Character: Known by your Fruit Love Based on the Series Level UP by Hope Church Raleigh NC 1) What percentage of songs you hear every day are love songs? i) 75? 80%? 90%? 2) Love 1. Most of our music and language points to love. But does it tell us what love is? 2. The problem? If you listen to 10 different love songs, you ll get 10 different definitions of love. 3) Love is a powerful need It motivates us, pushes us, drives us crazy it s how we are wired: 1. Results of research - Romantic love, lasting a few months to a few years, is associated with the reward system. It shares the systems used in the brain for a drive like thirst or hunger. i) We need a reward system to survive. We need to know when we are hungry, and when we are thirsty. God gave us all these systems to survive and flourish. The fact that love s activation is deep in the brain where circuits for other survival reflexes are located show us that love is part of our survival systems. ii) This may be the reason it is so hard to control, and so overwhelming. There is a reason why we feel out of control. We were created that way. But romance has an essential purpose, it is a basic drive for human beings 2. cultural differences in how love is expressed don t change how the brain reacts to romantic love. Scans show that love lights up the brain in the same manner in all people, regardless of ethnic background. 3. Studies suggests that love is a powerful force in human life. What is going on at the deep level of the brain is pretty much the same everywhere. But how we talk and think about it, how we show love to others, etc., is shaped by culture. 4. That means we were created for love It is an essential part of who we are, how we were made. It s as essential as eating and breathing 4) But even though we know this, Love is still confusing
1. We were created to love, and we need to be loved 2. But we misunderstand it, we try with all our human strength to make it real to us. i) Why? Because our love is conditional (1) It is selfish (2) It has limits and boundaries (3) Its easy to love the people that are easy to love 5) Our biggest need is to feel loved, in order to feel loved or to find love, we ll do desperate things: 6) Let me ask you, What do you do to feel loved? 1. PERFORMANCE: i) work to achieve someone s value or acceptance. (1) If I perform and achieve, I'll be loved (2) Make the team get the grades get the promotion, be the best. (a) Property manager, balanced budgets, was good at my job. 2. PEOPLE: i) use people get love or acceptance. (1) If I m accepted in the right group. (2) If I have the right boyfriend/girlfriend 3. POSITIONS: i) when I get that next I ll be accepted (1) Similar to performance they date each other! (2) right school right program corporate ladder leading PTA 4. POSSESSIONS: i) people will look up to me in our house, my car (1) Not only my S.U.V but my Mercedes SUV ii) Not just a teenager thing so many adults do this too 7) We try to find love through all kinds of temporary ways Looking for love in all the wrong places... (Waylon Jennings) i) I was looking for love in all the wrong places Looking for love in too many faces 8) It never lasts and is never satisfying 1. Why? Because of the way we are wired, the way we are created. i) Our brains are always looking for a reward. (imagine baby birds being fed by parents)
ii) Because there s a limit to human love, acceptance (law of diminishing returns) iii) Because it is conditional, eventually it dries up. 9) How do we fix this problem? How do you bring a basic drive such as love, that can be selfish, ego-centric, and demanding under control? 1. It so happens that God has a way to fix this problem. 10) Set up for Series: Character Known by your Fruit 1. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) (Slide) i) 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 2. Character Known by your Fruit: i) we are going to spend the next six weeks or so discussing something that every one of us needs in our life 3. Character development give definition (reputation as Character, how do you get one?) 11) So, how do we make love a part of our life? How do we find a love that is permanent, satisfying, real? Here s the answer: I. We Need to UNDERSTAND what God s Love is: 1 John 4:7-8 (NIV) (Slide) 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1. John is writing this letter to a church and a group of followers i) He tells them to continue to love one another. He implies they already understood what love is: ii) Answer: God (1) God is love Not what he does, it s what he is. (2) Therefore, he is the source of all love iii) Means: Love comes from God 2. Here is the first step to understanding this kind of love: (1) You have to know God personally a relationship 3. This love relationship was initiated by God i) God created us to be in a relationship with him, but we were all dead to God because of our sin. Our sin prevents us from having a relationship with a holy God, so we need God s help ii) So he sent his Son, and by coming a human being, he became like us
iii) Through his death he took on our sin, through his resurrection, he won us back to him II. We need to EXPERIENCE God s Love - 1 John 4:9-10 (NIV) (Slide) 4. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 12) How do we learn the love of God? Personal story: i) I ve been following Jesus for 44 years ii) I went to Bible college to learn more about him. iii) I went to graduate school and learned how to use tools for the original languages, and studied Theology, and Education. iv) I learned from some great teachers. v) Then I took what I learned and I taught it in churches. 13) However, that was mostly theory: i) But there was one way I learned about God s love for me. 2. About 4o+ years ago, two miracles happened 3. The second my daughter and son were born, they were very important to me; I would have died for them. i) In a very real way, God reached in and touched my heart and said, 4. Here s a small sample of My love for you i) As much love as you feel for them, you can get a very small idea of how much I love you. ii) It has also been made real to me by the birth of my daughter, my son, and then by my grandchildren. III. We Need to be ROOTED in God s Love 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19 1. Rooted in God s love it will keep us strong He will keep us: doesn t matter what: 2. It's LONG enough to last forever. 3. It's WIDE enough to include everybody
4. It s DEEP enough to feel the depth of your pain. 5. It s HIGH enough that you can t go over it with something else. 6. Goal of the Xn life: i) NOT rules do s and don ts ii) Personal experience of God s love/grace for US! iii) God s love is BETTER than ordinary human love iv) Full of life and power IV. We Need to PRACTICE God s Love (Slide) 1 John 4:11-12 (NLT) 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. 1. Here is the motivation v) since God loved us that much 2. What is the result? i) we surely ought to love each other. 3. Our whole goal as followers of Jesus is to be like him i) Jesus Christ is the model of Christian character. (this is what character is) ii) Love is the supreme manifestation of Christian character 4. (Slide of Hub) Love is the Fruit; all others are ways that Love is manifested by the Spirt 5. We must love others the way God loves us (1) Sacrificially (2) Unselfishly (3) Completely 6. That is why love, God s love, is a fruit of the spirit, is so important. The Spirit rewires us to love properly, and gives us the ability to love as we are supposed to love, as God does 7. It is a complete systemic change (not just a fix like windows 10 or Mac OS 10 El Capitan 16) LOVE OTHERS THE WAY GOD LOVES US: TAKE THE NEXT STEP (Slide) 1. Sometimes, when the goal seems impossible, What do I do? --TAKE THE NEXT STEP 2. You say, I can t love X, it s impossible --TAKE THE NEXT STEP
3. Love that person and get through the next encounter; don t worry about what might happen after that. --JUST TAKE THE NEXT STEP!! 4. If you think, I will love this person and God will change them 5. Why would we do this? i) Because we think maybe God will love them more? ii) Because if God changes them, then I will be able to love them ON MY OWN TERMS!?! 18) There are three specific people who were leaders of the Jews that encountered Jesus, and were changed: Nicodemus (John 3) Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:43) Paul (Acts 9 et passim) In addition, Acts 15:5 says: Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees... If Jesus had not loved these leaders of the Jewish people, what might have happened? 18) We have to be careful about setting agendas for God; he has a nasty habit of not paying attention to them 19) Story of Mark (fellow elder, and we were always in conflict): Mark and I served together as elders in the church. We seemed to be in constant conflict. But one day God convicted me to love Mark, and not worry about Mark. The result? God changed me, and enabled me to love Mark.