Discover The Word

Tuesday, June 13, 2006, Part 2

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

IDEA: God never loves us because of what we are but in spite of what we are.

PURPOSE: To help people understand the radical nature of God’s love.

When we read that God loved the world, or that Christians are to love one another, do you think we have trouble understanding that?

Is it possible for us to think we understand it and we really don’t?

Do you think a dictionary would be much help in enabling us to understand love?

No, a dictionary gives us too much information.

If you were to look up love in the dictionary, you’d find that it’s both a noun and a verb and has eleven different meanings.

The dictionary doesn’t even work on a human level. Suppose you say to a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a wife or husband, “I love you,” and the other answers, “What do you mean by that?” You’re in trouble if you give the other person a dictionary definition such as, “I have a tender and a passionate affection for you as a member of the opposite sex.”

Review: In English we have only one word for love, whereas the Greeks had several words for it — one word for the love mothers have for their children, another for lovers, another for friends. But when we say that God loves the world, the Bible uses a completely different word, the word agape.

What does agape mean?

I. The essence of the word agape differs from every other Greek word for love and even from most of the uses we have in the English word for love.

It’s more than a feeling; it’s more of an action. It’s doing something for the benefit of another whether that person deserves it or not.

It’s more centered in the person doing the loving than in the person being loved.

It isn’t based on whether or not the other person is attractive.

Everyone wants to be loved, to be touched, to be held, to be important to somebody.

II. Do you think most human love is agape love?

What produces that love?

What is the basis of that love?

Old people are often poorly packaged. They sometimes make up for this by promising money to their children.

Why do young people go on binge diets? Young people often starve themselves because magazines imply that thin is lovely and lovable.

We sometimes develop manners so that people will want us and want to be with us.

Parents often imply or even say, “If you behave in a certain way, we will approve of you and we will love you.”

III. God never loves us because of what we are. He always loves us in spite of what we are.

He never loves us because of what we do. He loves us in spite of what we do.

Do you think most Christians really believe that?

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).