2020 VISION: RADICAL LOVE - Our Identifying Characteristic - January 5, 2020
Prayers
INTRODUCTION
Wars, political fighting, culture wars, hate, violence
Growing up with the Jerry Lewis Telethon on my birthday weekend almost every year shaped me in ways I didn't realize back then.
1. I love special people.
2. I love to make a difference.
3. I love cheesy variety show numbers.
4. I love Jerry Lewis.
5. I love "What the world needs now is love sweet love" Dione Warwick
Love - "an intense feeling of deep affection"
"feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone"
letting people be their authentic selves
love without trying to change the other person
unconditional
I. RADICAL LOVE AS THE MARK OF AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY
“When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.””
John 13:31-35 NIV
Orthodoxy, orthopraxy, orthopathy
A. Orthodoxy - right beliefs
B. Orthopraxy - right behaviors
C. Orthopathy - right affections (heart)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 NIV
LOVE is at the heart of our beliefs as Christians!
II. RADICAL LOVE AS THE PRACTICE OF AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. 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. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”
1 John 4:7-21 NIV
A. Love comes from God.
B. Love identifies our Father.
C. Love extends to our brothers and sisters.
III. RADICAL LOVE AS THE HEART OF AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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, always perseveres. Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NIV
I. Ecstatic/miraculous/powerful/benevolent actions are not the heart.
II. Love is the heart of the matter.
III. Love is demonstrable.
"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, always perseveres. Love never fails."
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
God is love. Jesus is the perfect example of the love of God.
CHALLENGE
Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 every day this next week. Underline words that describe love. Put a check by those descriptions you demonstrate this week. Focus your love on one person this week.
Sent from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment