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February 07, 2010
“Forever Love”
John 13: 31-35/I Corinthians 13: 1-13
Sunday, February 7, 2010
I know it is Superbowl Sunday and that it might seem strange to talk about love on the day we will hear people shouting “Kill the Saints” (Drew Brees Excepted of Course)
St. Valentines day of course is next Sunday, as is the Daytona 500 and the beginning of the Nascar Season. But next Sunday is also the day the church celebrates the Transfiguration of Jesus.
So, even though today is Superbowl Sunday I am preaching on Love. Perhaps this might help you prepare for all the love stuff you will be exposed to this week.
But as I begin to talk about Love, I must caution you that the love I am talking about is not the passionate sexually charged love that has taken over St. Valentines Day. When I see some of the products that are promoted around Valentine’s day I want to shout at the TV (which by the way is not unheard of for me) I want to shout “For heaven’s sake, Valentine is honored by many as a saint. This holiday was originally the day his death was celebrated. Why do you have to use his name to sell trashy things?”
To clarify matters a little I will remind you that in the Greek language, the language in which the NT was written, there are 3 words which are properly translated Love. Only two of them were in common use by the Greeks. Eros was the word that referred to romantic love. Phileo was the word that was used to describe familial love, or brotherly love or the love of ones nation or friends.
The Greek speaking Jews coined another word to describe the love that God has for us and that we should have for God and for others. That word is Agape. It is found a lot in our scriptures and not at all in Classic Greek writings.
It is Agape that is the subject of our text this morning. In this well known passage also known as I Corinthians 13, Paul describes what this kind of love causes a person do to rather than what it is.
But before he does that he declares the importance of this kind of love. The Christians who lived in Corinth Greece in the first century AD were assigning values to certain qualities and to people. They were really into what we call “pecking orders”. In their way of seeing things, some folks and some qualities that people had were more valuable than others. When they became Christians and began to receive Spiritual gifts such as prophecy, speaking in tongues, extraordinary faith, generosity, and biblical and theological knowledge, they had to place values on them so they knew or thought they knew who was more important based on the gifts God gave them.
Paul set out to help them understand that their approach was wrong. He first of all stated that they had neglected the most important gift. It was this agape love that God had given them. This form of love was so important that without it, no other gift mattered.
Without Love speaking in tongues made no more sense than someone clanging symbols or hitting a gong with a hammer. Without love, the ability to see the future, and the ability of understand God’s mysteries and the ability to know marvelous things gives no value to a person at all. Without Love, nothing matters, not even if one were to sacrifice his own life for a cause or even for God.
In verses 4-7 Paul wrote about the qualities that love gives a person. One who has God’s kind of love is: patient and kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. One who has God’s kind of love does not rejoice in bad deeds, but rejoices when the truth shines forth. One who has God’s kind of love puts up with or bears all kind of bad things, and continues to believe in and trust people, seeking the good in them and seeking good for them.
It may have occurred to you by now that this is the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated to all people in his life and death. He bore all things for us, even death on a cross. And the night before he died on that cross he spoke the words that are recorded near the end of our first lesson in John 13. He said “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
And, going back to our second lesson from I Cor. 13, Paul gives us another reason why practicing this love here on earth is so important. It is one of the few things that we can develop or allow to grow within us that will be useful in the kingdom of God AKA heaven. Most of the stuff we learn here on earth will not be important in the eternal kingdom. This life is like a childhood compared to the maturity that will be ours in the coming kingdom. Most of the skills we develop here will not be used in the kingdom. But love is forever. The loving deeds we do for others will be remembered in heaven. And love will be practiced constantly in heaven.
There is an old saying about the value of money, that you can’t take it with you when you die. That is true of almost everything we value in this life. But it is not true of the Love that we have for others and the loving and kind deeds that we do for others.
I am glad to have the boy scouts with us this morning. The scout motto is “Be Prepared”. It is a good motto for all of us. If you want to be prepared for the life after this one, build up within yourself and demonstrate to others the God-like Love that God has for us and demonstrated in the death of his Son Jesus for us.
Let us now remember Jesus’ death by celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at February 7, 2010 06:11 PM