Family is awesome. But it can also be painful when it’s broken. The highest of joys and the deepest of sorrows are many times experienced in families.
The biblical premise of this message is to study the scriptures to discover the greatest thing we can do to help our family flourish.
Faith is a big deal in the bible. You can’t please God if you don’t have faith. Jesus didn’t do many miracles in His hometown because of their lack of faith. The Bible says there is something bigger and greater than faith.
Faith is great, but it’s not the ultimate thing.
The Bible says this one thing is greater than hope. The Bible says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. In other words, our souls run on hope. You take away hope, and you don’t have much left.
The text is going to show us that there is something greater than hope.
1 Corinthians 13:13 says, “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.”
Love in our culture is a bit confusing. We use this word in many ways. Our culture thinks of love as an accident. People fall in love like they fall into a hole. It’s unexpected, incontrollable.
On the other hand, the Bible tells us that love is not an accident, it is an action that you take.
1 Corinthians 13 has a very clear outline. Three verses are on why love is so important. The next three describe what it looks like. The last few verses are on how you live this out with people in your life.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
This is the biblical definition of love. Biblical love without the gospel is nearly impossible. The key to love is that you can only give something when you have something. You need to get ahold of God’s love in Christ for you. Once you are so nourished in it, you cannot help it but give it to others.
John Stott said, “Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.”
As you think about the person you are struggling to love to remember that part of being made in the image of God is to receive the love of God and reflect the love of God.
We receive the Love of God when we embrace the good news announcement that Jesus died and rose again to give us life. And we reflect the love of God to those around us, starting with our family.
The secret for the family is every member allowing the love of Jesus to overflow from you to others at great cost to yourself.
Biblical love sees people not just as they are, but through God’s love and grace who they could be. “I’m not what I could be, I’m not what I should be, but praise God, I’m not what I once was.” If you are in Christ, you are a child of God with a growing capacity to love. This changes how you see yourself, but also how you see your problems, your prodigal, your family, and other people.
Two Ways to Show Biblical Love:
- Love by example
Take each family member aside and tell them, “I love you.” Your teen will squirm, that’s ok. Take your wife, tell her, “I need you. I know I don’t act that way all the time. But I wouldn’t be half the person without you.” Some of you need to be able to look at someone and say, “I forgive you.”
Let the truth set you free, heal that wound. Release the debt, that’s what biblical love does. God makes it clear in the Scriptures that if you humble yourself before Him, He will lift us up.
- Pray daily to prepare yourself to love
Pray this prayer every morning:
Dear Jesus,
No matter what I accomplish today, empower me to spend time loving You and loving people, I can’t fail at love, I don’t’ want to waste this day. Thank you for loving me. In Jesus name. Amen.
Pastor Chris Williams
To learn more about Pastor Chris and his teaching, visit us on the web at fcfamily.org and make sure you subscribe to receive these weekly encouragements in your inbox.
