Extreme Life Makeover
Galatians 5:22-23 - Part
1 - Love
Video Clip – Extreme Home Makeover (building
demolition). One consistent segment of
the show is the complete demolition of the old house. They never do a show where they say, “Hey,
this is a good house. Let’s just add a
small addition, change the carpet and paint, and add a little
landscaping.” No, the recipients have
always agreed that the old house has to go and a new one has to come. Additionally, they are not aware of what the
new house will look like. They go away
on a vacation, come back a week later, are hidden behind the show’s bus, the
bus moves and they get to begin to see their extreme home makeover – always a
brand new home.
I find it
interesting that when we become followers of Jesus, it is usually as we sense
the need for a life change. However,
most people think they only need some help in a few areas – maybe marriage or
some other relationship, maybe with an addiction, maybe with some long term bad
habits or behaviors. But we don’t
usually naturally ask God to just destroy our life completely and start over
with something new. But you know what,
that is exactly what God has in mind EVERY time a person becomes a Christian.
Romans
6:1-11 –
Vs. 3 – “Or have you forgotten that when we became
Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with
him?”
Vs. 4 – “For we died and were buried with Christ at baptism.”
Vs. 6 – “Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ . . .”
Vs. 7 – “For when we died with Christ . . .”
Vs. 8 – “Since we died with Christ . . .”
Vs. 4 – “Now we also may have new lives.”
2
Corinthians 5:17 – “What this means is
that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old
life is gone. A new life has begun!”
Old life
is gone – dead, and a new life has begun.
That doesn’t sound like a patch job or a small remodeling project. It sounds like an extreme life makeover.
One of the
best pictures God has given us in the Bible of this new life is found in
Galatians 5. There, he uses the
illustration of a fruit garden.
Galatians 5:22-25 – “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit
in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23
gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their
sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by
the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. ”
How
gardens take work and protection
- my
tomatoes – (vegetable or fruit?) – usually have great success
- now this year! Oops. Weather too cool. I needed a greenhouse.
- Gardens
take work and care. They don't happen by accident and when they are neglected
it shows, In Galatians 5, Paul uses the image of fruit to describe the
character that the Holy Spirit want to grow in our lives – EVERY part of our
lives. And he uses that image for the very reasons I just described about a
garden. Christian character, God changing our lives from the inside out, just
doesn't happen by accident. Nor can it be faked. It happens when the Holy
Spirit is present in our lives and when we cooperate with the resources God has
given us. It takes great care and attention and time to develop the fruit that
only God can grow in you. It happens when we surrender our lives to God for Him
to completely start anew.
This is why Paul says at the end of
the list of fruits - 5:25 “Since we are
living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our
lives.” In other words, our new life
in God comes by the work of the Holy Spirit in our life, so let's live in such
a way as to permit Him to grow fruit in us too. It is possible to thwart that
process, but why would we want to do that? Ephesians 4:30 says the same thing.
It says we were sealed with the Holy Spirit, so do not grieve Him. Don't ignore
His presence or rebel against His working our lives
What God
is saying is “become like Me.” We can be proud of our talents and
accomplishments and gifts, but what matters in the end is fruit. Did we allow
ourselves to be molded into the image of Christ? Did we let the Potter work
with his clay? Are we becoming more
godly in our character?
Love is
listed as the first of the fruits and it is really a summary of all nine of the
fruits. This love of God is supremely expressed at the cross - and is expressed
in us likewise in selflessness.
To a lot
of people, love is sort of mysterious. A lot of times we don't know why it acts
like it acts. Why does love in our lives go from Exciting to Exhausting to
Expired -- the same love for the same person. What makes that happen?
We're
going to talk today about how to develop a kind of love that can last for a
lifetime - in your marriage, with your kids, with your parents, with friendships,
with other believers at your workplace - the kind of love that can last a
lifetime. That's the kind of love I want and I think the kind you want. I have
found that teen age love will not satisfy a middle aged couple. We need love
that lasts a lifetime. Puppy love does not last through the dog days of life.
Two simple things you can do to keep love alive:
1. Ask what love is.
Beatles – sang
“All you need is love” and then they
broke up.
Jackie
DeShannon - 1965 - What the world needs now is love sweet love.
But what
is it? They didn’t know.
How do you
find out what love really is? There are a couple of popular misconceptions
about what love really is, based on the fact that love is a word that we use in
so many ways. If we're going to really understand how to love somebody we have
to start with understanding what it is.
We use the
word Love for everything. I say: I love my wife and kids. I love to hike. I
hope I feel differently about my family than I do about a hike in the mountains.
