The King's Church in Ilford
Reading: 1Thessalonians 4:9-10 & 1Cor 13:1-7
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of" - So sang Jackie DeShannon.
The Beatles told us that "All you need is love.." But then they couldn't get it together either, and the band broke up. There's no shortage of people telling us that love is the answer to the problems of our society. The thing we find so difficult is the doing of it. The question is: Why?
The Bible says when God designed us, He made us in His image. He gave us a personality like His - with the ability to think and to feel, and to make choices for ourselves. The Bible goes on to say that God's personality has always been motivated by His love; and human-beings were OK as long as they too were motivated by God's love. But when, early on, we turned our backs on God, we no longer had his love coursing through our personalities. So there we were, like cars with no petrol, personalities designed to run on God's love - but no God!
So what happened? We replaced God's love with self-love. So selfishness, greed, lust, abuse, manipulation, became the things that motivated us, along with anger when we couldn't get what we wanted, the lust for money and power, and every kind of evil.
The ability to love didn't disappear altogether. God's image in us is tarnished, but it's still there; and it becomes visible from time to time. We are capable of loving deeply and committing great acts of sacrifice for others, but all too easily it gets smothered by our own selfish hearts too busy looking out for No.1.
It would have been easy for God to have written us off at this stage, as a bad lot. But we don't write our own children off when they reject us because we love them. And anyway, God knew this was going to happen and had a plan to sort it out. It was going to be very costly, and would become the greatest expression of selfless love this world would ever see. God the Son would enter this world as one of us, and take upon himself all the sin & evil our selfish hearts could ever devise. "Greater love has no man," said the Lord Jesus, "than he who lays down his life for his brothers." which is what Jesus did when he died upon the cross.
How can we bring that home, get the enormity of what Jesus did? Our brother Chris has just had a triple by-pass operation for which he was very grateful. But supposing he had needed a heart transplant, and there was no donor available. Imagine a stranger comes along who says, "You can have my heart." I can imagine Chris' response. "Urr, slight problem. You've only got one heart, and you're going to need it." "That's all right," says the stranger. "Only one of us can live. You can have my life. Let it be my gift to you." I imagine Chris would have trouble getting his head round that kind of generosity. But before he can refuse, the stranger walks into a hospital for the operation - only to be told it has to be done without anaesthetic. But still he does it.
You're probably shocked and a little bit nauseated by what I've just described. Yet it doesn't really come near to what Jesus did for us on the cross. But He did it because He loved us, and because it was necessary if we were going to be restored to a right relationship with God. He did it because it was the price of our forgiveness; and He did it to set us an example of how we are to love one another, laying down our lives for each other. On the night before this happened, He looked down the supper table at His squabbling disciples, and gave them a new commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you. By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
"By Your Love"
Well, the church got off to a great start. In Acts 4:32 we read that...
It didn't always work as smoothly as that. The early Christians had to be taught to love one another. At Corinth, there were all sorts of problems, and it was to them that Paul wrote his famous description of love that we usually use at weddings. It's rather strange that we do. When a couple are tying the knot, looking gooey- eyed at each other, love is the last thing we need to remind them about! But then we're talking about two different kinds of love. Actually, there are four words in Greek that we translate as love. I want us to look at three of them:
1. Eros - This is romantic love. It's rather selfish because it's about how I feel. "I can't live without you!" "Every bone in my body aches for you." Flattering as these descriptions are, they're all about me, rather than the object of my love. If Eros love is all I've got, I'm going to be in this relationship only for as long as it makes me feel good. Our society makes a great deal of Eros love, but it's not enough.
2. Phileo - This is brotherly love, and it's based on common interests. It's not a physical attraction, rather a meeting of minds. This is based on a sharing of values and wanting the same things in life. This is the "best friends" love, and you're in it because you both get something out of it. Couples need it for life-long marriage.
3. Agape - Is sacrificial love. Agape expects nothing back from the one it loves. It is purely concerned with what the other person gets out of it. It does not love 'because of'. More often it's 'in spite of'. It is a matter of the will, not feelings. It's something we choose to do.
When Paul talks about love in 1Cor 13, he's not talking about Eros love, but agape love. For a married couple it could be rendered like this:
Read from "Looking Up The Aisle" - page 27
Agape love needs to be taught as much as caught. Children are taught to share their toys, and how to get on with other children. Couples need to be taught to agape one another. We'd have a far fewer divorces if they were. Christians catch Phileo - best friends love when they are immersed in a loving community, but we also need also to be taught to agape one another - love unselfishly.
Paul was trying to get it over to the Thessalonians in stages. He would have taught them Phileo - to be good friends to start with. But they'd already moved on from there. The Holy Spirit had already taught them the greatest love of all - agape; and they had become noted for it. Still he urges them to go on doing it in ever greater measure.
The Scriptures are very practical, and make it clear that words aren't enough. Love is something you do. In 1John 3:16, John says, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him. dear children let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."
"Julie's Song"
I was involved once with a church where they shared even their cars, and got their insurance policies changed to 'any driver'. The local bank manager used to complain that he didn't know whose money was whose because they gave or lent to any in need.
Agape is not just a cold doing of things. Feelings are part of it, but like so many parts of the Christian life, they tend to follow the doing. So Paul could say with great tenderness to the Colossian Believers: "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Be tender-hearted towards each other, bear with each other, and forgive whatever grievances you may have towards one another.. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect harmony."
That's the message, the Good News. It's God's agenda for the ills of our society. Change people's hearts, and we'll start to change families. Change families, and we'll start to change society. It starts by each of us coming to the Lord Jesus in repentance for living as if He doesn't exist, and asking Him to change us so that, filled with His love, we become part of the solution, and no longer part of the problem.
"Please Change Me"