Which brings me to today’s message what do you share on your last Sunday what do you share and so I just thought it might be fitting and right for us to look at and assess the journey we started at the beginning of last year we talked about starting A discipleship
Journey A discipleship Journey that was started with the theme come follow me and we knew that it was not just a year thing we knew that it wasn’t just going to be two-year thing we believe it’s a transformation that was needed and required not only in our church but in
The church and I thought it might be good today just to sit back relax and ask ourselves this question how is it going and more importantly how are we going in that journey and how do we measure it because because you can’t monitor what you don’t measure I’m a great believer in
Measuring progress otherwise all we have is thoughts and feelings and words but measurements help us monitor how we’re going I I can tell you this week that I have done over 16,000 steps every day do you know why I know that it’s not a
Guess it’s not cuz I feel like I did a lot of walking it’s not because I’m telling you that I did a lot of walking it’s because my watch tells me an actual fact over the whole last year 365 days I have averaged over 15,000 steps every day it’s
Measured it’s not just a thought it’s not just a theory it’s not just a feeling it’s measurable you can’t monitor what you don’t measure I can tell you what I ate over the last week I can tell you how many calories I’ve consumed I’ve consumed two ,000 calories
Every day for the last 7 days which is broken up into 40% protein 40% carbohydrates and 20% fats it’s I might be a little bit OCD but I do believe in measuring why because what you don’t measure you can’t Monitor and if you can’t monitor all you’ve got is your feelings and
Everyone’s got feelings and feelings can be good but they can be really bad indicators how you’re actually doing so I had a great week did you really I can tell you not did I read my Bible every day this week but I’ve got something journaled every day this
Week that I can highlight what God was speaking to me about in actually fact if you look at my last 365 days there’s a journal every 365 days of the last 12 months it’s not just a feeling it’s not just a thought it’s not just a theory it’s measurable I like measuring things
Because without measuring things you can’t monitor how you’re going so we’re going to measure today how are we going in our journey called discipleship does that sound good and when I read Paul’s writings now Paul was an incredible man of God wrote much of the New Testament and for him measuring discipleship came
Down to three things 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 13 real easy to remember he says this and now these three remain Faith everyone say faith faith faith hope hope and love but then he thinks I’m going to get down to one and he says come on but the greatest
Of these yeah these last three are great but the greatest of the great the best of the best the best measuring tool that you can ever have to monitor how your discipleship journey is going comes down to one word love turn to the person next to and say
Love see I firmly believe with all of my heart and it’s the journey I’ve been on ever since I’ve been a Believer it’s the journey we’ve been on ever since we planted this church is to grow in love because I believe the lipus test of spiritual formation is
Love how do you measure spiritual formation how do you measure your discipleship how do you measure spiritual growth I believe it comes down to one word I’ve said it many times before I like to take the complex and make it simple I cannot make it any simpler for you it comes
Down to one word yeah that’s good and that is love everyone say love love so the title of my message today is a question and it’s simply this how’s your love life hey how you doing that’s that’s what that meant how’s your love life and before we can
Answer look at that I say look at the young girls giggling but Paul her kns there giggling classic before we can answer this question with all due respect we must first know what love is yeah it’s good you can’t answer the question if you have a wrong understanding of what love is and
Sadly I believe many people today including Christians are confused about the word love in particular what it means in a biblical sense yeah you see the ancient Greeks were very forensic in the way they talked about love which is interesting to note that the New Testament was originally written in
Greek the Greeks had several words for love and for them to say Love Is Love would be very very naive at best incredibly erroneous at worst you would never hear the ancient Greeks say love is love because it’s just very naive to think that that’s the case they would be horrified to
Know that we use the same word love to whisper I love you over candle at dinner and the same word to sign off on an email s much love they would be horrified what what do you mean those are two completely different things but we have the same word for
Both I can whisper I love you to my wife and sign off to Dan love you and it’s the same H sorry Dan just just a little bit of sick came up sorry it’s my last Sunday I’m I’m going anyway it’s much like today’s Coffee Culture that has a sophisticated vocabulary for
Coffee just like the Greeks a barista today would be horrified if you went and asked for a coffee he would look at you confused and shocked because every good Barista knows that coffee is not coffee you can’t just say coffee’s coffee said no it’s not he would want to know what do you
