No prizes for this answer. What day is today? Valentine’s
Day. I am going to speak for a couple of minutes about Valentine’s Day. The legend behind it is that during the 3rd Century, there was an emperor
Claudius and his army were losing battles because he didn't have enough soldiers.
The reason he couldn't conscript people was that people were getting married
and had families to look after. To overcome this he banned all the marriages.
There was one Christian priest by the name of Valentine who in defiance of the
King’s law would secretly help people to get married. He was then arrested,
caught and was executed. As there were not one but three Christians martyred for their
faith, in the fourth century or in the 10th Century, the Pope declared February
14th as Saint Valentine's Day. The original Valentine's Day is in
honour of a Christian who was killed for upholding marriage.
Where does love come from? Do you know, love comes from God? My message today is on love and how we as followers of Jesus we can grow in loving one another specifically loving God. I'm going to share practical tangible steps that we can take to grow in love.
One thing that marks Christians out as mentioned in
John chapter 13 verses 35. Jesus says “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one
another.” We can only love if we have love in our tanks. Where do
we get this love from? Romans chapter 5:5 says” Because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” It's only when we have the love of God in our hearts, our
love tanks are full. If
our tanks are filled with love, then we can love our husband/ wife/ children.
Romans 5:8 says “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We see a demonstration of God's love
on the cross and how long have we been loved like this? John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life. “ God's love for us is shown on the cross- the sacrifice
of Jesus for us.
If anybody here this
morning has not yet received this love of God into the hearts, I want to tell
you that you can receive that love and it's very simple. You just have to
acknowledge that you're a sinner and Jesus died on the cross for your sins. God
sent Jesus to save you because he loves you. And if you repent and confess your
sins to Jesus and say I trust in you that you died on the cross and rose from
the dead, the love of God
can come into your hearts. You will receive forgiveness of your sins and
eternal life.
Ephesians 1:4 says” For he chose us in him before the creation
of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” Wow,
that's a long long time ago, before the sun, the moon or anything else was
created God saw you and loved you and chose you to be a part of his family.
So we have been loved for a long time. We've been loved on the cross when
Jesus died for us again and this love stretches into eternity. 1 Thessalonians
chapter 4:16 says.
“For the Lord himself will come down from
heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with
the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are
still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the
Lord forever. “
When Jesus returns, whoever has put their faith in him
will rise up in the air and we will be with the Lord forever and ever we will
live happily ever after. No matter what I'm struggling and I'm going through-
one day Jesus my lover is going to come back for me and we will be with him
forever and ever so let's focus on those truths.
Let's look at First Corinthians 13:1. “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not
have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If
I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but does
not have love, I am nothing.” There are some people who have amazing spiritual gifts like speaking
in tongues. They can prophesy, etc. It says that if we have all these gifts,
but do not have love we gain nothing. Love is very important and as
followers of Christ, how can we cultivate love and how can we grow in love?
Matthew22:37 -Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the
first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:
‘Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the
Prophets hang on these two commandments.”The greatest commandment is to love God. This is the
first and greatest commandment and the second is: Love your neighbour as
yourself. Love is the most important thing. It's what distinguishes
Christians. God himself is love and we've got to be a people who love. Love
is the greatest commandment - loving God and loving one another.
John 4:8 says “Whoever does not love does not know God, because
God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent
his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” God loved us and sent his Son as an
atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Now, how do we put love into practice?
In the Bible, there are four types of Love
mentioned.
Eros-Romantic love,
Storge-Familiar love,
Philia- Affectionate love,
Agape-Unconditional love: This is the love that God has for
us and this is the love we are aiming for. It's a love that seeks the best in
the other person.
So how can we grow in our love? Let’s look at a few
things. One of the first things we need to do to love one another is
1) Accept one
another: Romans15:7 “Accept one
another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to
God”. The first thing
that we need to do is we need to accept one another. We come from different places,
different educational backgrounds, economic backgrounds, linguistic
backgrounds. We all have our quirks and personality disorders or challenges. Society
is divided on cast, educational background, economic state etc. God has come to
break every division.
