I want to start with a question. Not a trick question, not a
theological Riddle, just a real one.
What if we'd been overcomplicating it?
What if underneath all the doctrine, all the debate, all
the do this, don't do that? What if the whole thing, the
whole reason we're here, the whole point of the Gospel, is
love. Not love is a feeling.
Not love as a greeting card, but love as the engine, love as the
foundation. Today we're going to sit with
that question together. What if love is the point?
In Matthew 22, a religious expert walks up to Jesus, trying
to trip, trying to trap him. He asks what is the greatest
commandment? This was a loaded question.
The Jewish tradition counted 613 commandments in the law.
He was essentially asking which one wins and Jesus doesn't
hesitate. Matthew 22 verses 37 through 40.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest
commandment, and the second is like it.
Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets
hang on these two commandments. All the law and the prophets
hang on these two commandments. That word hang on means
everything else is, is, is suspended from this.
Like a coat on a hook. The hook is love.
Pull the hook out and everything falls to the floor.
Jesus didn't say love is one of the most important things.
He said everything else depends on it.
So if we miss love, we miss the hook, and everything falls.
Here's what gets me This isn't a New Testament idea.
This goes back before creation. Ephesians 1, verses four and
five. For He chose us in Him before
the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.
In love, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through
Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.
Before the mountains, before the 1st Adam of the universe blinked
into existence, God looked ahead and chose you.
And the reason right there in the text.
In love, not obligation, not legal requirement, love.
Here's why that matters to you personally.
Love isn't something God does when he's in the right mood.
It's something God is first. John 48 says it plainly.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love,
not God loves sometimes not. God is mostly loving.
God is love. It's his nature, his essence.
So when we ask what the point of all this is, we're really asking
who God is. And the answer keeps coming back
the same way. Love.
Now it's easy to say God is love.
You can put it on a coffee mug. But love has to be demonstrated.
Words alone don't cut it. John 316, The most quoted verse
in the Bible. Let's not let familiarity rob us
of all its weight, For God so loved the world that he gave his
one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not
perish, but have eternal life. The proof of love is the giving,
and Paul sharpens it in Romans 5 verse 8.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us, not after we cleaned
ourselves up while we were still in the mess.
This isn't love that says I'll love you once you deserve it.
This is love that runs towards you before you've done anything
to earn it. Don't miss this, because this
changes everything. The cross isn't just the
mechanism of salvation, it's the definition of love.
It's God showing us in real skin, in real time, what Love
Actually looks like. First, John 410.
This is love. Not that we loved God, but that
he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our
sins. Love originates with God.
It moves towards us. That has always been the
direction. OK, so where does that leave us?
Because here's the part nobody really wants to talk about.
Some of the most theologically correct people are the least
loving people you'll ever meet. I've seen it.
You've probably seen it too. People who can win any argument,
cite any verse, and still walk past a hurting person.
Some people can defend God better than they can reflect
Him. And I have to be honest, I've
been that person. I've been so focused on being
right that I forgot to love. There was someone in my life, I
won't go into all the details, but someone who genuinely made
things hard for me, difficult to be around.
Someone I'd convinced myself I was justified in keeping at
arm's length. I had my reasons, good reasons,
I thought. And I felt the Spirit say, not
in an audible voice, but in that quiet, unmistakable way.
That's not the assignment. The assignment wasn't to be
right about them. The assignment was to love them.
Jesus says it in John 1334 and 35.
A new command I give you love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.
If you love one another, notice what he doesn't say.
Not everyone will know you're my disciples by your theology, not
by your attendance, not by your opinions online, by your love.
That's the identifier. And 1st Corinthians 13 doesn't
describe love as an emotion you want to feel.
And 1st Corinthians 13 doesn't describe love as an emotion you
wait to feel. Love is patient.
Love is kind. It does not envy.
It does not boast. It is not proud.
It does not dishonor others. It is not self seeking.
It is not easily angered. It keeps a word of wrong.
It keeps no record of wrongs. That's not a feeling, that's a
decision, a daily decision, sometimes an hourly one.
And 1st Corinthians 13 two makes the stakes clear.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and
all knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains
but do not have love, I am nothing.
Not something, not close. Nothing.
Knowledge without love becomes arrogance.
Rules without love become religion.
Conviction without love becomes judgment.
Here's the part I don't want you to miss.
You don't have to manufacture this love on your own.
You can't. Actually, none of us can.
Not consistently. Not for the hard people, not
without help. Romans 55 God's love has been
poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has
been given to you. God's love has been poured out
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Poured out, not dripped and not rationed.
Based on how well you performed this week poured, you already
have access to this. The same love that existed
before creation, the same love that drove the cross, the same
love that called you by name, It has been poured into you by the
Holy Spirit. The question isn't whether you
have enough love. The question is whether you are
letting it move. So here's what I want you to
carry out of this today. Just one question.
Who in your life needs to receive what God has already
poured into you? Not a lecture, not a correction,
not a theological argument. Just love.
Patient, present, practical love.
Because if love is the point, then love is the assignment.
Let's pray, Father, thank you for loving us first.
Thank you that before we had anything to offer you move
toward us. Forgive us for the times we've
chosen being right over being love.
Help us today to stop overcomplicating it.
Let love lead. Let love define us.
Let love be the thing people see when they see us in Jesus name,
Amen. If this challenged you today, if
it hits somewhere, share it with someone who needs it.
Leave a comment and I'll see you in the next one.
God bless.