Everything – Love = Nothing

I want to start today with a few basic questions.

If someone were to ask you, “Why do you exist?” what would you say? What’s the purpose of your life?

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As a church, what kind of people should we be producing?

How do we know if we’re on track or not?

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The writers of Scriptures talk about this subject (the purpose of life), but, of course, it’s complex and subtle and pretty obscure, so I’ll read a number of statements from the Bible.

However, the Bible is an ancient, difficult-to-understand document. I’m not really optimistic this will clarify anything for anyone, but I’ll give it a shot.

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Someone asked Jesus one time how to live a good life, and his response was:

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 neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39)

When he was telling his disciples how to live, he put it like this:

A new command I give you: Love one another. (John 13:34)

When he told them how they would be recognized as his followers (like what their signature characteristic would be), he put it like this:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:35)

One of those disciples was named John, and John later on wrote this:

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (1 John 4:7)

Because John recognized this is a subtle, hard-to-understand point, he said it backwards.

Whoever does not love does not know God, [Then, a profound and unprecedented idea in world thought:] because God is love. (1 John 4:8)

Another disciple was Peter. Apparently, Peter saw things very differently than John, because Peter wrote stuff like:

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

On the other hand, you might know a man named Paul (the apostle Paul) became a follower of Jesus after the resurrection and some time after all of the other disciples. Apparently, he didn’t get the memo, because he would write things like:

Let love be your highest goal. (1 Corinthians 14:1)

or

The goal of our instruction is love. (1 Timothy 1:5)

or

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

I know this is an incredibly complicated question. Really good minds disagree over it.

A couple of decades ago, a philosopher named Hugh Moorehead actually wrote 250 of the best known intellectuals in the world and asked them all, “What is the meaning of life?”

He published the answers they sent to him in a book.

Some of them said they just made an answer up out of thin air.
Some of them said they had no idea.
Several of the most brilliant minds in the world asked him to write them back if he found out what the answer was.

However, based on statements like this one in the New Testament:

Do everything in love. (1 Corinthians 16:14)

If you had to give the Bible’s answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life in one single word?” what would that one word be?

Love!

Life is about love. It’s not rocket science.

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It’s almost like God is saying, “I know you have tiny little brains and very narrow attention spans, so I’m going to give you just one word to answer more questions than you can imagine.”

What makes a church great?
What does the Devil hate?
What do you look for in a mate?
What do you hope for on a date?
What does a child await?
What drives people to procreate?
What is impossible to overrate?
What is humanity’s ultimate fate?

Love, love, love, love.

Over and over the whole Bible is about love.
Life is about love.
Our church is about love.
Existence is about love.
Spiritual maturity is measured by love.
The gauge of a life well lived is love.

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Today we begin a study on the most important topic in the world. It’s life or death to you and to me, although our world doesn’t tell us this.

The Bay Area in which we live that prizes achievement and advancement and success does not tell us this.

We begin a study of the most influential words about love written in the history of the human race 2,000 years ago now.

They’re from Paul’s first letter to a church in Corinth, and they occupy the thirteenth chapter.

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I want to say a word about the context of this chapter, because it matters immensely to how we think about love and how we practice it.

It’s not a sentimental or romantic or a Hallmark-card view of it.

First Corinthians 13 is sometimes called the love chapter. It has been read at more weddings than any other words.

How many of you have ever been to a wedding where at least part of 1 Corinthians 13 got read? A vast majority of us here.

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What happened was that Corinth, the church, was a mess, and chapter 12 is all about conflict and people showing off and pride and arrogance and unresolved fighting and quarreling in the church.

Then, chapter 14 is about precisely the same stuff (just a mess).

In the middle is chapter 13.

It’s not like what happened was Paul thought to himself, “I really should write something Christians could use at their wedding ceremonies in California someday, so I’ll just wedge that right in here.”

This is not a wedding passage.

In fact, probably no one needs these words less than a couple getting married on their wedding day.

This is written to messy, difficult people who are surrounded by messy, difficult people and have created a messy, difficult, chaotic, unpleasant church.

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And everyone has been following what we all tend to do by default — the way of ego and self and resentment and bitterness and envy and comparison and self-seeking.

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So Paul writes these amazing words:

And yet I will show you the most excellent way. 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

It doesn’t matter how much I know. It doesn’t matter how much I have.

I was talking to someone recently who has two Phd’s, one of the smartest people I know, but he’s struggling in his relationships because he hasn’t figured out how to love people in his life.

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Paul says, “You could be the smartest guy in the world. You can have it all, but if you don’t have love…”

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In other words, I can have everything, do everything, know everything, and win everything, but without love it’s nothing.

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In other words, everything minus love is nothing.

