Love is Hard!

We have been journeying through a sermon series about our Mission at Abbeville Methodist.  As a Global Methodist congregation, we are about making disciples of Jesus that worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.  Last Sunday we talked about how God has created us to worship him (we are the people created by God that we might praise Him to the nations ... Isaiah 43:21).  This week we are reminded of something harder ... to love extravagantly.

1 Corinthians 13 is Paul's expression of love.  And Paul does not pull punches here.  So I am going to ask us all to take off our political hats, and put on our "Jesus-following" hats.  Because I think following Paul's call in 1 Corinthians 13 will not allow us to stand in politics (especially in the current political atmosphere), and also stand in God's word.  There are all sorts of convoluted political agendas and schemes, and there is God's word ... and God's word 'trumps' them all (pardon the pun).

I have been watching the political pendulum swing back and forth for a fair number of years.  It reminds me of an old song ... "worry is a rocking chair, it goes back and forth and it goes nowhere."  Each party and perspective has its moment in the sun, and there is a feeding frenzy of executive orders, new laws, and policies.  The factions taste blood in the water, and then, next time, they find their own blood in the water.  It rocks back and forth, and it goes nowhere.  Popeye and Bluto pull on Olive Oil's skinny arms, hoping to possess her, and poor Olive Oil just gets her arms out of joint.  Metaphorically, she is us!  Paul's solution? Love!

1. Without love, our plans, our leaders, and our schemes are noise ... here today, and gone tomorrow.  Paul says it is a "clanging cymbal."  Even boisterous preaching is useless without love.

2. Without love, our "good" actions gain nothing (read verse 3 ... it is there).

3. With love, there is patience, kindness, humility.

4. With love, there is no vengeance (which, by the way, is God's territory, not ours).

5. With love, truth happens, and it becomes a way of life (be willing to seek the whole truth, not just the truth your Facebook or TikTok feed sends you).

6. Love endures through all things ... even our messups.

7. Love, not your ideological addiction, is the greatest of eternal things.

If you notice, I did use the word ... addiction.  I run across people every day that are so addicted to their social media feed (which, by the way, is specifically targeted to lead YOU where YOU want to go [not in the direction of truth]) they are willing to lose friends, family, and those who love them, just to win an argument or promote their cause.  Wake up people!  Breaking these addictions, and becoming human beings is hard.  But, at the end of that rainbow, we find perfect love that drives out real (and imagined) fear.  And, at the end of that journey, we find a father, running down the road to greet us with a faithful love that says, "Welcome home my child ... bring out the robe and the fatted calf, because it is time to rejoice, for my son who was lost has been found."

Love is hard.  God is good at it.  We need help.  Jesus and God's word are our guides.  If we call oursleves Christians, we are called to love like Jesus ... extravagantly.  It is one of the only things we can carry into eternity.  What say you?