We use the same word. I love
The popular misconceptions that we have can really
hurt us when it comes to understanding love and how it works in our lives
A. Love
is only a feeling.
That's all there is to it. This feeling, a quiver in my liver, an ocean of
emotion - that's love. But love is more than a feeling. It can affect my
feelings, powerfully, but it's not a feeling in and of itself.
B. Love
is uncontrollable.
A lot of people use words like I feel giddy, I'm in love. My head's spinning,
I'm in love. I'm weak in the knees, It sounds more like sea sickness than love
- but those are the kinds of words that we use to describe some love. We've all
heard people say, “I fell in love.” Like you're walking down the street one
day, trip, and fell in love, couldn't help it. That's a real misconception.
When you say “I fell in love” you're really saying it had nothing to do with
you – it wasn’t really your choice. I couldn't
help it, it just happened. If is something you “fall into” you can therefore
“fall out of it.”
How do you
develop the kind of love that lasts? You have to understand what real love is
all about. God has a different kind of love in our lives.
The Bible
says that Love is controllable. Jesus commanded that we love each other. You
and I have control over who we love and who we don't love. We get to choose.
What God says about love.
This leads
us to a couple of things that God says about love. He helps us to understand
what it really is.
A. Love
is a choice.
Colossians 3:14 – “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all
together in perfect harmony.” Notice “Clothe yourselves with love.” I choose to put it on. There's an action that
I take that makes it work in my life. If it were a feeling, or just an
accident, then God couldn't command it. But He can command an action in our
lives.
Agape’ vs.
Storge, Philia and Eros (explain).
American ideas of love are rooted in feelings that produce actions as
long as the feeling is there. God’s love
is the opposite. His love is rooted in a
decision to act in our best interests that produces feelings but will act even
if the feeling isn’t there.
B. Love
is a matter of conduct. It’s how I act. 1 John 3:18 – “Dear children, let’s not merely say that we
love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.” Actions -
that's what love is really all about. It's how I act toward another person. You
can talk until you're blue in the face but your heart will always be seen in
your actions. Always.You take these two things and put them together - love is
a matter of choice and love is a matter of conduct - and you realize that the
real key to all of this is the second point.
2. Act like love acts.
Who gets
to tell us how it's supposed to act?
That's not
love. I don't want to let
1
Corinthians 13 is the definition of how love acts. The verses are often read at
weddings. It's called the Love Chapter sometimes. It tells us here's how love
acts.
I want us
to take this list and let it help us evaluate how much are we letting God
remake our lives.
A. Love
is patient –
1 Corinthians 13:4
This tells
me that love is alive in my life when I have time. You spell patience
T-I-M-E. Love is dying in me when I am
always rushed, when I cannot wait. We spend so much of the time of our lives in
the waiting room and we wait for marriage, we wait for children, we wait for an
illness to pass, for a dream to happen. We have to wait together for a lot of
things. You have to be patient. That has to be part of our relationships. But
the most important part isn't waiting with each other. It's when we have to
wait for each other that we really struggle.
Ephesians
4:2 – “Always
be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each
other’s faults because of your love.” Patience means I make allowances for the
faults of another person.
Patience
means not only waiting with somebody but waiting for somebody. Patience means I
take
the time to wait for someone else to change.
I find
strength and motivation to be patient with other people in God's patience with
me. God is so patient with us. I make the same mistake again and again and
again and he patiently forgives me again and again and again. That's patience.
It took me a while to come to understand what it means to have faith in Him,
but He patiently kept drawing me in, He patiently waited for me. If the God who
made the universe can take time to wait for you and me, then we can learn from
Him to take time to wait for one another, to make allowances for each other's
faults, because that's part of what love is. Love is alive when it has the
time.
B. Love
is kind.
1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is
alive in me when I care about people, dying when I forget about people and dead
when I ignore people.
“Love is kind.” That's a word we use a
lot but what does it mean? Kindness means the ability to
care for each other in the practical details of everyday life. Kindness knows
how to turn the grand
vows that you make in a wedding ceremony into vacuuming, and taking out trash
even if it's not
your turn or responsibility. Kindness knows how to take the great hopes that
you have in a
hospital nursery and turn them into changing dirty diapers, and staying up with
sick kids. That's
kindness. That's what it's all about. And love is kind. Love knows how to care.
Kindness means
that I have to adapt to meet the practical needs of another person.