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Love plus nothing is everything.

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That’s what Paul is saying in the opening words of this chapter.

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He goes on to give love its greatest description. It’s full of very powerful and very penetrating ideas we’re going to unpack a week at a time.

And I want to encourage you to return to these words every day during the next few weeks.

I think it’s a really good idea to live in it enough that you actually memorize these words, so you can reflect on them every day.

Then, when you’re stuck in the post office and you forget to bring your cell phone, you don’t have to be bored. You can actually think these wonderful thoughts.

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I’m setting a goal for myself for these next several weeks:

I want to be a more loving person than I am today. I want to train to be a more loving person.

And that’s my hope for our church.

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Now, if your goal is to be more physically fit, you would probably join a gym.

If you want more financial health, you might use an investment firm.

If you want more career success, you might get a coach or take a class.

If you want to grow in your capacity to love the people God puts in your life, where should you go?

You’re there. This is the place right here.

The whole purpose of the church is to increase the amount of love in our world.

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Churches can get confused about this often in real destructive ways.

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That’s why the apostle Paul wrote:

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Timothy 1:5)

The goal of Christian instruction is not people who KNOW a lot… but people who LOVE a lot.

Though I know the entire Bible but have not love, I am nothing.

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As a matter of fact, knowing can sometimes be a problem.

Paul said one time:

But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. (1 Corinthians 8:1)

This could be a problem for church people.

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I was talking to someone who is not part of our church, but he asked me, “Why do so many churches seem to be jerk factories?”

It’s okay that churches attract jerks. We’re supposed to do that… But we shouldn’t be producing them.

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Dallas Willard said one time:

It is rare to find a church that is practically oriented around Jesus’ instruction, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

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You might think that would be a churches primary goal, but it usually turns out otherwise.

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Well I want to say for us, as a church — that’s our primary goal.

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We’re launching this series today on love, but it’s about way more than just, “Here are some tips on how to have a good relationship.”

This is the great purpose of human existence designed by God.

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What is our aim as a church?

To grow a community of extraordinarily loving people who are the great ones among us —

not the richest
not the highest IQ
not those who know the most about the Bible
not the biggest givers
not the most gifted socially

The greatest among us are those who love.

Love is what makes someone great… rightly understood.

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I want to ask everyone who is part of our church to make your serious primary aim for your life just love.

We’re taking kind of a booster shot at that over the next few weeks in this series where I ask God, “God, would you help me become a more loving person?”

It’s not just enough to talk about the beauty of love or hear some other stories. You have to roll up your sleeves and get to work on it, because there is a role for us to play.

I have to ask for God’s help, but I have to do something. Where do I start?

I want to start with this definition of love —

Love is to will and to act for the good of someone.

To love someone means to will and to act for their good.

To love someone is to will and act for them to become the best person God made them to be.

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Love is not primarily a feeling.

Although love certainly will involve feelings… it is not primarily desire.

Love is not primarily closeness.

Love is not primarily being agreeable or doing what you want me to do.

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A problem we face when it comes to defining the word love is we use the word love for so many different things.

We say:

I love you.
I love my children.
I love my home.
I love my motorcycle.
I love my job.
I love Maui.
I love chocolate.

What does it mean to love chocolate? It doesn’t mean I act for the good of Ghirardelli.

My love will consume that chocolate.
My love will destroy that chocolate.

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Jesus understood love as a God-powered condition — a God-powered way of life — in which I will and act for the good of everyone I come in contact with.

This concept of love from Jesus was so revolutionary… his followers had to find a word for it… so they took a Greek word.

Some of you may know this word.

And I want to say something about it because it’s so central to this series.

The word is agape.

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The word agape was actually very rarely used in classical Greek.

It was only used in one book in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was actually not well-defined either.

It’s like Jesus’ disciples needed a word they could use to fill with content and explain to the world the nature of this love Jesus taught and lived… so they seized on this word, Agape.

Writers of the New Testament used agape dozens and dozens of times to express this understanding of love that was taught by and lived out by Jesus.

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For Jesus, this quality of love is not a feeling. And it’s not something you should or even can turn on and off like a faucet depending on who you’re with.

We’ll sometimes say… or hear people say, “It’s easy to love this person, but it’s hard to love that person.”

Jesus didn’t use the word love that way.

His idea was that we are to become loving people.

It’s a condition of being… like being healthy, where I’m so rooted in God’s love for me and increasingly free of sin, which is always opposed to love, so I’m ready to will and to act for the good of any person who comes into my life… because I’m a loving person regardless of who that person is or how they feel about me.

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In fact, this kind of love, agape love, where I will and act for the good, will express itself very differently depending on the condition of the person I’m with.

