Love Is | Complicated | Pastor Rodney Thrift
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (ESV) 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
God is love:
1 John 4:8 (ESV) 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
“Whatever else God’s love is, it is holy. His love is therefore characterized by the qualities that define holiness—transcendence and purity. First, God’s love is transcendent. It is set apart and different from everything we experience in creation. Second, God’s love is pure. His love is absolutely flawless, having no selfishness, wickedness, or sin mixed in with it. God’s love is not ordinary or profane. It is a majestic, sacred love that goes far beyond anything creatures can manifest. No shadow of evil covers the brightness of the pure glory of the love of God.” R.C. Sproul
- We are to imitate God:
Ephesians 5:1-3 (ESV) Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. - If we obey Jesus we will remain in His love:
John 15:9-11 (ESV) 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. - Jesus showed us how to love others:
1 John 3:16a (ESV) 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
SOUL TATTOO: Love is complex and can be complicated.
Define it:
Complex: so intricate that is hard to understand or deal with.
Complicated: difficult to analyze, difficult to understand and difficult to explain.
God’s ways are higher:
Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV) 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
“God is impassible in the sense that he sustains no ‘passion’, no emotion, that makes him vulnerable from the outside, over which he has no control, or which he has not foreseen … God’s ‘passions’, like everything else in God, are displayed in conjunction with the fullness of all his other perfections. In that framework, God’s love is not so much a function of his will as something that displays itself in perfect harmony with his will—and with his holiness, his purposes in redemption, his infinitely wise plans, and so forth.” D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
- Love + Wisdom = Our Heavenly Father’s Love
- Love + Discernment = Our Heavenly Father’s Love
- Love + Counsel = Our Heavenly Father’s Love
- Love + Boundaries = Our Heavenly Father’s Love
ACTION STEPS FOR TODAY AND THIS WEEK:
John 15:8-11 (ESV) 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
Because everyone counts, Destination Church relentlessly loves and serves like Jesus.
Soul Tattoo: Love is complex and can be complicated.
Why do we do all of this?
Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV) 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
John 3:16-17 (ESV) 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Love doesn’t have to be complicated:
1.) Love that is not engaged is passive.
2.) Love is locking eyes with God and with others.
3.) Love is not boring it is passionate.
4.) Love is a discovery that never ends.
5.) Love does not give up it stays with it.
How do I view God?
To change my perspective:
- A locked gate.
View: God can’t be reached. - A garbage can.
View: God doesn’t want me. - An endless ladder.
View: God requires a lot from me.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT) 8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
- A free gift.
The right view of God.
SOUL TATTOO: Love is complex and can be complicated.