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A_Different_Kind_of_Love_en
March 20, 2026 · 51 min
Series Love March 20, 2026 · 51 min · Love
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Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
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Understanding God's Love 0:01 Welcome to the ALSC podcast. Here at ALSC, we seek the lost, teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you are encouraged by this week's message.0:13 For this month, as it's the month of February, we talked about talking about lost love. What does it mean to lose our love? What is the biblical definition0:26 of love? This isn't necessarily going to be a relationship series. Now you may be able to get some relationship applications through this message, and through the messages in the coming weeks, but what we want to really0:36 do is dial into the next couple weeks. How does God view love, and how does God call us to love? Because the Bible tells us that the greatest thing that you and I can exhibit0:48 or show as believers is that we can show love. And so we're gonna break that down in such a way that hopefully we can get a lot of meat off of that bone to say, God, there's a lot of types of1:00 love. Love is always thrown around all the time. So what does God mean when he calls us to be people that people will know us by our love. And so we're gonna1:12 talk about that over the next couple weeks. So today, to launch off, we're gonna be in a biblical passage called first Corinthians chapter 13. And many of you guys have now been joining with us through this year. 11:24 of our congregational challenges is that we've been reading the verse, that we are gonna be studying for the day, and then we're also standing in the honor of reading God's word. So today, we have someone that's part,1:36 a family that's part of our online family that joins us every week from Atlanta, Georgia, Howard and Danielle Taylor. And they're gonna actually lead us in our scripture reading for the day, and they're also gonna lead1:47 us in our prayer as well. So would you tune in to the Taylors all the way from Atlanta, Georgia right now?1:55 Hello, ALFC. I'm Howard.1:56 And I'm Danielle.1:58 And we're part of the online family all the way in Atlanta, Georgia. Would you be so kind to stand with us in the reading and the honoring of God's word?2:08 Today, we're going to be reading first Corinthians 13 1 through 13, and I'm reading the NIV version. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not2:20 have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not2:31 have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love2:43 is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of2:55 wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.3:08 But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they are stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness3:20 comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind3:31 me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known. And now these3:43 3 remain, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.3:49 Amen.3:49 Amen.3:50 Let us pray. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this incredible opportunity to sit under our ministry and receive word, father. We thank you also for your grace, your love, your mercy, father. Your4:02 mercies are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness, father, and we thank you for that. We thank you because nothing can separate us from the love of God. So So we're very grateful, father. Father, as we prepare to4:12 hear the word today, father, allow us not to be distracted distracted about the cares of life.4:17 Yes, lord.4:18 Allow our spirits to be calm and our minds to be clear so that we could clearly receive the word of God from our shepherd, father. And after receiving such a word, father, allow us to go work out our soul's salvation.4:29 Allow us to be loving as you are loving to us, father. Loving in the workplace, loving in our family, loving with our kids, loving with our spouses, father. We love you and we praise you and we give you all the honor and4:41 glory because you're truly worthy of it, father. In the mighty precious name of Jesus we pray. Amen.4:47 Amen. Amen. Praise God. You guys may be seated. Thank you so much. As you could tell what we just read that Danielle Taylor just let us in is, reading first Corinthians 13. All of4:59 first Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter. But really, if you were someone in the days of Paul and the biblical writers, this letter that Paul would have been circulating, which5:11 was he wrote 2 letters to the Corinthian church, first and second Corinthians. But this letter, as they were reading it, and as the letters were passed, it was later on as we we canonized our Bible, as the Bible was5:23 established, we began to add chapters and verses to help clear clarity and memorization so that you can memorize and know