The Summer of Love part 1: Whats Love Got to do With It?

Posted by Christian St John in Sermons | 2 comments

[audio:WhatsLoveGotToDoWithIt.mp3|titles=Whats Love Got to do With It?|artists=Christian St John]
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Recorded July 4, 2010

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My sermon notes:
Love is a funny thing. It’s a subject we cannot get away from although sometimes we wish we could. It’s a word that we hear all the time, but this word Love is used with so many different meanings and connotations that it can leave one with a spinning head and a lot of questions.

Take the music scene…
• We’ve heard it said that there are those who have a love for money, and yet according to the Beatles Money Can’t Buy Me Love.
• Huey Lewis and the News were amazed by The Power of Love, Meatloaf proclaimed that he would Do Anything For Love, Phil Collins said You Can’t Hurry Love, and yet Bobby Gentry sadly declared that that he Would Never Fall In Love Again.
• 1980’s rockers Ratt sang “You’re in Love” whilst fellow ‘80s rockers Whitesnake asked, “Is this Love?”
• Again the Beatles declared “All you need is Love” while Tine Turner sang “What’s Love got to do with It?

The truth is in the world we have many, many ideas as to what love is:
• Love can be a feeling
• It can be an experience
• Love of something… I love curry!
• Love is worthwhile
• Love is fleeting

Some famous quotes on love also show us that there are many ways we can look at love…
• Betty Davis “The pleasure of love lasts but a moment, but the pain of love lasts a lifetime.”
• Mother Teresa “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
• Pink “If God is the DJ, then Life is the dance floor; Love is the rhythm, and You are the music.”
• German philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche “Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not.”
• Robert Louis Stevenson “You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”
• Albert Einstein “You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.”
• “When you are in Love you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.” Dr Seuss

So what is love? With all of these ideas and more is it any wonder why people think that love is something it’s not and why so many people overlook what love actually is.

For the next five weeks I want us to look at what Love is, and to a certain degree what it’s not. Going back to the song titles I quoted from before I want to look briefly at Tina Turner’s classic “What’s Love Got to do with it?” because I think that the lyrics in this song reveal how many people feel about love.

What’s love got to do with it
What’s love but a second hand emotion
What’s love got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken

For too many people in this world love is nothing more than a feel good feeling and when that feeling goes away then the love goes with it. Ever wonder why there’s so much divorce? The love feeling has gone away. Ever wonder why people grow to hate each other? Because the love feeling has gone away.

I’m not saying that feelings and emotions are bad or wrong, I would never say that they are part of who we are, part of what makes us human. But as humans we base too much on how we feel.

But true love is so much more than just feeling love.

Let us read 1 Cor. 13…
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If 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 have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

The Bible speaks a lot about love but this is one of the clearest passages in Scripture that details for us just what love is. Millions of people go through this life wondering what love is, and they never find an answer to the question… why? Because they look in the wrong places.

Many people look to other people to find out what love is, but it is my belief that only by looking to God will we ever hope to know just what love is.

The first thing that the text tells us is:
Love is something that all believers are to demonstrate on a continual basis, not just when we feel like it.

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Evangelism is a good thing for us to be doing. I believe that all of us in some way are called to witness and share our faith with those around us. But witnessing and evangelizing will never work if we don’t witness and evangelize in love.

I remember walking passed a guy one time who was standing on a street corner in London evangelizing to passers by about the coming Kingdom. Now this could have been a great thing for the Kingdom. Unfortunately he was screaming at the top of his lungs that those without Christ were going to burn in hell forever, and he did this with a manic look in his eyes and screaming everything in a mock tone – I’m saved and you’re all stupid if you fail to see what I see.

There was no love. If there was I missed it and I’m a believer.

We can speak in the tongues of men and even angels… we can speak to people about Jesus… but if we do it without love can we be surprised if they just simply walk away from us without even hearing us?

Everything we do should be motivated by love. So if we evangelize and witness and share our faith then we are to it all in love.

2If 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 have not love, I am nothing.

Have you ever seen one of those Christian TV debate shows? A couple of years ago I watched one of these Christian debates and there were Christian scholars and scientists debating with non-Christian scholars and scientists over creation vs. evolution.

The debate started out quite cordial with everyone being polite and respectful. Then about half way through, one of the Christian guys seeing that his arguments for creation were going nowhere, threw his hands up in the air and said to the others on his team what’s the point they just don’t get it.

There’s a saying that goes, ‘you can never argue someone into the Kingdom.’ Hands up here anyone whose lead someone to the Lord by way of an argument or debate. That’s not to say it won’t and can’t happen, but the chances are a lot less than if we love them into the Kingdom.

We all probably argued with someone over something to do with the faith. Whether its salvation, creation, baptism, or any one of the thousands of other issues we sometimes get hung up on, we have probably found ourselves debating with someone at some point.

The text tells us that it doesn’t matter if we have all the answers and can even prophecy, if we don’t have love we have nothing.

Not so long ago a good friend of mine said that there needs to be more dialogue and less debate, because when we dialogue we take into consideration the other persons POV, feelings, and world view… when we debate we are out to win… and sometimes at the cost of relationships.

And even if we have great faith in God and yet don’t have love for others the text tells us that we are nothing.

3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

I am ashamed to say that I have done some really good things; I have helped others, but not out of my love for them… out of selfish motivation. Maybe I had something to gain or maybe it made me look better, but there have been times when I have gone out of my way to do good because I stood to benefit in some way.

