Love That Lasts a Lifetime

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

  Why does love in our lives go from exciting to exhaustion to expired - the same love for the same person? What causes that to happen?

This lesson is about how to develop a kind of love that lasts for a lifetime; in your marriage, with your kids, with your parents, with friendships and with other believers.

That's the kind of love I want and I think the kind of love you want. We want a love that lasts longer than a 200-page romance novel or a 2-hour romantic movie love story.

In this lesson we're going to talk about that kind of love and how it can happen in our lives.

There are two simple things we need to first do to begin the process of keeping love alive for a lifetime.

  1. Ask what love is.
  2. Act like love acts.

I. Ask What Love Is.

A.  If you think about it, love is the most misunderstood and overused word in the English language.

1.  We use the word love to describe our feelings toward many things.

2.  We use the word love for everything. What does the word really mean?

3.  If we're going to learn to love for a lifetime we've got to understand what the

     word is all about.

4.  It's difficult to give or receive love when one doesn't understand what love is.

B.  Two popular misconceptions about love that we have really hurt us when it comes to understanding love and how it works in our lives.

1.  Love is only a feeling.

·Truth: Love produces feelings, some very powerful ones, but love is more than a feeling.

2.  Love is uncontrollable.

·Truth: We often talk as if love is uncontrollable, but the Bible teaches that love is controllable. In fact, Jesus commanded that we love others (See John 15:12). His words indicate that we do have control over whom we love and whom we don't love.

II What God Says About Love.

God says several things about love that helps us to understand what love really is.

A.  God says love is a choice.

Read Col 3:10-14. As believers we're told to put on:

·the new man

·tender mercies

·kindness

·humbleness of mind

·meekness

·longsuffering

·forbearance

·forgiveness

 

Verse 14 says, "and over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together."

1.  Notice those two little words, "put on."

2.  Just as you have a choice as to what you want to put on to wear each morning with your natural garments, so you also have a choice as to what attitude you will put on each day.

3.  The Bible says, "to put on love" because love is a choice. Love is something you can choose to have.

·If love were a feeling we couldn't command it, but we can command a choice. It is controllable.

4.  If it were a feeling, or just an accident, God couldn't command it to us.

·But God can command an action in our lives.

B.  Love is a matter of conduct. It is how I act.

I John 3:18, "Let us not love with words or tongues, but with actions and truth."

1.  Actions - that's what love really all about.

2. It's how we act toward another person.

·Love is more than words. It is more than feelings. Unlike us the Greeks had four words to differentiate different types of love:

1.  Storage, which means natural affection

2.  Felo, which means emotional affection or friendship.

3.  Eros, which means sexual attraction.

4.  Agape, which means unconditional, giving, sacrificial love.

When the Bible speaks of God's love for us and the kind of love we're to have for Him and for other people, the word is always agape. It's a commitment to act.

3.  To often we love with words or tongue, but not with actions.

·You can talk until you're blue in the face, but your heart will always be read in your actions.

III.  Act Like Love Acts.

A.  The real question is, "How is love supposed to act? And who gets to tell us how it's supposed to act?"

1.  There are many voices trying to tell us how love is supposed to act.

·The secular society

·Our culture

·Hollywood

·Media tabloids

 

2.  For the Christian, the Bible is the source we go to for instruction on how love acts.

B.  1 Corinthians 13 is the definition of how love acts. It gives us a list of love actions.

· "Love is patient, kind, isn't jealous, doesn't brag, is not arrogant, doesn't act unbecomingly and is not provoked."

 

I want to take a portion of this list and use it to evaluate how healthy our relationships - our marriage relationship - our relationship with parents or with our kids or with our friends are.

Love is patient.

A.  Love is patient tells me that:

B.  Love is patient. That means it has to take time.

"Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love" Ephesians 4:2 (L.B.).

  1. Patience means I make allowances for the faults of another person.
  2. Patience means I take the time to wait for someone else to change.
  3. Patience means I wait for somebody to recover.

C.  We find strength and motivation to be patient with other people in God's patience with us. God is so patient with us.

  1. We make the same mistakes again and again and He patiently forgives again and again.  That's patience!
  2. Love is alive when it has the time.

Love is Kind.

A.  Love is kind tells me that:

B.   "Love is kind" The word "kind" is a word we use often, but what does "kind" mean?

1..Kindness means the ability to care for each other in the practical details of everyday live.

  C.  Love knows how to adapt.

1.  Kindness means that I have to adapt to meet the practical needs of another person.

  Colossians 3:12, "Therefore as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."

  D.  Notice the word clothe. I remind you that the Greek word literally means put on. When you wake up in the morning and decide what to wear, you should ask yourself, "What kind of attitude am I going to wear today?"

1.  Paul says that kindness is a choice. It's something you can choose to put on everyday.

2.  Kindness is love in action. Kindness is something you do. It's a practical expression of love. It's visible and active, not just emotional.

  Ephesians 4:22, "Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you."

  E.  If I'm going to be kind to another person, I have to have a tender heart towards them

1.  Have you noticed how easy it is to lose compassion for people who are closest to you, that you live with?

2.  Kindness means I take time to forgive.

·        God says it's kind to "forgive one another, just as God has forgiven you."

·        The only way I can have a relationship of love with God is because He's willing to forgive me.

3.    The only way we can have relationships with each other is being kind enough to forgive each other.

  F.  You're thinking they don't deserve forgiveness.

  1. Of course they don't. Neither do you
  2. No one deserves forgiveness.
  3. That's why it's kind to forgive.

·Kindness means I have a tender and forgiving heart towards other people. Love is alive when it cares.

 

  "Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."

  A.  This tells me that:

  B.  Behind these three words - envy, boast, proud - you can write, "That equals insecurity."

  C.  What a difference it might make for you to say to somebody today, "No matter what happens, no matter how ill you become, no matter what we have to go through in life, no matter what struggles or difficulties, no matter what happens, I love you.

  "Love is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrong."

A.  This tells me that:

  B.  To love is to put yourself in a vulnerable position.

  "Love always protects, always trust, always hopes, and always perseveres."

A.  This tells me that:

  B.  Have you discovered the amazing truth that your actions tremendously impact your feelings?

  C.  How do you keep a love alive for a lifetime?

  1. Don't take it for granted.
  2. Keep doing the things we've talked about - kindness, caring, patience, time and actions, not just feelings.

 

 

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