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Introduction: Love Ultimately Defines the Body of Christ
Turn to Romans 12:9
All you need is love
In 1967 the European Broadcasting Union aired a two and a half hour program called “our world” that featured creative artists from 19 different nations.
One of those artists was a little band called the Beatles who wrote a song just for that program called “All You Need is Love”
Band manager Brian Epstein said of this song, “The nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted.
It’s a clear message saying that love is everything.”
Really?
But then of course this begs the question, how do you define love?
The reality in our world today is that we recognize that we actually have different definitions of love, and so a song that is “so simple” as this one really CAN be misinterpreted.
Last week we talked about how life in the body of Christ requires that each of us use the gifts that God has given us for the building up of the body of Christ.
But Paul also then follows this by our text today in a pattern similar to other places where Paul talks about gifts in the church.
Last week we talked about how life in the body of Christ requires that each of us use the gifts that God has given us for the building up of the body of Christ.
In , Paul talks about spiritual gifts, but then in goes on to say that exercise of gifts without love is completely useless
Love defines the body of Christ in a way that gifts do not; in other words, when we talk about gifts we are talking about what we do to build up the church for the mission of Christ, but when we talk about love, we are talking about who we are, what actually defines us as a community.
But there’s a danger here
Consider Jesus’ words from
The writer of John in one of his later letters revisits this same theme in
Once again we see that it is God’s action toward us that transforms and changes us so that we become new people who are like Jesus.
So once again, as we get into again, Paul is going to take care to let us know that the body of Christ has gifts but is defined by love, both for those inside the church and those outside the church.
I. Love must be genuine to be love
Let love be genuine
These four words should cause us to think deeply and make a searching and fearless personal inventory.
Why?
Because genuine love is difficult
It’s easier to desire the ideal of love than it is to live out the reality of love
It’s easier to talk about loving people than it is to love people
But Paul is not telling us to talk about love, to desire to love, to hold up love as a great moral ideal and value; he is telling us to love, to really love, to genuinely love
Genuine love is not simply whatever I think is love or want to call love
Genuine means “the real deal” and this text this morning will challenge what we believe genuine love is
It’s easier to desire the ideal than to live out the reality
It’s easy to talk about loving people than it is to love people
But Paul is not telling us to talk about love, to desire to love each other, to hold up as a great ideal to love, but to actually love.
Easy example: Love is not a feeling; love is a commitment
Genuine love is not whatever I think love is or want to call love
A little more than eight years ago I made a steadfast promise to Kelsey, and genuine love is keeping our commitment to that promise even on days when the feeling is not as strong - love is the commitment, and the choice to honor that commitment, not the feeling
Feeling oriented love is actual selfishness - my “love” for someone is expressed…in how they make me feel?
As long as you keep making me feel this way, I guess there’s love.
In that case, love isn’t about something I give to another person, but something I take from them.
Love is not sentimentality
Working definition of love: Love is relentless commitment to the wellbeing of another
Here’s an easy example: Love is not primarily a feeling; love is a commitment
Example: marriage
Your love is not about the feelings you give one another, but the commitment to the wellbeing of each other in all areas of life
This is reflected in the words, “Abhor what is evil, hold fast what is good.”
True love involves a deep hatred for all that is evil, for evil can never benefit the beloved.
Real love means a commitment to the wellbeing of another to the point of loving what is good for them and hating what is dangerous for them
If you see sin or wrong in my life, it is NOT LOVING of you to not say anything about it
Sometimes love means I say something out of a deep concern for the well being of another that offends them, saddens them, angers them, frustrates them.
It doesn’t feel good, and so we often want to say that’s not loving.
Part of our responsibility to each other in the church as the family of God is to hold each other accountable to living lives of obedience to Jesus
We are called to build up each others faith and help each other grow
This is counter-cultural, because in our culture it’s viewed as hateful to call out the sin in each other
But that’s more about our fear of someones rejection and anger than about their ultimate wellbeing.
Patrick Lencioni in his leadership book The Advantage says this:
At its core, accountability is about having the courage to confront someone about their deficiencies and then to stand in the moment and deal with their reaction, which may not be pleasant.
It is a selfless act, one rooted in a word that I don’t use lightly in a business book: love.
The hold someone accountable is to care about them enough to risk having them blame you for pointing out their deficiencies.
Love means holding a strong enough commitment to the wellbeing of another person that you will hate the evil that will do them wrong and cling to the good that will give them life
Caution: It is possible to say something from a motivation that is not loving
A desire to bring someone else down
A desire to hide your own sin by pointing out someone elses
A desire to make yourself feel more righteous by comparing yourself to someone else
It is possible to be “brutally honest” in a way that takes more pleasure from the brutality than the honesty
This brings out the concept in the Christian faith that we are supposed to speak the truth in love
People often pit truth and love against one another
“We have to tell the truth, but we also have to be loving”
But telling the truth is love, and failing to tell the truth is not love
In addition, we must speak truth in loving manner from a motivation of love
This all
Transition: This kind of genuine love means relentless commitment to the wellbeing of another, even when it is difficult, awkward, or painful.
As Paul works through what this looks like in the rest of he lays out both an inside the church and outside the church dimension of love.
II.
The body of Christ is built on love
Romans 12:10-
Love in the body of Christ looks like family
By being justified by Jesus’ sacrifice, we are adopted into the family of God
This means leaning on each other, helping one another, receiving help from one another, doing life with one another, showing affection toward one another
If we are unwilling to ask our church family for help, it means that we have not actually yet caught sight of the way the gospel transforms each of us and our community as a whole into a real family of God
Love in the body of Christ looks like showing honor
Jesus willingly went from the place of highest glory in all of the universe to the place of the most shameful embarrassment, hanging naked on a cross for our sin
We are likewise to be more concerned with showing honor than receiving honor
Love in the body of Christ looks like serving the Lord
Warning not to be slothful - the need is urgent!
Be fervent in Spirit
This means we operate with common purpose; we all exist for the mission of Jesus to reconcile the world to God
Love in the body of Christ looks like reminding each other of hope
We are running a marathon together, not a sprint
Some of you have been doing life together for decades
If the Lord doesn’t return I hope to be doing life with many of you for decades
While we are going this road together, we do so rejoicing in the future hope we have in Christ, patient in the trials we face together between now and then, constant in prayer with and for one another
Love in the body of Christ looks like hospitality and generosity
Welcome people into your home
Contribute to the needs of God’s people
Contribute to the needs of the church for the mission of Christ
Contribute to the needs of other people in the church
In the context of hospitality, it means let people eat your food!
I’d rather feed people and be with them than hoard my food and be without them
Love in the body of Christ looks like harmony
Do not be haughty or wise in your own sight
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