Mean by coffee can you elaborate on what kind of coffee what type of coffee do you want a cappuccino do you want a latte do you want a double shot flat white do you want a macchiato do you want a long black do you want an espresso or are you a diva
Like someone in our church who likes a little espresso with a bit of honey it’s all coffee but there’s so many varieties and variations but can we all agree on one thing that n Cafe is not coffee can we agree on that there are some heresies out there in NES
Cafe is one of them I say all that to say this if the art of coffee deserves its own sophisticated vocabulary then why not the art of Love Ephesians chapter 3 verse 17 sorry I don’t have it on the screen verse 17 says this and I pray that you
Being rooted and established in love may have power together with all of the Lord’s holy people to grasp how wide how long how high how deep is the love of Christ I want to put a challenge to everyone in this room including myself today whatever you understanding of Love
Is it can grow it can go higher wider deeper longer yeah such is the nature of the subject matter see the Greeks had six particular words to describe love and so what are they and how can they Inspire us to move beyond our current addiction to romance an often erroneous version of
Love today in my short time I want to hopefully provide some information some motivation and some application to improve our love life so let’s look at these six words quickly the first one is Aeros Aeros speaks of a sexual passion and it was named after the Greek god of
Fertility and it represented the idea of sexual passion and desire and the Greeks didn’t always think of this thing as something positive AOS involved a loss of control and it frightened the Greeks it was viewed as something that was hot heavy and often hard to handle and many contemporaries would
Agree with that including CS Lewis but can I say this and remind us as dangerous as Aeros love can be God created sex and sexual intimacy can I get an amen on a Sunday morning it was God’s desire and just like a fire in a fireplace can warm a
Whole home that same fire outside of the fireplace can burn it down and so sex and sexual intimacy is never the problem it’s what we do with it and where we do it and who we do it with and all those things that’s where the complication gets in but AOS sexual passion
Is a good idea and it’s a god idea and because of some of the travesty surrounding this subject we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water yeah this was the first expression of love the second one was felia which is about deep friendship it speaks of a deep
Camaraderie that was developed on the battlefield and it’s about showing loyalty to your friends it’s about about sacrificing for them as well as sharing your emotions with them a good word in Australia would be mhip you got any good mates it’s about a deep friendship it’s not superficial it’s not
Surface level it’s something that goes much deeper than that it’s a special bond that is forged between a parent and a child or can I say now a grandparent and a grandchild very excited about that which is so cool get to be grandparents which is just
Amazing but all of this is a far cry from the word friend that we are used to in the social media world where we have followers and friends and we pride ourselves on having more followers and more friends with zero depth and zero reality I think it’d be fair to say say
We need a little bit more felia in our life maybe less followers maybe less social media friends but something that’s deep with an emotional connection and a deep deep reality love is not just love it’s much deeper than that the third one is ludus which is a playful
Love a playful love speaking of the affection between children or young lovers we’ve Al I shouldn’t say this most of us have had that taste of that flirting playful love between a man and a woman and and just just all kids growing up I remember as a kid growing up I’d run
Over the road and knock on the door and ask if my friends are playing and just we just just play all day and you go on your bike and you wouldn’t come back until the sun went down the home time was when the street light come on you you come home it’s a
Different world back then amazing playing with the Dinosaurs it was amazing was just really good but it speaks of something that is playful it’s kind of the playful banter you might have around the dinner table with your family and and and I love this I love this just that playful band you
Have around the dinner table it’s about going out dancing and just just having good oldfashioned fun and sadly as we get older that gets frowned upon you join a church and that can be frowned upon even more and can I encourage you to not allow ludus to die in your relationships I
Tell all of our young people getting married never come off your honeymoon Kath and I got married over 30 years ago and we’ve just stayed on our honeymoon because why why why get old and become like so many people why why not have some playful love in your
Life that’s the third one the fourth one is a gape and this is God’s love this is a love that’s for everyone and this is the most radical version of love it’s a Selfless Love it’s a love that’s extended to all people family friends and strangers see us Lewis referred to it as
The highest form of Christian love sadly Agape is in radical decline empathy is on the decline reaching out to people beyond our own is on the decline unforgiveness is on the rise bitterness hurt betrayal is growing and I dare say all these things are happening because of a lack of agape
Yeah a lack of God’s love and we are in urgent need of more Agape not only in the world but can I say and be honest in the church this love that knows no limit This Love that Jesus displayed on the cross when he was beaten battered broken and bruised and people were
