Dr. Scott McKee: Well, good morning, everybody. Good morning. We just concluded a series talking about living out five core values. Everybody has core values that guide their decisions and actions. You may have never named them, but you have them, and they affect you more than you know.
We might do well, each of us, to ask ourselves, what is my top numero udo core personal value? What is what Rick Ward calls my dominant life principle? Because our dominant life principle, you may never have thought of those terms before, but it's the grid through which we run many of our decisions and choices. For example, if my dominant life principle is fun and I'm given multiple invitations tonight, I will choose the one that sounds like it's the most fun. If my dominant core value is comfort, however, I will choose the one that sounds most comfortable.
I'll probably stay home and lay on the couch. If my dominant life principle is security, I will choose the option that sounds the most safe. If my dominant life principle is affirmation and applause, then I will arrange my life around those activities that bring me the most public affirmation and applause. So it's extremely important to think through what is your dominant core value, your life principle in your life. What does the Bible have to say about this?
Quite a lot actually. The Bible says in first Corinthians fourteen:one, follow the way of love, not the way of comfort or prestige or power, not the way of enjoyment, but follow the way of love. What if this were our dominant life principle? Why does the Bible say that? Because the Bible says that God is love and you and I were made in God's image.
The Bible says that God created everything in the universe out of love. He made everything in order to love it. He created you as an object of His love, and God wants you to be like Him in love. Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. There are no greater commandments than these two.
This is the most important thing. The most important thing is love. And we've done a lot of series here at Ward Church in the fall, especially, where we do a sermon series and a companion small group curriculum, and we try to get everyone in small groups to talk about the issues we're talking about. That's not new. We do that every fall, But there's never been a topic more important than the one we're about to talk about, which is love.
There's nothing more important than love, loving God and loving neighbor. In fact, the Bible says, again, one Corinthians 16, do everything in love. Do everything in love. Now, what's included in everything? Everything.
How about writing emails? Yes, we're to write emails in love. A lot of us would do well to put this person on a little sticky note on our computer screen. Do everything in love. What about finding a parking spot at Myers' parking lot?
Do everything in love. What about responding to a child who just ran over your cell phone with a bumper car? Do everything in love. What about loving people who vote differently than you do? Yes.
Do everything in love. What about responding to people who are hostile toward your faith? Yes. Do everything in love. Do everything in love.
And today, we're gonna begin the journey of how to do everything in love. This today's kind of introduction, this journey we're talking about, this loving like Jesus journey, this forty day journey begins next Sunday. We launch next Sunday, but today we're going to go big picture of what the Bible says about love. We're going really large here. Three lessons that the Bible has big picture about love.
This is where we'll start as an introduction. And the first biblical teaching is this, we love because God loves us. God is the basis of real love. And the Bible says very plainly this, at first John, we love because he first loved us. God loved first.
God initiates first. God is always first. The only reason you can love God or anybody else is because God first loved you, and He showed that love for you by creating you and gifting you and sending His only Son, Jesus, to die for you. I talk to many Christians who feel like they're not measuring up, and they say things like, my problem is I just don't love God enough. My problem is I just don't love God enough.
And I wanna say, no, that's not your problem. Your problem is you don't realize how much God loves you. Because once you realize the extent of God's love for you, this unconditional, extravagant, amazing love, you will love God back. You cannot not love God when you grasp the amazing love of God. So if we're gonna talk about learning to love God and love people and becoming greater lovers, then we have to first understand how much God loves us.
That's one of the things I'm hoping will happen over these next forty days. I don't want us just to talk about love or read about love or, you know, discuss about love. I want us to experience the love of God because the day you finally and fully understand the extent of God's love, and He loves you unconditionally, that you you you can't not make God love you, once you understand that, you will love God back. When you feel that unconditional love, you're going to start cutting people a lot more slack. You're not going to be as angry as you have been.
You're going to be more patient. You're going to be more forgiving. You're going to be more merciful. You're going to let other people have a little more grace. You cannot give to others what you have not received yourself.
You cannot give to others what you do not possess. First John again says this, love comes from God because God is love. Doesn't say God has love, doesn't say God gives love, God is love. This also from first John. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. Do you know and rely on the love that God has for us? Because if you don't, you're gonna have difficulty loving other people.
It's easy to love people who love you. That doesn't require a lot of help from God. You could probably do that in your own strength. It's easy to love people who love you, but loving the unlovely, loving the difficult, loving the irritable, loving those who are different, loving those who are difficult. You can't do that until you've got the love of God flowing in you and through you.
And that's big picture number one. We love because God loves us. Number two, love is an action, not just an emotion. Love is not just a feeling. Love is not just hormones.
It's not attraction. It's much bigger than that. Love can produce some of the strongest emotions of the human experience, love can lead to that, but love itself is not an emotion, it is an action. Why do I say that? Well, the first place the Bible over and over again commands us to love God and to love people and you cannot really command an emotion.
Right? If I told you right now everybody on the count of three be sad, On the count of three, everybody be happy. We can't do that. You can't control your emotions. Emotions are uncontrollable.
They're often unpredictable. If love were just an emotion, God wouldn't command it, but love is something that you do. Love is it produces an emotion, but love itself is an action. I get from first John talks a lot about love. First John says this, dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with Actions.
Actions and in truth. Loving actions is what we need. Let us love with action. In fact, loving when you don't feel like it is the highest form of love. It's a more mature love when you act loving towards someone that's difficult to love or when you're simply not feeling it.
