What is Love?

Well, good morning everybody. Good to see you on this Lord’s Day. Let’s get this Lord’s Day worship started right. Get everybody woke up.

If you’re able, stand with us as we sing “Love the Lord Your God with All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength.”

Here we go.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, all your mind, with all your strength.

I will serve the Lord with all my heart.

I will serve the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my heart.

With all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength.

I will serve the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength.

I will love You. I will love You. I will—

I will praise You. I will serve You.

I will serve You.

Heart with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength,

all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and all my strength.

I will love You, Lord, with all my heart, all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength.

I will love You, Lord, with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, with all my strength.

I will love You, Lord, all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, with all my strength.

Amen.

Giving our love to the Lord. That’s where—that’s the most important thing.

Two most important things. Jesus was asked by a man one time. He said, “Lord, what’s the most important thing? What’s the most important law?”

And Jesus said the most important command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And the second is like unto it, to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

So if you want the basic level of examining your discipleship, the basic level of examining your walk with God, ask yourself: Do you love the Lord? Do you really love the Lord? And do you really love your neighbor?

Amen.

That’s how we know if we are really following Jesus.

Well, we’re here today to give glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, expressing our love in music, prayer, and word. Let’s continue in music by giving glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures below. Praise Him above the heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, as we come into Your house today, Lord, I pray that each person here today is filled with joy. Filled with joy because there is joy available from Your Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is joy.

And we pray, Lord, that as we express our love to You, I pray, Father, that somebody here today who is not aware of Your love—maybe in their mind they’ve heard that God loves them—but I pray that today they experience the fact that God loves them.

Lord, show somebody today Your love for them.

Father, bless all that happens here today in Your house and with Your people for Your glory. We pray it all in Jesus’ name.

And all of God’s people say, “Amen.”

Amen and amen.

If you’re able, would you stand with us again as we sing, “Oh, How I Love Jesus.”

There is a name I love to hear. I love to sing His word.

It sounds in my ear. The sweetest name on earth.

Oh Jesus.

Oh Jesus. How I love Jesus.

Because He first loved me.

It tells me love to set me free.

It tells me of His precious blood.

Oh, how I love Jesus. How I love Jesus.

How I love Jesus

hearts that none can bear.

Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus.

How I love Jesus. Because He loved me.

How He loves you and me.

Oh, how He loves you and me.

He gave His life. What more could He give?

Oh, how He loves you. Oh, how He loves me.

Oh, how He loves you and me.

Jesus to calary

His love to show

what He did there.

Oh, how He loves you. Oh, how He loves me.

Oh, how He loves you and—

Amen. Amen.

Father, we just thank You for being able to come to Your house today.

Such a privilege and honor to be able—

We thank You for the gift that—

All right, boys and— It is time for the children’s moment.

Let’s have all the boys and girls around—

everybody.

You all— Yeah.

wanted to know what—

recipe—

show you how I think that show—

You can tell your brother—

love—

show— Boys and girls.

Praise the Lord for God’s little children. Amen.

Our last—

All—

something that will bless your heart.

I’ll bring You more—

search—

back to the heart worship and it’s all about—

the Jesus.

No one could express how much You can hold.

All I have is Yours.

I’ll bring You more—

things.

You’re looking—

all about You.

Yes, it’s all about Jesus, and it’s all about You.

Yes, it’s all about You, Jesus.

You Jesus.

What a joyous occasion on which we gather this morning. We celebrate an individual being passed from death and unto life.

This morning we understand that these baptismal waters contain no magical property or any means of salvation in themselves.

Yet it is an outward display of an inward transformation.

Based upon your profession of faith that Jesus Christ is Lord, and in obedience to His command and in likeness of His example, I baptize you, my brother Gates, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Buried with Him in death, rise again to walk in newness of life.

And all of God’s people say, “Amen.”

Love.

It’s the only— Amen. Sing it, Stephanie Dhan.

Yes.

After we have finished Haggai and the tough sermon last week, I thought that you folks might need a good old sermon on love. Amen.

Amen.

So, if you will find in your copy of God’s Word, the book of First Corinthians. The book of First Corinthians, chapter number 13.

I will tell you that this morning I will be reading from the 1984 NIV, and probably there’s not a soul in here that has that because since 2011 it has been out of print. And I don’t particularly like the 2011 NIV, but the 1984 that I cut my ministry teeth with is the one that I believe most beautifully and poetically captures the meaning of these words in 1 Corinthians 13.

So I will say the words in your Bible will be similar to these.

