I grew up with 60’s and 70’s rock and roll. This music, in my never humble opinion, is the greatest popular music of all time. The lyrics cover a broad range of topics. A great many of these songs, probably most of them, were about love. Young people today grow up hearing music that is different. Today’s music deals with a lot of social issues. Love, however, isn’t the central theme. It may not be in the top ten. Today’s young people are missing out. I think that they are struggling to find their footing in a love starved culture.
When I look at my world……..when I try to find the most important thing. I think that it is love. There is nothing that you could take away from me that would be more painful than the loss of a loved one. There is nothing that you could add to my life that would make me happier than to love and be loved.
This is not the way that our culture operates. Turn on your TV tonight. Count the number of times that you see an act of love. There is plenty of sex……but love……not so much. Count the number of times that you see anger, violence, and even hate. Listen to our leaders. Do they teach love and generosity……or do they sell anger and hate. Watch the news…….more of the same.
Our culture wants and needs to love and be loved. And yet, we consume a diet of anger and hate. Our need for love should not come as a surprise. Love is the very heart of Christianity and of the Bible. Christianity and the Bible teach that we were put here by a creator who operates in both our temporal realm and his spiritual realm. But why were we created? Why did God go to all of the trouble? I believe that we were put here for one reason……to love. We were put here to love and be loved. We were put here to love God and each other. Love and God are one and the same. Love is the very definition of God. The impetus to love is written on our hearts. It was put there by our creator. When we ignore it…..when we indulge in hate and anger, we are going to war against the very core of our being.
We have lost our way.
Why?
We have lost our way because our culture has shifted from love to science and technology. We have shifted from God to secular humanism.
There is good news and bad.
The good news is that science and technology…….secular humanism…….will not destroy us. The bad news is that they won’t save us either.
The absence of love is what will destroy us. And only love can save us.
So……how do we save ourselves?
We save ourselves……..our culture……by returning to our roots. The survival of our temporal culture requires us to turn away from secular humanism and return to Christianity…….to return to our core……to love…….to love God and each other. If we can do that……individually and corporately……….we can fix our temporal world.
God will take care of the spiritual world.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I 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 I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians, 1-13, ESV