Spiritual Simplicity - In the Name of Love, Part 1

In the name of love, we've all done some pretty stupid things. I could tell some pretty embarrassing stories about in the name of love.

I love someone and then I just did something absolutely idiotic. Today we're going to help you not make some of those very same mistakes. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. In just a minute he'll continue our series, Spiritual Simplicity, by explaining how love can be great for relationships, but without the proper boundaries, it can also be really damaging.

So let's learn more about that. We have a Bible turn now to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 as we join Chip for today's talk, In the Name of Love. Has anyone noticed that each of the titles of the messages has been the title of a song?

Have you picked that up, right? You know, we had Tina Turner, What's Love Got to Do With It, All You Need Is Love, and well, I'm kind of on a roll. So this is going to be the title of a song.

What I love is that some of the songs I had to preface it with, like If You Were Born, you know, maybe you've heard this on an oldie station. The title of the song is actually the most sung song by U2 in any of their concerts. It was one of their early hits. It got to number three in the UK charts and number five on the Dutch charts, and then it grew in its popularity. It's been on three different albums. According to Rolling Stone, which is the authority on rock and roll, of all time best rock and roll songs, it's 388 out of 500, and according to VH1, out of the top 100 songs ever, it's number 38.

You just didn't know I would know that kind of stuff, did you? What's interesting about this song is apparently the melody and things, they were in a jam session while they were in a studio in Hawaii, and later the lyrics came out. And the lyrics are about a famous person, but if you read the lyrics, I actually read the lyrics, and if you try to figure out what this song is about, it's almost impossible. In fact, I've got a quote here from Bono who says, you know, when we started to put it on an album, the lyrics are really sketchy, and when I read him, he says, what in the heck is this talking about? This is just a bunch of vowels thrown together that don't make a lot of sense. Now, this is his own comment on the lyrics, but the producers of the song said, you know what, that's really true. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but for non-English speakers, the different words that it has, it'll be like an impressionistic painting. And so it's interesting. So here we have a song, In the Name of Love, that at the core of the lyrics, if you read the lyrics, they don't make a lot of sense.

And you're thinking, okay, Chip, you really need to make the connection here soon about what this has to do with, you know, living simply. Here's what hit me. All of us in the name of love do things that don't make sense. I mean, in the name of love, sometimes we do very, very good things, but they just don't make sense. And so I came across, here's a little poem, if you'll get your notes out. On the very front, here's some things that in the name of love, and by the way, there's no criticism here.

This is like genuine, sincere, in the name of love, I really want to do what's best, I really want to care for people, I want to be a good person. But in the name of love, we give and give and give some more, yet still feel guilty for not giving more. In the name of love, we get up early and come home late, leaving little time or energy to relate. In the name of love, we're always on the go, but love requires the gear of slow. In the name of love, we start them early so they'll be a star, and then we spend our weekends in the car. In the name of love, we buy them computers and fancy phones, only to discover they feel all alone. In the name of love, we celebrate their role on the traveling team and wonder later why at church they're rarely seen. And in the name of love, we make success what we reward, but show little passion for God's word.

Now, if you went through that, what I can tell you is, look at the first one, isn't it good to be giving and generous? Well, yeah. Isn't it good to work hard, get up early, and if you have to stay late, yeah. Well, isn't it good to be on the go and be active?

You don't want to be a couch potato, right? That's a good thing. Isn't it good that you start them early and you want to develop their skills? I mean, the motive is great there and, you know, heck, I mean, don't you want your kids to have a computer and it's the age and they need to learn it and, you know, a phone to keep them safe and... See, there's a lot of really good things with a lot of really good motives. That if the means becomes the end or if there's a little shift over time, in the name of love, in our minds and hearts and motives, we often think we're doing some really good things that produce some really bad results. And that's the question I want to address this morning here in part four.