When you get there to 1 Corinthians 13, if you’re able, would you stand with me as we honor God in the reading of His Word.

And now hear the word of the Lord.

“And now I will show you the most excellent way.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

“If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only resounding gong or clanging symbol."

"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."

"If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."

"Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. 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 stealed. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part."

"But when perfection comes, the imperfect 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 childish ways behind me."

"Now we see but a poor 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."

May God add His blessing to the reading, the preaching, and your hearing to understand His holy Word.

May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ forever be praised.

And all of God’s people say, “Amen.”

You may be seated.

We do turn our attention this morning to that ancient quest. The quest that is as old as humanity itself, that is as intense as any war that has ever been fought.

It is the quest for real love.

The quest is intense because of the scarcity and the necessity of the commodity. What the singer is saying is true. It’s the only thing that there is just too little of.

It has been the subject of countless ballads, of poems, songs, ancient and modern. When we go and we do archaeology in Greece and the urn is unearthed from the rubble, and even in Pompeii when some scrolls that were charred are MRI’d and then translated, we find love poems that are thousands of years old.

Pop musicians, romantic poets of all the generations—but folks, they don’t have a monopoly on describing what real love is. Amen.

Most people here today are aware of Paul’s writing. I know that we have some Sunday school classes that are studying the book of Romans, penned, inspired by the Holy Spirit, penned by the Apostle Paul.

So whatever you may think of the rest of what Paul wrote, most of us would agree—even the people out there in the secular world would agree—that the most sublime description of love that has ever been written by pen and ink upon parchment is found in these words.

I remember being at Meridian Community College, in a secular college, and in the world literature class having to study this chapter, and it was in the world literature textbook. How many of you ever had to study the Norton Anthology of Literature? Anybody ever remember that great big blue book?

Because even the secular world recognizes that this description of love is about the best description of love that has ever been written.

We all desire love.

But what we desire is not some phony, not some facsimile.

No, we desire real love.

And friends, we human beings have developed the ability to detect the counterfeit by experiencing the genuine.

Once you have ever experienced real love, counterfeit love will be a huge red flag to you every time.

So what is real love?

How can you distinguish between real love and just casual feelings? How can you distinguish between real love and just a counterfeit that’s using and vaunting itself for its own good?

Think about this.

What is it?

What is it that changes that mere human physical desire, that romantic pursuit? What is it that changes that into a lifelong committed relationship?

What makes the difference?

Real love.

Not counterfeit, but real love.

What is it that makes the difference between a workplace acquaintance, somebody that you spend eight hours a day with, somebody that you get in the corner and complain about the boss about, somebody that you have the same objectives at work and the same schedule at work?

What is it—the thing that makes a difference between someone like that, that acquaintance like that, and a true-blue, through-and-through friend? As the young people would say, your ride or die.

What is it that makes the difference between those two relationships?

Love.

Real love.

What is it that changes the obligation and the toil of feeding and changing diapers and wiping noses and everything else in between—everything from the diaper to the nose?

What is it that transforms those actions into the fierce defense, the advocacy, the silliness, and the sacrifice of parenthood?

What is it that makes that difference?

Love.

Real love.

Brother Gunnar, great job. You did it just right.

Brother Gunnar, what is it that makes the distinction between a man who stands up and talks to a group of people about God and the Bible each week—just a preacher—and a shepherd who experiences the joys and sorrows, the ups, the downs, the immaturity to growth and flourishing of a multi-generational congregation?

Real love.

A pastor is different from a preacher because he loves his people.

What Jackie DeShannon sang is true.

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”

And I would add to that: what the world needs now is love.

Real love.

We look at Paul’s chapter 13 here and how it is divided, and we try to glean its truths, number one, by seeing the supremacy of love.

The Apostle Paul—and he’s speaking to the church at Corinth here, a church, a congregation that had a lot of problems. There are four books, four letters that are written to them. We only have 1 and 2 Corinthians, but in the context, we understand that there was a first, second, third, and fourth Corinthians. We only just have the one and two.

And in verses 1 through 3, he tries to get the church at Corinth to understand that love is supreme.

He says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, if I speak the language that angels speak, but I don’t have love, I’m just a racket, a noise.”

He says, “If I have the gift of prophecy, if I can prophesy over somebody and have that prophecy be fulfilled, if I can fathom all mysteries, if the great mysteries of the universe and the great mysteries of heaven above and hell below have been revealed to me, and I’ve got a grasp on mysteries like you would not believe—but I don’t have love, I have not love, I am nothing.”

He says, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Because it is love that is supreme.

