Real Love in Real Life - Four Kinds of Love, Part 1

Someone has wisely said you can't define it, you can't experience it and let me ask you this. What's real love. What would it look like in your life and your relationships coming with neighbors friends moms dads makes boyfriends, girlfriends, talk about how to experience real love state. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians, the Bible teaching of treatment. Thanks for joining us as we begin ship series called real love in real life now in this first message will identify the four kinds of sure the differences explain why we need to know before we get started if you're new to living or just want to learn more about us, to Living on the Edge.or real find hundreds of resources on a wide range of topics, and countless programs for joy or if you prefer the chip and remap is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry that let's join ship as it kicks off the series with this message for kinds of love to start and ask you to do something to literally go back in time in your mind, and I like you to resurrect earliest moment that you can think of where you actually felt real love. Earliest childhood memory where you felt I belonged I'm safe I'm loved I'm I'm valuable what was that moment.

I'm sure there's a lot of them at the way God makes our brains is that certain things that are emotionally charged stick with us when we have lots of experiences but if there emotionally charged and and resonate somehow with our heart can almost go back in time and you can replay that picture for me. I was in about I think first or second grade.

I'm not sure at all. I can tell you was that had a music class and they had all these little dots and I couldn't figure out the dots and they were notes and you had a flute of phone you had to play the flute of phone and the following day.

After weeks how everyone should posted ever play Mary had a little lamb on the flute of phone I was paralyzed with fear and I member going to bed. My mom came into tucked me in and I just started crying.I'm super super uptight and am I don't know why this impression I member my mom going you don't have to play the flute.

It's okay to make it through this.

You know and and you don't why that sticks in my mind I think about feeling protected love I didn't have to perform. She was there for me.

My second snapshot with a number of years later my dad was a great athlete. He was drafted by the St. Louis Browns baseball but it was a time in baseball history where he could make more money working on the railroad in the summers as a schoolteacher that he could playing professional baseball but early on I mean he hit he wanted me to get good at baseball so he did me.

Grounders and grounders and grounders and it was very intense and good about how you caught a grounder and he forced me to do some things that I didn't think I could do and you know of Christ, little kid, I just got up one day and I started instead of right-handed. I started throwing a tennis ball against the garage.

Of course, and finally up the little box and it didn't left-handed men. I put my glove on the wrong hand. I started throwing it with my dad in any way. I kinda got this idea that in Little League. I want to play shortstop right-handed to be a picture left and I'll never forget the day was. He was in grad school, summer, my parents were always going back to school. School teachers in the middle of the week he was supposed to be away grad school to. He drove two hours he gets out of the car to park in there and he flips this glove to me and it was a brand-new left-handed love and I stuck it on. He threw me a boy to come on let's go in backyard just I don't why I'm like I could tell you the color of his shirt, but there was something about. I believe in you all work with him to help you become what you long to become my third little picture of just feeling real love with a guy named Kevin King bright red hair and freckles.

It was a rainy day.

There were worms. I had a brand-new cowboy hat and he put a worm inside my cowboy hat and we had just moved into the neighborhood and I was a very short, very small, very skinny little kid. He was yet waiting to buy 40 pounds and we got a fight and I still have the picture of all the neighborhood kids in a circle, as we were fighting and it ended with him sitting on my chest and I couldn't move and Kevin and I became best friends and I remember you know in years later I member you know when when I got kicked out of the in crowd and it didn't matter what happened, Kevin was always my friend. I member when his parents back then it was so unusual were going through divorce and Kevin was my friend. We could share anything. He was always there for me and then my next moment was I was about 12 or maybe 13 years old and it was the era where kids grow up a little bit slower and so you know in the early years you hated girls, and then something happened and you weren't sure, but it about 12 or 13, I was convinced that Michelle Abraham could perhaps be the most beautiful woman or being on the face of the earth have used showing suicide and the Beatles were singing Michelle. Michelle my bell so my monkey company be among song and no I don't walk around the neighborhood it isn't it amazing those weren't very real moments is what I want you to get there's three observations I have about real love number one is this is that we all are hardwired to need to be love just for who we really are. Your hardwired just to be loved for who you are, not what you do not how you look. Second is that no amount of success, fame, education or power can fill the human hearts need for real love, we think, we hope, but no amount of education.