2) Forgiving
one another: Ephesians 4:32- “Be kind and compassionate to one
another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”. Now, the standard for accepting and forgiving is
stratospheric, it’s sky-high. Just as Christ accepted you, you accept others. How
did Christ accept you? He accepted me full of my faults, my failures, my sin
and my everything. The same way we accept others. How do you forgive? It says
forgive each other just as in Christ God forgave you. The next time you're having a hard time with somebody
just remind yourself of how much you have been forgiven.
3) Encourage one another: Hebrews 3:13, says
“But encourage one another daily as long as it is called today so that
you may not be hardened by sins deceitfulness.” Now, life can be very tough and
our role is to ensure that we are bringing encouragement to one another. Appreciation and encouragement are acts of
humility where we are uplifting somebody else. Let's be a people who are quick
to encourage,.
4) Carry one
another's burdens: Galatians 6:2- “Carry each
other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfil the law of Christ.”We carry people's burdens by just speaking to them finding
out what is going on in their lives. There are people who may be struggling with
an illness or with some worries, else with some other difficulties and what we can
do is we can listen to them, share their problems will help diffuse their worries.
5) No unwholesome
talk come out of your mouth: Ephesians 4:29- “Do not
let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful
for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those
who listen.”
So,
let's be a people who are weighing our words when we speak. When we speak, is
it going to build these people up or is it going to tear them down? Think carefully
before you say “Can I build people up with what I'm going to say?” Words are
very important.
6)
Submitting to one another: Another
way of loving one another is submitting to one another. That's there in scripture and I want to encourage us
to submit to one another in a marriage, in a
relationship, with friends. Not wanting and demanding my way all the time, there's
give-and-take and there's mutual submission.
So I've just thrown some things that if we put into
practice will just demonstrate love in a marriage or any friendship.
I'm going to
quickly touch on something called the FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES.
Gary Chapman has come out with
a book called The Five Love Languages and he is found out that people primarily
receive love in five ways and think of it as five languages. The first one is
1) Words of affirmation: Here we are speaking words
of affirmation, appreciation, affection, compliments, verbal encouragement etc.
So when you use words and say “Well done”, “I love you”, “you did an excellent
job” and you're messaging them, texting them, putting the smiley's and the
hearts and all. Those things make people sense a connection. That is important
for certain people. Think about yourself; is that your love language?
2) Quality time: This
is where people feel loved when you spend time with them. They want you to sit
down and listen to them and talk to them. What they want is your undivided
attention without the distraction of the television or cell phone or any other
interference. They want to spend time. They want active listening.
3) Acts of service: Acts
of service is when you go out of your way to serve the person and do things.
Like, make coffee for them, make breakfast, and pick up the dry cleaning do all
these things. Actions speak louder than words for them. This is how they like
to be appreciated.
4) Gifts: Gifts are a pretty straightforward love language. They
will give you visual symbols of love and some people just love gift because
what they value is not the gift in itself but your thoughtfulness that you
thought about them. And you chose the right gifts they would like, so it's very
meaningful to them.
5) Physical touch: This is where people feel
loved when they like to be kissed and hugged and holding hands and so
forth, and of course, you’ve got to be appropriate with different things. Like
physical intimacy in a marriage situation with husband and wife, one partner
who likes this and the other doesn’t', both partners need to be aware and make
adjustments.
So
now I'm giving you these five love languages. This is what you need to do find
out. What is your love language: your primary and secondary. Then you find out
the love language of the people you're involved with, your husband, your wife,
your children and others. Speak to them in that love
language and you will see the affection and the love grow.
Jesus says love is the
hallmark of His people. 1 Corinthians tells us that the greatest thing is love.
God himself is love so you and I have got to make an effort to grow in our
love. Paul says the same thing in Thessalonians that you not only one another
but grow and increase in that love. The reason we can love is that Jesus
first loved us and He demonstrated His love for us on the cross. So we are
called to love God of course and to love one another, especially the family of believers.
Love His church and then the world of course. Let’s show love.
Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again), Spirit-filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that has people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. Word of Grace is a part of a wider international family of Churches called RegionsBeyond.To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.
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