Anybody here would get up with a child at nighttime when you weren't feeling it? You got up not because you love sleep deprivation, but you got up because you put the child's needs ahead of your own. Love is putting the needs of someone else ahead of your own, whether you feel like it or not. Love is an action, not just an emotion. And big teaching number three, love is a habit.
Love is a habit. You're not really a loving person until you're a habitually loving person. Our character is the summation of all of our habits. If you only love off and on like a light switch, you are not technically a loving person. You may think you are a loving person, but love happens when you love the unlovely.
You may think, I am a loving person, but I love those who love me. I love my family. I love my family, but that's not being a loving person. Being a loving person when you love the unlovely, when you love people who don't love you, when you love people who irritate you, when you love people who backbite and gossip about you. Anybody can love people who love them.
That takes no character at all. I can't claim to be loving unless I'm habitually loving. If I said to my wife, I will be your faithful and loving husband six days a week, that's not really being a loving or faithful husband. Right? We have to love habitually all the time.
I I can't say I'm an honest person if I say I will tell the truth 90% of the time. Has to be continual. I can't say that I'm kind unless I am habitually kind. Hebrews thirteen one says, keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Keep on loving one another.
Continue to love each other day in and day out. Make a habit of it. During our forty day journey, we're going be talking about the habits of love. We're going to practice new relational habits. Do you know how long it takes to develop a new good habit?
There's a lot of research about this, and generally, it takes a new habit to start. It takes about six weeks or forty days. It takes three weeks to kind of get in place, three weeks to kind of establish it, and so a lot of our fall programs deal around six weeks, around forty days. That's where it takes to change it. Of course, the Bible has number 40 as a significant time for transformation and for preparation.
Right? The wilderness wanderings were forty years, Hope it doesn't take us that long. Moses was on that boat forty days and forty nights. Jesus went in the wilderness forty days. Forty days, people are transformed.
And I believe if we do this right, at the end of forty days, we will love God more, we'll love each other more, and we'll even have the ability to love our enemies more. It's a tall order for forty days, but I believe it is possible. Here's how the forty days are going to work. We are going to use different modalities. First of all, we are going to hear.
We're going to hear. The Loving Like Jesus sermon series begins next Sunday, one week from today, and runs six weeks, and I'm going to ask you to hear all six sermons in the series, to attend church six Sundays in a row. Six consecutive Sundays, and if you can't be here, then you'll catch up online. We're gonna hear six Sundays on loving six sermons on loving like Jesus, and then we're gonna read. We're gonna read.
At the heart of the forty day experience is this forty day devotional guide, The Relationship Principles of Jesus by Tom Holliday at Saddleback Church. And this book is broken down into 40 daily readings, each one several pages long. We are going to read about the relationship principles of Jesus. These books are available for sale today in the media center for a discounted rate of $10 each. They are also available at amazon.com and all your online retailers.
Someone told me this morning they are available at Walmart. That's how popular this book is, Walmart. So we are going to read daily, and then we are going to discuss. We are going to gather in small groups and discuss what we are learning in our reading and hearing. There are discussion questions in the book, but we are going to give you teaching videos, six short teaching videos.
We are going give you a discussion guide to use, and you can get some friends together, get some family members together, and just work through this on your own. You don't need to wait to be put in a small group. You can start a small group on your own. And our small group director, Sarah DeYoung, will be at the Northville Campus here in the Connections Center. There's someone also there in Farmington Hills that can help you today start a group, give you the material to start a group, or help you connect to an existing group.
You can do that today right after the service of worship out in the main hallway. So we are going to read daily, we are going to discuss weekly, and then we are going to practice. You don't get better relationships by reading about them and just talking about them. You have to get out with people and put these relationship skills into practice. So during our forty days, we're going be recommending things you can do to practice and hone your relational skills.
So again, to get the most out of the forty day experience, we are going to hear six Sunday sermons, read 40 daily devotions, discuss our learning in six sessions of small groups, and we are going to put into practice the relationship principles that we are learning together. Now, even though we are going to expend some effort in this, I want to assure you that God is the one who changes us to become more loving people. God does that. I know you hear a lot of sermons that basically sound like the bottom line is try harder. Isn't that frustrating?
Try to be more patient. Super helpful. Thank you. Try to be more loving. Great.
Got it. Thank you. And if all I had to offer you was try harder, we wouldn't be doing this at all. Trying harder rarely works. You could try harder to love like Jesus loved, but you will fail.
You will fail every time. The key is not you trying harder to love, be more loving. The key is to let let Jesus love through you. The key is to let Jesus Christ love through you. It's experience the love of God in your heart, experiencing God's love and forgiveness and grace and power, and then all of a sudden, it just kind of bubbles up out of you to other people.
Paul wrote in Philippians chapter one verse nine, and this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. And this is the way I've been praying about these forty days, that your love may abound more and more, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and a depth of insight. This is my prayer for you. What the world needs most right now is not more theology, it's not more oratory, it's not more programs. What the world needs now most is more people who genuinely love.
Let us pray now to that end. Dear God, we confess that we have not loved you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbor as ourself. Oh God, help us to be more loving. Love people through us.
Help us to make love our primary value of our lives. Lord, we have hurts in our heart that need to be healed. We need to be filled with your love. We cannot give what we have not received. Teach us to receive your love, grace, and mercy so we can overflow out of our lives and into the lives of others.
Replace our fears with your love. Replace our hurts with your peace. We want to know you and love you. And this we pray in the powerful life changing name of Jesus Christ our Lord. And the whole church agreed and said, Amen.
Amen.