No amount of fame. No amount of wealth. No amount of power can ever fill your heart for your real need to be really love just for who you are. Plus nothing and third observation is real love seems really hard to find really hard to find.

I mean, whether it's a separation or divorce or breakup of the friendship or disunity in a small group whether it's betrayal by a friend.

Whether it's someone you're dating in the heartbreak you go through.

I mean real love someone who loves you just for who you are, at whatever stage of life.

Single married divorce widowed is really hard to find and it raises two or three really big questions number one what is real love number two where does it come from, and number three how do you find it in real life, and the problem by asking the question, what's real love is for us.

We have one word in English for love and it just can't carry the weight of all the different kinds of love and we say I love you to a real person that I would be willing to die for you and I love pizza somewhere there's a disconnect there and so at the time of the New Testament was written. There were four major words in the Greek language for love and so what I want to do to give us a sense of what real love is is give you a broader fuller picture of the meaning of real love and these four major words, two of them are found in the New Testament. One of them actually a derivative as of it in the found New Testament, but all four are pictured in the New World testament and so let me just walk through. Let me give you a definition first of four specific kinds of love CS Lewis wrote a book on these four words of when I get done you thinking I'd like to learn more about that. The first kind of love is Eros, or sexual love. It's a passionate desire. I didn't know it but it's what I was feeling for Michelle Abraham and if you'll notice there's a positive example here in Scripture.

Open your Bible if you will to Proverbs chapter 5 I think at times.

Christianity's got a bad rap, and we probably owe it to ourselves. But the Bible is very explicit, but in the right context with the one that you're married God not only created sexy thinks it's really important and encourages us to have really deep wonderful satisfying sex lives with one another. This father speaking to his son says think as you listen to this. This is a sexual context. Should your springs be scattered. Verse 16 abroad, streams of water in the streets, but the beer first for yourself alone and not for strangers. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. A lovely dear a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times be intoxicated always with her love's in the Bible little PG-13 but it's in the Bible not notice on the right side because I'm going to make a contrast to our time real love versus pseudo-love. When the Bible talks about real love and it talks about Eros love it says I love to please you sexually to celebrate the intimacy that we are ready have. This is you make me complete.

This is all there is to love. We live in a culture where Eros love is overshadowing everything, so much so that the word sex and love are interchanged, but the Bible says that sex is an important part this passionate desire is God-given. But the goal of that in the marriage relationship is not what I can get. It's what can I give and it's a reflection of what we'll see is these three other kinds of love. The second kind of love is the Leo love. This is friendship, love, this is a strong feeling this is a strong emotional feeling toward another person that says I want to be there for you in the Old Testament.

It's a picture of Jonathan and David, it's best friends, love. It's a caring, love. It's a sharing, love, it's that I'll be there for you all got your back no matter what thick and thin. If you know the Old Testament story you know that Jonathan was a son of the king but God ordained David to be the next King and Jonathan out of loyalty would pass up not only power and privilege in possessions and even his father's affirmation to be loyal to his friend. Everybody in the world is desperate. I mean for folio love the kind of love that someone says through thick truth in I'm here for you. The opposite that of course is Judas there was manipulation there was other motives.

He betrayed Jesus so in the New Testament time there is Eros love sexual others. The Leo love, the love of friends and then there's store gay lover family love that this is a fond affection. We had a staff member that had her first baby and you know the picture came in, you know, if you those of you that are parents or maybe your aunt or uncle one but when you when you hold a baby in your arms. You don't go like well. So how much money did you make last week or you think you look in that outfit the family love is you belong and you are valued because you're part of the house, we just you. We love you, it gets harder as they get older, but we just love you right no matter what. I may not all kind of family situations where blood we forgive all my gosh, you know, this is the second time and in the recovery program.

But he's my brother.

She's my mom that there's this affection there's this commitment. There is this caring for one another is just inbuilt in us in the family fact, open your Bibles first Thessalonians chapter 2, when the apostle Paul is talking about his relationship with the Christians in Thessalonica had a very deep and warm relationship. It's interesting listen to the kind of family type love. It's common in the body of Christ.