If someone is hungry, and I love them with this love, I’ll feed them.
If someone is lonely, and I love them with this love, I’ll connect with them and listen to them.
If someone is discouraged, and I love them with this love, I’ll encourage them.

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Let me give you another example.

Let’s say I’m with a child — let’s say it’s my child, and my child is a spoiled brat.

What will I give them if I love them with this kind of love?

I’ll give them discipline.

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You see, this is where love gets challenging.

If I give food to a hungry person, they’ll think I’m loving. They’ll feel grateful. And maybe we’ll feel close.
If I give encouragement to someone who is discouraged, they’ll think I’m loving. And maybe we’ll feel close.

If I give discipline to a spoiled brat, will they think I’m loving?

No, they will not think I’m loving.

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You see, in order to be a loving person, I have to be prepared to be seen as unloving.

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I will need to have a source for love that is so stable that it enables me to live in kind of a risky way, in a confrontational way with other people sometimes.

I must be rooted in a more secure source of love than any human being can give… in the kind of love only God can give.

That’s why Paul writes:

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,

Now, when a tree is rooted in the soil, it gets nourished. It’s being kept alive. It’s being fed all the time.

Paul says, “I want you to be like that. I want you to be rooted in your thoughts, in your mind, in your feelings — all the time — in the love of God.

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

In other words, this kind of love, agape love — the condition of being where I will and act for the good of everyone in my life — arises out of a certain condition:

Being rooted in God’s love.

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Then it’s always oriented toward the good. It always means I’m working for the good of whoever I’m face-to-face with.

This is the kind of love that has extraordinary power, Paul says.

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Often in our day, when we talk about the power of love, we think about feelings… because the feeling of being in love can be so powerful.

Actually to Jesus and his followers, to Paul and to John — it was this God-powered agape love that gave them extraordinary power.

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That’s why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:

Love never fails.

Think about that — “Love never fails.” It always wills and acts for the good, no matter what.

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Paul said in Romans 8:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Paul also said in Romans 12:

Do not be overcome by evil… Evil can be so strong in our world.

but overcome evil with good. That’s what love does. It overcomes evil with good.

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Now, we’ll talk about this more throughout this series, but this is our goal — to live in this love — God’s love, agape love — and to become loving people.

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Because this is the whole message of the Bible — love one another.

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This actually happened at a church that I believe was in South America. It was quite a large church.

It was time for the message, so the teacher got up to the pulpit and said, “Love one another.” Then he went and sat down.

Everyone sat there staring at him. No one knew what to do.

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He waited a few moments, got back behind the pulpit and said, “Love one another.”

Then he went and sat down again.

Everyone sat there.

It seemed like a short message.

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He got back up a third time and said, “Love one another.”

Then he sat down.

A few people caught on.

They turned to someone next to them and asked, “How are you doing? How is your soul? Can I pray for you? Is there some area where you could use some help or encouragement?”

A whole congregation of people heard a commandment in a new way and started to love one another.

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You’ll notice I’m not doing that today. It’s because I get paid by the word.

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Someday, I’m going to have the guts to do it. Someday I will.

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This message really is that simple. It’s so simple that it’s hard to talk about it without complicating it.

John says, “Here is the commandment — love one another.”

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In 1 John 3:11, John says:

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

He says in 1 John 3:23:

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

He’s saying, “This is nothing new. This has been around for a long, long time. It’s been around since the beginning, yet it’s new in this way… and here’s how it’s new.

1 John 2:8

Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you.

“Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him.”

That’s what’s new about it. We’ve seen love modeled now.

God said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus comes along and shows us how to do it.

That’s what’s new about the command. It’s been modeled for us now; we’ve been able to see how God truly loves.

He said, “The truth is seen in him.”

Then he says, “Its truth is also seen in you now, because you are in him and he is in you.”

“You love people the way you saw Jesus love people, that’s what’s new. It’s shown in the way you love others the way Jesus loved others.”

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One thing Jesus said was, “Love your enemies,” another famous love statement in the Bible.

Start with the most difficult, unlovable, hard-to-be-around, obnoxious person in your life. Maybe they’re sitting right next to you.

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Now, loving your enemies is what I would consider graduate-level work, and we want to work our way up to it, but we don’t start there.

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Jesus’ friend, John, was called the beloved disciple, and he was so loved by Jesus that in his letters John talks more about love than anyone else.

Everyone in the New Testament talks a ton about love, but John does the most.

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This was a foundational discovery.

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

We love because.

It’s amazing to think 2,000 years ago in an ancient world that we often think about as stiff or cold how many times Jesus said to his friend, John, “I love you. Hey, John. You’re my friend. It makes me happy to see you. I love you, John.”

I wonder sometimes how John responded. Did he ever look away? Did he ever get embarrassed?