I've
noticed even when it comes to kindness, sometimes we struggle. We don't know
how to be kind to each other. I've picked up cards that say “I love you and
want to kindly tell you how important you are to me.” One I picked up a while
back: “If I had an ice cream cone, I'd give you half. If I had six candies,
you'd get three. If I had two apples, one would be yours. If I won the lottery,
I'd send you a postcard from
Let God
grow kindness in you. Ephesians 4:32 – “be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” If I'm going to be kind to another person I
have to have a tender heart towards them. Have you noticed how easy it is to
lose compassion, to lose compassion for people who are closest to you that you're
living with. Kindness is realizing that they have feelings just like me. And
kindness means I take time to forgive. God says it's kind to “forgive one
another, just as
God has forgiven you.”
The people
you care about make mistakes. They even purposely makes mistakes sometimes. They
do the wrong thing because they have rebellious heart. They sin. They are just
like you. We all sin. We all not only make mistakes but we purposely rebel and
do the wrong things. And because of that, forgiveness has to be a part of any
relationship where there is love. The only way I can have a relationship of
love with God is because He's willing to forgive me. The only way we can have
relationships with each other is by being kind enough to forgive each other
C. Love
is not jealous, boastful or proud. 1 Corinthians 13:4.
Love is
growing in me when I have a foundation of security in God’s love for me. Love is dying in me when I am doubting that
love and feel the need to build by image up.
Behind
those three words -jealous, boastful, and proud you can write “that equals
insecurity.” The reason I envy is because I'm insecure. Maybe somebody has
something better than what I have. The reason I boast or I'm prideful is
because of insecurity in my own life. Security is one of the big issues in relationships.
It's what makes relationships work or the lack of it can kill a relationship. I
have to build into my life a new kind of security if I'm going to strengthen a
relationship. If you take any relationship and you add just a little bit of
insecurity, you can make it very unhealthy. You might ask yourself, “What am I
doing to add insecurity to the relationship?” Maybe you're hiding something
from them. Add some security and be honest. What are you doing to add
insecurity with a child? Maybe you're disciplining them in different ways in
different circumstances. What are you doing to add insecurity with a parent, an
older parent that you haven't called for three or four years? What difference
might it 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 the struggles or difficulties, no matter what happens, I love you.”
God says that to us. No matter what happens, He says to us, I love you. We have
that security with Him. Love is alive when it's secure.
D. Love
is does
not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being
wronged. 1 Cor. 13:5
Love is
growing in me when I am giving. It’s
dying when it’s seeking a 50/50 contract.
It’s dead when it’s just taking.
You can
see all three of these kinds of relationships. But the best relationship, the
most healthy kind of relationship is a give and give relationship. Both people
giving because they've decided they want to give – because they find joy in
giving more than receiving. It's their decision and their choice. Love is growing
in you when you’re giving.
We have a
real dangerous habit in our society of exchanging love. You scratch my back and
I’ll scratch yours. It might be fine for
business but it's terrible for relationships. I think one of the reasons we
have this habit is because the whole concept of romantic love. At the very core of romantic love is our
concept of it is the idea of exchanging love. You bring me flowers and I bring
you candy. I do this for you
and you do
this for me. Let’s keep this feeling alive. Love is a lot more than romance.
Maybe some of have been disappointed in your life, because you were looking for
love that was going to be romantic and it just didn't work out. It was supposed
to be fairy tale and it was a grim fairy tale, if anything. You look at your
life and think, “If I'm supposed to be Snow White, why in the world did I get stuck
with Dopey instead of the handsome prince?”
I have
seen this horrible commercial. This guy
is awake in bed. His wife is snoring
into his face. He gets out of bed and
heads downstairs, looking with a frown at his wedding picture. The narrator says something like “Some one
night stands you can recover from. But
not when it’s every day. Isn’t it time
for Ashley Madison.com? So I went to
that site, wondering what they were advertising. I couldn’t believe it. It was a web site for how to have an affair! But that’s the way the world looks at
love. It’s a feeling, and when you lose
that loving feeling, and it’s gone, gone, gone, whoa, whoa whoa – you just look
for another loving feeling.
Romance is
great, but it's not all there is to love. It's a part of our lives, but the
definition that you have for love must be a lot broader than that. Much of love
isn't romantic, it's just sacrificial.
In fact, that is what God and his Son Jesus keep trying to teach us in
the Bible and through their own examples.
The greatest chance you have to keep eros or romance alive is when you are
making daily agape choices to sacrificially give to your spouse – to decide to
act unselfishly in their best interest instead of your own.
There's a
real question in this when I talk about love is giving - a give and give
relationship. Some of you have already thought this through. What happens when
I give and they don't? What am I going to do then? And you're thinking, “This
is a big risk. I'll wait for them to give first.” Everybody is waiting for
someone to give. God didn't wait for us to give. He gave Himself to us before
we even recognized Him. His advice to us is to begin the process by being the
person who gives.
