester I wanted to do this series on the essentials.

We've looked at the essentials, and in understanding

the essentials, it gives us a completely different perspective

of God.

We first looked at the character of God and his goodness

and how God can't be anything but good.

And then we talked about what he has prepared for us in heaven.

Not up there someplace, but a new earth.

An earth that was recreated in the way that he first disc designed

it to be.

And we'll come back to this earth for eternity.

Then we talked about what keeps us from that sin and the high

cost God paid for sin with his son.

And then grace.

That's so amazing.

That's free.

That there's nothing I could do to make God love me more.

There's nothing I could do to make God love me less.

That grace is sufficient and totally without, with freedom.

And then we looked at truth.

You build on the character of God and the promise of God in eternity.

And then you look at sin and how grace gets us free from that

and the truth that lets us grow in that grace by he giving us

his word and the life of Christ to understand how that gets

lived out.

And then that led to character that we looked at last week, how

genuine grace, Christian character, gets lived out in our

lives by these fruits of the Spirit that we talked about.

And the first of those is love.

And all the rest of them come from love.

And that's why today we're going to talk about love.

The greatest of these, as First Corinthians says, faith, hope,

and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

And so we're really building off this fruits of the Spirit that

we looked at last week that produce these seven fruits in our

life.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self control.

And remember, you can't have these fruits if you don't have four

elements of that.

First of all, you got to be connected to the vine, because once

you're disconnected from the vine, the fruit doesn't grow.

So you've got to be connected to the vine.

Secondly, there's got to be light, because light is what makes

fruit grow.

They've got to understand the truth, God's truth, and understand

his truth and study his truth.

There's got to be water, which is the regular nourishment.

You can't just dump a bunch of water on a fruit tree and expect

it to grow.

It's got to have regular water.

There's got to be this ongoing nourishment.

And then there's got to be pruning.

You will not get fruit if you don't prune.

You maybe get a little bit of fruit here and there, but you won't

get good quality if you don't prune, because you have to cut off

the parts that are taking energy away from the good fruit you're

growing in your life.

And so that's what we're trying to accomplish and to achieve

is this level of fruit in our life that shows the power of God

working in us.

And that all begins with love.

The first one is love, and they all flow from love.

And that's why today I want to look at what's called the love chapter

of the Bible, First Corinthians 13.

You probably know it.

When I was a teenager, I memorized it.

I had to do it for some camp.

I wanted to go to.

They wouldn't let you go if you couldn't memorize First Corinthians

13.

I'm not very good at scripture memory, but I did memorize that at

the time.

It's an incredible chapter.

If you're good at memory, you ought to memorize it.

But.

But it shows us how God loves us, the level to which God loves

us, the importance of God's love in our life.

And it tells us how to love others.

And when you read it, your only takeaway can be, that's impossible.

I can't do that.

But God commands it.

He doesn't just suggest that you ought to love one another.

He commands it.

In fact, he gives us as his greatest commandment from John.

Excuse me, Matthew, chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

He gives us his greatest commandment.

The Pharisees had come to him.

Now, the Pharisees, you know, they were the church leaders, and

they were always trying to trick him into saying the wrong thing

for some kind of sound bite that they could replay on whatever

they replayed it on.

And so they were trying to trick him into something.

And so you've got in the Old Testament all these commandments

of the law and the prophets, and they're saying, okay, which one's

the most important?

And Jesus answered them clearly.

He said, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart,

all your soul, all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based

on these two commandments.

Love is the center of everything.

You know, John 3:16.

John 3:16

God loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever,

whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.

And then God commands us to love him in that same way and to

love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.

And you look at that and you go, you know, I really want that.

I really want that.

I'm going to love God more.

I want to love God more.

I'm drawn to God more.

I want to show my love for God more.

I want to be in a deeper relationship with him, and I want

to love my family more.

I need to do better.

And I'm going to love my family more, and I'm going to love

my friends more, and I'm going to love those people who are good

to me more because they deserve my love.

And that's all good.

But that's not enough.

That's not enough.

Jesus goes to the whole other end of the spectrum in the Sermon

on the Mount, when he says this in Matthew, chapter five, you've

heard the law says, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute

you.

If you only love those who love you, what reward is there for

that?

Even corrupt tax collectors.

Now, tax collectors are kind of like the catch all for like the

worst of the worst.

People they didn't like.

