Please read: 1 Corinthians 13:1-8
Today we begin a new sermon series that I call it “Relationship Renovation.” It will be a great series for Lent because relationship is what makes or breaks us in life and Lent is a time for us to search our heart and reevaluate our lives so that we can do some life renovation.
Years ago, when I told my grandfather that I was going to America, he said, “You are doing well here with the family business, why do you go to a foreign land and start over? It is not easy to make it elsewhere, unless you are lucky that someone offers you a lift.” What he meant was that your success in life depends on your relationship—the kind of friends that you make that would help you to succeed.
In fact everything in life depends on relationship. There is no such thing as self-made man, unless they deny the existence of those who helped them. The Burmese often say that even the Buddha had to depend on those who offered him food and alms, so that he could concentrate on his long term meditation to attain enlightenment.
Not only your professional success depends on relationship, your family success depends on relationship, your marriage success depends on good relationship between the two of you, and if you are a student, your educational success depends on your relationship with your teachers and maybe your classmates who help you with your study. Anyone who is successful in relationship is likely to be successful in any parts of life.
On the other hand, everything that fails in life has some connection with broken relationship. Broken relationship creates a great deal of stress in families, among friends, and across communities. It makes people sick with depression and all kinds of stress related illnesses. It leads to divorces, family fights, law suits, and drug use. The worst disaster caused by broken relationship is war. If you think theologically, even the natural disasters are caused by broken relationships, our mistreatment of God’s creation, and ultimately our broken relationship with God due to our disobedience that results in a fallen world.
I believe if we can fix our relationships we can fix everything. Believe me, when relationship is right, nothing is wrong. If you want peace and happiness in your family, renovate your relationship. If you want peace in this world renovate your relationship and help others renovate their relationships. It’s just that simple, even though it’s not that easy.
Anyone that has lived on this earth for three decades or more would have seen enough in life that this world is out of control when it comes to broken relationships. The rate of divorce is now one out of two—50-50—higher than any time in history. Wars and rumors of wars among nations have not decreased after many lessons we learned in each generation. Genocides are happening right at this moment, right where I came from.
The Bible calls broken relationship sin. Sin leads to hell. I am sure anyone who has lived through a broken relationship knows what hell is like. A member of our church told me that she believed there was hell because she had experienced it with her life through broken relationship in her family. Pick up a newspaper and turn on the TV. 90% of the news has to do with broken relationship. No news is good news and all bad news has to do with broken relationships.
But there is good news. The good news is that God has taken the initiative to renovate relationships for us. That’s why we celebrated Christmas a couple of months long ago. God came on earth to rebuild relationship with us and teach us how to relate to God and others. Jesus sealed a new covenant with us with his blood shed on the cross telling us that anyone who joins his family is becoming a peacemaker on the way to rebuild their relationship with God and others.
Jesus taught us how to renovate relationship and keep our relationship healthy. He told us that the first renovation we need to make in our lives—the first step we need to take to make this world a better place to live—is love. Today we will look at what God has taught us about love.
The first thing we must know about love is that...
Love is a choice
One of the reasons we fail in love is because we live in a world that believes in a myth about of love. We think love is a feeling or something beyond our control. For example, we often use the expression, “I have fallen in love,” as if to love someone is beyond my control, just like I walk down the street and accidentally fall into a pothole. It’s not my fault, I just fell in love. If loving someone is an accident, then one day we will say that, “I have fallen out of love.” I am not responsible. It’s beyond my control.
We have to get rid of this kind of myth. If love is an accident, then it would be unfair for God to tell us to love our neighbors. In fact, Jesus taught us to love even our enemies. That tells us that love is not an accident, love is not a feeling, or something that is beyond our control, but love is a choice. It is a choice to love someone, that’s why Jesus asks us to choose to love our enemies. I am not saying that it is easy, but it is possible, and it is possible only when you understand that it is a choice.
Probably the most popular definition of love is 1 Corinthians 13. It is known has the love chapter. Let us look at it this morning to help us renovate our love.
First it tells us that ...
1 – Without love, my words don’t count
Verse 1 says, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” In life, we admire people of great eloquence. Especially during this season of election, we tend to be drawn to whomever is eloquent, and we might end up electing someone who speaks like an angel, but the Bible says, no matter how eloquent I am if I don’t have love I am nothing.
Sophie’s Korean friend Christie told me that there is a joke among the Koreans: There was a guy that died and went to heaven, and he saw many people up there, and in the same time, he saw a bunch of lips floating in heaven. So he asked the angle, “What are those lips about?” The angle told him, “Oh, they are ministers. They preached great sermons, but they didn’t practice what they preached, so only their lips made it to heaven.” You know, I have to watch out for myself!
In fact, the Bible says, without love, even our lips won’t make it to heaven at all. Without love, our lips, no matter how sweet they are, are just blowing a bunch of hot air.
2 – Without love, my achievements don’t count
The 2nd verses, says, “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 do not have love, I am nothing.” We admire knowledgeable people and we honor intelligent people with all kinds of awards and degrees. But the Bible says that if I don’t have love, my knowledge and achievements don’t matter at all.
