We're beginning a brand new series today entitled The Relationship Remodel. And the idea is simple. Much like a home renovation, relationships take work. Right now, I, I love sports. You guys know that, uh, that you've been here for any length of time, but what you might not know is I also love me some HGTV. Right, I love all the shows. Any, any shows that got something being torn down and rebuilt and or challenges or or flipping a house or going through or house hunters, right? And any, any of that, whatever that is, I'm in for it, OK? The frustrating part though is that it's misleading in the amount of work it takes to remodel or fix up a home, doesn't it? Because no matter how big the project, the entire home is fixed up in like a 30 minute or 60 minute window. And what you don't see is the hours and the weeks and the months or even the years in the middle, right? So, I understand when it comes to relationships. That it's not gonna completely change in 30 minutes, right? I, I'm not, I'm not fooled by that. So I'm not gonna think that one message in one moment's gonna radically change everything in 30 minutes and I know that all relationships take work and a lot of work in that middle space, right? But my hope is that over these next 5 weeks, as we do a deep dive into the most talked about love chapter in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13. That as we study it together, that God will work in a way. That'll help us build a healthy foundation, that maybe we can tear down some bad habits if we need to, right? It'll reinforce what matters most. And ultimately, we can build relationships that last to the glory of God. Amen. So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna jump into this idea of the relationship remodel, and what we wanna do is that over the course of the next couple weeks, I wanna challenge you with what I'm calling the love remodel challenge. The love remodel challenge. I wanna challenge you over the course of this series to do 4 things. And you're gonna hear me repeat it at the end of the sermon, but I wanna give you the heads up now, so I'm just gonna share it right out of the gate. So here's what I'd like for you to do. Whatever brought you in today, first time, you've been coming for years, whatever stage of life you're in. Maybe you're in a relationship that you're trying to work through. Maybe you're on the other side of a broken relationship and you're trying to figure out how to recover. Maybe you're more in the house hunter stage, right? And you're, and you're searching, OK? Whatever stage you're in, And whatever relationship comes to mind, I want you to do these 4 things. OK, number one, I want you to locate the relationship, meaning, can you identify one relationship that you want to grow, heal, or strengthen? Can you identify one relationship in your life that you want to grow, heal, or strengthen? Doesn't necessarily have to be a marriage, right? It, it could be a married couple who feels more like roommates right now than soul mates, but it could also be parents who feel distant from their kids could be kids feeling distant from their parents. Maybe it's friends who've let too much time pass by and they wanna reconnect. Maybe it's siblings who stopped speaking to each other, right? Maybe it's a coworker or somebody in your life that there was a disconnect along the way. That you're trying to process and work through. Or maybe it's just your personal relationship with God. Right, you're feeling the sense that I need to get back in the church or I need to get back to God. Whatever the relationship that comes to mind, I want you to simply identify. Can you locate what is one relationship that you want God to work through and to work on, OK? That's step number 1. Step number 2, then is I want you to open God's word. I want you to open God's word. We're gonna be preaching through 1 Corinthians 13, which is seen again as one of the most famous passages in all the Bible. I've been a pastor for about 20 years, so I've done a number of weddings over the years, and by far the most common passage read at weddings is 1 Corinthians 13. Even people who are not familiar with church or the Bible are familiar with a couple passages. Typically it's John 3:16, it's Psalm 23, maybe the Lord's prayer, and then it's 1 Corinthians 13, the love is patient, love is kind, and it goes on passage, OK? But what does it actually mean? So what I want to challenge you to do is to read this passage. We already read it earlier this morning. It takes less than 3 to 4 minutes. Uh, you can read it, you can read it on the Bible app. You can even just listen to it on the Bible app. You can listen to it on Spotify. And so, I challenge you to do it every day, but if every day reading the Bible stresses you out right now, just, just start with once a week. Give me one extra day a week that you're reading through 1 Corinthians 13. And then let's see what God does, OK? So locate the relationship. OK. Open God's word. Step number 3 then is value God's voice. Value God's voice. And that's why I want you to practice something known as listening prayer. What's beautiful about listening prayer is that you can be honest. It can be like a, a, a gritty prayer, a messy prayer. Like you don't have to have official language and and the right vocabulary. You