Why do so many good things so often result in so many bad lives? And what we're going to learn, we're going to discuss today, you know, in each of this, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, he's addressing a very high capacity, very gifted, very cosmopolitan metropolitan church that is very immature, that is very selfish, that has lots of conflict and is very unloving. And so all of chapter 13 isn't some beautiful poem about love, he addresses how they hurt one another, he addresses how they deal with differences, he addresses, you know, this whole idea of what happens when you fail. And now he's going to talk to us about how love responds to misplaced priorities. I want to do a quick review before we talk about how love responds to misplaced priorities because the whole issue, I mean, I'm getting emails from people that are so encouraging. I got an email from a lady who said, I just want you to know I had a number of opportunities this week to absorb a blow when people hurt me and respond with a hug. I got email from someone who said, you know something, I had a situation this week where all the circumstances kind of look like, wow, really bad stuff happening and I chose to believe the best about this person's motives. And so let's do a quick review because the issue isn't someday, someway that we try to be more loving.

These are the kind of things we have to practice in real time. Situation number one is how does love respond to hurts? The truth is love is patient and kind. The practice we learned is when you're hurt, wounded, rejected or ignored, love, remember the pillow, absorbs a blow. It's not fair, it hurts, you reject it.

But then by God's grace returns a hug. Situation number two is how love responds to differences. The text says love doesn't envy, doesn't boast, it's not rude, it's not self-seeking, it's not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. The practice is love celebrates differences.

Remember the principle about loving? Love refuses to compare. Anytime you compare yourself with another person in any area, it always leads to carnality. You are who you are in the station you are in the season you're living by the grace of God. If I compare upwardly, I'm prone to envy.

If I compare downwardly, I'm prone to arrogance. Love chooses to do another but celebrates. That's where they're at, that's what they have, that's how they're made, that's their gifts, that's their season. Third situation is how does love respond to failure? The truth was verses six through eight. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, it always trusts, it always hopes, it always perseveres. Love never fails. The practice is love responds to failure, remember, with both truth and grace. When people fail you, when your mate fails you, when your best friend fails you, when people don't show up, when you fail other people, when you fail God, love, this is how it responds. It doesn't put it under the rug, it doesn't act like it doesn't happen, it doesn't stuff it down, it doesn't pay them back later. Love responds with truth. This is the truth about that failure. It's very real, it was very painful, and it was wrong. And it also responds with grace.

And I still care about you, and I want to forgive you, and this can be made whole. And so we learned that the practice of giving truth and grace was about bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things. Now the Apostle Paul is going to address these Corinthians because they are self-centered. They are more concerned about who does what and who has what. And their priorities in the church are absolutely out of whack. They are so into, in some cases, my needs that they're suing one another.

They're so interested in being first and being out front that they're doing some spiritual practices and literally just dissing other people. They're in this deal where their priorities, they're exalting some of the gifts and exalting some of what is supposed to be in the church that God talks about, but they put it up here, and the things that really matter, they're totally neglecting. And so the Apostle Paul is going to write to him, situation number four. How does love respond to misplaced priorities?

You can jot that in your notes if you would. And he answers, here's the truth. Love never fails. Where there are prophecies, they'll cease. Where there's tongues, they will be stilled.

Where there's knowledge, it'll pass away. Then he gives us the reason. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfection comes, and put a circle around perfection, will you?

We'll come back and address that. When the perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. And now he gives us an illustration. He's going to give us some help about how to get your priorities in order. He says, when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. In your notes, will you underline the word talked, underline the word think, and underline the word reasoned?

There are three key verbs. Now we see, but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I'm fully known. And now these three remain. Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. Now it is poetic.

It is beautiful. It is on plaques everywhere in the world. It is said at weddings. It's said in kind of romantic settings. But you need to understand what he's addressing here is not sort of a foo-foo, ooey-gooey, how to feel about one another. He's correcting misplaced priorities in the church. And he's giving them very clear guidelines about what's really important and how to get some of those things.

I'm just going to assume the best of the Corinthians. I'm going to assume they really wanted to do the right thing. But just like in the name of love, we do things that are kind of silly and stupid and don't get us there.

So did they. And so the practice here is love ruthlessly refuses to allow temporal good things to crowd out the eternal best things. And when you put a box around, I mean I chose these words very carefully.

Ruthlessly refuses. Put a box around that phrase. And I want to give you a little warning. What we're going to talk about is where a lot of the rubber really meets the road if you want to simplify your life. If you want to find yourself three months, three years, five years, ten years down from here and say to yourself, you know something, I love God now like I never dreamed I could experience.

