Week 5
Love Ethics Cell:Week 5
Love in the Modern Era
Matthew 22:34-37 – Love with all heart, soul, mind…
Is this attainable?
Deut 30:11- “For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.”
So is it possible to love God this much or is it “not to difficult”?
Could you love God that much?
Were the people under the law different than us? Did they have some secret we are unaware of?
The intent of the command = Give Me your total commitment.
Total commitment was not foreign to people of that day & age.
Illustration of Abraham:Those who were a part of his household knew that they owed everything to Abe.
“If I would leave him, I would have nothing.”
Illustration of King Saul’s army bearer:
Saul didn’t want to be captured by Assyrians.
Told armor bearer, “Kill me.”
But armor bearer said, “No.”
This man’s life was entirely committed to protecting Saul’s life. He could not end a life he had sworn to perserve.
People understood idea of being totally committed to somebody.
- Commitment is what this verse is all about.
- God is saying, “Am I going to be your provider? Love me 100%.”
Today total commitment is foreign.
We don’t know what it means to love with heart, soul, mind.
Families have become dispersed – Children turn 18 & then they are “out of there.” Free at last!
Sever offspring without anchor.
Spread too thin with pursuits & interests
Lucky to get time for our own marriages.
Ethic = loyalty to myself.
How are we going to raise up warriors ready to pick up cross and go to the death for Christ?
Don’t have a clue on how to sacrifice like this.
We have to live smart: competing forces for our attention.
Didn’t used to have to persuade – kids had to listen.
Didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Today no one is willing to commit or feel like committing.
How are we going to get them to commit to Christ when come from backgrounds like this?
There is sacrifice involved. It is easier to walk away.
Immature & Mature Love – 1 Thess 2:8, 11
RE: God is jealous and will go the mat to win with you.
2 points
1. Comparison to the love of a father = zeal, emotion, earnestness, sincerity (I will win with you))
Not logical or standoffish, but engaged.
With each one of them!
2. Had the kind of zeal it took to move someone from immature love to mature love.
Takes a fighting attitude.
Observe end result – 1 Thess 3:12-13
A love so astounding and hard-hitting that it makes heart “blameless.”
Self-propagating from this life to the next.
We do not understand what actual love is.
Do we love like 1 Thess 3?
Love is so deprecated, devalued, perverted in our culture – it’s lucky anyone gets saved in this age.
Many of you have come far, but must still jump some of these hurdles into maturity.
Lots of immature love here.
Paradox:
- On one hand you feel loved only when someone significant loves you. (Father, mother: not some stranger)
- On the other hand, you feel loved only when you give love.
- Both are true, but mutually exclusive – How is this?
On the one hand, you feel loved when someone big and important loves you.
Where do scared, hurt, lonely kids go? To Parents.
Not next door neighbor.
Only person who loves like that is mom & dad.
As adults we experience same things, too.
Rom 5:1-3,11
Prosagogen – Greek = privilege of approach.
The right to enter the royal throne room.
This grace in which we stand is so exciting!
I feel loved because I can go waltzing in to the privileged throne room of God. Heb 10.
Author, creator of universe IS SIGNIFICANT.
Therefore, that should affect you. How?
Now I can boast, exult, be courageous because I have the prosagogen.
This is somebody important loving you has an effect.
ON other hand, I feel love when give love.
“The social, emotional, and psychological problems in society are a result of the failure of individuals to know how to give love according to the definition God has laid down.” Ankenman
Read Rom 13:9 – all sin has to do with fact that you are unable to love.
Our damage, scars, emotional turmoil is due to the deceitfulness of sin and destruction of sin.
Either we don’t love or don’t love right.
That is why we are screwed up.
Read John 13:14, 17
This is what will fulfill you – go serve someone.
But how are both true at same time?
One = spark; other = fire.
The spark is not to be absorbed and languished in but used to set a fire of love.
Can complain all you want, but weren’t raised by a slobbering cow.
Q:Why does God give us this?
A:Part of love development.
Eg>Parents have this amazing love for newborn. Why?
- Somebody significant loves a child.
- That child feels secure.
- Effect of love = security & courage
But, eventually child thinks, “I’m really great.”
- “I deserve the love I’m getting.”
- As a child, if he has only been given love, then as an adult he looks only for those who will continue to give him love.
Adults are different: they are meant to give love.
- By loving someone else, you are significant.
As a kid what makes you significant is that someone loves you.
As adult, significance is not handed to you.
- You must go out and create significance.
- Take the love you are getting and channel it around.
Love is dynamic.
- You get it, but you have to give it to keep it alive.
- An adult makes a choice to be significant and does so by serving.
Both are true. It is the difference between immature and mature.
Immature Love
- A love taker, not earned, unrealistic.
- At no other time in your life will this happen.
- Got to grow up.
Parents lie
- Because they lead their kids to believe that’s what the world is like.
- At a certain point, love only given stops feeling like love.
Mom asking, “Did you take your vitamins today?” is okay for a 10-year-old, but not for an 24-year-old.
The mature has learned to take the spark that was given to them and kindled that into a fire.
- Gives love instead of takes love.
Unearned and difficult, not easy like it was before.
Hard to build love
Is realistic love because it is sustainable.
What marriage is made of
What any working relationships are made of.
|
Immature SPARK |
Mature FIRE |
|
Takes love. |
Gives love. |
|
Unearned, free, easy |
Unearned/ difficult |
|
Unrealistic love |
Realistic love |
|
Stops feeling like love |
Sustainable – I have decided that this love relationship will work |
Love Development Implications:
Parents: to make your kid feel loved is not your goal.
- It could be the most unloving thing to do with them.
- You are lying and not disciplining
- Kids love you only because they are reflecting your love back at you.
- Love was all one way – toward them.
- They come to the point where they think they deserve to feel good.
- They don’t turn around and sacrifice for you.
- This relationship is meant to get distant.
Hard for parents to realize that kids don’t need you anymore.
Why give us a love like this that will be taken away?
God said, “I gave you this love to give it away. I gave you free love for your kids. It was a gift, now it’s gone. I hope you made good use of it.”
For kids: it means, grow up. Stop taking love.
- Quit the great quest for someone to make me feel loved out there, the right person that will ring my bell.
- That is not mature thinking.
- Learn to give mature love to your parents.
- This is called growing up.
Go back and sacrifice for them not because getting anything out of it, but to love them adult to adult.
Build your own significance.
Quit living off significance parents have infused in you.
Fan the spark they have put into you thru a fire.
Do this first by being thankful. Only way to invest what they have given you.
In discipleship: it means taking up where their parents left off.
Don’t ignore someone’s backround.
- It is in your face.
Don’t become a surrogate parent.
- They will want to turn you into their parents.
Model mature love.
- You do what you have asked them to do.
- Better know what that’s like.
|
Parents: To make your kids feel loved |
For Kids |
For Disciples |
|
Is not your goal |
Grow Up: stop taking |
Pick up where parents left off |
|
Can be unloving |
Quit the quest for someone to make you feel loved. |
Don’t Ignore someone’s background |
|
Will be resented |
Learn to give mature love to your parents |
Don’t become a surrogate parent |
|
Is not received as love |
Build yourown significance |
Model mature love; do what you ask |
|
Is not reciprocated |
Fan the Spark to a fire; be thankful! |
|
|
Is meant to get distant |
||
|
Was a gift; not for you |
Assignment
Go back to your parent(s) and express specific gratitude to them for where they gave you undeserved love.
Read Spiritual Maturity article.