LOVE AS A WAY OF LIFE - SATISFACTION
INTRODUCTION: Gene Appel was the Senior Minister at the Central Christian Church in Las Vegas. He started in Vegas at the age of 26, and the church was running about 400 people a weekend.
But one Sunday evening, following the dedication service of their new building, Gene went home and his wife shocked him by saying that she was leaving him for a man she’d met at work. All efforts to keep that marriage together failed. Gene quickly submitted his resignation to the church. The church elders prayed about the matter, studied it, counseled with both Gene and his wife, and they concluded that they would ask Gene to remain as their preacher. Perhaps he had made some mistakes in being too consumed with his job, but he had been faithful to his wife, he wanted to restore the marriage, she did not.
In the three years that followed, the Central Christian Church in Las Vegas exploded in growth. They got to the point where they were running over 2,000 people a weekend. And you thought there weren’t any Christians in VegasJ.
But Gene Appel said that the Christmas Eve after his separation had to be the loneliest experience of his life. He said after their candlelight Christmas Eve service, he intended to grab something to eat at a drive-thru, race home, do his laundry, pack his bags, and get ready for an early-morning flight to the Midwest on Christmas Day where he could spend Christmas with his family.
He said, “I got away from the church on Christmas Eve at about 9:30, and I was starving. I had only eaten a sandwich for lunch that day at noon. I started driving around Las Vegas looking for some place to eat, but every place was closed—McDonald’s, Taco Bell, even a twenty-four hour food mart was closed.” He said, “I’d never seen Las Vegas so quiet. It was like a ghost town.”
“As I drove around, I began to picture everybody with their families celebrating Christmas Eve, except me. And I started to get real depressed. I remembered how as a family, when I was a boy, we would celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve…But I was determined to find something to eat.”
“So I went to Sam’s Town, which is kind of a country-western style casino with restaurants. To my surprise, the place was open and pretty busy. I walked over to their 50’s style diner, sat down alone at a table for four, and ordered dinner. It was like a bad dream. I sat there eating their blue-plate special thinking, ‘I just can’t believe it. Tonight, just a few minutes ago, I spoke for 2,200 people, and here I am at Sam’s Town on Christmas Eve eating mashed potatoes, meat loaf, and gravy, alone.’
“And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, someone put a quarter in the jukebox, and Elvis Presley started singing loudly in my ear, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’”
He said, “Honestly, I just started laughing to myself, maybe to keep from crying. But for a few moments that night, I had some of the loneliest experiences of my life. And the thought that overwhelmed me was, Gene, here you are one of the most blessed guys in the world: a church that loves you, more friends then a guy ought to legally have a right to have, tomorrow you’re going to spend Christmas with twenty members of your family, and if you of all people can experience these feelings of loneliness, imagine what life is like for people who have a reason to be lonely.”
Gene said, “I gained a new empathy that night for lonely people.” Then he added, “As I walked through the casino on the way out, I saw people pulling the slot-machines, playing blackjack on Christmas Eve, and I thought, ‘They don’t have anywhere to go either. They don’t have anybody to be with tonight. And it just broke my heart.’”
We were all made for relationships. We are all people with multiple relationships. Those relationships may include neighbors, coworkers, children, a spouse, parents, siblings, and friends. They undoubtedly include the clerk at the grocery store, the guy who just came to fix your plumbing, and even the woman who called you during dinner last night to ask you to take a “quick survey” although she wasn’t “selling anything.” We have some kind of relationship with every person we interact with every day.
Most of us want to have the best possible relationships. However, it’s likely we have discovered how difficult relationships can be. Most of us begin our adult journey with high aspirations. We expect to work hard, make money, accumulate things, have loving families, and enjoy life. For many people, these dreams turn to nightmares before the midpoint of life. As one man said “I never thought this is where I would be at the age of forty-two. I have two broken marriages, seldom see my children, and have no purpose for living.”
The message that I hope to convey over the next few weeks is that it isn’t over ‘till it’s over. Today is the day that each of us can turn our lives in a more positive direction.
I believe the key to success (in relationships) is discovering the power of loving others. Any definition of success that doesn’t include love is an incomplete definition. The Bible teaches that even if we’re successful in the “religious arena” but lacking in love then our lives will still be empty and shallow.
I Corinthians 13:1-3 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
To experience the richness of loving relationships is better than anything money, fame or professional acclaim could bring. Whatever our sphere of influence might be, when we are seeking to enrich the lives of others through relationships, we will find the most satisfying form of success.