I have relationships like I never dreamed. There's issues in my family that have come together that I never thought I would ever experience. A lot of it is going to come down to you hearing today what God says to you and then you taking some very specific, and I mean they'll be radical steps.

We will not talk about how to tweak your schedule and get five or seven percent more time to do a few more important things. We're going to talk about priorities that if you get serious about what God wants, you're going to have to say to certain whole sections of your life, you know something, that's been way up here. You know what, for a season, I just need to stop doing that.

I got to get refocused at a new level about what really, really matters. Love ruthlessly, ruthlessly. That means, oh, I don't want, if I do that, she'll get mad at me. If I do that, I want to do that. Well, I get a lot of strokes out of that. Well, that's one of my hobbies and I really, and so you keep trying to tweak and what happens? Seven days later, you're as over scheduled, over demand, overwhelmed as you were two weeks before. You're really smart people.

If tweaking a little bit here or there was the solution, you would have solved this a long time ago. So let's look at, okay, God help us. How do we ruthlessly refuse to allow, notice it's not bad things. The things that eat you up, they're not bad things.

They're temporal. They're really good things, but the good is always the enemy of the best. His thesis here is that love is supreme. Love is our number one priority. That phrase, love never fails, it's kind of a hinge.

And then it kind of opens the door to how love responds to misplaced priorities. The word fails, 70 different times in the New Testament, it's translated, love never falls. Love will never be corrupted. Love will never cease. Love is permanent.

Love lasts. He's saying loving God and loving people is the number one priority in your life. And see, what we've got to do is step back and say, okay, if someone picked up my schedule, if someone picked up where all my money went, if someone could pick up and read my mind about where my thoughts are when I didn't have something to do, would my thoughts and my time and my money and my energy and my actions tell the story that, wow, this person really loves God and really loves people? Or would it, would they listen to my words and say this person says and thinks and actually is deluded into believing they really love God and really love people, but when you look at their time, their money, their dreams, their schedule and their energy, it looks like they really love themselves a lot.

And they really have believed a few lies. That's what he's dealing with at that church then. And that's what he's talking to us about today. The contrast, he says love is supreme, love is the number one priority, the best of temporal things, the good, even spiritually beneficial, powerful gifts are far less important than love.

I mean, isn't that exactly what he says? Look at verse, second half of verse 8, there's a big word. Love never fails, but, but where there's prophecies, they'll cease. Where there's tongues in and of themselves, they're going to go away.

Where there's knowledge, I mean, even the great mysteries of God. So the apostle Paul, if you study this book carefully, remember he told them in chapter 12, prophecy is the most important of all the gifts. And now he comes back and says, you know, even that one's going away.

The Corinthians believed that tongues was the most important gift. He goes, well, yours is going away. And they said, we would both agree that, I mean, knowledge, the very mystery and knowledge of life and God. He says, that's going to go away. And those are the things, those are about ministry. Those are about the kingdom of God, I mean, prophecy and tongues and knowledge. And he says, wait a second, compared to love, they're not the number one priority. The reason he gives us in verse 9 and 10, the reason is because they don't last, they're temporal.

Could you put a line under, they don't last. Because this is what he's trying to get into their mind and into their heart. He says, for we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, when the perfect comes, a lot of debate on this, but the clearest explanation, things are going to be completed when Jesus comes back. I mean, I don't mean the rapture, I don't mean when he comes back, I mean when the second coming of Christ, when the absolute completion and perfection of all things gets sealed. There won't be any need for prophecy, won't be any need for tongues. The knowledge won't be in part, it'll be face to face.

We're going to know him fully, just as we've been already fully known. And what he's saying is, look, you guys are so into and arguing about and stressed and pulled in all these directions about some very good things, but what prophecy and knowledge, all they have in common is they're temporal. It's not that they don't matter at all. It's like helping your kids learn sports at an early age, or wanting them to get into a good college, or wanting to be upwardly mobile, or getting some extra training, or wanting to do well in your job. Those aren't bad things, are they? I mean, if you would walk through carefully later today, the list of things that I put on the front page of your notes, every single one of those has a really good, isn't it good to be giving? Yeah, it's good to be giving, but if you give, give, give, give, give, give, and don't honor God, and take some time to get renewed, then guess what, you just feel guilty and burned out. I mean, it's good to help your kids grow, but if your whole world is traveling around in minivans and SUVs, and all your weekends are taken up helping your kids hit balls and kick balls and chase balls, to where you're never together and connected from the heart.