Even corrupt tax collectors could.

Could do that much.

If you're the kind, if you're kind only to your friends, how are

you different from anyone else?

Even the pagans do that.

You look at that love your enemies and you go, no, we're not

going that far.

I can't do that.

I can't love the people who are mean to me.

I can't love the people who persecute me and attack me unfairly.

I can't love the people who talk behind my back.

I'm not doing that.

Well, Jesus said you are.

Jesus said you are.

And here's the deal.

You can not through your own power, but you can do it through

God transforming your life to give you that kind of love.

But you've got to put in the work and the effort to get there.

I'll tell you a story.

I've been a college president a long time.

My 36th year, I started way too young.

Nobody should be a college president when they're 34 years old.

But, you know, it happened and I'm thankful.

So I'm 35 years old at the first school I was at before I came

here.

I've been here 30 years.

So I was at this other school.

So you don't know anybody there.

I can tell the story.

And I had a faculty member who just hated me.

He just absolutely hated me.

He had big prestigious degrees from Ivy League schools.

And we were at a little college out in the middle of Kansas.

I was older than he was.

I think he was really jealous.

I don't know what it was, but man, he did everything he could to

make my life miserable.

He would attack me in public.

He would work faculty to try to get a coalition to work against

me.

He would tell lies about me to people that were totally untrue,

but he'd still tell them as if they were true.

And he was very eloquent, so it was hard to assume he wasn't true.

He would figure it out.

He knew how to read upside down.

He'd come into my assistant's office and he'd stand in front of

her desk and.

And we found out he was reading all the material because

he could read upside down.

He was really smart, really, really smart.

And then he'd tell stuff.

He made my life miserable.

And most of what I was trying to do was focus around how to control

him, how to deal with him, how to hold a meeting where he wouldn't

take over, how to get in a situation where he wouldn't attack

me.

And it was beating me up.

It was taking a lot of energy, a lot of life.

And you know what?

I just decided one day I'm going to do something.

And for 30 days, I'm going to pray for him every day.

I'm not going to pray that God will change him.

God could do that, but I'm not going to pray that that's a selfish

prayer.

I'm going to pray for him.

I'm going to pray that God will bless him.

I'm going to pray God will help his classes to be productive.

I'm going to pray for his family.

I'm going to pray for his fulfillment in life.

And then as I got into that a little bit, I thought, I've got to

get a little more specific in this prayer.

And I took First Corinthians 13 and I began to pray that every

day, using his name in all the aspects of it, and pray that for

his.

Him.

And I did it every single day for 30 days.

And at the end of 30 days, you know what happened?

It was the most amazing thing in the world.

He didn't change one bit.

He was just as mean and nasty as could be.

But I did.

I did.

I wasn't consumed by him anymore.

I wasn't trying to figure out how to work around him.

I wasn't feeling threatened by him.

I found a freedom and trust in God that I hadn't found.

But it took 30 days of constant prayer in order to get there.

So when we see love your enemies and pray for those who persecute

you, Jesus isn't messing around.

He means it.

And when you do, will transform your life, although it

feels impossible.

So how do we give and express impossible prayer in our lives?

Well, I think there are four parts to that.

First is you got to have perspective.

You've got to have perspective.

If you understand how God loves you, it's much easier to love

people.

But if you don't have that perspective, it's nearly impossible

to do what God's asking us to do here.

You've got to have that perspective of how desperately, desperately

God loves you, that he would do anything even to Give his own

son to die in a cruel, horrible, torturous death for your

sins and mine.

God loves you that much.

You got to get perspective.

Secondly, you got to have some guidance.

This is not natural to us.

We're sinful people in our core.

God's forgiven us of that, but that nature is still in us.

And so it's not easy to love in the way that 1 Corinthians 13

tells us how to love.

So you gotta have some guidance.

You gotta have some direction on how to do this.

You can't just say, well, go love everybody.

That doesn't really mean much.

What's it mean to go love everybody?

Well, that's what 1 Corinthians 13 tells us.

And then it takes some practice.

You won't get it right at the beginning.

You won't even get close.

You'll mess up.

You may get a time or two.

You get it right, and then you'll go back to the old way again.

And it'll take practice and more practice and more practice and

more practice until you can get it right.

It's a learned process.

And then it takes Christ.

Without the empowering of God, there is no way you can love in this

kind of impossible way.