It’s a strange thing sometimes for us. It can be difficult to just sit and receive love.

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I think of a little picture sometimes that helps me receive love from God.

I remember one time going into the room of one of our children, a small child, one of our most rambunctious and strong-willed — just like their mother. They were fast asleep.

You know how you can look at them when they’re sleeping, and they’re so peaceful and so vulnerable, and you’re flooded with so much tenderness toward them. It’s like you can’t imagine ever being mad at them.

Then, they wake up, and you can imagine.

As I stood there watching and thinking what a miracle this little body was and how I got to be the dad of this little body, this thought came. “What I’m experiencing right now watching this little child is just an echo of what the one who made me experiences when he watches over me.”

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I think of my Father looking down from heaven on me and just go through my day. “God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for loving me. I know I’m inadequate. Thank you.”

Then, as we receive love, the most excellent way is simply to aim at loving other people.

It’s really simple.

You don’t need education.
You don’t need money.
You don’t need a resume.
You don’t need a title.

It doesn’t matter. This possibility lies before you. This is life in the kingdom of God. This is the most excellent way of the kingdom.

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People go through life. We get all torn up over, “I wanted to do this, and I wanted to achieve that. How come I couldn’t climb here?” Love is available to you. You can love.

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As we close I want to give you one real simple way you can do this.

Write down one positive characteristic about yourself (this will help you be grateful to God for his love) and then one positive characteristic about one other person.

Write it down.

It could be their helpful attitude or their sense of humor or how smart they are or that you just like to be around them. It could be anything.

Then, when you’re with them, look them right in the eye. Notice them. Notice their face and their body language. Listen to them. Ask God for a sense of gratitude and admiration.

Then, just express it to them in a really simple, honest way.

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I decided one day to start doing this, and I was going to space out all three during the day (one early in the morning, one in the middle of the day, and one later on at the end of the day).

I did it with the first person. I just really paid attention and spoke admiration into them.

By the time I was done, he had a big smile on his face, he was standing taller, his shoulders were squared, and he was more alive.

It was so much fun I couldn’t wait until lunchtime to do it again. I just did it with the very next person I saw — the same thing.

I think it was helpful to her, but I was having so much fun I had to do it again with the next person I saw.

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The amazing thing was I was trying to love other people, but I was the one getting happier. I wasn’t worried about what I had to do. I wasn’t preoccupied with solving problems or answering questions.

I was just enjoying trying to love people.

A friend called, and I was so excited about this, I told him all about it.

Then, there was silence, and I realized he was waiting for me to love him, and I explained I had already loved my quota for the day, and I didn’t want to overshoot.

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The reason you want to get started now is that it goes by really fast (this life).

You don’t want to wait, because you’re going to end up being one of two people.

Sometimes when we think about heaven or hell, we think primarily about a location someplace and what the conditions of it will be like, but the primary reality about the idea of an eternal life and an eternal being is not so much location. It’s transformation. Who do you become?

Imagine two people.

One person was just an outrageous giver and receiver of love.

He made people feel cared for and welcome.
He listened (really listened).
At work, people sought out his cubicle to celebrate when they won or mourn when they lost or get help when they were confused.
At home, he was just the real deal.
When he was wrong, he wouldn’t get defensive. He would just confess and apologize.
When he got hurt, he would forgive instead of holding grudges.
He had kind of a knack for serving and helping.
He could confront you really honestly but stay connected with you.

Other than that, he didn’t have much of a life. He never had much money. He lived in a little place. He had a short, little resume. He wasn’t famous at all. He just had deep, abiding, life-changing, joy-producing, others-centered, God-rooted, hope-giving, and life-giving love.

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The other person was thoroughly unloving.

He was well-known for being a jerk at work.
He always looked out for number one.
He was always reflexively self-promotional and prided himself actually on always getting even if anyone had hurt him.
His spouses became exes.
His children were embittered.
His colleagues felt betrayed.
His friends felt deceived.
He was a selfish, arrogant, isolated, hidden, materialistic, narcissistic, egomaniac.

But other than that, he had a great life. Outside of utterly flunking love, he was brilliant at the other stuff.

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Which would you choose?

Jesus would say, “Choose love.”

And John would say and Peter would say and Paul would say and Mary would say…

That’s the only reason we’re here. It’s not about buildings or programs. It’s not about getting people to recite the right beliefs.

This I believe to my core — no one who succeeds at love fails at life; and no one who fails at love succeeds at life.

This is the reality of the kingdom in our midst.

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So… Let’s get after it every day.

Over these next several weeks, don’t miss one. Engage. Go online if you’re traveling. Keep up. Do it with your small group. Get stuff online.

What matters in life is love.

Let’s pray.