Love as a Habit | Churchy Habits part 2
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
This morning we begin with the “Love Chapter.” It is often a chapter used at weddings because of the poetic beauty of Paul’s description of love. Personally, I enjoy reading it as part of wedding ceremonies because it provides me an opportunity to remind the couple (and the audience) that love is not based on feelings. There is a certain joy I get out of having the chapter read, watching all the faces have this “Aw, isn’t that just beautifully warm and fuzzy” look, just to subvert that feeling by essentially saying, “Yeah, that’s not Paul’s point.”
“Love is patient” reminds us that sometimes the person we love is going to annoy us.
“Love is kind” reminds us that sometimes loving someone means being nice despite the feeling we have.
It takes commitment to truly love someone…especially when that someone lives in the same house, and you see them day after day after day. At least, that seems to be the feeling my wife describes.
Here's what I want us to see this morning. This chapter — the chapter everyone reads at weddings, the chapter that makes everyone feel warm and wonderful — is actually one of the most demanding things Paul ever wrote. Because he's not describing what love feels like. He's describing what love does. What love commits to. What love keeps doing even when it doesn't feel like it.
And that's exactly why we're talking about it in a series on habits.
Because love — real love, biblical love, the kind of love that actually changes a marriage, a family, a friendship, a church — doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't happen because you feel it strongly enough. It happens because you decide to practice it. Day after day after day. Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard.
Last week we talked about how the redeemed life is an organized life — organized not around productivity or performance, but around the presence of God. And we talked about how that requires intentional planning. You can't cultivate a Sabbath rhythm by accident any more than you can cultivate a garden by accident.
The same is absolutely true of love. Love doesn't happen based on feelings or chance. It happens because of intentional commitment. It's a habit. And like every good habit, it has to be cultivated, practiced, and organized into your life on purpose.
Love doesn’t happen based on feelings or chance, but on intentional commitment.
So let’s see what this looks like to love as a habit.
The Great Commandment | Mark 12:29-31
To begin, let’s review the priority of the Christian walk. Jesus was asked this question in Mark 12. A religious leader comes to him and asks which one, just one, of the laws was the most important.
Jesus answers,
“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31
The greatest commandment in Jesus’ eyes is three parts:
Know who God is
Love God with all your being
Love others as you love yourself
The three are linked together, and we do ourselves a disservice by separating them. It does us no good to say we love God, but view God as something other than what He has revealed Himself to be. It is pretty much the same if you describe your spouse one way, and when I meet him (or her) he is a completely different type of person. It would make me wonder if you actually knew who you were married to.
People can say they love God all they want, but if they describe a person or thing or “force” that is different from how God has revealed Himself in history and in the Bible, then I can only discern they don’t actually know God.
Likewise, if you know all about God—who He is, what He has done, and can articulate all sorts of points of the Christian faith, but you don’t love God, then what’s the point? It is the same error as the Pharisees and Old Testament Jews of whom Isaiah writes and Jesus quotes,
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
Matthew 15:8-9, quoting Isaiah 29:13
It is a false religion that does not bring us closer to God.
The same type of link is between loving God and loving others.
If we cannot love our neighbor, then we don’t know what it means to obey the Lord.
We can’t know what it means to live wisely.
And in the case of our current series, we won’t be able to organize our life wisely. Our top priority is not the right priority—even if we confess otherwise with our lips.
And so, with this foundation set, how can we love as a habit?
Paul gives us a beautiful description in 1 Corinthians 13, but he has some very practical advice for us in Colossians 3.
Wearing Love like a Winter Coat | Colossians 3:12-15
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Colossians 3:12-15
I learned a new word this week—endysis. It’s a biological term so obscure even my spell check didn’t recognize it. We get it from the same Greek word that is translated “put on” here in Colossians 1:15. It is the process in which an animal grows a new coat of hair, feathers, or scales. The old coat is gone, and the new coat is getting put on.
Now, Paul probably isn't thinking about animal biology when he writes this. But he is using the same Greek word that gives us another English term — endue. It's an old word. Nobody uses it much anymore, which is a shame because it's a great word. It means to invest, clothe, or endow someone with a quality, power, or ability. Like when a king endues a knight — he clothes him with authority, with a new identity, with a new role.
I like both of these words because they illustrate what Paul is describing and the not-so-secret method of loving as a habit. If we want to love like Christ loves, then we have to clothe ourselves in Christ-likeness. The old self has to be put away so that the new self can be put on. The old coat of fur is no good. It has to be shed for the new coat.
Paul once again starts with our relationship with God because it is God who is dressing us. The rest of these verses make little difference in our lives if the first part is not true—“as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” So the first practical step to loving wisely is this:
Determine whether you are truly a child of God.
What is your description of God?
What has He done for you?
Paul spends the first chapter of this letter describing the Lord this way:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Colossians 1:15-20
This section is a declaration of Jesus’ true identity as the Invisible God made visible. Through Christ all things were made and all things are subject to His authority. “All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” in Him. And even more, through Him all things on earth or in heaven are reconciled making peace by the blood of his cross.