where you're at within the book. But originally, the Corinthian church would have just been5:34 reading a papyrus letter. And it would have been, which we're gonna talk about today, at the point that they would have gotten to this part of the letter, jaws would begin to drop at Paul's5:46 words. And we're gonna talk about today, why would Paul's words mean so much that people were just confounded by the words that he said, because in today's age a lot5:58 of people are pursuing love. A lot of us have gotten to the place where we think that if someone loves me or as long as I find love, then truly then I can have purpose, then I can have6:10 happiness, then I can have fulfillment. But the reality is, is you can say that you love a lot of things, but hopefully they don't always mean or have the same gravity. You know, you may say6:21 something like, I love Chick fil A. Okay, maybe you do. You may say, I love that type of classic car. Maybe you do.6:33 You could say, I love that jacket that you're wearing. Maybe you do. You also can tell your spouse, I love you. And you probably do. You tell6:45 your kids, I love you before they go to school, or before they get married, or whatever it is. But none of which have hopefully the same gravity. I hope that you don't love Chick fil6:57 A the same way that you love your wife. And I hope that you don't love a classic car the same way that you love your children. They all have different levels and degrees. And then in the7:09 English language, because English language is a pretty simple language. In the English language, when we want to exhibit an extreme love for something, we say, I really love that. Oh, how7:21 fancy of a word to say. No, I really love you. Or if you're talking to your spouse and you want to exhibit a different kind of love, you'll usually tell your spouse or the person you're dating, you7:33 will add so much to the word. You'll say, I love you so much. That just means I had a new degree of love. But in the7:45 biblical days, which we're gonna talk about in a few moments, there were actual different words for different types of love. There was not just 1 word called love. And today, a lot of times7:57 when we're talking about love, we usually talk about love that's defined to us really by the world standard. Really by what we see in romance novels, what we see in movies, what we hear in music. Like,8:09 I want you to just think about the picture of love that we think of when we hear the word love. A lot of us may think of very famous romance movies. 1 of the most famous, here's a few list of them. Maybe you know them8:21 or maybe you don't. 1 of the most famous romance movies of all time is The Notebook. That's been kind of heralded as like the number 1 love movie of all time. My8:33 wife of which, I'm more of the romantic. She would be happy watching Star Wars. Why, I would like watching The Notebook and staring at her eyes. So, very different in that8:44 case. There's also a movie called Love Jones that's a very famous, Raywin knows what it is. So there's a very famous 1 called Love Jones. Another very famous 1 is8:56 the old black and white Casablanca. It's another famous love story. Another very famous love story that many people will read in high school Sometimes you'll read the book.9:08 Sometimes you'll watch the movie. Another very famous 90s love story is When Harry Met Sally. That's kind of an OG 1 in that case. The 1 for me that formed my9:20 most view of love as a young person was the movie Titanic. And let's keep it real. She had room for Jack on the door in the9:32 water. Can we be honest with that? What are you doing at an old age crying for the guy that you love that lost when you could have just scoot over and made some room?9:44 That's just that's just the drama of people in the moment. But nevertheless, it's a love story, I guess. And then additionally, another very famous 1 is called the best man. That's another9:56 famous love story. Maybe you know some of these, maybe there's some more modern ones that you're a fan of. But regardless of what it is, generally at some point in our life, we come in contact with a type of love movie10:08 or love story for the first time. But what often happens is is we start to view love in light of what a movie, a book, or a TV show teaches us. But the reality10:19 is is that's not the love that God exhibits to us. Because a lot of times the love that we see in is an exchange of sorts. It's this exchange of someone has to give and10:31 someone has to take and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad and sometimes there's love and sometimes there's not. And unfortunately, you and I, we take that secular view of love and we10:43 often apply that to the view of God. And so when I was young, I would often think whether God loves me or not was based off of my actions and my attitude. So in times in my life10:55 when I wasn't following Christ, I would often think to myself, I'm sure God does not love me and I'm sure God