Sermons David | 15 Feb 2009 08:40 am
Real Love in the Real World
1 Thessalonians 4:9â€12
We are clearly confused in our culture about what real love really is. We are confused about the context of real love. We focus almost exclusively on the internal and the horizontal. Love is described as an emotion, a feeling that we somehow are supposed to feel and in order to feel it toward others we must first feel it for ourselves. Go to almost any secular psychologist or psychiatrist and their first movement in counseling is to help you to feel more loving and be more loving toward yourself as the foundation for feeling more loving and being more loving toward others. If the Bible is our standard for what real love in the real world really is, then there is no other evidence needed than this to substantiate our complete confusion about love. We are confused about the character of love. Not only do we reduce love to a feeling focused first on ourselves and then on others, we equate being “in love†with “being loving.â€Â The two are not the same. One is romantic; the other is reality. One can be fully of the flesh; the other must be driven by the Spirit of God. Love as it is biblically defined is primarily a commitment that can be characterized by feelings but it is never a feeling that produces a commitment. How confused are we?  Many marriages fail simply because one or the other partner just isn’t in love any more; I just don’t have that feeling. And that is transferred unfortunately in our day to our relationship with God: I’ve lost that feeling, preacher; I won’t that feeling back. Love is no more a feeling than is faith. And we are confused about the communication of love. Now I have to be really careful here because my daughter who debates with me about this all the time might read or listen to this sermon. What is your love language as an adult or as a child? Now it is true that some people would rather you do for them a deed of kindness than to hug their neck because one does express for them more love than another. But we have to be careful that our love for our spouse or for others is not driven by whatever language they speak but by the language that speaks to us with absolute authority which is found only in the Word of God where we hear clearly here what real love looks like in the real world. Learn more about this message by downloading the sermon notes here!
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