Some people use doing good things the same way that others use rungs on a ladder. They do good works and it helps them get to a higher place in life… maybe a better job or financial rewards. And many of us like to show others that we are good people and help out others.

But what happens when the lights go out? What happens when the cameras stop? What happens when there is no-one to see the good works we do?

Do we stop? Or are we motivated on by love, knowing that even if no-one ever sees what we do… God does.

The text tells us that it’s not enough to give all that we have and even be willing to give our lives for others if we do so without love.

All that we do as believers must be motivated by love because as the text clearly shows us each of the sentences we have looked at so far in 1 Cor. 13 ends with a sobering declaration.

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2If 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 have not love, I am nothing.
3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

The truth is we all want to be heard and none of us like to think that what we say will be meaningless… we all like to think that we are someone and that we have worth… we all want our lives to mean something…

However according to today’s text if we speak great things, if we have great faith and knowledge in God, and if we do good works and great works of charity… if we do these things without the love of God in our hearts then it’s all really for nothing.

So what’s love got to do with it? Well, love should be at the center of all that we do as believers.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed in your reading of the Bible, but God’s Word never leaves us hanging, it always fills in the blanks. For example, if the text was to stop there we would all probably think ‘ok, we need to do these things with love, but what does love look like?’

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails.

So here we have what many theologians call the definitive guide to love. Never has there been a better description of what love is, because this text covers all the areas of what true love is.

So for the rest of our time this morning let work through God’s description of love.

Love is patient – We all know what it is to lose our patience with someone and when we do it’s quite hard sometimes to love when we are feeling all frustrated and so on. But there’s more to this than just being impatient.

Another translation, and perhaps and better one, is that love suffers long.

It’s difficult to love those who make it hard for us to love. It can be family members or work colleagues or class mates, but there are those who for whatever reason are hard to love.

But this is the kind of love that refuses to give up. When a marriage is going badly this is the kind of love that says, ‘we’re going to make this work whatever it takes.’ When a child goes their own way and refuses to listen to a parent’s advice this is the kind of love that causes that parent to pray and love them in spite of everything that may happen.

Love is kind – There’s a joke we used to say in seminary… when someone says love is kind we would always ask ‘what kind?’

Dictionary.com describes love as ‘a friendly, generous, or warmhearted nature, showing sympathy or understanding, being charitable, humane and considerate of others.’

So the question that raises from this is are we ‘friendly, generous, or warmhearted nature, showing sympathy or understanding, being charitable, humane and considerate of others.’

In short are we kind?

It does not envy – Do you desire what others have? Does what they have come in between your love for them?
We often think that those in need are the people beneath us, meaning those who have less than us. But what of those who have more than us? How would you feel reaching out to those who have everything that the world has to offer, especially when you may have little or nothing?

Would envy hinder the love you are supposed to feel toward them?

Another way of looking at this is how can we love someone if we desire what they have? A thief wants what you have so he takes what he wants – is this love? Not saying envy always ends in thievery, but envy does have a way of working out badly much of the time.

It does not boast – Love does not say look at me and what I have achieved or what I have. Sure, you may be a gifted evangelist. Maybe you’re a great worship leader. Maybe you have a great big boat or TV or car…

What good is it to say to someone ‘look I have a cheeseburger and you don’t’ if that person is starving? Likewise, what good does it do if I said, ‘I’m a great preacher (which I am ) if I never opened my mouth’?

Saying that … love is not proud – so I should never say I am a great preacher because I would only say that to puff myself up.
There are a lot of people who do things for others to make themselves feel good and get a sense of pride. They boast about what they have done, people pat them on the back and say ‘well done’ and it fills them with pride.

What the Bible is saying is don’t do things for others and share and give of yourself for selfish reasons. The text continues… 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

I just want to stop here for a moment and say that this love thing is sure hard. No wonder people get so confused, because love is supposed to be easier than this… surely?

‘Cause it’s not easy to keep no records of wrongs and let things go. It’s not easy to always be mindful of our temper and to remain calm in all situations. It’s not always easy to rejoice in the truth.

It would seem that the love the Bible presents is not easy and will take everything we have. It would seem that we would have to surrender ourselves to love to be able to love in this way. But if we do than we will find ourselves doing the following…

7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres – There’s a word that we sometimes have problems with… always. Not sometimes, but always. We wouldn’t mind so much if we were being told to always eat bacon with every meal followed by a generous portion of ice cream.

But to always protect, trust, hope and persevere? And why? Because 8Love never fails.

I once heard a preacher who said that if we have problems with the Bibles description of love than we must remember that God first loved in this way.

We often say things like Jesus is our example for living the good Christian life. If this is so then maybe we could read today’s text like this:

4Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. 5He is not rude or self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Jesus never fails.

You want to know what love is… then look no further than Jesus. He not only spoke about love, He lived love. Every breath He took was to love, every step he took was to love, every word that He spoke was for love, and everything He did was for love.

Love is not only what we are to do but it’s who we are supposed to be. Furthermore, love is a choice. God chooses to love us in spite of the fact that we are not really worth the love of a sinless almighty God. We in turn should choose to love.

Not a cheap feel good love that is here today and gone tomorrow, but a love that endures; a love that isn’t selfish, but puts others first; and a love that forgives knowing the depths to which we have been forgiven.

The world may cry what’s love got to do with it? Well, when we read God’s Word we learn love, when we have the Holy Spirit in us we feel love, and when we meet Jesus we experience love.

So, wherever we find ourselves, whatever we say, whatever we do let us do it all with love.