You see, some good means, some very good things, but it's sort of a wash. So we're living in this world where, you know, you're not a good dad if you don't do this, you're not a good mom if you don't do that. I mean, you're never going to make it as a single person unless you go here, go here, go here, do this, do this.

I mean, you're not successful and significant unless you have a bag that looks like this, a watch that looks like this, and a car that drives like that. You want to make it or not? And you got to start asking, make what?

So yeah, that's right. So what do you want to make? You want to make it big and go through a couple marriages? You want to make it big and have kids that don't know your name and don't care about you?

You want to make it big and be successful? You know, some people, you know, they do it in ministry. Every time the church doors are open, they're here and doing this and doing that. I was talking on the phone with a guy from another country last night that I'm going to do some ministry with in the future. And we just got off the phone and I just said, can I just, you know, the guy's, he's a Harvard grad. He's got theology.

He teaches in the seminaries in charge of this humongous, the administrative side of a church of about 75,000 in another country. And I said, is there one thing I could pray for you? He said, yeah, there is one thing.

And I said, what is it? He goes, you know, I have three almost full-time jobs and there's all this demand and my wife's very understanding, but my daughter's eight and she just doesn't understand very much. I said, well, what do you mean she doesn't understand? She goes, well, I just don't see her very often. So what do you mean you don't see her very often?

I don't see her. I mean, I work 12 to 14 hour days and I'm gone early and I come home late, so I just don't get to see her very much. And this is a pastor and I know that's not right.

And it's always followed by this, but. And I said, you know, when I'm going to be in your country, you know, in the near future, and why don't you and I get some time? I've kind of lived where I was tempted and struggled with some of those things. I have four kids and let's make that part of our little time together. Now, I didn't tell him, buddy, I'm going to build a little trust with you and I'm going to spiritually kick your rear end as hard and as long as I can. And I'm going to look you in the eye and say, you understand how good things, very good things in the name of love produce some really bad lives? I'll tell you, he's going to have a little girl that doesn't like God, let alone love God, and will wonder why the church or God took her daddy away from her. And some of you are going to have kids that wonder why the name of your company did that, or your drive did that, or golf did that, or your hobby did that, or the speed of your life did that, or how, just because your kids say, I want, I want, please, please, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you cave into them. Guess what? You can give people what they want, but if you don't give them what they need, they like you for giving them what they want now, then they hate you later for not giving them what they need.

That's the difference between parents and kids. A picture that helped me with this was a guy named Jim Dethmer gave a message that really helped me. He had an illustration that I like to just steal, because, you know, there's part of this theological, when you say, what do you mean? They'll fade away. They don't matter. It's not like those good things you're doing don't matter.

It's not like ministry doesn't matter. So what's it mean? What's the picture? And I love the illustration he gave. He said, imagine that we were having a big party, everyone in the church, big party, all the services coming together, and, you know, we rent a park, and, I mean, we're going to have ice cream, and we're going to have food, and a barbecue, and we're going to celebrate. There's going to be great music, and so we get like four or five of our best artists, and we want you to create a sculpture that, I mean, gives glory to God, that just magnifies the artistic talent and ability that you have, and here's this big room. It's about, you know, 30 feet by 40 feet, and this big block of ice, and, you know, they're in there with chainsaws, and so they work for weeks, and then they put it on these rollers, and we're thousands of us, and we're having music, and here it is, this beautiful fountain, and it's out in 100 degrees, and who knows, maybe we could have chocolate coming out of it or something, but, you know, there's swans, and, I mean, it's just an amazing deal, right? And, you know, we stop, and all of us are going, wow, what can you believe, man, unbelievable. Do you see, I mean, that is the most amazing, how do they do that with ice, right?

You know, we're all just like this. Three hours later, the party's over. What they did was wonderful.

Their energy was wonderful. We appreciated it. But three to four hours later, some of us are volunteering, cleaning up the chairs. We're picking up the paper.