just have to be real. You just have to be humble and whatever mess or questions or pain or hurt, whatever it is, just take that same thing you're processing anyway, right? Because it's, let's be real, you're processing whether you take it to God or not, right? Whatever it is that's weighing you down, just take that instead of like this, just take it open-handed to God. Right? So pray asking God, that here's this relationship, here's my emotions and my feelings. Here's everything that triggers me, here's this. What do you want me to do? Just ask the question and then listen. And listen. What is one step that maybe God might give you, right? So locate the relationship. Open God's word, meaning you're reading through 1 Corinthians 13 at some point throughout the week. Then you value God's voice. You are asking God, God, what am I supposed to do with this? What am I supposed to do? Right? Asking God and then listening for a response. And then when he gives you one. Step number 4, then I want you to engage with obedience. Engage with obedience. Thinking through what is one step in the direction God is moving you. Now, we don't necessarily know the certainty of outcome. Right, I'm not gonna stand up here and tell you, you, you watch one sermon or you come to a series and all of a sudden everything's gonna be roses, OK? Like you, you're not promised the outcome, you could do everything right and still get hurt, OK? I wanna be very transparent with you on that. But while you might not have certainty of outcome, what you can have is clarity of obedience. And clarity is, I think, better. Clarity is better than certainty. Because so much of our lives is uncertain. But if you seek God, and you're asking God to reveal a step, and he gives you a step, and that step is moving you in the direction he wants to move you, what I can promise you is that that step is gonna be a direction closer to him. And if you take a step closer to God, I promise you it's gonna impact your relationships for the better. The practical outcome might not be what you're desiring, but any step closer to God is gonna work and and transform you to become more like him. And that's the goal at the end of it, OK? It's messy, it's difficult. Some of you are squirming a little bit. Some of you are like, why didn't you give me this sermon a year ago? We could deal with it or 10 years ago, right? Some of you are on the other side of hurt and pain. Listen, just wherever you are right now. Whether it's marriage, parenting, friendship, co-worker, or your personal relationship with God, I just want you to identify a starting point, right? Locate the relationship you want God to work in, open God's word throughout the week. Value God's voice, praying to him saying, God, what do you want me to do? And then when it gives you that moment, then I encourage you to engage with obedience. Maybe it's a promise to belief. Maybe it's a conversation you need to have. Maybe it's wrestling with forgiveness, offering forgiveness or receiving forgiveness or going through the ripple effects of something that happened last week, last year, a decade ago, right? Maybe it's an active service, maybe it's a gift. I don't know, but I'm not trying to be the Holy Spirit for you, OK? I'm not gonna come out here and say just do this thing. I'm asking you to go to God. Let God be God. And then when he gives you that nudge, that whisper, that push, have the courage to take that step. Sound good? Awesome. OK. Uh, last thing here and then we're gonna jump into it, is that, uh, sermons, just so you know, sermons are a lot like buying paint at Home Depot, OK? They're great, right? I'll try to give you a can, but nothing's gonna change in your house until you go home and you apply it. My, my wife and I just, uh, repainted kind of kitchen living room area, right? And it wasn't until we actually opened the can and put the paint to the wall, right? You gotta, you gotta fix the marks, you gotta put on the primer until you actually go home and apply what we're talking about in your life, you're not gonna see a change, OK? But the good news is, if you do apply it in your life. That there is no situation too dire, there is no situation too tough, that he cannot meet you where you are and give you a step to take. I really believe that, OK. Now, who are the Corinthians? 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient, love is kind, it's, it's what we say at weddings all the time. But what is the actual context in which this letter, these words were written? Paul started the church in Corinth in Acts chapter 18. It was around the year of 50 AD, and he started this church. It was there for about a year and a half. Leeds continued on in ministry, and then he ends up writing a letter about 6 years later, 5 or 6 years later to this church. Now, Corinth was seen as a valuable port city, a, a trade city in between various regions on the eastern and western side. And so think about like the Panama Canal kind of thing, is it like a skinny strip of land. That you had ports on both sides and so that if you wanted to move product or idea or currency that you need to go through corns. In fact, the city was destroyed in 146 BC but then rebuilt in 44 BC by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony. So what you have is a wealthy city that's diverse, that is educated, that takes everything in and moves everything out. It was described almost like we would think of maybe like a Las Vegas today, like a sin city. To corinthesize was to behave immorally sexually. Like that was the name. Of the, of the city was to perform an immoral act. And part of that is because the Greek goddess temple that was there was a temple of Aphrodites or the goddess of love. And so it was seen as the city of love, but it was around the temple was surrounded about 1000 prostitutes that would come down and it was just like, do whatever you want, do whatever feels good, live this way, however you want. And so here's what's fascinating about this city is that it's a city that's taking in all these different ideas and a little church has started and it's starting to grow, but now you've got a group of believers trying to live in a culture that is anti what scripture is teaching. So how do you live with the reality of the gospel in a messy world? So think about how much this applies to us today. You have a church that's about 6 years old, in a city that is educated, wealthy, and filled with people who are either trying to define their life by how they're following all the rules with religion or define their life by pursuit of pleasure in the things of the world. Sound like a culture, you know? Yeah, it sounds a lot like where we are right now. And so in the middle of this letter, Paul actually is addressing a number of topics and we're not gonna go through all of the book, but in the middle here, the chapter we're gonna focus on, he's actually talking about the church gathering. How do you function? Because you got a lot of people who are focused in on the gifts because they want to be successful, they want a title, they want power, they want money, right? And so, and so he and chapters 12 and 14 talks about how a church should operate as one body. But then in the middle we get this incredible picture of love and so it's actually right before that and 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 31, the first phrase or right before the passage that is well read at weddings. Paul writes this, he says, I, I will show you still a more excellent way. He's saying the world is trying to live this way. And even the church is trying to function like the world in this way. But let me show you a more excellent way to live, right? So if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. Is that love is more than a feeling. Love is our foundation. Love is our foundation. It's really not fair in our language today because we use the same word love for everything, right? You say I love my spouse, I love Chipotle, hopefully those are not the same. Right? So and some people like, I don't know, Chipotle is really good. It was all guys that nodded, by the way, I saw like 10 elbows go like that. Um, that's why we're friends. Anyway. But in the Greek language, there's a lot of different words for love. There's a, a word for love about uh eros like romantic love. There a story which is like family love, there's Fileo like brotherly love, like Philadelphia, right? Well, we're gonna talk about a word you might have heard before, but we don't really understand. In modern day context, and that is the word agape. And agape really is something that tells us that it's more than a feeling that it actually is a foundation for healthy relationships. So what does agape love? Let me give you a a working definition here, and it's kind of heavy, but we're gonna walk through it, OK? So agape love is defined as unconditional, self-giving, and sacrificial action taken to transform relationships for the better. Agape love is unconditional self-giving, and sacrificial action taken to transform relationships for the better. Now that seems like a lot, and it is, but we live in a culture that will do exactly the opposite of those five things. What do I mean? Well, we live in a world that says love is conditional. Right? If you do this, I'll do that. We live in a world that is self-taking or selfish, right? You enter a relationship, what can I get out of it? We live in a culture that is convenient. We like the idea of sacrifice, but mainly when it's somebody else sacrificing for us. And then we live in a culture that's about just saying something or how we feel versus action and doing. And then, lastly, we live in a culture that views love as transactional. Right? We think of it as like a balancing scale. Well, I did A, B, and C, therefore you need to do A, B, and C, and if our scales aren't even, then it's not a loving relationship. And Paul comes in and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There is a deeper love that should define the Christian, that should shape all of our relationships. So let's break this down. Number one, agape love is unconditional. Meaning that love goes first. The most famous verse in all the Bible, John 3:16, For God so love the world. That he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It does not say. For God wanted the world to love him. See, Jesus in the Trinity, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit, already had perfect relationship within the Trinity, meaning that he created man not to simply get something, but so that he could demonstrate and give something. And so that true biblical love