1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Why is love such a big deal? The Bible teaches that you can have infinite knowledge, infinite charity, even infinite sacrifice, but without love you would have nothing.

Consider that for a moment…
- You could know every language (guys, you could even speak women).
- You could know the languages of earth, the languages of heaven.
- You could know even the cultural context of language to always say the right thing.

- You could understand the depths of God’s knowledge.
- You could literally know everything that ever was.
- You could know every plan God has had since the foundation of the world.

- You could have faith that was so strong that mountains would move.
Nothing would be impossible for you.

- You could be the most giving, charitable person who ever existed.
- You could change peoples’ lives with how you pour out help and support to them.

- You could even lay your life down and give not just your resources, but your very life.

Yet the Bible says if you don’t have love, it means nothing.

If love is so big of a deal that you essentially have what the world thinks is the most valuable and still gain nothing, what is love, then?

Biblical Loves
Storge - Familial love
Philos - Brotherly love, Love between friends
Eros - Romantic love between a husband and wife
Agape - Unconditional love

Agape is the one we talk about the most in the context of God because this selfless, unconditional love is how we see God’s love. Selfless and unconditional is a good way to describe God’s love.

Think about it…
Romans 5:8
8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

This is a classic verse to describe God’s agape love. He loved even when we were enemies. He still loved us even at our worst.

Knowing these four versions of biblical love helps, but it is still hard to define and understand what this love that 1 Corinthians is talking about really is.

C.S. Lewis has a great way to say it that might help us today:
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”

So let’s define love as:
1. Love is the never ending pursuit of someone’s ultimate good.

Sounds good, but is that biblically accurate? Is God’s love focused on your ultimate good? With one verse we can nail that down:

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The never-ending pursuit of someone’s ultimate good. That is a powerful, but broad definition.

Let me ask you this:
Do you love your spouse like that? Your family? Yourself? If you do, then how far are you willing to go for someone’s ultimate good?

Verses
1 Corinthians 16:14
Let all that you do be done in love.

Galatians 5:13-14
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

1 Peter 4:8
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Colossians 3:14
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear

These are the verses we like about love! We crave these because they either make us the recipient of godly love, or they give us the opportunity to perpetuate God’s love.

2. Love is the willingness to embrace tough things, too.
Like discipline, correction, and wisdom. We love the encouraging love verses, but what about these verses…

Proverbs 13:24
Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Revelation 3:19
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

Hebrews 12:5-11
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Let me ask you:
Are you ok with calling it love when someone tells you something you don’t want to hear, calling out something in you that needs to change?

We have demonized confrontation and deified minding our own business.

We call a church that refuses to let you continue in sin judgmental and churches that let things slide welcoming. And don’t get me wrong, we want to offer welcome and build relationships, but at what point do we have to get to with you before we can address issues that are clearly keeping you from your ultimate good? And if we don’t tell you about issues that are clearly keeping you from your ultimate good, can we really say we love you?

We have to be careful we don’t make love the never ending pursuit of our ultimate comfort rather than their ultimate good.

I don’t mean being aggressive and mean, but we’ve become so complacent in the western church that we’ve allowed sin and not actually exercised love. But serious question here, since, after all, this is a message on defining love: If we refuse to deal with sin within the family of God, are we being biblical?

Now we can read about how sexual sins were dealt with in the Old Testament, but the New Testament is supposed to be all accepting and welcoming and love love love, right?

1 Corinthians 5:1-2, 12-13
1 I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. 2 You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.
12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. 13 God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”

Am I asking you to go from person to person and tell them - unsolicited - how they are sinning and need to get it together or else they’re out of the church? Hold up there tiger…Only do that if you want that done to you.

We teach truth and grace here at Freedom.
All grace creates compromise. All truth breaks relationship. But when truth and grace are working hand in hand, restoration happens.

You shouldn’t expect a mean aggressive confrontation, but if there are areas of your life where sin is obvious, wouldn’t you want someone to love you enough to talk to you about it?

Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 51:10
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

We want God to do these things, but we don’t like it when God uses people to help bring purity into our lives, but the truth is, God almost always uses people to help bring purity into our lives.

Proverbs 15:32
If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself; but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding.

So what does this have to do with my marriage? With being taken by the one I love? It’s simple. One of the best things you can do to love your spouse is to love yourself, because when you love yourself, you pursue your ultimate good. This makes you deal with things that are keeping you from being your absolute best.

Remember, loving your neighbor is prefaced by how you love God and how you love yourself. Don’t be so busy trying to work on the marriage that you don’t work on you.

You working on you is one of the best possible things that could happen when it comes to your marriage.

SO…
Be careful that you don’t get upset when someone in your church family tries to address an issue in your life. I realize how they do it is super important, but at the end of the day, they are simply in the never ending pursuit of your ultimate good.

You should WANT this.

I need to introduce a caveat here…
What I am not saying is pursue your own good at the detriment of everyone around you. I am not giving you license for selfishness. That isn’t what “love yourself” is about. I am saying two things:

- First, if you are going to pursue someone else’s ultimate good, then you are going to have to be pursuing your own good. Look, you pour out of the abundance that you have. If your cup is full of dirty water, how can you provide clean water for someone else? Whatever is in your cup will be poured out. My point is that if you want to be effective at pursuing someone else’s ultimate good, it would do you well to evaluate what is filling you up and determining whether or not you need to be more intentional about pursuing the ultimate good in you.

- But second, Matthew 22:37, 39 says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Loving God is first. The moment loving yourself turns into selfishness, it becomes idolatry.
You can’t possibly love God or anyone else if you are selfishly worshipping at the altar of you.

What does that look like?
- Always demanding your way
- Being selfish with resources like money, food, etc.
- Fits of anger when you don’t get your way
- Manipulating those around you with your attitude
- Using fear to control
- Demanding but refusing to reciprocate
- Laziness when it comes to things in the home from cleaning to spending time with family, etc.

Or, in summary, not doing this: Philippians 2:3
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

God has a better plan for you than selfishness, but love has to lead the way.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

3. Love is always pursuing what is best.

The hardest thing about this is determining what is best. What is best in one person’s eyes isn’t always the best in another person’s eyes. So how do you decide what “best” is?

1. The Word
Does what you think is best line up with what the Word says? Now, I know you’d love for me to give a series of examples, but there are too many! How to spend money how to treat your spouse, whether or not you should say something, there are tons of potential issues that require a best solution and the Word of God can speak to them all. But you have to be willing to dig in and let God show you what he wants you to see.

2. Your Team
Proverbs 11:14
14 Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

Your initial reaction is not to say anything because you don’t want anyone knowing your business. Just really bluntly: that is not only stupid, the Bible tells us that people who live like that simply fall. I had a moment like this this week. I was struggling but didn’t want to share it. But I refuse to live like that, so I called two 5 Friends for help.

Proverbs 18:1-2
18 Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment. 2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Look at that last bit, “expresses his opinion.” How many of you know opinions are like excuses, everyone has one? Your opinion may or may not be wrong, but if all you are after is someone to validate your opinion, you aren’t seeking the best. You are seeking your desire.

When you isolate yourself, the only best you have access to is the best that you already had in your hand.

That might not be the best. Your ability to solve the issue might not be the best, but when you refuse to reach out to your team, those people who know you, know God, love you, love God, and have your best interest in mind.

3. The Voice
My Rwandan brother Bosco calls God’s voice, “The Voice.” You’ve gone to the Word, gotten counsel from your 5 Friends, but have you listened to the Voice?

Side note: God’s Voice will always agree with God’s Word.
He will never tell you something that contradicts.

Ok let me bring this back around, and let me break it into three bits. Are you pursing your best or God’s best for yourself? Are you pursing your best or God’s best for your spouse? Are you pursing your best or God’s best for your family?

If you aren’t, then one last simply question:
What has taken your love to the point where you are no longer pursuing God’s best where it matters most?

Love can be hard to define, but I can assure you of at least one thing it is not: Love is not a feeling. It isn’t butterflies and warm fuzzies. If love was just a feeling, it would rise and fall with your circumstances.

Love is a choice. It is something that is a constant regardless of circumstances. And it doesn’t grow without effort and willingness. If you choose to love, it is going to require your dedication to it.

1 Corinthians 16:14
Let all that you do be done in love.

Translation: In everything, pursue its ultimate good.

Based on what you’ve heard today, how well have you been loving?

I want you to check three areas today:

1. Have I been loving myself well?
Have I sought the Word, sought counsel, listened to God’s voice for myself? Have I embraced discipline and correction so I can be my best?

If not, make a commitment now to do that. It might mean prayer here at the end, sharing with a 5 Friend, developing a DGroup

2. Have I been loving my spouse well?
Have I sought the Word, sought counsel, listened to God’s voice for my spouse? Have I been selfless and considerate, putting my spouse over myself?

If not, make a commitment now to do that. It might mean prayer with your spouse here at the end, maybe getting third-party help from our team, or even counseling.

3. Have I been loving myself well?
Have I sought the Word, sought counsel, listened to God’s voice for my family? Have I created an environment where my family can grow in love and in faith?

If not, make a commitment now to do that. It might mean making time with Jesus a priority in your family, dealing with problem areas from parenting to finances, etc, maybe something as simple as praying with each family member at night before they go to bed.

Whatever it is, let’s commit to be better at pursuing the ultimate good of those around us.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?