Register for our current study!

January 12, 2025

Unlearning to Relearn Love: God-Centered Love

Preacher: Ryan Owens Series: Annual Vision Series Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1–13

  1. Love is patient – True, God-centered love is slow to anger. Something we often chalk up to our personality is to have a short fuse or quick temper. Lacking patience isn’t because you’ve got Irish ancestry - a lack of patience is a lack of love.
  2. Love is kind –  God-centered love is mild - do you know anyone who is mild? A kind and mild person is a safe person, don’t you think? Self-centered “love” in this case is to be reckless, or uncaringly brash and unaware of how you might be hurting people.
  3. Love does not envy or boast – put simply, God-centered love is not competitive; these are people who do not need to be celebrated by others but long to celebrate others
  4. Love is not arrogant – while envy/boasting describes competition, arrogance describes comparison; someone motivated by God-centered love doesn’t even think about how they compare to others → humility. Comparison kills souls, while humility invites flourishing.
  5. Love is not rude –  love doesn’t force its way in without care or thought for others; we could also say that love is not rude, but it is compassionate
  6. Love does not insist on its own way – some of you might describe yourselves as “my way or the highway” kind of people; the Holy Spirit in 1st Corinthians 13 is inviting you to let go of that kind of self-centered “love” to grow in a more real kind of love that is God-centered.
  7. Love is not irritable – Other translations say, “love is not easily provoked” my kids might describe me this way in the mornings or when I’m stressed out; God-centered love responds peacefully to interruption.
  8. Love is not resentful – Self-centered love does not forgive, it holds a grudge, it’s self-protective, and says “I’m not going to let that happen to me again”; But God-centered love finds everything it needs in Jesus, including healing from deep and serious pain.
  9. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing – Self-centered love indulges the desires and fears calling out sin in one another. The kind of love that we are pursuing, God-centered, Biblical, life-giving love doesn’t passively permit sin in your life or the life of others. 
  10. Love rejoices with the truth – God-centered love lives out in the open, not hiding, not having secrets - without fear! And it celebrates confession and forgiveness of sin!
  11. Love bears all things – this doesn’t mean we encourage enabling abuse or sin, like we just learned, love rejoices in the truth being told; but someone whose love is God-centered is not anxious for someone to change or for their circumstances to change; Love hangs on!
  12. Love believes all things – this does not mean a loving person takes everything at face value; the word believe means to take up into yourself, this means love is trustworthy with delicate things; to whom would you trust most to take care of your family if you passed away? Someone who you are confident would love them!
  13. Love hopes all things – the Greek word here for hope, elpizo, means that God-centered love waits with confidence for the goodness and salvation of Jesus even when it doesn’t seem to be on its way
  14. Love endures all things – love, true love from God’s Spirit, is truly bottomless, there’s no condition, there’s no expiration, there’s no cut off valve; your bottomless chips and salsa at chili’s is a lie, there’s an end to those; there’s a limit to how much water you can pull out of the ocean. But love - God’s love - never ends.

other sermons in this series

Jan 5

2025

Unlearning to Relearn Love - Encourage One Another

Preacher: Brian Carroll Scripture: Hebrews 3:12–14, Hebrews 10:24–25 Series: Annual Vision Series