If you are truly chosen, holy and beloved, then everything else Paul says in this passage is possible. Not easy. Not automatic. But possible. Because you're not doing it alone.
Practice makes progress.
Paul then gives us some more specific traits. Put on compassionate hearts. What would it look like to show compassion this week? Who do you know that could use a little more compassion and less condemnation?
What would it look like to practice a little more kindness?
What about humility? Meekness? Patience?
Many times we answer these with “not being mean” or some other negative statement. What should we do? Anytime you remove something from your life, it leaves a vacuum. Life abhors a vacuum just as much as space. What will you fill in the empty space?
That’s why it’s so important to spend time in the presence of God. The more we know and love the Lord, the more we will know the answer to the question, “What goes in place of the old habit?”
Be ready to bear with other people’s burdens.
Everyone is on their own journey of faith. Sometimes their journey is close enough to your own that walking together is pretty easy. Sometimes paths will cross, and you may be called to help pick them up. Sometimes, we think we are the ones doing well, and it takes another Christian to help us see we still have a long way to go.
For example, I enjoy hiking. I don’t go near as much as I would like to, but my two favorite types of vacations are either being lost on a beach or lost in the woods. “Lost” in the sense people can’t track me down. I know where I am, but others can’t reach me.
In my late teens, I thought I was pretty good at keeping pace with any other hiker I might be with. Then one day, our family went hiking with my aunt and uncle—avid hikers who to this day can still clock miles on mountains any day of the week. We were hiking in the Ozarks, and after a couple of miles, some of the family was tuckered out. This was not a normal outing for the immediate family. My uncle offered to get the vehicle and move it to a closer spot in order to pick up the family. I volunteered to go with him. After all, I was still full of energy and had kept up just fine.
I should have heeded the warning from my uncle when he asked, “Can you keep up?” As an ignorant teenager, I said “sure” without much thought. That was the day I realized my uncle had some sort of superhuman agility. My only conclusion was that he was in some sort of radioactive accident involving a mountain goat. His simple strides required me to keep up by sprinting.
At one point, he looked behind, saw my pitiful attempts to keep up, and decided to slow down. My uncle is not known for his encouragement, but later he said I did alright keeping up. I took that as high praise knowing full well “alright” was probably not an accurate word.
If we find ourselves in a position of blessing and spiritual maturity, exercising that maturity is recognizing when it’s time to slow down a bit because there is someone that may be left behinds if not. We don’t abandon the weak. We bear their burdens with them. In doing so, they will have an opportunity for growth. In time, they might even keep up “alright.”
And this is exactly why — and I mean exactly — this is why we have small groups at Broken Bow. Not because it's a program we need to fill. Not because it looks good on a church brochure. But because this right here — bearing with one another, walking together at different paces, helping each other up when the trail gets steep — this does not happen in a Sunday morning service. It can't. There's not enough time, and there's not enough proximity.
It happens when you're in a room with a handful of people week after week, and you know each other's names, and you know each other's struggles, and you've built enough trust to say, "Hey, I'm struggling to keep up right now. Can you slow down a little?"
If you are not in a small group, I want to personally invite you to take that step. Not as a rule. Not as a guilt trip. But because what we're talking about today — loving as a habit, bearing one another's burdens — it requires community. It requires people who know you. And a life group is where that starts.
Remember what was forgiven.
Bearing with others’ burdens includes forgiving them when they mess up. This topic is so huge even Jesus comes back to it time and again in the Gospels. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, there are a million subtopics surrounding the idea of forgiveness. But the point of all the discussion really boils down to the king’s statement to the unforgiving servant. Jesus tells the parable of a king who forgives a servant’s massive debt, because there is no way the servant would ever be able to pay it. The same servant then turns around and refuses to forgive a small debt. The king hears about it and tells the servant,
You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
Matthew 18:32-33
In God’s presence we find forgiveness for ourselves, and in God’s presence we find forgiveness for others.
Christ’s love brings peace.
Paul says to put on love above all these because love binds everything together in perfect harmony. The clothes work when there is love. And, counterintuitive to our worldly nature, we will have peace. Because of sin and sin’s corruption, we think vengeance will bring peace. We think control will bring peace. If we hoard enough stuff, we will have peace.
The reality is peace, true peace, only comes from Christ. When we decide to quit trying things our way and try God’s way, that’s when peace comes. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” That ‘one body’ reminds us we are united in Christ. We really can work out our differences because Christ unites us in peace.
Be thankful.
Be thankful for the God who made you and saves you. Be thankful for the people He puts in your life. Even the ones that require a little more grace than you think you can give, be thankful for them because they are exercising your faith and your character. They are making you better because they are making you go to Christ.
Today, as we close, we have talked quite a bit about spending time with Christ as the means of loving others. But I must warn you once again. If you are not in Christ, if you have never surrendered to Him, then it is all a waste. You cannot share what you do not have. If you do not have Christ, then you cannot demonstrate His love. It’s time to take that first step and surrender to the Firstborn of All Creation, the visible image of the Invisible God, through whom and for whom all things were made. It is only through Him you will find salvation, forgiveness, and the power to truly love.