is so mad at me. I'm sure God hates me. And then there was times where I felt like I had my life put together11:06 and I would say, I think God loves me more than ever. Well, that's an abuse of love. Because the type of love that God offers us, which we're gonna look at today, is a love11:18 that shows us his first Corinthians that is not contingent upon your actions. God's love is completely unconditional. And so whether you11:29 have good times or bad times, God loves you. And God is looking to show his love to you. And then God is calling us to respond with his great love in a way that exhibits11:42 Christ's image in our life by loving others. And so I want you to look at this today. First Corinthians chapter 13 verses 1 to 3. This is where we're gonna sit for a little bit of the time today. Want you to see as11:53 first Corinthians 1 to 3 says this. If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I12:05 have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I12:17 have and I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, then I gain nothing. So here's what's happening in, the modern church at that time when Paul writes this12:29 letter. You see the Corinthian church, which was a gentile church, they fell in love with the fancy gifts of the Holy Spirit. So what we believe is still active in the church are12:41 these gifts. And so what the Corinthian church does is every single week, they were looking for opportunities to boast in these gifts. And so what would often happen in the days of12:53 Paul is that, God, by the power of the Holy Spirit according to Acts chapter 2, is there are individuals by the power of the Spirit that could speak another known language to another person, their native13:04 language by the power of the Holy Spirit. And what they would do during that time is they would preach the gospel in their native tongue. And so a lot of the Corinthian people were like, that is a dope gig. I will take13:16 that. I don't have to take any of those fancy apps and learn languages. No Rosetta Stone, no nothing, like I could just go into a place and God's gonna fill me with this language. People will be impressed by13:28 that. And then there was this thing known that we know as today and that we call today is the gift of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. Right here, this is the the gift of speaking in tongues of13:40 angels. This is a God given gift that is exercised that all believers have opportunity to receive. And in this sentence, there gives no inclination that God says that you can't earnestly pursue13:52 both things. Now the reason why you won't see a lot of, tongues of men being talked about today or used today, is because it's unimpressive today. We have technology at our fingertips. So if all of a sudden14:04 I started speaking Spanish, you guys would just assume that I was on the internet late at night learning it. But when you're in the Biblical days and it was very uncommon for anyone to know more than 1 or 2 languages, it14:15 was extremely impressive that someone in your community knew another person's language, and then it would cause them to look at the miracle of God's grace on their life. But then what was also happening is there14:27 was prophecies that were happening. So prophetic moments where God was speaking on behalf. And then there was words of knowledge that were happening. Just a lot of spiritual miracles. They still happen in the church14:37 today. Happens all the time. But for them, they were like, these gifts are so impressive that they forgot about loving people and they just started pursuing looking good on the outside.14:50 So they wanted to go to church, and they wanted to hoop, and they wanted to holler, and they wanted to shout, and they wanted to praise. But when someone walked up and they said, would you pray for me? They would say, we14:59 don't really got time for that. Or when someone would say, hey, could you tell me a little bit more about Jesus? They would say, don't you see God doing something in this space? Don't you see15:13 for all that. And so they lost their love in pursuit of the outer appearance of being a Christian. So on the outside, they looked like some really religious Christians. They knew all the best worship15:25 songs. They had every Maverick City song memorized, and every time that song would go, they knew the tears that would come. But then when they left that song session, and then they left that room,15:36 and someone asked you, or you were challenged to truly exhibit God's love, you said, no. I look good in my closet. I look good in church on Sundays, but15:48 Monday through Saturday, I do not love. I do not love my neighbor. And so what the Apostle Paul says says says says this. He says, you may have Christianity figured out, but if you16:00 don't have love, you wanna know what you are, you're just a noisy clanging symbol. You want to know what a symbol does? All a symbol does is it makes noise16:12 and it says look at me. And