Pray for God's power to love.

Ask him to give you the power, and he will.

But you've got to ask for that power in your life.

And so that's what 13 First Corinthians 13 takes us to is this

level of impossible love.

And in there, we see two things.

First of all, love always wins.

And secondly, love never ends.

It goes on forever.

So let's first of all, look at this homework assignment.

You thought I was kidding.

I wasn't kidding.

I got a real homework assignment for you.

Now, you know this pass fails, so you don't do it.

I'll never know.

But here's a homework assignment.

Read chapter 13 of First Corinthians one time every day between

now and Thanksgiving.

Every single day between now and Thanksgiving.

Read First Corinthians 13 one time.

And then for those of you who want extra credit, read the chapter

a second time every day.

Thinking about the most difficult person in your life.

That's the assignment.

I dare you.

I dare you.

Some of you won't do it.

You're already saying, I'm not doing that.

You know what?

You're a chicken.

Those of you who are saying you won't do it, you're chicken.

You're afraid to let God talk to you.

That's all you are.

Have courageous take on the assignment every single day, seven

days a week, between now and Thanksgiving Day.

Read First Corinthians 13 at least one time.

And if you want to go for the extra credit, read it in terms of

the person who's most difficult for your life.

Read it a second time.

It will transform you.

If you will do this, I guarantee you.

So let's look at the Scripture.

It reads like this.

If I could speak in the languages of Earth and of angels,

but I didn't love, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging

cymbal.

If I had the gift of prophecy and understood all of God's secret

plans that possess all knowledge, and if I had such faith

that I could move mountains, but I didn't love others, it would

be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body,

I could boast about it.

But if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

So this chapter begins by laying out the importance of love.

Look at the first sentence.

You can have the earthly gifts and the spiritual gifts, but if you

don't have love, it's just a loud banging gong.

A clanging cymbal.

Yeah.

I never really understood that until a number of years ago.

My wife and I were in Singapore and she's much more adventurous

in the arts than I am, so she wanted to go to the Chinese opera.

Have you ever been to the Chinese opera?

You ought to see it one time.

That's enough.

But it really develops out of the history of the Middle East.

And so the people who would have read this scripture would have

understand what.

What they were talking about here.

But in a Chinese opera, they don't have musical instruments.

They just have this huge gong that they beat over and over and

over again.

And this cymbal that just is so loud and they amplify the thing

and it lasts about three or four hours.

We made it about 45 minutes.

I couldn't take anymore.

I said, we gotta go.

This is enough.

We get it.

Because it was just so obnoxious.

Well, if you could speak with all the wisdom of the world and all

the spiritual talents, and you don't have love, you're just a really

obnoxious Chinese opera gong and cymbal.

The dancing was pretty cool.

I will say, if I had the gift of prophecy, it says, and biblical.

If you understood everything about the Bible.

There's a lot about the Bible I don't understand.

But if you understood everything about the Bible and you

could explain it, you get up here and you explain a Whole lot

better than I could.

And you had all the insights and all that stuff, and you had the

faith.

You had so much faith that you believed God could do most anything

in your life.

Now, faith is about steps.

You don't just jump into full faith.

It's about steps of going forward and trusting God more and

more.

But if you've gotten that far along that you believe God can move

mountains, but you don't, Love says it would be nothing.

It doesn't matter.

He says, well, what if you cared about the poor?

What if you cared about people who don't have enough?

And you sacrificed and you gave of your money, you gave your

time, you volunteered.

In fact, you worked with him so much you caught some diseases

or you got sick, or you exhausted yourself and you gave up

your body for giving to others so much.

Scripture says, well, you could boast about that.

But if you don't love others, you have gained nothing.

That's how important love is.

So let's set the bar really high right here at the beginning,

because that's what First Corinthians tells us when it comes

to love.

This is not optional stuff.

This is more important than anything else in our lives.

And then it goes on.

It says, love is patient and kind.

Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.

It does not demand its own way.

It is not irritable.

It keeps no record of being wronged.

It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever

the truth wins out.

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and

endures through every circumstance.

This is where 1 Corinthians 13 gets very specific about what love

looks like.

You want to know how God loves you?

That's it right there.

How God loves you and God loves me.

That's it right there.

Now, when you start to read this, you'll measure up on some areas

and other areas you won't measure up.

And kind of helpful if you got the courage to do it.