Follow along as I read indeed he speaking to the church there.

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you because we loved you so much.

We were delighted to share with you not only the gospel but our lives as well. Surely you remember brothers and sisters are to hold our hardship.

We work night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone what we preach the gospel of God to you.

You are witnesses. And so is God of how holy and righteous and blameless. We were among you who believe for you know that we dealt with each one of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory. Did you get the family words, brothers, sisters, we were like a nursing mother. We cared sacrificial hard work moms get up in the middle the night.

Dad's work and toil. It's this picture of family love it. We belong to one another, and so we make sacrifices for one another. The apostle Paul says that is absolutely true in the family, but it's also true the family of God is so love.

Number one is Eros love number two is the Leo love number three is store gay and love. Number four is agape love. This is God's love. One is a passionate desire. The second is a strong feeling. The third is a is a fond built in affection. This is a willful choice. Agape love is unconditional other centered sacrificial and absolute commitment. It comes out of the very character and the nature and the heart of God. You are the object of his love, even before you knew him, he created you he loves you. Love always has the best interest of the other party. He wants to connect with you these for you. There's nothing you can do to ever get God to love you and actually there's nothing you can do to get him to love you less. He's demonstrated his love toward us in the most profound way by what Christ did on the cross now because love requires a willful choice on to parties he loves you he loves me. He so loved all the world that he gave his son, but you don't have to accept this love.

You can say to him I don't want you to love me now. He will still love you but you don't get the consequences of experiencing his love. If you choose to reject his love is a wise is so important.

If you do not have God's love living in you. You will not have the power to love yourself. To love your family to love your friends and one day unless God calls you to singleness to love your mate. In fact, here's what I want you to get God is the source of love. The Scripture says God is love. God's love, but his love isn't just a feeling or emotion or desire. His love is an unconditional commitment back on the bottom of your notes. Here's how God loves you, love is choosing to give another person what they need the most when they deserve it the least at great personal cost.

When you think about the cross, God gave us what we needed the most.

We deserved it the least at great personal cost. Is it so why is this so important listen very carefully. This is the pivotal moment in this message. If you're either can understand real love. Words can go right over your head if you don't have the source of God's love, living within you and you become a secure whole person deeply love then all of your life and all of your relationships will be all about get get get get me me me me trying to get someone to love you physically, somewhat, to love you as a friend, someone to love you as a family and you come up with all kind of really wacko ways to try and do it that don't work but if you can understand the love of God and experience the love of God, then you have his power to begin to give even if people don't respond.

In fact, let me read a quote by a couple that teaches at Seattle Pacific University.

They have a class called relationships that every freshman takes it's voluntary but it's it's the most sought after class and Les and Leslie Parrott say this. This is one sentence that every student has to memorize if the only thing they have to do in the class. If you attempt to build intimacy with another person before you done the hard work of becoming a whole and healthy person, every relationship will be an attempt to complete the wholeness that you lack and end in disaster.

If you attempt to build intimacy with the boyfriend or girlfriend a child a parent, a friend and don't first have a healthy whole I'm loved I'm secure. I don't need to impress. I don't need to admit manipulate. I don't need to get I don't have to have someone or something to make me complete all the songs we sing. I can't live without you. If loving you is wrong I don't want to be writer every popular song about I will die without your love is a lie.

If you can't live with God and his love. First, you have nothing to give you just to get her get her get her needy needy needy. But if experience the supernatural ungodly power of God love within you, then you have a reservoir to love people in ways that are supernatural and it produces amazing deep real love go on. I like to remind you that love is a big word and there's four different kinds of love in this this agape love. It's the core it's the source you know you can't give away what you don't have. For many of us failed relationships, conflicts with brothers and sisters fallouts with the boss and the most painful of a marriage that didn't work at the heart of so much of it is we don't have the capacity to love and forgive in ways that are unconditional as I closed today's program I talk to you about someone who will love you. In fact, to does love you a when you're good and he loves you when you're not so good. He cares about you. He made you he sent his son the Lord Jesus to make a way to build a bridge between you and him and you know if you really want to experience real love. It has to begin with you and your relationship with your creator God the father sent God the son Jesus to live a perfect life to walk upon the earth to actually model what real love looks like. And then he died upon the cross, and he paid for your sin and my sin and the sins of all the people in the world he made a relationship with your heavenly father, your creator possible now because love requires choice and volition.

