Valentine’s: Love that lives and Lasts

Pastor Joe Fuiten, February 12, 2006

I have come to value and appreciate weddings. It is an opinion that I have had to come to. It didn’t start that way. I used to think that marriage was the important part so why even worry about the wedding.

The opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics were cool, costing nearly $35 million dollars. The opening ceremony is big because the event that follows is important. It’s the same with weddings and marriage.

GONG!

There is one passage in our Bible that is often chosen for weddings. They are the words of the Apostle Paul in first Corinthians, Chapter 13. "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging, symbol.   And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.   If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I am nothing. ...."

The passage is so frequently chosen that it makes me wonder if anyone thinks about it anymore. Certainly I doubt if they think about what it meant when Paul wrote it. It feels like it has become sentimentality without substance.

Paul was zeroing in on a particular set of people with a particular set of values. The people in Corinth had real experience with things like "speaking in tongues," "prophecy" and the other things that Paul mentions. These were not just vague sentimentalities or generalizations or mere abstractions. They were things of their real spiritual experience. People valued them deeply.

Paul knew whereof he spoke. His love for the Jews drove him to put his body and life at risk. He often paid the price. All these spiritual gifts had to take their place in respect to love. Without love, all the rest is meaningless.

In this season of Valentine’s Day, I know that you appreciate that I am talking about love. This is a durable love that gives meaning to the spiritual pursuits. This is love that identifies true spirituality. Earlier in 1 Corinthians 7, the spiritual life of the spouse did not determine whether or not they stay married. In that case, marriage trumped spiritual unity. Not that we are diminishing the value of spiritual unity. We are simply noting that in Paul’s scheme of love, spirituality gives way to love.

If love makes the spiritual life work, how do we add love to our checkout basket? In fact, we learn that love itself is a work of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-26 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Paul wrote the Corinthian passage on love to a people who were in conflict with each other. They weren’t getting along with each other because each group put itself first. He was showing them the way out.

This passage was written to the people living in central Turkey, an area known then as Galatia, who were also in conflict. Their conflict was over how to conduct the Christian life. Some were saying that the old Jewish law, including circumcision, should be maintained out of respect for God. There were personal conflicts there too, but the bigger issue was how to please God. The old guard had a long list of rules from the Jewish law. In that system, everybody knew exactly what to do and what not to do. In the Jesus system, it seemed less clear. Paul’s answer in chapter five contrasts two approaches. The first involved serving yourself. The right way involved following the Spirit and letting him shine out of your conduct.

Paul is not preaching to us today, but he was preaching to them. He was proposing nine (9) indicators to look at to overcome conflict. I would like to call these the nine things necessary to keep from killing true love. Nine essential elements in making sure that love lives and lasts.

When I say that, you start thinking about how you are treating your true love. You want to see if you are doing right by your true love. You might be looking at yourself too narrowly if you do that.

You really can’t break yourself into pieces like that. You are who you are. When I come home in the evening, I bring my day with me. My wife always recognizes that. She can tell if I am uptight or upset. When I walk in the door, my whole day walks in, not just me. It’s too hard to shift gears. Intuitively we know that. No guy here is going to take his girlfriend to see a war movie or a horror film on Valentine’s. You can’t act like Lucifer at work all day long, drive like the devil coming home, and expect to have a nice dinner. If you can, we have medication now that will help that.

When I prepare people for marriage, we start by giving them an extensive test. Some years ago I helped to author the Eastside Marriage Agreement signed by about 200 ministers. We all have agreed that before we will marry anyone they must have been tested and have gone through counseling or classes.

The test does not ask about their relationship to each other. It asked about their wider relationships and attitudes. We see it as a strong indicator of how they will do in their marriage because in the end, we treat our spouse like we treat other people.

This week, the couple that I tested scored well. I told them I thought they were very compatible and there was no reason why they shouldn’t have a great marriage. They were both healthy human beings. Their activity levels were well matched. They had the right emotional mix. They were both fair-minded people with strong levels of confidence. They both had college educations and had been dating for several years. They were not living together.

Their lives showed a couple of important values. First, it showed that they were responsible people who do the right things. They were not autonomous beings around which everything else had to revolve.

When you get an education, you show you are willing to do the work. That’s important for marriage. The fact that they were not living together shows that they are willing to be governed by a higher set of rules than their personal feelings. That bodes well for marriage.

Here’s the nine-point quiz.

1. Are you actively expressing good will toward God and people? That’s love.
2. Are you taking particular delight in life, acting like you are glad to be alive, especially when you think of God’s mercy and grace toward you. That’s Joy.
3. Even in difficult situations where there is some tension, do you feel tranquility and a sense of harmony with God? Most of the time, as much as it is up to you, do you feel at ease with people. That’s peace.
4. When people act provocatively, do you intentionally lower your response? Do you lower your voice and restrain your rhetoric? That’s patience!
5. When you are around people do you do your best to put them at ease so they are comfortable? Do you try to sooth people around you? That’s kindness.
6. Do you try to go the second mile? Do you try to put out more than is expected you and be as generous as you can? That’s goodness.
7. Are you reliable? Is your word your bond? Do you do what you say, and do you do it when you say you will do it? That’s faithfulness.
8. When you are with people are you humble? Do you show a kind demeanor and try to calm other people down? That’s gentleness.
9. Even though you might be inclined to speak harshly or act selfishly, do you put on the brakes? Do you hold back, when you could get away with it or lash out just to get even? That’s self-control.

If you treat most people like that, in all areas of your life, you are very unlikely to be in long-term conflict with your true love. You will fall in love and stay in love. You won’t kill that love that you’ve had.

We don’t act like this because it is the law. We act like this because something inside of us causes us to want to act right. It is God’s spirit! The more his Spirit fills your life, the better lover you are going to be. All this time you thought roses were the key to Valentine’s Day. What you have really been needing is a good long prayer meeting.