Mocking him on the cross and he says father forgive them on cuz I don’t know what they’re doing that’s not natural that’s not normal that’s not status quo that’s Agape that’s a love that you and I struggle with but it’s a love that you and I are heading towards in our journey
Called discipleship and spiritual formation the fifth one is pragma which is a long standing love pragma is a mature love it’s a deep understanding that’s developed between long married couples it’s about making compromises in order to help the relation work not just for a week a
Month or a year but year after year after year after year and Kath and I have been on this journey together in our relationship for 40 years this year on March 17 we celebrate 40 years I I met her at a roller skating rink and I
Asked her to go out with me we’ve been together ever since March 14 just around the corner baby and I got to be honest with you I love her more now than ever before I I I I love that I I love that I know her so
Well but I love that I’m still getting to know her just when I think I know her this’s this other side to her I mean you the these guys that jump from woman to woman to woman I’m saying just hang around the same woman you’ll get a different woman each
Night seriously what worked last night doesn’t necessarily work tonight so and it’s just fun it’s just an adventure it’s like wow just when I thought I was just this incredible lover just when I thought I was this incredible husband just when I thought I was this incredible leader bum BM like she back
To the drawing on I just got to study that one a little bit more love it we we have never been bored in our marriage I can promise you that cuz we’re just learning all the time and all you young married couples it gets better it really does I know
There’s a lot of examples that would suggest otherwise but I’m here to be loud and proud about it gets better when there’s pragma involved psychoanalyst Rickard from said this that we expect too much energy on falling in love and we need to learn more how to stand in
Love pragma is about standing in love making an effort to give rather than just receive how can we give to our wife today how can we give to our husband today how can we give to our kids today how can we give to our friends today this is not just a
Marriage seminar this morning this is how can we love each other more how can our spiritual formation go to another level the last one is fucia which is a love of self and this one has two sides to it there is a healthy side and there is a unhealthy side to self-love the
Unhealthy side is associated with narcissism where we become very self-obsessed and focus on personal Fame and Fortune did I mention Instagram I don’t know and we just it’s all about us and it’s all about Fame It’s All About Numbers it’s all about followers it’s all about this it’s all about me that’s
The unhealthy version of it but there is a healthy version of self-love and I believe this healthier version enhances our wider capacity to love the idea that is if you love yourself and you feel secure in yourself you have plenty more to give and love others if you don’t love yourself it’s
Going to be hard to love others that that’s the premise behind the Greek’s thinking Aristotle said it this way all friendly feelings for others are an extension of a man’s feeling feelings for himself the second commandment is love others as you would love yourself if you don’t love yourself how can you love
Others but if you love yourself too much and become narcissistic then you’re not going to love others yeah but you do have to love yourself I preached a message many many years ago called you can’t love others until you think the world of yourself and I stand by that we need to
Have a healthy version of selflove all this is a far cry from just love being one word Love Is Love is very naive at best it’s much bigger wider deeper and longer that so practically how do we move towards this I want us to remember three things this
Morning and then I want to do something and then we’re going to worship together how does that sound the three things to remember when it comes to love is this number one that love is a choice in other words you have to choose it love in my understand is often seen
As something that just happens it’s something that just happens to you even the language you use doesn’t help it’s like how many of you ever said this I I I fell in love as if somehow you couldn’t help yourself as if somehow it’s just love is
Just like this ditch you just oh I just fell into it as if you had no say in it that that is simply not true love is a choice attraction might be uncontrollable arousal might be uncontrollable and those two things can lead to love but those things in and of themselves are not
Love love is a choice and it represents a commitment Colossians 3:14 says it this way and of all of these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect Unity if you want to be a better lover you’ve got to put it on you’ve got to choose it every
Day on the good days the bad days the ugly days you got to make a choice Kass and I have had a lot of good days had a few bad days and we had a handful of ugly days but each time we come back to this notion to put on
Love we don’t fight for a win we fight for resolution and a resolution always lands in I love you and I’ve seen too many marriages too many relationships break down down because we hold on to the details of what happened instead of the meaning and can I say this meaning Trump’s detail
Yeah and Kath and I want to make sure that every one of our disagreements every one of our misunderstandings lands with meaning and for me the meaning of us getting married was that we love each other we come back to that it has to land there and we place all the detail she
Said this he did that I didn’t like this that’s all detail it’s true but you got to weigh up truth with the greater truth and I’ll be honest with you I’ve done some things that annoy my wife I have some habits still that I’m working on that annoy my
Wife but she’s still with me and she’s never threatened divorce for one reason cuz she loves me apparently I’m lovable and likewise there’s things that Kath has done and it can get under my skin but if I focus on that and let go of meaning it’s the end but we come back
To but I love her it’s a choice and you have a choice are you going to focus on the detail or are you going to focus on the meaning are you going to focus on the detail what they said what they did how you felt or we’re going to go back to what
Matters this is Christianity you don’t think that Jesus on the cross wasn’t hurting you don’t think he felt abandoned and alone my God my God why have you forsaken me yet not my will yeah Choice good Jesus in jured the shame the blame and the pain of the Cross why cuz he
Made a choice to see beyond it and look into the future and see me and see you in this room today on our new chairs he saw it and so he endured at all cuz that’s just detail and he went back to his meaning his purpose for why
He was there in the first place right someone said if you are the Son of God why don’t you come down off the cross and save yourself which he could have but had he saved himself he could never have saved me or you and so he chose to save us not himself that’s
Love and love always makes a choice it doesn’t just happen this romantic notion that it’ll just happen is not accurate love is a choice secondly love is an action you have to implement it in other words love is what love does 1 John 3:18 says Dear children do
Not merely say that you love each other let us show it the truth by our actions see what I know about giving and loving is this you can give someone something but not love them that is possible we see that at Christmas all the time plenty of people give gifts at
Christmas but don’t love each other but I would say this you can you can’t love and not give you can give but not love but you can’t love and not give Pastor Dan just referenced giving in a financial sense just a moment ago I really believe with all of my
Heart that if you really love Jesus and are grateful for all he’s done you cannot but give financially of your time of your talents you it’s just impossible when you truly love it’s impossible I don’t care if you don’t call it you call it what you want if you
Don’t if you don’t believe in TI and call but still give I I will never argue the point someone doesn’t want to call it tithing I do but if you don’t that’s fine but it should equal giving because we love I I’m a firm believer that in the family we have jobs to
Do because we want to give to our family and to quote Mama Bear over here if you want to get my wife really riled up and now kids know this firsthand when the kids start taking the family for granted when familiarity Creeps in Mama Bear steps in he says don’t give your
Family sloppy seconds said that a thousand times it scares me it terrifies me even thinking about it and so doing the dishes putting the bin out I promise you fellas you sitting on the couch just watching the television is not going to make for a great lover it’s going to
Make for a lot of arguments it’s an action and the best way to love on others is to know your husband wife kids so well that you know their love language and don’t love them according to the way you want to be loved but love them according to the way
They want to be loved and so if you are like me and have an axe of service wife or you have an ax of service husband serve them serve them if you have a gifts person in your world give them gifts and there’s many ways of doing gifts without spending a lot of
Money if you have a words of affirmation person speak talk text write email words but give yeah it’s an action and my third point and final point is love is a fruit in other words you have to grow it on I say love is a fruit because love is
A fruit of the spirit yeah galatian 5 it talks about the fruit of the spirit the spirit it produces it’s a produce it produces love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness humility self-control they are fruit there’s also nine gifts of the holy spirit this is what I know about gifts gifts are
Something that’s given gift of Prophecy given fruit not given fruit’s grown I believe one of the biggest problems in the church is where we have high levels of gifting but low levels of fruit and when you have high gifting and low fruit you get arrogance you get self-centeredness you get I’m better
Than you you get our church is bigger than your church because for a prophet to truly operate in his God gift it needs to be coupled with the fruit the only effective Prophet is a humble Prophet that’s great a loving Prophet a self-control Prophet but if you don’t we’re going to
Get breakdown and fall out time and time and time again imagine if we could have all the gifting and all the fruit but fruit is grown it’s not given and I’ve seen many people highly gifted people tormented with their high level gift but their lowlevel fruit and it torments
Them because they haven’t been on a discipleship journey and we have an opportunity to turn that around and begin to produce fruit Philippians chapter 1:9 says I pray that your love will overflow more and more and that you will keep growing in the knowledge and in understanding see the thing about fruit is
