Calvary Distinctives – Supremacy of Love
Servant
School
May
27, 2021
This lesson
comes from chapter 10 of Chuck Smith’s book “The Calvary Chapel
Distinctives”. Our lesson is on the Supremacy of Love.
It was at the
Last Supper that Jesus said,
(John 13:34–35 NKJV) —34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I
have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all
will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The Greek word
for love here is agape. Love is
not just a distinctive in Calvary Chapel, but it’s supposed be a distinctive
across the entire Christian Church.
If you were to
find an old bulletin of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, you would find some
interesting words on the back (and it’s also on our website under “What we
believe”). One line says,
We Believe
that the only true basis of Christian fellowship is His (Agape) love,
which is greater than any differences we possess and without which we have no
right to claim ourselves Christians.
And another
line on that bulletin says…
We Believe worship of God is Fruitful.
Therefore we look for His love in
our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have truly been
worshipping Him.
Love has been one of the keys to the Calvary Chapel movement.
In the early days
of the movement, one of the things that drew people to Jesus was the love they
found when they walked into Calvary Chapel.
Here’s a clip
of some of the band members of “Love Song” reminiscing with Chuck about those
early days some forty years earlier…
6:30
31:00
33:00 – Chuck Girard on early worship
38:00 people of all kinds
It wasn’t just
the young hippies that experienced the love, it was the old folks as well.
Here’s a clip
from Pastor Romaine, Chuck’s main assistant pastor in those early days. He was a former Marine Drill Sergeant.
Venture of
Faith
48:15 – 51:12 Romaine talking about love, little country church
If you’ll excuse
me, I’m going to go on a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I’ll tie this back
into our study in a minute…
Within many Biblically
minded churches, there is a concern over the purity of doctrine, and Calvary
Chapel has been no different.
There have been times in the history of our movement where men have been
raised up to warn the church about false doctrines.
There is a Biblical precedent for this type of thing.
The apostle Paul warned
(2 Timothy 4:3–4 NKJV) —3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,
but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they
will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
Jude wrote,
(Jude 3 NKJV) I found it
necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith
which was once for all delivered to the saints.
Yet what I’ve
seen is that some of these fellows stray a little too far in their hunt for
heresy.
First
they usually start off with actual heresies – such as Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses. These are two groups that do not believe the
fundamentals of the Christian faith.
They deny the deity of Christ, and the trinity.
They deny that Jesus’ atonement on the cross was enough to pay for our
sins, and that all a person needs to do to be saved is to put their faith in
God’s grace.
The next step
of the heresy hunters is to start finding fault within Christianity.
They sound the
warnings about the “Word of Faith” movement, which has indeed distorted clear
Biblical teaching.
They warned the
church about “Seeker Friendly” churches, where a focus is more on music, skits,
and things that a non-believer might be attracted to, but
then don’t preach the gospel.
We too believe that the church
needs to pay attention to the non-believer.
We believe we need to be cautious about not offending the unbeliever in
things that aren’t that important (like politics). We also believe in the importance not of
music, but of worship. And hey, I like
to play a video clip now and again as a way of illustrating a point. But we are very careful to faithfully preach
the gospel, even if it offends.
The last step
of the heresy hunter is to start finding fault in each and
every church, to
the point where it’s just you and me, and I’m beginning to wonder about
you.
You may be
wondering, but Rich, what does this have to do with the “Supremacy of Love”.
In writing about having the correct knowledge about certain things, Paul
said,
(1 Corinthians 8:1 NKJV) …Knowledge puffs up, but love
edifies.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not
suggesting that we shouldn’t be concerned about having good doctrine. It’s not an “either/or” kind of thing.
It’s good to have your doctrine correct, but if
you don’t have love, people aren’t going to grow. People aren’t going to be edified.
You can go too far in your search for doctrinal purity to the point where
you become like the church of Ephesus, which Jesus addressed in the book of
Revelation. This church was not only
known for their good deeds, but their doctrinal purity as well. Yet Jesus writes,
(Revelation 2:4 NKJV) Nevertheless I have this
against you, that you have left your first love.
Paul showed us
that we need to combine correct theology with love. He wrote,
(Ephesians 4:14–15 NKJV) —14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the
trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things
into Him who is the head—Christ—
It’s learning to “speak the truth in love” that grows
people up.
It’s important that we learn the place of love, the
supremacy of love.
It’s been said that people don’t care about how much you know until they
know how much you care.
It probably
wouldn’t hurt to take a minute to review just what this agape love is.
(1 Corinthians 13:4–7
NKJV) —4 Love suffers long and is kind;
The word
translated “suffers long” or in some translations, “patient”, has to do with
how we handle difficult people. It’s not
about enduring difficult times, but putting up with difficult
people.
The word
translated “kind” doesn’t mean that you’re a “nice” person. It means that you are a person who goes out
of your way to do good things for others.
love does not envy; love does not parade
itself, is not puffed up;
One of the
roots of these issues is pride. True
love puts down pride and learns to walk in humility,
learning to put others before yourself.
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek
its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
This phrase “thinks no evil” translates a word that means to keep a record
of things, to enter numbers into a ledger.
In the old days
we kept track of our bank accounts by writing down dollar amounts of the checks
we wrote in our “bank book”.
But this isn’t about writing down dollar amounts, but keeping track
of when people offend you or hurt you.
What most of us have trouble with is not balancing our checkbook,
but learning to “erase” that list of things that we have against others.
It’s easy to say “I forgive you”, but it’s
much harder to actually let it go when we’ve been wronged. We hold grudges, and sometimes those grudges
come out in the way we treat others, or how we talk about them behind their
back.
That’s not love.
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices
in the truth;
We might not think we “rejoice” in iniquity, but sometimes we are a little too curious when we
hear about a person in the church who has been caught in a sin. We want to know the details about leaders who
have fallen. We want to hear the latest
gossip about a person who struggles in church.
Illustration
Three
pastors were out fishing when one of them says, “You know friends, I think it
would be good for us to learn to confess our sins to each other. Perhaps we could also pray for each
other.” They all agree, and the first
pastor goes on to share about how he’s been stealing money from the church
offering. The second pastor shares how
he has been having a problem with drinking.
By this time the third pastor has grabbed the boat’s oars and is
starting to row towards shore. The first
two look at him and ask, “What are you doing?”
He says to them, “Well I have a problem with gossip, and I can’t get
wait to get back and tell everyone what you two have told me!”
“Rejoicing in
truth” is not always easy. If someone
shared a “inconvenient truth” with you, perhaps confronting you about something you’ve
done wrong, how would you respond?
I know I tend to get defensive when people catch me in a sin. I have all kinds of reasons or excuses as to
why I acted or said something.
Instead, I need to “rejoice” that the truth has come out, and I can admit,
confess, repent, and find forgiveness.
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things, endures all things.
The phrase
“bears all things” has to do with how we handle the sins of others. Do we broadcast it to everyone, or do we take
it to God in prayer, perhaps put an arm around the offender, and try to bring
them back to God?
I’ve always
felt that “believes all things” has to do with giving the other person the benefit of the
doubt. Don’t believe every bad thing
you’ve heard.
Love hopes. Love endures.
Love never fails.
This concept of
agape love is what Paul called the “more excellent way”. (1Cor. 12:31)
(1 Corinthians 12:31 NKJV) But earnestly desire
the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent
way.
That is the Supremacy of Love.
I hope that
helps.