Acts 20:35
– Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give
than to receive.” Some of you are thinking, “I can't do that. That's a
terrible risk! If I give and they don't, won't they take advantage of me?” Yes,
they could take advantage of you. To love is to put yourself in a vulnerable
situation. C.S. Lewis said: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything
and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be
sure of keeping it in tact, you must give your heart to no one. Lock it up in
the safe or the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark and
motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken but it will become.
unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where
you can be safe from all the dangers of love is hell.” Love is dangerous. But
it's worth the risk not to harden my heart and live an empty life. It's worth
the risk. Love is giving. That's when it is growing in you.
E. Love
never gives
up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every
circumstance.
1
Corinthians 13:7
Love is growing
when it acts its way into a feeling. It
is dying when it feels and doesn’t act and is dead when it tries to feel its
way into an action (I just do what I feel like doing).
Have you
discovered the amazing truth that your actions tremendously impact your
feelings? By the way you act you can change the way that you feel. That's one
of the most exciting discoveries of life. Many times people come in for
counseling about relationships, and this comment is often made, “I don't love
him/her/my parents/my kids any more. What's wrong with me?” The advice that I
always give to people in these kinds of situations is, “Begin to act like you
love them.” The response is always “Act like I love them? How can I do that?
How can I act like I love them when I don't feel like I love them?”
So many
times we get the cart before the horse. The way that you act can change the way
that you feel. When you begin to act in kindness towards someone - compassion,
tenderhearted, forgiving - with patience - it will change the way you feel
about them. Here's God's advice to us about how to do that: “Love never gives
up [even when I feel like abandoning you, I will protect our love], love never
loses faith [even though I feel like I can’t trust you, I will learn to trust
you], love is always hopeful [even though I feel like there is no future, I'll
look forward to a future with you] and love always perseveres [even when every
bone of my body says I want to run and hide, I'm going to stick through this
with you].”
Special Song – Pierce Pettis’ – “That Kind of
Love”
Conclusion:
One of my
favorite toys growing up were those plastic blow up punching bags. They usually
had a picture of a superhero or monster on them. When you hit them you imagined
you were even stronger than they were. But by design they always popped back up.
If you got mad, you could run to your room and hit it hard, and it would always
pop back up so you could hit it again. It seems like kids have some pent up anger,
because those toys never last long. Even
that toy made to bounce back reaches a time when it won't - It fails.
Christians are supposed to be like those punching bag toys we used to play
with. When we have been offended, knocked down after loving someone, we aren't
supposed to hold love back. We are supposed to pop right back up and love
again, just like God. But we all know there have been times we failed to pop back
up and love again. But Paul ends his description of love by saying, “Love never fails.” Wow! That's how this
passage ends. That's obviously not a feeling God is talking about. We know we
cannot always prevent our feelings for people from sometimes turning sour -
even if it's just temporary. But it is possible for the love God calls us to
have to not fail. God's love never fails, and the love He wants to develop as a
fruit in your life never fails. How can I do that? Here
are three simple questions to end with:
1. How
do I keep love growing in me? Don't take it for granted. Keep in the things
we've talked about-- kindness, caring, patience, time and actions, not just
feelings. You have to keep doing those things. Every person in this room knows
someone who can tell you how love dies. Maybe you even know first hand. If you
have a love in your life that's working, that's a special jewel, don't take it
for granted.
2. How
do I handle a love that’s dying? We'll talk about this some more in this series,
but for today let me share one thing with you. Act in love and not in fear. If
a love is dying in your life, it's likely that you're very afraid. Fear chains
us to act selfishly, to protect ourselves, but love can change us. The Bible
says perfect love casts out all fear. It's only through love, the simple action
(not the feelings) of love, that we can change a relationship, that we can
begin to make it alive and healthy again
3. How
do I handle a love that has died? What do I do about that? It's died, it's dead,
it's gone, and it’s buried. The relationship is over, it was over years ago.
Know this. God is the mender of hearts and the forgiver of all sins. The love
He calls us to develop as a fruit in our lives is the love He first demonstrated
to us. His love never fails. We aspire to that, but He demonstrates it. Accept
God's forgiveness for failed love in the past, and decide that in the rest of
your relationships you will strive for God's love to be a fruit in your life
through the Holy Spirit.
I deeply
believe that in order to love, I have to be loved (not necessarily by the
person I am loving). It all starts with God's love for me, for you. When I
recognize that He loves me no matter what, sacrificially, with actions of love,
then I can find the strength to look for a resurrection of love, I can find the
strength to risk, even if they let me down, because God never will. I can find
the courage to let God grow love in me.