This it’s grown not made I who likes fruit I mean particularly summer fruit we got some grapes in the fridge right now I just can’t wait to get home to eat my grapes they’re just amazing but none of them were made I’ve never eaten a piece of fruit that was made
Ever he was grown and it grew by being attached to a Life Source The Grapes grew on a fine the Apple grew on a tree every piece of fruit grew by being attached to a Life Source if love is a fruit and it is we cannot make
It I’ve never seen an Apple’s like I’m going to be an apple I’m going to be an apple I’m going to this message is not I’m going to be a better love I’m going to be a better love I’m going to be that’s not we’re not going to get
There you just get constipated that’s all you’ll do but if we stay attached to the vine the Life Source the god of love and we allow his love to flow through us I believe we’ll begin to see the fruit we’ll find ourselves loving more we’ll be more self-controlled more
Patient we find ourselves being kinder Because for fruit to grow it needs the touch of God Those Grapes that I get to enjoy today it’s because of a touch of God I’m grateful to God for many reasons but to have grapes wow then I got some bananas waiting for me amazing
I like my apples God didn’t have to do any of that but just touch a God and for us to produce fruit we need the touch of God this is not a try harder message this is a trust more surrender more message come on you can’t try harder to be more
Patient that’s a a mess but you can surrender say Lord I’m not patient but you are you’re incredibly patient with me and I Surrender my impatience today that I might become more like you that I might be more spiritually formed into your image on this discipleship journey and
Little by little slight but surely through making good choices implementing the right actions and surrendering to the Life Source we can become better lovers and who knows maybe our stale marriages be can become more passionate again Kath and I are going on a long deserved break part of that’s going to
Be through Europe on the Greek Isles on a cruise and I promise you this we won’t just be talking as we begin to implement this more and more and more maybe some of you are just so goal orientated so driven success you’ve just lost all the fan spontaneity playfulness come on whatever it
Is whatever it is let’s make that shift 1 Corinthians chapter 13 the love verse the one we hear at every wedding says this if I speak in tongues of men and angels but have not love I am only a resounding gong and clanging symbol what’s it talking about
About gift if I have a gift but no love it’s nothing if I have the gift of Prophecy there is again if I have another gift we don’t need more gifts g the lack of gifts is not our problem come on good time it’s a lack of
Fruit if I have the gift of Prophecy and can fathom all Mysteries and all knowledge and if I have faith another gift they can move mountains but have not love I am nothing if I can every argument with my wife but have not love I’m an
Idiot if I give all I possess to the poor another Gift and surrender my body to the Flames another gift but have not love I gain nothing so what is love how do we measure it how do we measure our 16,000 steps here it is love is patient it’s kind doesn’t Envy if you’re getting a little bit convicted now it’s
Okay does not boast it’s not proud it’s not rude it’s not self-seeking it’s not easily angered it keeps no records of wrongs wow some of you are so upset with that man who left you that woman that left you that thing that happened to you you don’t iiz you’re just as guilty
Because of what you’re holding on to we’re all a work in progress aren’t we love is patient it’s kind it does not envy it does not boast it’s not proud it’s not rude it’s not self-seeking it’s not easily angered it keeps no records of wrong love does not Delight in evil but
Rejoices in the truth truth how many of us just can’t wait to hear bad news we love it love doesn’t Delight in that stuff it always protects it always trusts it always hopes it always perseveres love never fails where there are prophecies they’ll cease where there are tongues they’ll be stilled where
There is knowledge it will pass away where there are gifts where this fruit will last forever we won’t have prophecy in heaven but we will have love won’t have the gifts we’ll have fruit I say all of this one because Kath and I are about to
Go away but we are in a season of change and transition and change and transition are different change is situational we had a situational change two weeks ago when we announced a leadership change change that change has happened it’s done it’s situational it’s finished the change has happened but change is never the
Problem it’s a transition change is situational transition is psychological and that’s what messes with us and we have to make a shift mentally we have to make a shift emotionally in order to embrace the change that’s happened yeah it’s much like a man who gets married he may have changed his
Address he may have changed his Mar marital status she may have changed her last name that’s a change but thinking like a married woman thinking like a married man that’s a transition and many people never make that change and so the marriage never stood a chance change is
One thing transition is another and we are in a season of transition and will be for weeks and possibly even months to come come some longer than others and I say that not to scare us but to prepare us so you know what it is so when you feel things you think things
You see things know that we are in a season transition and we need to respond in love not with judgment not with pointing a finger but with love
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