Tuesday, August 1, 2006
"Love does not seek its own" (1 Corinthians 13:5).
IDEA: When we love people, we reveal God’s Spirit at work in God’s family.
PURPOSE: To help listeners understand how much is at stake in whether or not we take love seriously.
Do you think it is easier or harder today to be a witness for Jesus Christ in our society than it was 30 or 50 years ago?
Robert Bellah reported in Habits of the Heart on a study done of American society. He argues that in the past, people had a God-consciousness (the City on the Hill), and then a community-consciousness. Now we as a society have only a self-consciousness: “What’s in it for me?” He calls this a “therapeutic” society that is essentially selfish.
I. What do you think it means to be part of God’s “family” in such a society?
Persons in a healthy family exist for other members in the family. If people in the family keep asking, “What’s in it for me?” that family is in trouble.
How does love express itself in a healthy family? For example,
husbands and fathers
wives and mothers
children and parents
What we see in a healthy family we ought to see in a healthy church.
In a society like ours, it can be a great witness to people on the outside to see Christians who care about and care for one another.
We always need to ask, “What is the vision of God behind all of this?”
II. When you say of someone, “She is just like her mother,” or “Have you ever met his son?” or “If you know the boy, you know the father,” what are you saying?
Is the resemblance always physical?
If someone were to say, “You resemble your heavenly Father,” what are the characteristics that they might be talking about?
1 John 4:9-11 tells us:
In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
John tells us, “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another.”
What is the characteristic of God that he has in mind?
III. How might we show that to other people?