He doesn't make you love him. You don't have to receive this gift you can push it away. You can procrastinate.

You can keep seeking to do things your own way but I will tell you, you will see one relationship after another fail so I believe that were having this conversation by a divine appointment and that right now the living God is speaking to you and saying would you come home.

I love you, will you receive it. I sent my son. He died in your place but you by faith must receive this gift and so right now is God is speaking to you.

Would you be willing to humble yourself and even if you're driving in the car you can pray in your mind, God is everywhere. He knows everything, but would you be willing to say. Dear Lord Jesus, I need you. I do fall short. I know when not perfect. I've missed the mark I've sinned, and right now I ask you to forgive me of my sin to come into my life. I believe I trust you died in my place that you rose from the dead and that you want to have a relationship with me and so I ask you take me into your family right now I want to be your son.

I want to be your daughter.

And as you pray, that in your heart, with full intent. I want you to know that the God of the universe has forgiven you. He's taken what Jesus did and applied it to you. And now he he want you literally like a like a brand-new creation like a brand-new baby want you to grow and so were going to help you take the next steps in your relationship with Christ.

This we can find a good Bible teaching church get a Bible that you can understand, and you won't get it all, but just say Lord I want to get to know you. You've begun an exciting new adventure. If you prayed with Chip, we'd love to put a free resource in your hands. It's called starting out right and it's absolutely free. This resource will help you gain a clear biblical understanding of what it means to put your faith in Jesus and that's our whole mission here Living on the Edge helping Christians really live like Christians.

So let us help you get started in your faith journey. You can request this resource by calling us at AAA 333-6003 or visiting LivingontheEdge.org and clicking on the new believers button that's LivingontheEdge.org or call AAA 333-6003 Larry Dennis trip with a quick word I want to take just a few minutes to talk about something really important and I hope especially for those of you that are regular listeners you will agree God is been using the ministry of Living on the Edge in incredible ways we been growing and reaching folks like never before and you're an important part of that. Your gifts to Living on the Edge make it possible for us to be present in places that without you. We simply couldn't be many of these places are extremely dangerous to proclaim the name of Christ in your gifts make it possible for us to reach people in desperate situations, you know right here in the United States. I can't tell you how many emails and letters I receive it somewhere in that letter or email.

It's like I was on my way to the abortion clinic or I was planning to end my life, for I was about to give up on my married your I was giving up on God because of something terrible that happened to me but then I started listening to my drive to work or my neighbor gave me this book or I found your abdomen.

You know this series on overcoming emotions or whatever it was God's catalyst to begin a total transformation my life. These things aren't happening because of Chip Ingram or even Living on the Edge there happening because God is working in and through those who by faith respond and obey him.

You know we can't do anything alone. That's because it's not God's plan for any of us. We are in this together and Living on the Edge as God's ministry is about you and me doing exactly what God calls us to do and so I would ask you first.

Would you really pray for the ministry. And second, would you pray specifically about partnering at a deeper level and partnering with us financially. Do whatever God leads you to do and let me say in advance. Let's keep pressing ahead and thank you very much, but strip if joining the Living on the Edge team is an idea that makes sense to you. We'd love to have you.

Your support multiplies our efforts and resources in ways that only God can do. So if you'd like to be a part of that. Let me encourage you to become a monthly partner. Just go to LivingontheEdge.org and tap the donate button. With a few clicks you can set up a recurring donation and help others benefit from this ministry, or if it's easier just give us a call at AAA 333-6003 that's AAA 333-6003 to learn how you can become a monthly partner with Living on the Edge Listeners top donate just before we close our mission at Living on the Edges to help Christians live like Christians in one of the ways we do that is by giving away free resources. So when you hear a message. That's especially helpful. We hope you will pass it on to others there easily assured from the chipping remap, or by forwarding the free MP3s from our website. LivingontheEdge.org and don't forget to include a note about how it made a difference in your life will be sure to be with us again next time we continue our series.

Real love in real life for Chip and the entire team here, this is Dave saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge