Love Is a Form of Death

Love is a Form of Death…

“Love is a form of death. And you have to learn how to die in order to learn how to love. That’s why the New Testament says what? Christians must die daily. Die daily.”

– Cornel West

 

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyMDefiKNfU[/embedyt]

 

A few weeks ago the New Orlean Saints played the LA Rams in the NFC Championship game.

One of the big storylines from the game happened in the 4th quarter. The refs missed a pretty obvious pass interference call that more than likely changed the outcome of the game. Of course, the Saints fans were outraged about the missed call. It’s been a hot topic of conversation.

But there was another story that caught my attention. Following the game, long after the post-game interviews, after the players and reporters were gone from the field, after most everyone had left the stadium, one reporter just happened to still be there and noticed something special. Following this devastating loss, Drew Brees, the longtime and highly respected quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, was down on the field playing football with his kids.

ESPN’s Diana Russini took this photo of Brees on the field after the game, tying one his son’s shoes on the field.

I don’t know if his kids will ever remember that their dad played on the team that lost the game that night, that towards the end of his career he was robbed of the chance to play in one more Super Bowl, but I bet they’ll never forget the night they got to play football with their dad on the Superdome turf after a playoff game!

When All is Said and Done

When all is said and done, what do you want to be remembered for?

What do we want to be remembered for?

I think it’s an important question for us individually, but also for us as a church collectively.

We live in a day and time where more and more churches are known for all the wrong things. We’re known for what we’re against. The church is sometimes known as a group of people who complain.

We’re known for scandals of different kinds. We’re known as a people who are more interested in self-preservation than helping the hurting people all around us.

We should be the most joy-filled people on the planet. After all, we know, we carry, we have the good news. We’ve experienced the kindness of God through Jesus Christ. But even in the church, we’re not immune to the lure of selfishness.

Of course, the problem is that if we become known as a group of disgruntled complainers who are stuck in our ways, unwilling to help those around us because we’re too caught up in ourselves, we’ll be unable to reach the world around us with the good news we carry, with the love of God that we have experienced in Christ.

Different Church, Different Time, Same Problem

The church in Corinth had this same problem. They were becoming known for all the wrong things.

They had been given incredible gifts of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of being able to know God and share this good news about Jesus with others. But instead of using the spiritual gifts, the abilities & the power they had been given for this purpose, they spent all their energy arguing about who among them was the greatest!

Paul writes a letter to them from a distance. Scholars think that Paul wrote this letter from Ephesus about 3 years after he started their church. The reason he wrote this letter to them was precisely because he had HEARD what was going on in their church from others from a distance.

Instead of using the gifts they had been given to know Jesus and make Him famous, they were becoming known and they were becoming famous for all the wrong things!

Becoming Known for the Wrong Things…

In 1 Corinthians 13:8-12, Paul says this…

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless… Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!  But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

They were chasing after power, spiritual gifts, self-importance, notoriety, wanting to make their name known and their name great.

But Paul says, all that… all you’re chasing after is going away. It won’t last.

The day is coming when you’re going to figure all this out. He knew that when Jesus returned all this would be crystal clear… that on that day we would know God and we would be completely known by God.

And because that day is coming, because we have experienced the incredible kindness of God through His Son Jesus the Christ, we should ALL strive for the ONE THING that will never fail, that will always remain.

The One Thing Worth Going After Is…

We skipped it in verse 8, but Paul makes it absolutely clear. All the spiritual gifts, whatever power and ability we have, we should carry that and steward that for others in humility because it is a gift we have been given for a finite time and a specific purpose and one day that will all pass away.

verse 8:

But love will last forever!
Love never fails!
Love never dies!
Love remains!

So what if the church in Corinth were to go after, pursue, the one thing that does remain?

LOVE.

What does love do?

Love seeks to use the gifts it’s been given to know God and make Him known.

But the only way to do that is to DIE to yourself.

Are you ready and willing to die? This is the question that love asks.

Are you willing to sacrifice what power you’ve been given, even your life if necessary, in the service of love?

Jesus was.

Shortly before Jesus was arrested, beaten, stripped and crucified, He spoke to His disciples. And listen to what He said in John 15.12-14, 17:

“This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.  This is my command: Love each other.” – Jesus

In other words, this is the WAY of LOVE, it’s the WAY of DEATH.

It’s choosing to die, to lay down your life, for another.

It’s the way of self-sacrifice.

It’s praying, “Lord, help me love who you love the way you love.” And then being willing to sacrificially do something for someone else that they can’t do for themselves.

That’s why this prayer is so important for us to practice. When we pray this prayer what we’re praying is Lord, help me be willing to lay down my life for, help me be willing to die for, sacrifice my life for this person because that’s the way you demonstrated your love towards me.

What Happens When We Love Different?

Here’s what happens, WHEN WE DO THIS, when we’re willing to die daily, to sacrifice ourselves, our wants, our desires for the sake of another, not only do we GROW in knowing God, we also POINT others to Him!

You see, the world doesn’t understand this kind of love.

So when they see it they have to ask, Why did you do that? Who does that?

That’s when it’s our turn to say, we LIVE this way, we LOVE this way because of JESUS.

That’s what we’re after.  We live to know God and make Him known!

So what do you want to be known for? What do we want to be known for?

Let’s not be known for how great we were.

Let’s not be defined by how often we won or lost.

Let’s be remembered for how well we LOVED.

One day we will see Jesus. We will see LOVE.

And Jesus won’t ask us how successful we were, how famous we were or how great we made our own name. He just wants to know one thing.

Did you lay down your life for your friends?

Did you live to know me and make me known?

Did you die daily?

Because that’s the way of love.

That’s the way to life.

Because at the end of it all ONLY ONE THING REMAINS…

LOVE.