The Corinthians, the church at Corinth, they were all caught up in exercising spiritual gifts. Every Bible study they had was about spiritual gifts. Every sermon that they heard was about spiritual gifts. Every emphasis that they had, every testimony they had, was about spiritual gifts.

Things like the speaking in tongues and prophesying and fathoming mysteries, things that were super spiritual.

And there was probably some comparison of gifts going on here, some one-upmanship.

“Well, how many prophecies have you given that came true?”

“Seven.”

“How many?”

“Eight.”

Paul’s response, he says, “God doesn’t care how super spiritual you are. God doesn’t care how knowledgeable you are or mysterious you are. If you don’t have love, if you don’t have real love, you’re just spinning your wheels. You’re just wasting time. You’re just taking up space in God’s church if you don’t have real love.”

He even admonishes the martyr wannabes.

Verse three, did you catch that?

He said, “If I give all I possess to the poor and I surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

And we say, “Why would anybody give all they had to the poor if they didn’t love? That’s got to be love to make you do that. Why would somebody be a near martyr for the faith, or without denying their faith, if they didn’t have real love?”

Well, they did.

There were undoubtedly people in the church that were comparing who had suffered the most, who had been persecuted the most, who had been arrested the most times.

They were wrapped up in pride.

They were wrapped up—listen—they were wrapped up in putting on a show instead of showing real love.

And Paul’s admonition was the same.

If what you do for God or what you do for man is not saturated by and motivated by love, real love, you are wasting your time.

Because what the world needs now is love.

Real love.

He begins with the supremacy of love, and then verses 4 through 8, he gives us the substance of love.

What is love?

What is this real love that was sung about? And what is this real love that I’ve said about 17 times, that phrase?

What is the thing that distinguishes false, phony, facsimile love from real love? How can we measure it?

We can’t put empirical value on it.

We can’t test samples of it for consistency.

We can’t put it under a microscope and examine its cellular structure.

What can we do?

Well, we can describe it.

Maybe we can’t measure it, but anyone who has experienced it knows when it’s present. And anyone who has experienced real love, genuine love, knows when it is absent.

Knows when it is absent.

Many have undertaken to describe what true love is, and some have used analogies, stories, examples.

Paul uses descriptive words.

Words that detail what love does and what it doesn’t do.

How can you tell if something is true? If it is true, real love or not?

Look at the description.

Listen to this description and compare.

Love is patient.

Is the thing you are experiencing from somebody else, is it patient? Love—is the thing that you are giving generously from your own heart, is it patient?

Love is patient.

He’s not talking about a feeling here. He’s talking about a description. He’s not talking about an emotion here. He’s talking about something with substance.

Love is patient.

Love, real love, is kind.

It doesn’t envy.

Real love doesn’t look at the other person, the object of love, and envy things about them and want the things that they’ve got for themselves so that then they themselves would not have it.

That’s not love.

Love doesn’t boast and brag, excel in pride.

Verse five: real love, genuine love, true love is not rude.

What the world needs now is less rudeness.

Less rudeness, because that’s an example of real love.

It is not self-seeking.

Seeks the best of others.

Love, real love, is not easily angered.

Not easily angered.

In a fuller description, another sermon that I’ve preached in this text, I’ve gone through each one of these things, and I don’t have time this morning.

But real love is not easily angered.

And you say, “Preacher, I just have a bad temper.”

Well, you need to change.

“That’s just who I am, preacher. I pop off and lose it and blow up, and that’s just who I am, preacher.”

Well, you need more love.

You need to repent.

You need more Holy Spirit.

“That’s just who you are.”

Because love, real love, is not easily angered.

Real love forgives.

It keeps no record of wrongs.

Real love, true love, verse six, does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

Folks, if you have somebody in your life that you love with a real love, with a genuine love, with a biblical, heaven-sent love—if you have a person in your life that you love in that way, and what they are involved in is evil, what they are doing is evil—you, because you love them, will not delight in their evil, will not approve or applaud their evil, but you will rejoice in the truth.

That’s what we call tough love.

Verse seven: love protects.

Love wants to put a covering around.

Love, real love, wants to take the spears and arrows in their own back instead of it going into the one that they truly love.

It always protects.

It always trusts.

It always hopes.

And then that last: it always perseveres and never fails.

Real love, true love, biblical love is love that only grows, does not disappear.

Love goes on forever.

And that brings us to our third point.

We saw the supremacy of love, the substance of love, and now, number three, the survival of love.

Verse eight: “Love never fails.”

