All You Need is Love, without apology to the Beatles

 Read 1 Corinthians 13

In the next service we will do the love chapter. I thought I would do a round robin on the topic of love for this service, as most of you are here for both services.

Let’s go!

1 Corinthians 16:14

Let all that you do be done in love.

Every, all, all yall, with no exclusions is the essence here. Thats when you are in worship or at home making your fourth peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the kid who is eating like he was rescued from the Sahara.

It’s when you are in line at Walmart or stuck in traffic on I-40. It’s for early morning or late at night.

Everything is to be done in love, even the stuff that we don’t’ like to do. We don’t forgive out of guilt. We should do it out of love for the person whom we are forgiving, for ourselves, and for God who has commanded that we forgive.

Colossians 3:14

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Put on love. Thanks some unique verbiage. Think old self-new self, old clothes—new clothes, and human nature—God’s nature.

We are to put on God’s nature.

1 Corinthians 13:13

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

You will get this one again later, but it’s just too hard to pass up now. C’mon, I grew up with this one.  Faith, hope, love, abide these three but the greatest of these is love.

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

That’s some serious love right there. That is true agape love—unselfish and unconditional.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

You might have heard that one once or twice. Our salvation is rooted in love. Our salvation comes from God who is in his very essence—love.

1 John 4:7-8

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

There’s the cool part of this verse.  God is love. That’s some cool beans. Then there is the admonishing part. If you don’t love then you don’t know God.

Consider this from the Parable of the 10 Virgins parable.  In that one, the host of the banquet says, “I don’t know you.”  Ouch!

Imagine God telling us, "I don’t know you," because we did not live lives of love. I’m really banking on a “Well-done, good, and faithful servant, not an "I don’t know you."

1 Peter 4:8

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Jesus took away our sins on the cross, yet we still sin. How do we lessen the pain for all involved? Love is the remedy.

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

How much love is that? Christ died for us—for his church. In those marital words of “I do” we—the men—are saying that we would die for our wives.  I would die for you.

You think our wives might cut us a little slack for saying we would die for them. What do we get instead?

That’s what you say but you never do it.

Ephesians 4:2

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

These all are plucked out of a greater context, but even as stand-alone, there is counsel for us. This whole business of working with others gets sticky without love.

So be patient, humble, gentle, and live a life of love.

John 14:15

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

OK, that’s not touchy-feelie love. That’s action love. That’s put my words into practice, love. That’s forgive them as I forgave you, love. That’s sometimes some tough stuff.

We are told that it is love that fulfills the law.  We can’t follow all of the rules. Only Jesus did that but we can fulfill the law if we live with love as our new nature.

How do we know that love is our new nature?  Here’s a litmus test.

Substitute your name for love in this paragraph.

I am patient, I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud. I do not dishonor others, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered, I keep no record of wrongs. I do not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth. I always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Did you get hung up on one or two of these, or am I in the company of the perfect people?

If you are here for the next service, you will get this again, but I will close with 1 Corinthians 13.

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

Amen.

 

John 15 - Part 1

Read John 15

Warning!  Chapter 15 is 100% red letters.  Jesus does all the talking.

At the end of the last chapter, Jesus said, “Let’s go.”  John doesn’t tell us where they went but it was likely Gethsemane.  Perhaps along the way, there was a vineyard.  In any case, Jesus made his next analogy.

I am the vine.  You are the branches.

Before that, Jesus said he was the true vine.  His Father in heaven was the Gardener and pruned away anything that would not bear fruit.  The Father and Son had the relationship that Jesus wanted for his disciples.

Get rid of anything that hinders.  Prune away that which will not bear good fruit.  Where do we go for pruning?  It’s mostly from God’s word.  

Sometimes the Spirit will speak to you but it will be in accord with God’s word.

Then Jesus told his disciples that apart from him, they were nothing.  They must remain in him as the branches must remain in the vine.  Whoever was not in him would wither and die.

Jesus was once again teaching connection and relationship.  If you ever wondered why I am such a stick in the mud about not being transactional in our ministries but insisting on transformational, think to the words of Jesus in this chapter.

If you ever get tired of me saying connect the disconnected, understand that Jesus taught his disciples how important it was to remain connected to him.

Apart from him, we will wither.  We will produce no fruit.  We will be a worthless branch at best good for a little kindling for the fire.

No branch can produce fruit by itself, but understand that this teaching is not about the fruit.  Fruit is evidence of the connection, the relationship, the fellowship with Christ.  It’s not about the fruit.  It’s about our discipleship.

Are we in fellowship with Christ and each other?

Jesus had just told these men that he was the way, the truth, and the life.  Now he reinforces the necessity of remaining in him—connected to him as a branch is to the main vine.

Jesus told his followers that he had to go away.  Now he tells them to remain in him.  His followers were yet to understand that their connection to their Teacher and Lord would go far beyond following him through Samaria and Galilee. 

This was really not new ground.  I am in the Father.  The Father is in me.  Let’s have the same relationship.

Next, we have the drinking from the firehose section.  Each statement of Jesus is packed to the brim.  Here are ten statements that came in rapid succession.

1.    As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

2.    Now remain in my love.

3.     If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

4.    I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

5.    My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

6.    Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

7.    You are my friends if you do what I command.

8.    I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

9.    You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

And finally, number 10.  This is my command:  Love each other. 

Much of this should sound familiar.  Love one another. Produce good fruit.  Obey my commands.

Some of it took the disciples to another level.  You are more than servants.  You are my friends.

One of these statements was about Jesus going to the cross; yet was a model for all of us.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Do you remember the new command?  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  Jesus laid down is life for us.  That’s how much he loved us.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

It was a good thing that the Holy Spirit would come and dwell in these men at Pentecost for what they had just heard from their Teacher who was soon to go to the cross was more than most people could handle in a single dose.

What should you take away?  Remain in Christ as the branch remains in the vine.  Remain in him by remaining in his love and obeying his command to love others with everything we have.

Be know by your love if you want to remain in Christ.

Amen.