The swan only has one arm. The thing's melting. By dusk, a handful of us are just cleaning up, and where that beautiful ice sculpture used to be, there's just puddles of water. See, it's not that what you are doing or what I'm doing doesn't have any value. It's that it doesn't have any value that lasts. And there's some of us that will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and I just say this from God's loving heart to you as a warning, and you will spend your time and your energy doing very good things that you think with all your heart are in the name of love in your relationships, in your families, and in your work. And you'll get near the end of your life or worse by the time if you have a family where your kids are grown, and what you'll look back on is just pools of water that have no significance, that are going nowhere, and you wish you could turn back the clock. Before we even go on in today's broadcast, I just want to stop, and I want to ask you what aspect of your life is like the ice sculpture?

I mean, it's not that it's not beautiful, it's not that it's not something that looks pretty cool or takes a lot of energy and effort, but it doesn't last. And you know, sometimes God brings us some emergencies, some things to jolt our life, because we're talking about how love responds to misplaced priorities, and we all have them to one degree or another. And after many years of being a pastor, I have a pretty good rhythm of my life in terms of priorities and when I study and what I do, but I'm like everybody else. You know, you get tired and you slip into patterns where you watch a little too much TV or kind of go into a little denial and spend a little more time on a hobby doing this or that.

And it was interesting, as soon as I found my wife had breast cancer, it was like I know I needed to simplify and not stop doing things that were wrong, but I just knew for this season, I just don't want to watch any TV. For this season, I decided to, you know, I have my devotions in the morning. For this season, I decided, you know, before I go to bed, I'm just going to read through the Gospels. I need to draw near to God.

I need to purify and clarify. And I believe that's what God's saying to some of you. So let me ask you, how much time goes into hobbies? How much time is pursuing more money and more work, and what's that going to look like later? Or how many of you are just, I mean, overdosed on how good you're going to be at this sport or that sport or your SAT scores or what school that you go into? Not sinful or bad or in and of itself, but what does that produce in the long haul if it consumes your heart and your life?

I mean, how much time goes into fantasy football and passing on YouTube funny things to other people? How much of our life just is consumed with playing and eating and watching and not asking the big question, why am I here? What am I to accomplish? Am I rightly aligned with God? Do I have peace in my heart?

And am I loving people around me? The word amuse means against and muse means to think. Amusement means to not think.

And as someone has rightly said in our culture, we're amusing ourselves to death. Let me encourage you to take stock today to evaluate where your priorities are and then make one specific step toward clearing the decks for some extra time with God to get some clarity from Him. Thanks for the reminder, Chip. And if you're looking for some practical help in recommitting your life to Jesus, let me encourage you to check out Chip's book, True Spirituality, Becoming a Romans 12 Christian. Through this resource, he'll share how you can become a genuine follower of Christ.

To get your copy of True Spirituality or to order one for you and a friend to go through together, go to specialoffersatlivingontheedge.org or on the Chip Ingram app. Let us help you deepen your relationship with Jesus today. Well, Chip's still with me in studio, and Chip, before we go, you wanted to say something about the year-end match that we talked about throughout the month of December? Well, Dave, I just wanted to pause. I mean, to really pause and tell you from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You know, every time a person makes a financial gift, a spiritual transaction occurs.

In other words, something actually happens in a person's heart. And I speak to those of you who gave. You gave.

You responded. You invested in Living on the Edge. And I want you to know that as you've invested, we're going to invest in the lives of people here and all around the world. It really matters, and we are super grateful. Thank you, each one of you who prayed and said, Lord, what do you want me to do?

And then you followed his lead. The final numbers will be on our website as soon as we get all the mail that comes in. But I just want to say thank you. Thank you so very much for hearing from God, responding to God, and for being so generous.

And let me add my thanks, too. You know, we really truly celebrate every gift we've received and are excited to see how God uses it to motivate Christians to really live like Christians. So thanks again for your support. As we close, are you looking to get even more plugged in with Living on the Edge and our resources? Well, then let me encourage you to check out the Chip Ingram app. There you can listen to our most recent series, sign up for daily discipleship, and so much more. We want to help you grow in your walk with Jesus. And the Chip Ingram app is a great way to immerse yourself in Godly, enriching content. Well, join us again next time as Chip continues his series, Spiritual Simplicity. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.