is unconditional, meaning that love goes first. It's unconditional. Number 2, agape love is self-giving. Notice what is written in Romans chapter 5, verses 6 to 8. It says, for while we were still weak, and at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to even die. But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. My middle son Carter was less than a year old, had a medical emergency. We had to rush him at the hospital. I forget the medical name of it off the top of my head right now, but basically, uh, like there was like blockage in his little baby intestines and so like his, his eyes rolled back in his head and his skin turned yellow and freaked us out, right? Young parents rush him to the hospital, uh, ends up being OK, has a little procedure, things worked out. But in the hospital, right, he's wrapped up, there's smells, there's cords, there's all this stuff, the beeping and doctors in and out. Um, you know what I didn't think as his dad? I didn't think Well, when you get all cleaned up, then I will love you. I'll stand outside the hospital and wait. No. What did I think like, when I look at my son in that moment, I'm like, oh. Like daddy's here like like like like God loves us with that kind of love. It says wow we were sinners. It wasn't like when we turned to God, God came to us like, no, it says wow we were still sinners. Love made the first move. Right, it was the it was the power. It was the motive behind it, for God so loved the world that wowers us to show us his love. He died for us. Agape love is unconditional, it's self-giving. Number 3, agape love is sacrificial. It's sacrificial. One of the disciples, John, who was known as the son of thunder, but had like a kind of a crazy past, becomes the apostle of love. In fact, uses the word love 72 times in his writings. Like almost like 1/4 or a 50th of every time the word love is, you're probably gonna find it in John or first John or one of the John letters. He writes these words in 1 John 4:7 through 12, and then I'm gonna include verse 19 as well. He says, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest in us. That word manifest means to be made public. Isn't that cool? To declare publicly what you believe personally. So it's one thing for God to say that he loves us, but it's another thing for him to show, make public his love for us. It says that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation of fancy word for payment for our sins. So, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, and if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. And then verse 19, we love because he first loved us. More than simply saying I love you, God showed us through sacrifice. And that hurt. It wasn't convenient. Right? It it it cost him everything. OK OK. So coy love is unconditional. Agape love is self-giving. Agape love is sacrificial. But next I want you to see here that agape love is action. Same writer 1 John 3:18 says, dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. Maybe we live it out. And that the end result of agape love is not a transactional kind of love, but one that transforms us. We know this to be true because Jesus, after washing the feet of his disciples, said these words. He says, a new commandment I give to you that you shall love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also ought to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another. It's love that makes the difference. It's love that makes the difference. Uh, if you like cars, think of it this way, that loving God, first part of the great commandment, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength like the engine of a car. Loving others is like the wheels on the car. You need both, right? The gasoline, the fuel, OK, that's not gonna be the Holy Spirit that comes in. But if you have an engine and no wheels, you're not going anywhere. But if you have wheels and no engine, you're also not going anywhere. Growing up in the Midwest, uh, beautiful homes, beautiful countryside, beautiful people, and like just being real with you, we, we had, we, we had our fair share of rednecks, right? Also beautiful people, not so many teeth, but. But we had a lot of broken down cars, right? It was almost like the value in a home was the number of broken down cars in the front yard, and I say this in full love. It's just reality. Like you'd be certain parts of towns you would drive through, right? And you just see stuff and those that grew up with understand what I'm talking about. And sometimes you'd see a car with a beautiful engine and no wheels, and sometimes you see a car with wheels and no engine. In both cases, the car is not going anywhere, and our relationships, the same happens to us. Some people love God, they know all the worship songs, they know the scriptures, they can quote verses to you. They can quote words in Greek, but yet, there's still a jerk. You know what I'm talking about? Other parts of scripture, it says that knowledge puffs up. Right? How you treat people is literally where the rubber meets the road, right? It's a direct connection to your relationship with God. And at the same time, there are people that are the nicest people in the world, and they have no connection to God. And they're not gonna be able to go anywhere. It's not based on anything. It's subjective to the emotion at the time. Or the wave of what's culturally accepted at the time. So that's why I think Jesus says to love God and love people is the anchor for the faith. And that how you treat people, not as transactions, but as transformation, is evidence of your relationship with God. So what is this most excellent way? What is this agape love? Paul's gonna take a chapter to describe it. Let's jump into it. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 1 to 3. It's as if I speak in tongues of men. And of angels, but I have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging simple, simple. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith as so to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. And then it, then it continues on here that if I give away all that I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, I have not love, I gain nothing. I have nothing, I am nothing, I gain nothing. It's kind of dark, I. Like we came up here today and today's sermon, like I look right at the camera and say, hey, good morning church. You have nothing, you are nothing, and you will gain nothing. God bless. Where does that come from though? Because if I list the other part of the verse, if I sit in here that I said, OK, someone speaks in tongues, has prophetic powers, knows everything, has all faith to move mountains, is super generous, and is willing to die for their faith. On its own, you would describe that person as a saint. So what's the difference? The difference is love. It says without it, you're like a noisy symbol. I think what happens in that culture and still happens today is that we're trying to do things like we're trying to get God's attention. Right? We're living in a way, and it's almost like we're back here and we're like, God, look at me, God, look at me. Hey, look at me. Right? But at the core, it's not simply what you do, it's it's how you love. And love only happens through the supernatural. And I think love in many ways is actually the greater miracle. Why? Because you can actually do all of those things, use your spiritual gifts without being saved. Now, before you label me a heretic, just track with me for a second. James 1:17 says all good gifts come from God. And then there's a scary passage in Matthew chapter 7. Specifically in verse 21 to 23, that talks about how people are gonna get there's some people who are gonna get to heaven. And they stand before God and say, but Lord, I prophesized in your name. I did these things in your name. You used me to reach people in your name, and the response back is gonna be, I never knew you. Now that's scary to think about, but you actually don't need to be saved to be used by God. Because all of us have been made in the image of God. And don't get me wrong, spiritual gifts are very important that God made you on purpose with a purpose to make a difference for his kingdom. We believe so so much that we have a class for spiritual gifts and serving here in a few weeks that we want you to help discover that. But the reason I bring this up today is that spiritual gifts is not the goal. Exercising your spiritual gifts is not what makes God love you, is not what makes you simply productive, but rather grace, God's grace is greater than gifts. Because at its core, grace requires supernatural transformation. It is not something that you can earn, but rather you receive in your life. It's recognizing that on your own, you are a depraved sinner. And yet God looked down and says, I love you. And that when you recognize what God did, it changes you. So I think this passage is important because 1, grace is greater than gifts, but #2, character is more important than competence. Character is more important than competence. Sadly, being in 20 years of ministry, what I've seen. What I've seen is not all the time, it's just what it makes the news, right? You don't hear the stories of 100 pastors that live a quiet life well. You hear the news of the one pastor that their church was growing and things were happening and then all of a sudden this moral failure came out, right. Here's the thing. Just because God is using you. Doesn't mean you're right with him. Because God can use people to accomplish his purpose and mission who aren't even saved. And that's actually a good thing, by the way. Because if God only used the people who are obedient, he would not use a lot of us. Right. So whatever brokenness you're in, understand that God can still use you. But don't mistake ministry success, if you will, in gifting for your being right with God. But instead, let's look at the fruit in your life and the character in your life. I love being the pastor. I love being a pastor in Mission Grove. But I can't just be real with you. I'm not the only person that can pastor this church. But I am the person that is supposed to be the husband of my wife and the father of my kids. So for me, my version of success is that I want the people that know me best to respect and love me most. Right, if I, if I plant the church and then lose my family, that's not. That's not a success for me. Now again, I'm, I, I understand that people are dealing with brokenness along the way because we're broken people, right? So wherever you are, here's what we see happen in the progression of reading 1 Corinthians 