Growing in Love: The Christian’s Lifelong Task 

Do you remember that old Beatles’ song from the 1960s , “All You Need is Love”? I remember an entire room full of college students singing this song and thinking they had some idea about what “love” meant. Love is a lofty idea and John Lennon’s song is a very high sounding and sentimental lyric. But what did he mean by “love”? What did those college students think they were singing about?

When someone says to you, “I love you,” what do they mean? Does “I love you” mean something romantic as when a young man expresses his love to his girlfriend? He is certainly trying to be romantic, especially if he has taken his sweetheart to a quiet moonlit place and has a ring in his pocket. But “I love you” is more than a romantic expression. It is also something family members say to each other. The mother whispers “I love you” to her six year old daughter as gets on the bus her first day of school. The adult child leans over his aging father after heart surgery and says, “I love you dad.” But is this the kind of love the Beatles were talking about? Maybe it is…but if it is the kind of love they were talking about…then it is not all you need.

This fall we will be talking about the kind of love that is “all you need.” The central and life long task of a Christian is to grow in love…the love of Christ. We will be walking through First Corinthians Chapter 13 verse by verse. We will look at how agape love (which is the love of Christ) rejoices in the truth, is permanent and durable, and how it seeks other people’s good. Agape love is patient and kind. It is never rude and it never fails.

Human love is a good gift from God, but human love is not all you need. We need a love that comes from beyond ourselves, a love that is bigger than our human capabilities, a love from God that mirrors Christ to a hurting world. Our Christian journey is to become more like Christ. The way we do that is through growing in the kind of love Christ demonstrated to us on the Cross. People want to know about real love. Invite a friend, who does not come to St. Andrew’s, to worship with us some Sunday. Let’s learn together about a kind of love that is in fact…all you need.