But where there are prophecies, they will cease. And where there are tongues, they’ll be stilled. And where there’s knowledge, it’ll pass away.

For we know just a little bit. We know in part. And we prophesy just a little bit, in part.

But when that perfection comes, the imperfect—didn’t say bad or evil or wicked—just imperfect.

He said, “When I was a child, when I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I acted like a child. But when I became a man—”

Men, notice this.

The Apostle Paul, St. Paul the Apostle, in his greatest description of love that has ever been penned by ink upon parchment in all of human history, that great treatise that he has written, uses manhood—manhood—to describe it.

Men, if you think this sermon is for women, you’re wrong.

This sermon maybe is 10% for the women folk, 90% for the men.

He said, “When I was a child, I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. I acted like a child. But in regard to love—love, real love—when I became a man, I put the childish ways of love behind me and I’ve embraced the mature ways of love.”

Love.

Amen.

The survival of love.

He says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, and then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

All this other super spiritual stuff Paul is talking about the Corinthians are so wrapped up in, he says, “Bad news. All that other stuff is imperfect. All that other stuff is temporary. All of those other spiritual expressions are going to pass away.”

But the perfection, the thing that is perfect, will go on forever.

What is this perfection?

What is the perfection he’s talking about?

I believe that it’s nothing less than our glorious reunion with our blessed Lord, ages to roll on without end in heaven.

Amen.

Now he says, “Now in this world, in this age, we see through a mirror dimly.”

Back then, their mirrors were not like our mirrors. Their mirrors would be polished silver or a stone that you might just have some little reflection in.

If you had the best reflection you could see, it would be like Narcissus leaning over and looking at his image in the water.

You just didn’t get a good image from a mirror back then. You picked it out a little bit, but it just wasn’t very good.

Paul says now we have like a broken mirror or dirty mirror that we’re looking at, but then we shall see face to face.

Now I know only in part.

But then in heaven, I will know and I will be fully known.

Listen, folks, because love goes on forever.

There it is.

These three remain: faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

Verse eight: love never fails.

Love always perseveres.

Because of that, I can confidently say in heaven, I’m going to know you in heaven, and you’re going to know me.

Now we see but a poor reflection. Then we shall see face to face.

Now I know in part. Then, when the perfection comes, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Real love, biblical love, goes on even beyond the grave.

The grave itself cannot end real love.

Let me wrap up here.

There’s a gnawing question that is rarely, if ever, asked when it comes to this text.

Broader reading of the rest of Pauline writing—and those of you who are in the Romans Sunday school class, you may get a little bit of this—and if you’ve read much of the rest of Paul’s writing, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, if you’ve read it and then you read this, you say, “That doesn’t sound like the same guy writing.”

Stay with me here just a second.

Okay, you’re right.

This does not sound like Romans 3 about our terrible sinfulness, or Ephesians 2, that we’re dead in our trespasses and sins, or Romans 7, that what I want to do I do not do and the sin that is within.

And it doesn’t sound like the rest of what Paul wrote.

So how is it that Paul did this?

Paul writes to a multifaceted audience.

The Greeks. The Greeks honored wisdom.

The Jews honored piety.

The Romans honored power.

And Paul was certainly well-versed in all of these cultures.

The rest of his writing is full of the elements speaking to the Greeks and speaking to the Jews and speaking to the Romans.

But where did he find the wherewithal to pen the most glorious prose, poetic literature in all of human writing on the topic of love?

How did Paul do that?

My answer is a simple one.

Paul could do that because he had met love personally.

He had met love face to face.

First John, the Apostle John says that God is love.

I love that part in the scene in Footloose where I’m playing Reverend Shaw, and that line was, “God is love. Follow Him and never roam. He has made the stars up above just to light your way back home.”

One of the essential natures of God is that God is love.

And God in human flesh, God the Father, God the Son, is Jesus.

And He, Jesus the Son, is who Paul met on the road to Damascus.

And it changed him forever.

The wisdom of the Greeks, the piety of the Jews, the power of the Romans could have never changed Paul’s life the way that God’s love changed his life.

And God is still changing lives today by His love.

God loves you.

He knows your name.

He knows your birthday and favorite color.

To the Social Security Administration, you’re just a number. But to God, you’re a person whom He loves.

Have you ever experienced real love?

Romans 5:8 tells us this: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God demonstrates His own love for us in this: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

What?

God, instead of giving the recipe, shows His love in this: that while we were sinners, God’s enemy, He gave His Son for us.

John 3:16.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.”

Who?

Jesus.

“That whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

What the world needs now is love.

Sweet love.

’Cause it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.