If the word “love” seems a little nebulous right now, my hope is that this sermon series will help us see what love looks like in daily life. Each week we’re going to focus on one of the seven traits of a loving person using the description of love in I Corinthians 13 as our guide. Next week we’ll start with loving-kindness.
But today, I want to quickly note three truths about satisfying love that we will continue to come back to again and again throughout the sermon series.
I. SATISFYING LOVE FOCUSES ON GIVING VS. GETTING
Matthew 5:46 “If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?”
Receiving love is a beautiful result of loving others but the pure joy of love comes first from having a loving attitude, no matter what we get in return. God models this truth about love. Jesus said that God sends his rain on the just and the unjust alike. The Bible says that while we were sinners and enemies of God, out of love, he sent his son Jesus to die for our salvation. Most people do not and will not return God’s love but God loves them anyway. Love can never be demanded, it can only be offered. It doesn’t work to run around shouting, “Love me! Love me! You have to LOVE me!” Love cannot be demanded, it can only be offered. Ironically, when we DO focus our efforts on GIVING love to others that’s when we ratchet up the odds that we will also receive love in this life. It’s the old law of reciprocation that God has built into his universe: we reap what we sow. But, having said that, the Christian way is to give love whether or not it is ever reciprocated.
Mother Teresa: “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
ILLUSTRATION: Robertson McQuilkin served as president of Columbia International University from 1968 to 1990. In 1990, was shocked when his vivacious wife Muriel was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Gradually, she began to succumb to its ravages and was forced to abandon her popular radio show and speaking engagements. As the disease took its toll on Muriel, Robertson devoted more and more time to watching over her. McQuilkin resigned his position to care for his wife full-time as she endured the final stages of the disease because without his presence, she became fearful and agitated. Only with him near was she happy and content. Eventually she became totally dependent upon him, unable to perform rudimentary tasks or even converse. But Robertson remained with her gratefully, and with a loving attitude. He was not an angry or resentful caretaker. Of course, he is not thrilled to watch his lovely, intelligent wife slide into helpless dementia. But he saw his caretaking as a holy task, one entrusted to him by God.
Quote: In “A Promise Kept” Robertson McQuilkin wrote: I came across the common contemporary wisdom in this morning’s newspaper in a letter to a national columnist: “I ended the relationship because it wasn’t meeting my needs,” the writer explained. The counselor’s response was predictable: “What were your needs that didn’t get met by him in the relationship? Do you still have these same needs? What would he have to do to fill these needs? Can he do it?” Needs for communication, understanding, affirmation, common interests, sexual fulfillment – the list goes on. If the needs are not met, split. He offered no alternatives. I reflected on the eerie irrelevance of every one of those criteria for me. When the time came, the decision was firm. It took no great calculation. It was a matter of integrity. Had I not promised, 42 years before, “in sickness and in health….till death do us part?”
We give love even if there is no prospect that love will ever be reciprocated. We have made a promise, a commitment, to love others as Christ has loved us, not just our spouses, but also even our enemies, and sometimes that’s the SAME thing!
II. SATISFYING LOVE FOCUSES ON ACTION VS. EMOTION
I John 3:18 “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
Every day we hear people say things like, “I love the beach. I love the mountains. I love New York (maybe not New York). I love my dog. I love my new car. I love my mother.” People talk about “falling in love.” How far did you fall and what did it feel like when you hit the bottom. Love is not an emotion that comes over us, or an elusive goal dependent on the actions of others. Authentic love is something within our capabilities, originating in our attitudes and culminating in our ACTIONS. If we think of love as a feeling we will be frustrated when we can’t always work up that feeling. When we realize that love is primarily an action, we are ready to use the tools we have to love better. Usually, just as love comes to those who love, feeling typically follows action. But even if it doesn’t, we love.
Authentic love is as simple and real as the kind of love it takes to listen to an employee who is having a difficult day, to take your kids out for a back-to-school dinner in August, to donate money to the local fire department, to compliment a friend, to give your spouse a foot-rub at the end of the day, or to clean the kitchen for your roommate when you are already tired from a long day of work.
ILLUSTRATION: Authentic love might be as bold as the kind of love that motivates people like Ruby Jones of New Orleans. This sixty-seven-year-old nurse chose to ride our Hurricane Katrina with her eight dying patients in the hospice unit at the Lindy Boggs Medical Center when the storm hit the shores of her city. Her children told her “Don’t try to be Superwoman.” Ruby was just trying to do her duty. She reported to work on Sunday and did not leave until Thursday, when her patients were evacuated. As the storm broke windows and blew open doors, she told her patients, “We are here with you, and we aren’t going to leave.” When the medical center lost power and drinking water and began flooding, Jones continued to bathe and feed her charges and dress their wounds. When she left on Thursday after her patients had been evacuated, she was hungry and thirsty, but she had kept her promise to stay with her patients until the end. During the most harrowing moments, love for her patients sustained her.