Go through and kind of rate yourself on a one to ten scale.

You know, ten being best, I guess, one being the worst.

You know, how do you do?

Love is patient.

Are you patient?

You can fudge the scale if you want to, but who are you fooling?

God already knows the answer.

He knows which one you fit on that.

So be honest with yourself.

Are you patient?

Are you kind?

Not jealous, Boastful, Proud, rude?

Some of you are rude sometimes.

I get the reports.

Does not demand its own way.

That's a pretty heavy lift.

Is not irritable.

Keeps no records of being wrong.

Some people just walk around with a mental tab of everybody who's

ever heard them.

I had that early on.

You know, God's given me a gift.

It's a really weird gift.

I cannot remember bad things people do to me.

I can't remember the specific.

I remember something happened, but I can't remember the specifics.

It's really strange.

So sometimes in my job, you know, somebody does something and

I got to deal with it.

And I have to write a memo to the file.

Because two or three years later, I won't remember exactly what

they did.

God's blessed me in that.

But for other people, boy, they keep a record of wrongs.

Do not rejoice about injustice.

Rejoice is whenever the truth wins out.

You know, some people are really happy if somebody else gets

hurt.

Somebody else gets taken down.

That's good.

True love doesn't rejoice in injustice.

Love never gives up, never loses faith.

Always hopeful, always endures forever circumstances.

Does that describe you?

If not, it can.

If you start doing this homework assignment, it's going to

change how you love.

Because these are the things that are going to start to reflect

in your life.

Then it goes on.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages.

And special knowledge will become useless.

But love will last forever.

For our knowledge is partial and incomplete.

Even when the gift of prophecy reveals only part of our whole picture.

But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things

will become useless.

You see, the world will pass away.

All this will be gone.

And the only thing that remains is love.

Scripture is very clear.

Heaven is a place of perfect love.

Perfect love between us and God.

And perfect love with those who are there with us.

Scripture says we don't understand it all now, but promise

is there.

We will understand it when we can see clearly, which means eternal

life.

When we can see clearly, we will understand it.

We will be in a new earth, this earth restored in the way that

God designed it to be.

We will be there.

And all the stuff we struggle over now, all the tensions you have

with people, all the record of wrongs you keep, all the ways you

lash out or people lash out at you.

All that stuff won't matter anymore.

It won't matter at all.

When the perfection comes.

These partial things will become useless.

Love endures.

Well, the scripture goes on, says this.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.

But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

Now we see him perfectly, like puzzling reflection of a mirror.

But then we'll See everything with perfect clarity.

All that I know is now partial and incomplete.

But then I will know everything completely, just as God

knows me completely.

This is the practice part, okay?

When you were a child, you did stuff and you messed it up and you

got better at it.

Different skills from walking on up, and you got better and better

and better at it.

And then you finally put away the childhood stuff.

Then this is the practice part of love.

It takes time.

It takes patience.

It takes practice in order to love in the way that God expects

us to love.

And then that second part of the story is really powerful.

I mean, second part of this passage.

Now, we've seen things imperfectly, like a puzzling reflection.

Now when you think of reflection, you think, well, mirror's

not puzzling.

They didn't have mirrors like we have.

Their mirrors are really, I mean, first of all, very valued because

they were hard to find.

But then you could just barely see kind of a sort of image.

It wasn't kind of the clarity that we have.

So that's the image he's giving here.

Clarity, reflection and mirror.

But then we'll see everything with perfect clarity.

All I know is partial and incomplete.

But then I will know everything completely, just as God

knows me completely.

The people you have trouble loving, if you knew their full story,

it'd be a lot easier.

But you don't know their story.

That person who lashes out, you don't know how many times people

have lashed out at them.

That person who wants to get even, you don't know how many times

that's happened to them.

The people who work and talk about you behind your back have had

that happen to them.

I don't know the stories of each of you.

I know some of your stories.

But if you knew the full story of the person who's hard to love,

they're a whole lot easier to love.

Because you say, well, God loves me.

He knows my story.

Yeah, that's it.

That's the point.

We don't know each other's stories.

So give a lot of grace.

Because if we did, if we didn't just see partially and incomplete,

we would understand them completely differently.

Well, then the chapter finishes up with this, and these

three will last forever.

Faith, hope and love.

And the greatest of these is love, faith.

You know, it takes a leap of faith to believe the Bible is true.