so anytime if you went into a room and you heard this, your first thought would be, where's that noise coming from? And a lot of us sometimes as16:23 believers, that's what we wanna do. We wanna walk in a room and we wanna make a lot of noise. We wanna shout, dance, talk about God's blessings, talk about this. And sometimes we're doing it because we just want people16:33 to look at us. Our Facebook posts about how we're living and how God's doing in our life, sometimes it's not filled with love. Sometimes it's just It's good. It's good,16:45 Pastor. Sometimes how we talk about how we did something for someone or how God was good in our life, and then that person themselves is wondering, I wonder how God I can see God in that same light, but yet we don't16:57 offer God to them. And instead we just say, well, I love you, but at a distance. I love you, but I don't like you.17:10 And so Paul challenges us and in a moment, we're gonna be challenged more on what love actually means, the word he gave us. But he challenged us and he says, listen, as a believer, if your life is not led by love,17:23 then you and I are just making noise. Because I'll tell you this, you do have the gifts of the spirit. I'll tell you this, God does do things abundantly in your life. I'll tell you this, you are blessed and highly17:34 favored. And the reality is though, is you could use that for yourself or you could use that for others. That's why God's gifting you. That's why God's blessing you. It's not just for17:46 your life. It's meant for you to love on someone else. So when God's moving in your life, you gotta think to yourself, how do I share this with someone else? How am I charitable to someone else? And so I want you to see17:58 this for a moment. It's important to know about the language structure in the Bible because this really now begins to land to the jaw dropping nature of the words of Paul calling us to love. Because here's what we got to18:10 remember about the days of Jesus and the days of the disciples and the apostles as they wrote the letters in the new testament. You see in Jesus's day, we know that he's from Israel. And so in Israel's18:22 day, during that day, the the normal language, the daily language that everyone spoke was the language called Aramaic. That would have been Jesus's daily language. That's a semitic18:33 language. It's kinda got a mix of Hebrew, Canaanite, Assyrian. Arabic comes from Aramaic. It has roots in there. And so that was kind of the daily language of Jesus's day. And then what you did18:45 is you had Jesus was Jewish Jewish, so there was their religious language. So the by their Torah, the old testament. So the old testament was written and known18:57 in Hebrew. So even though they were speaking Aramaic every day, their actual in church on on Saturday for them and when they would gather and read their Bibles, that was all in Hebrew. So they So commonly for Jesus's19:09 time, they spoke 2 languages. They understood Aramaic and they understood Hebrew. But there was a country, they weren't a sovereign nation, so we know that Rome actually had Israel as 1 of their19:20 territories. They took over Israel. Romans, they did have a type of language, which kind of would sound like Italian. It was a type of Latin. But really, the the language of the19:32 day, the the trade language and the and the national language when you would go in their areas was Greek. That's very common how like today, whether you go to school in South America, or you go to19:44 college in Africa, or you go to college in Europe. Most of the time it's a prerequisite that the students have to learn English nowadays. Because English has kind of become the national19:56 language of arts and entertainment and stuff like that. So at some point no matter what country you're from for the most part, you're mostly encouraged to learn English. So in their day, in Paul's20:08 day, that the common educated language was Greek. And so when Paul decides to begin to write these letters, he doesn't write them in20:20 Aramaic and he doesn't write them in Hebrew. Because the gospel is spreading outside of the regions of Israel and not the whole world didn't speak Aramaic. The whole world didn't speak Hebrew, but they did20:31 majority understand Greek. So he worked with a scribe and the scribe would take his language, Aramaic and Hebrew, and then they would translate it into Greek. So your New20:43 Testament Bible, the original manuscripts were Greek. Here's why this is important cause I'm not trying to make anyone's brain hurt or anything like that. Like I came to church, I didn't come to a college seminar or20:55 anything like that. It's important to understand because right now when we understand the word love, you have to know that the words that were chosen were Greek words.21:07 And the Greek language is way more complicated than the English language. Our English language is pretty lazy. We have like 4 types of theirs, you know. And you basically got to do