3 – Without love, my contributions don’t count
Again, verse 3 says, “If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” Some people give away a lot of money and possessions to the poor, but if we do it without love, our giving doesn’t amount to much.
As an seminary intern, I severed at a homeless center in San Francisco for a summer. I had many chances to talk to the homeless people and I said, “I represent the church, and I want to know if there is anything the church can better serve you.” I remember one of the guys gave me what I think the most profound answer.
He said, “There are enough food, money, and shelter for us. If I just stand anywhere on the streets of downtown San Francisco and ask for money for a few hours, I could get enough for the day. But, most of the time, people just pass us by and throwing or handing us some money as if we are animals. People feed us like animals. After awhile we feel like animals, and lost the motivation to become a human being. Rarely, any one passing us by says, ‘How are you doing?’ Sometimes, that word ‘How are you doing?’ is more precious than getting a dollar from someone.”
Americans are generous givers. It is easy to give a few dollars to someone, but it takes love to talk to them personally. The Bible says without love, our giving means nothing. That’s serious!
How do we love?
Verse 4 says, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.”
What does love is patient mean? Patience means time. King James version says, “Love suffers long.” Long means long time. So ...
1 – To Love = To Give Time
One of the units of love is time. If you want to measure how much you love someone, just count the amount time you spend for that person. If you make little time for that person, don’t deceive yourself by saying that you love that person. Remember how much time you spent when you were first dating? Are you spending the same amount of time with your loved ones now? Most Americans spend more time with their TVs and computers than their loved ones.
This is how you measure your love. Your love is alive when you have time to spend for your loved ones; you love is dying if you have little time for them; and your love is dead when if have no time for them.
2 – To Love = To Care
The Bible says love is kind. Kindness is love in action. Kindness means caring. So measure your love for your loved ones. Your love is alive when you care for them; your love is dying when you are forgetful about them; and your love is death when you ignore them.
3 – To Love = To be Transparent
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. These four words, “envious, boastful, arrogant, and rude” represent a cover-up. It’s like wearing a mask. A transparent and trustful person does not feel envious, boastful, or arrogant. So measure your love for your loved ones this way. Your love is alive when you are transparent and trustful; your love is dying if you are envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude towards them; and your love is dead if you keep wearing a mask.
4 – To Love = To Sacrifice
Verse 5 says, “It does not insist on its own way.” “My way or highway” is not the way of love. Measure your love. Your love is well alive when you can sacrifice your way; your love is dying when you insist on your way; and your love is dead when you don’t consider other people’s way at all.
5 – To Love = To Tolerate
The Bible says, “Love is not irritable or resentful.” I would have to admit that this is my shortcoming. I tend to get easily irritated by the stupid things other people do. I tend to be even more easily irritated by irritated people. Now, each time I feel irritated, I try to ask myself “Why I feel irritated?” because the Bible says, love is not irritable. So measure your love. Your love is well alive when you are tolerant; your love is dying when you are irritable; your love is dead when you have a short fuse.
6 – To Love = To Rejoice in the Truth
Verse 6 says, “it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.”
I remember as a kid, I did some mischievous things because it was fun. Especially, when you get together with a bunch of mischievous friends, you could really create some disasters. I found out that some adults are still doing it. If you watch movies like the Batman, you would see that the bad guys laugh when they do something evil. The Bible says, love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Measure your love. Your love is alive when you rejoice in the truth; your love is dying when you enjoy seeing other people’s wrongdoing; you love is dead when you find it fun in your own wrongdoing.
7 – To Love = To Forgive
Verse 7 says, “It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Peter summarizes this nature of love in 1 Peter 4:8, “love covers a multitude of sins.” It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. If you want an example of this nature of love, look at the life of Jesus Christ, particularly his life on the cross. His love bears everything you and I have done. The message of Jesus on the cross says, “You can do nothing to make God love you less!” Nothing that you do can make God love you less because love bears all things; it covers the multitude of sins.
It believes all things. As human beings, when we see someone messing up in their life over and over and over, we would say that guy is hopeless. But God in his love believes that we can change. God’s love hopes for the days we come home. God’s love endures all the pains that we inflict on him. Jesus Christ on the cross has proven to us that love forgives all things.
Love never ends
Friends, God has given us the true definition of love and personified that love in Jesus Christ. And he invites you today to follow him to live a life of love. Human love has limitation, but God’s love never ends. That’s why you need the Spirit of God in you to enable you to love the way God has defined it.
Verse 8 says, “Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.” Everything will come to an end. Your inspirations will come to an end; your speaking in tongues will come to an end; your eloquence will come to an end; your knowledge and education will an end. But, love never ends.
So commit your life today if you have never done so. If you have before, recommit your life to Jesus Christ today because his Spirit will help you renovate your relationship by enabling you to love the right way.
Next week we will learn about the second building block of relationship renovation, “joy.” It will be another great lesson for all of us, as well as our friends and family members, so bring some friends and family with you.
May God bless you this entire Lenten season! Amen!
Comments (0)
Trinity Presbyterian Church - 基督教三一堂
http://www.trinityfamily.org/article.php/2008021218062919