I told you the other week about how I know the Bible is true.

And yeah, but there still is a leap of faith.

You can't absolutely prove it.

There has to be a leap of faith.

To believe that is God's word, there has to be a leap of faith to

understand how God really designed your life to be and wants

so much more for you.

Faith is what is the foundation that holds us steady within

the uncertainty all around us.

And hope.

Hope is what changes us for the world.

You have hope for a career.

You have hope for a family.

You have hope for a better impact in the world.

You have hope for a lot of good things, and that's God putting

that in you.

You have hope for eternity.

And hope is what drives us and energizes us and, and gives us joy

to life and love.

God's love that transforms us, makes us like Him.

When we ask for his love to fill us, we become like Him.

A love that demands nothing in return.

Zero in return.

If you're only loving people who love you back, you're not doing

it.

God's love demands nothing in return.

And it's limitless.

It never gives up.

It stays right there.

It keeps coming at you and coming at you.

It won't give up.

You know, your capacity to love is related to understanding

how much God loves you.

If you understand how much God loves you, it's a lot easier to love

people like he does.

Well, faith, important, critical hope.

We couldn't live without it.

But love, that is the greatest.

So the homework assignment.

Read chapter 13 of First Corinthians one time every day between

now and Thanksgiving.

Every single day, seven days a week.

And if you want the extra credit, remember, read it a second

time, thinking about the person who's most difficult in your

life.

And between now and Thanksgiving, God will transform

you.

If you will do this, I promise you your Thanksgiving dinner with

your family is going to be a whole lot better.

Because you're going to do this.

Your outlook on life, your fulfillment, is going to be different

because you're going to let love transform you.

Now, I've sent you an.

I'm going to send you an email here in a few minutes with First

Corinthians 13 in it.

So you're going to have it on your phone.

You can get it in a different version.

I sent you the new living version.

That's what I tend to use in chapel.

But if you want a different version, some people like the King

James version because of the eloquence of the language.

Some others like other translations.

That's fine.

You read what other translation you want.

You read a different translation, different days, that's

okay.

But read it every single day between now and Thanksgiving Day.

And when you do, then you will begin in a new way to grow the fruits

of the Spirit in your life.

These seven fruits all begin and come from love.

Without love, you don't have the rest.

Joy.

How we can see the best in other people is the only way to get

joy.

And you can't do that if you don't love.

If you want to be a peacemaker person who brings peace, you have

to see the value in every person.

That means you've got to love them.

If you want to be a person who's patient as Christ is with us,

you've got to have love that's limitless.

If you want to be kind, that means you see, everybody is a child

of God.

If they are somebody God loves and God made, how can you not be

kind?

Kind to them, no matter what.

Goodness is the character of God.

That's the core of who he is.

He can't be anything but good.

And he gives us that goodness as children of his faithfulness that

never gives up.

People give up on you.

Imagine in your life somebody's given up on you.

Love never gives up.

Jesus never gave up on you.

Jesus never will give up on you.

Someday when you're far gone from here and you have a time in

your life where you crash and burn and life falls apart and you

get a divorce and you messed up and you're at the bottom, don't

forget, Jesus is never going to give up on you.

Ever, ever, ever.

Faithfulness is about love, gentleness.

It's how Jesus treated children.

Children were the least important in that culture.

But he said, come, let them gather around.

Self control.

Self control is what honors God and honors other people because

you respect them.

And self control demonstrates that when the spirit of God takes

over every aspect of our lives, we can start to live up to

our real potential and and develop these fruits of the Spirit

in our life as God swoops in and takes control and operates in

every aspect of all we do.

And that's what we're going to talk about next week as we continue

on with the essential sovereignty in all and overall, in

all of our love, in all of our activities, in all of our future,

in all of our past and all of our dreams.

God is in everything.

How God engages in all of our world so that we can have trust and

faith in him is what we're going to talk about next week.

I hope you do the assignment.

If you don't, well, you're going to do it because you're not

afraid.

You got courage.

Don't be afraid of it.

Do it.

It'll change you.

Let's pray together.

Thanks.

Dear Lord, this time to focus on your love.

We thank you for the wisdom of First Corinthians 13 and how it was

written so clearly for us to follow as a blueprint for how we're

to love.

Help us to have the courage to do it.

Through your power, in your name, we ask it.

Amen.

Thanks for listening.