13. Right, and some of you have actually already walked through this process as we read it because I can see it in your faces. This chapter does 3 things. Number 1, This chapter shatters us. Because you read 1 Corinthians 13, and one of two things or sometimes both things happen simultaneously. You either say, wow, I can't live up to this. Right? Like if I'm, if I'm just going through the list, right? Like cause all these describe Jesus, right, if I just start in verse 4, love is patient. Oh man, OK. Love is kind. Oh man, I was I that what I said wasn't great. Love does not envy, oh. Well I didn't envy. Love doesn't boast. Oh, I just broke that one by bragging on it, like, you start going through the list, if you follow the list, you're gonna be like oh for 20. Right? So the first thing that love's gonna do when you read this, it's gonna shadow, shatter you. You're either gonna feel like, man, I don't measure up or My person doesn't measure up. Right? And you're either gonna feel shame for what you did. Or brokenness of what someone did to you. In both cases, you're like, ah, this doesn't, this isn't working. Right? But that should actually encourage you, why? Because after the love of God shatters you, the second thing it does is it saves you. Saves you. Because you realize that in your brokenness, in your pain, in your struggle, in all your doubts and questions, God shows up. And the impossible becomes possible. And it might not go back to how things were, but the new place God can take you and use you and save you. Can change you for a much bigger, greater story. Cause after the love of God shatters you. After the love of God saves you and you receive it into your life, what you see happen is that God's love starts to shape you. That now you live in a way that is supernatural. That is driven by the grace of Christ and the character of God's love, and that we have become motivated for love, not for power's sake, but for love's sake. And we can love people the way that God has loved us even in our brokenness. See, love is more than a feeling. Love is a foundation. This agape love, unconditional, self-giving, sacrificial action taken to transform people. This is the kind of stuff that the world's not gonna teach you, right? It's gonna, it's gonna be transactional. Get what you can while you can if it doesn't work and find something new. But what God's word tells us is that when things were at their worst, God was at his best, and that the beauty of the cross is that the worst of humanity is paired with the best of divinity and there Christ died on the cross and gave us grace and that salvation and forgiveness and change and purpose and joy and peace all of a sudden becomes possible. And that new relationships, new beginnings, fresh start, reconciliation, growth, change can happen. Look, it might not happen in 30 minutes, it might not look like you expected it to, but it can change you. So let me close with the same way we started with this love challenge. Is that, are you willing to do 4 things? Number one, can you locate the relationship? He identify one relationship, marriage. Parenting, child to parent, sibling, friendship, co-worker, maybe your relationship with God. Can you locate one area that you, you want strengthened? It doesn't have to be bad. Just one area you want stronger. Number 2, can you open God's word? See what God has to say in agape love, and read it during the week. Number 3, are you willing to value God's voice? And all your honesty and messiness and rawness is take it to God and say, God, what do you want me to do with this? And then when he gives you something, the little nudge that prompting that step, are you willing to take that step? In obedience. I think if you do that. You're gonna see Your relationships change. So here's what I'd like to do with you and for you. If you're willing to take that love challenge, I would love to pray for you. You don't have to give me any details. You can if you want, but if you just wanna throw your name on this connect card here. And it's on the back, just write the words I'm in. That's it. This is the name, the words I'm in on this connect card, drop it in on the way out this morning. If you put in the comment section or fill out the connect card here. Let me know and I'm gonna be praying for you. And I know it seems kind of hopeless, maybe. But don't forget, we just celebrated Easter, and look what God was able to do in 3 days. OK And as God's able to do what he did on the cross. Then I know that I know that I know God can work in your life and your relationships. If we offer it up to him, will you pray with me? Dear only Father, thank you. Thank you for the example that you give us in your Son Jesus Christ. The agape love that you love us unconditionally self-giving, sacrificial action that transforms our lives for the better. I pray that your love can shatter us. That you can save us, and then ultimately that your love will shape us. And that how we treat people. Even in the small little moments will be a direct reflection. Of how you first loved us. God, I pray for those that are struggling, that are battling. I pray that we can understand that your love is more than a feeling. That it's a foundation For how we are to live our lives. We give our relationships up to you and says and we pray. Amen.