your21:19 math on which there goes to what. We have 3 kind of twos, 2 2 2. What does that mean? English is a pretty lazy language. And so it's been made that way just to be able to converse fast and short. And21:31 you got to kind of put the context together to know what word goes where. But in Greek, it was a very advanced language system and advanced language structure. So when they said the word love, there were a lot of21:42 applications and a lot of words for love in the Greek time. So it wasn't like us. If I say I love my wife and I love Chick fil A, in your head you have to do the math on which 1 I love more.21:55 And if you said you love your wife, you'd say no, but have you ever had Chick fil A? See, it could be tricky. You wouldn't know. But in Greek, I could use a particular word that we would translate in22:07 English for English for love and then you would know, oh, I know which 1 he loves more because of the word he chose. And I know what word of love he's talking about because of the word he chose. So first22:19 Corinthians begins to be a radical conversation of love because most commonly in Greek days, you would be able to choose normally 1 of 4 words that22:31 we would equal love. They kinda had the same impassion but they had different degrees of love. And so, what we would commonly know in that day as Paul was writing the new testament, he was specifically22:42 writing first Corinthians, he starts to talk about love. Now we gotta ask ourselves, but what word for love did he use? Because there's a few that he could have chosen. So the first love,22:54 which is really the love that we would most know, we would know most and we use most usually, this is the 1 all the movies teach us about. There's eros love. You know eros love is a sensual23:06 romantic love. This is a love in which you find a romantic relationship with someone. But in today's age, we act have actually23:18 found eros love, romantic love as the greatest endeavor that you can ever have. And so there have become whole groups, whole sayings about love just23:30 equaling who you like to be intimate with. But the reality is is in the Greek days this word love is actually this eros type of love is very seasonal23:42 based off of your emotions. So Eros, you could be hot and bothered and then you could be not. But we have people today,23:55 a lot of this generation today is looking and they're just trying to define life based off of eros love. A seasonal type of love. So they're trying to fix their whole personality around it.24:07 They're trying to fix their whole identity around it. They're trying to fix their whole happiness around it. About just who will romantically love me. This is very dangerous territory.24:19 You know, the only times that if we were Greek and we were translating the bible, the old testament in into Greek, the only time that we would use eros love24:31 in the old testament is only in 2 circumstances. It was when Samson fell in love and had sex with Delilah, and it was when David fell in love and had sex with Bathsheba.24:44 Those were 2 times that Eris love was exhibited in the old testament. Does anyone wanna tell me how it ended for both of them in those stories? It did not end well. But yet we have a24:56 whole generation today that every time we turn on Netflix, every time we watch a movie, every time we go to politics or whatever else. All we want to deal with is where is everyone's eros love? It25:08 is so seasonal and it is so fading. And then what happens is is there's a second type of love that exist in the Greek custom and that is the love. This is a25:19 familiar love. So this is the love between a father and their children, a mother and their children. This is a love between a family unit together. The type of love that they show.25:31 It's a it's it's a kind of like a sacrificial love, but it's also contingent upon it being in the family. And so you have to have blood ties, family ties in order to be considered a type25:43 of love. And so you'll notice that in our today's custom as we talk about love, the men and the women chirp up the most when it comes to eros and25:55 storge. So when I talk about eros and I talk about this romantic sensual sexual love, the men say amen.26:08 And then when I talk about this family unit and having a deep person and a deep purpose and having children and having a family and having a home, the women26:20 say amen. And so when the husband says, I feel like you don't love me anymore. What is he talking about?26:32 Eros. When the wife says I don't feel like you love me anymore. What is she talking about? What are you doing in this family? And so you have multiple26:44 languages being spoken because in English we just view love as love. But what we don't understand is there are so many degrees and depths to love that you're speaking 2 different languages. And so then what26:56 often happens is in the dating phase, the woman will trick the man with eros27:08 And then what happens is, when he receives