When we wait to feel before we act we are being REACTIVE instead of PROACTIVE. Reactive language becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce evidence to support the belief. They feel increasingly victimized and out of control, not in charge of their life or their destiny. They blame outside forces – other people and circumstances for their own situation. If we are acting unloving toward someone, ANYONE, it is no one’s fault but our own.
ILLUSTRATION: Stephen Covey says that at one seminar where he was speaking a man came up and said, “Stephen, I like what you’re saying. But every situation is so different. Look at my marriage. I’m really worried. My wife and I just don’t have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?” Covey asked, “The feeling isn’t there anymore?” He affirmed, “That’s right and we have three children we’re really concerned about. What do you suggest?” Covey replied, “Love her.” He said, “I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore.” “Love her.” “You don’t undersand. The feeling of love just isn’t there.” “Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.” “But how do you love when you don’t love?” “My friend, love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?”
In the Bible love is a verb. Reactive people make it a feeling. They’re driven by feelings. Hollywood has generally scripted us to believe that we are not responsible, that we are a product of our feelings. But the Hollywood script does not describe the reality. If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so. Love is a verb. Love is something we do: the sacrifices we make, the giving of self. Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions. Christ-followers subordinate feelings to VALUES.
III. SATISFYING LOVE FOCUSES ON GROWTH VS. IMMATURITY
I Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
We can grow in our capacity to love. We can become better lovers. We can LEARN to love, but we must be intentional about it.
QUOTE: Albert Einstein observed, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
If we say, “Steve that all sounds good but I’ve tried living a life of love and it hasn’t worked for me. I’m still as dissatisfied as I ever was.” The answer to that is to try living a life of love again only this time get better at it. We don’t resign ourselves to withholding love; we GROW our capacity to love. But, we must be INTENTIONAL about it because growth doesn’t “just happen.”
SIGNS THAT YOUR CHILDHOOD IS FINALLY OVER
- Just one peanut butter and jelly sandwich doesn’t do it anymore.
- Driving a car doesn’t always sound like fun.
- Being bad is no longer cool.
- You’re taller than the slide at the McDonald’s Playland.
- Naps are good.
- Hitting girls is no longer considered flirting.
- You once called Space Invaders "The best game ever".
- Your idea of a fun party now includes chips & salsa and Snapple.
- You leave concerts and ball games early to beat the crowd.
- You actually want clothes for Christmas.
- You’ve bought an album on vinyl.
- You remember seeing Star Wars when it first came out.
What are the signs that your childhood is over SPIRITUALLY speaking? What are the signs that we’ve matured to the point that we’re not reactive like little children but are proactive and in control like grown-up adults. The signs that we have matured spiritually are the characteristics of love such as kindness, patience, forgiveness, courtesy, humility, generosity and honesty.
These are the ways that we can truly learn to love our families, friends, fellow-Christians, co-workers, strangers and even our enemies. Each of these seven characteristics of love will comprise one of my sermons over the next seven weeks.
When all is said and done, the most satisfied older adults are those who have invested their lives in giving love away. They may be people who have accumulated great wealth or they may live on meager incomes. They may hold positions of renown or they may be unknown to the larger world. But if they have invested in making the world a better place through love, a smile of contentment can be found on their faces. I don’t know the details of your life, but I believe that when the seven characteristics of a loving person become a natural part of the way we relate to others, we will find that kind of joy. As someone once said, everyone loves a lover. Self-centered living leaves us alone and empty. Love as a way of life leads to the deepest satisfaction possible.
LOVE AS A WAY OF LIFE – I Corinthians 13
- Gene Appel – Relationships – Success through love
I Corinthians 13:1-3 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
I. SATISFYING LOVE FOCUSES ON GIVING VS. GETTING
Matthew 5:46 “If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?”
- Regardless – God-modeled – Robertson McQuilkin
II. SATISFYING LOVE FOCUSES ON ACTION VS. EMOTION
I John 3:18 “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
- “I love…” – Reactive/Proactive – “Love her”
III. SATISFYING LOVE FOCUSES ON GROWTH VS. IMMATURITY
I Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
- Better – Einstein – Twilight - Childhood – 7 traits - satisfaction