Eros, then he will trick her to get more Eros by what? By giving her27:25 a And so he says, yeah, I'll give you a and then I'm probably gonna get more And then she says, no, I got the storge. I'm good. I have love now. I'm full of love. My27:37 tank is full. I got my kids. They give me umbezzles when they come home and they do this and they do this. But I love it. The woman goes, my love tank is full because I have a storge. And then the27:49 man says, but my love tank may be empty because you stopped the eros. And so we have this disconnection where people are often times and with men don't recognize28:00 your selfish sinful flesh that desires these things at all times, what will happen is in a man will say, well, if she doesn't love me for Eros anymore, then maybe my coworker28:12 will Eros me. But then the wife will say if my husband doesn't store gay anymore, then maybe my co worker will store gay.28:25 Maybe they'll fit in the family more. And so really on a regular basis, we have individuals that are living a life every single day that they're just looking for love in all of the wrong28:37 places. Because there are seasons to both of these things And a great marriage means all of these things working in unison together. But more than that28:49 it goes deeper into our relationship with the Lord because now we have another type of love which is called the filet of love. This is where we get the word Philadelphia, which is a city of brotherly love. And so this is29:00 a this is a friendship, this is a brotherhood and sisterhood that is that is friendship based. That's a love. So maybe you have some guys that you've gone and you they're part of they were part of your fraternity, or29:11 maybe you're a veteran and you have some war buddies. That's a filet of love. That I mean that's I love you. I'll rock with you wherever you go. Ladies, you may have some sorority sisters or some people that you've met29:22 in the church, and you're like, those are my sisters. Sisters. That's my family. So it's a different type of love though because it's a friendship based love. And then what happens is is then the apostle Paul29:34 begins to write first Corinthians 13. And the word that he decides to choose for love is not eros, is not storge even though we are part of the family of God. So naturally29:45 speaking goes, hey that's probably the right word. We should all treat each other like family. That makes sense. We definitely shouldn't be all romantic loves. We can all be family loves,29:57 but maybe we can all be brothers and sisters too. We could have a friendship. No. No. No. Apostle Paul says, you know what? The church is called to an agape love.30:10 What's agape love? Well, agape love is completely unconditional unearned love. It is love that is given without any30:22 ties or any string attached. It is love that it exhibited most predominantly in the cross of Jesus, where Jesus went to the cross, He gave up his life for30:34 ours. Jesus did not require anything of us. It is the most sacrificial kind of love that you can have for another person. But here's what the apostle Paul does, which is30:46 just absolutely ludicrous, is he tells us that you and I are supposed to not only have that love for each other, but we're supposed to have that love for everyone, even our enemies.30:59 But here's what's additionally crazy, is if you do a survey of all Greek literature and all Greek authors, and you ask yourself, how many times in Paul's day31:11 did any Greek author or any Greek thinker, how often did they write about Agape love? It's almost 0. You wanna know why? It's31:22 because they believed it existed in theory, but they thought no 1 could actually ever do it. So though it existed in Greek writing in Greek literature, almost no31:34 1 would ever use the word agape love because they believed everyone is always doing something with strings attached. And so they believed no 1 had ever truly31:46 exhibited unconditional love with no strings attached, sacrificial love because someone is always doing some something, something to get something out of it. And31:58 so when he uses agape, the church's draw would have dropped because they would have said, no 1 uses this word in practicality. We know it exists, but none of us believe that32:10 anyone has ever exhibited that or attained that. So then in the moment, they would have been like, yes. It makes sense. Jesus is agape love. Jesus died for us. No prerequisite. It was completely32:22 unconditional. They're like, yes. Amen. And then Paul says, and now you, because God loved you first, now you have to love in the way that God your father loves. Yeah. And then they would32:34 have been like, wait wait wait wait wait wait. You never met my neighbor. Never met my neighbor. You never met my ex wife. You never met my ex husband. Have you ever seen32:46 or met my kids? You're telling me I gotta love them under no conditions. I have to exhibit grace to them, forgiveness to them, a love32:58 for them that supersedes all other types of love. I have to do that for them? And Paul would have said, yeah. Because God did it for you.33:09 How often how often times do you cheat on God? How often times do you have affairs on God? How often times do you walk away from God? You see if God33:21 if God had a prerequisite for his love, you you and I would never attain it. We would always fall short of it. But his love is unconditional. His mercies are new every day. His forgiveness is33:33 new every day. And so therefore, he calls us to a deeper type of love. But you see the issue we have in culture today is no 1 recognizes or understands just like in Paul's33:45 day, that the only way that you can try find true purpose, the only way you can have true peace in your life is if you allow this Agape love of God to fill your life. And there are a lot of33:57 people today that you are aroused with erotic eros every single day. And every day that you encounter something, and every day that you face something, you think to yourself, if as long as34:09 I just had eros, I would be happy. As long as I just had Storge, a family, I would be happy. As long as I had some friends, a phileia, I would be happy. And God says, I did not34:21 create you to find purpose in those types of love. He created us to find purpose in his agape love, which says, God, whether I am in sin or not,34:32 you're loving me. Whether I am being wrecked or not, you love me. 1 of the greatest things that I can show my sons when they grow up is not how much God hates sin, but how much34:44 God loves them. That is the best thing that I can do. I can say, son, whether you mess up and fell or not, God's door is always open. God's kingdom is always34:56 available. Son, whether you choose it or not, because that was the thing growing up. I thought to myself, in order to get God, in order to have a relationship with God, I had to have life figured out. I had to be35:08 able to have victory over my circumstances. But what I didn't realize was whether I'm in the pit, God loves me. Whether I'm in the palace, God loves me. His love never changes. His love35:20 never fails. But we're so used to this eros love that is so seasonal that the moment another human being loves me the wrong way35:32 or the moment they love me the right way that I want, I'm all in. I give myself. You see, psychologists did a study on relationships and the seasons of relationships.35:44 I want you to look at these seasons of relationship that exist. You see in the seasons of relationship usually have stage 1, which is known as the euphoric stage. This is actually the eros stage. This is35:56 from 6 months to 2 years. This is the I love you. This is the what are you doing every night you're on FaceTime every night you're calling and you just wanna look at each other. You just36:08 wanna hold each other's hands. You just you're that couple for about 6 months to 2 years. And then what happens is is then you go to the early attachment stage. This is about a year to 5 years.36:20 This is the let's get an apartment together. This is the And that's how it is nowadays. Like the marriage isn't involved in this. So it's like, let's get an apartment. Let's get a puppy together. Let's36:32 cosign on a car together. And a lot of us are going, oh gosh. No. Don't do those things. But what happens is that's the early attachment. You start attaching your life to theirs. Start attaching your life to theirs.36:44 And then what happens is is always for about 5 year at about the 5 year to 7 year mark, this is the crisis stage. This is who did I say yes36:56 to? Who is it that I'm supposed to be married to? Either they're not what you thought they were or it's not what you thought you wanted. And so you go through this season37:08 of just pure crisis. It doesn't matter what happens, it's a difficult time. And this is where a lot of marriages break up. Statistically, most marriages end at the 7 year37:19 mark on average. Because this is the season where nobody wants to push past the eros and the storge season. Because you see in stage 1, you're an37:31 eros. I love you. I love you. You're holding hands. You're touching each other. Then you go to the attachment. Maybe you start having kids, a family, then you face the crisis season and you're like, I don't know if I37:43 could do this anymore. I don't know if I wanna do this anymore. Because you're viewing love based off of the value of the things that are brought in that moment. And then what happens is is if you could push past that37:55 season, you could actually enter a new season which is called the deep attachment season, which means that you have to begin to find love in that person outside of the things that you previously signed up38:06 for. That means you gotta go to something deeper than eros. It means you gotta just go deeper than stoke storge. It means you actually have to have all 4.Show more In this video 0:00 Understanding God's Love
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