Love
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Good morning, Gateway Chapel!
Scripture #1
Prayer
What is love?
Great song by your favorite Trinidadian German Eurodance band Haddaway.
What pictures, images, or people come to your mind when you think of the word love?
Love is something even young children understand to a degree.
I remember when I was in the first grade, a neighbor girl down the street who was also in the first grade told me her boyfriend moved away and asked if I could be her boyfriend and I said, “Sure.” And then her mom picked us up from school to take us home and she said, “Mom, we’re in love!” and her mom said, “Very cool.” And shut the van door.
What is love?
When I think about how we often describe love in our society, it’s this thing, almost a force that you can’t control but it just happens to you. You don’t know why but you LOVE tacos. You had no choice in the matter but you fell in LOVE with someone.
A number of years ago famous comedian Woody Allen started dating his ex’s daughter. In a famous interview with Time magazine he was asked...“Hey she’s 35 years younger than you, and doesn’t that seem odd?” And he said, “The heart wants what it wants.”
Is that the nature of love? Just the unknowable stirring of our hearts which demands to be followed.
Love is undeniably powerful.
PBS has a list of the Top 100 Great American reads. What theme pervades most of these 100 books? Love.
One literature expert wrote:
“Love is the driving force behind everything that we do. So I think reading about all these different types of loves and the ways in which they present, is one of the great human questions.”
“I love a good love story. I think everybody wants it. If you don’t want it you’re trying to get it. If you have it, you’re trying to keep it.”
Love is unquestionably powerful, beautiful, desirable, and irreplaceable in our lives.
Yet like a raw egg on a dinner plate, love can be messy and undefined.
This morning we’re continuing in our Advent series: The 4 Gifts of Advent. Advent means coming, and when Jesus comes, he brings Hope, Peace, Joy and LOVE. This morning we’re talking about love. The NATURE of LOVE, the NECESSITY of love, the NATIVITY of love, and the NURTURING of love.
Prayer
According to the Bible, what is the nature of love?
In the Old Testament, there are several senses of the word love.
Quick Bible Quiz…how many times in the ESV translation does the word love appear? 686 times.
Which translation uses the word love the word, the KJ, ESV, NIV, or NLT?
Which testament uses the word love more? OT! 458 vs 286.
My goal with sermons is to give you useful knowledge, and so I thought maybe I’ll emphasize that with giving you some useless knowledge.
In the Bible, you can love some THING.
In Genesis, Isaac asks Jacob (who he thinks is Esau) to make him some food.
4 and prepare for me delicious food, such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.”
When you say, “I love tacos.” In some sense, that’s biblical.
In the Bible, you can be in love with some ONE. It can be a romantic word.
Earlier in Genesis, Isaac meets Rebekah and he falls head over heels for her.
67 Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
Love is also a sense of affection, care, and warmth. Like a father caring for a son.
The first instance of the word love in the Bible is used in the story of Abraham and Isaac.
2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Love can be warmth between friends.
Like David and Jonathan in 1 Sam 18...
1 As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
So as we can see, love is between people. Love is also something God experiences.
The most common word for love in the Old Testament is the word ‘hesed’ which means covenant loyalty.
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
People can love other people, God can love people, and people are called to love God in return.
As it says in the famous Shema prayer in Deut.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Love is multifcated between us and things, us and each other, us and God, and God to us. It has a sense of warmth, enjoyment, fascination, loyalty, and devotion.
Similarly, love is all over the New Testament, in the life and teachings of Jesus and his apostles.
Jesus said the entire Old Testament teaching could be summarized by love.
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus actually expanded the definition of love to include not just people you like, but your enemies as well.
44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
One of Jesus’ closest friends, John, talked all about love. And he even said in his letter 1 John
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Perhaps we can think of biblical love by saying it is...
Grateful devotion to God. Gracious devotion to others.
Grateful devotion to God. Gracious devotion to others.
That’s a very brief look at the nature of love, now let’s look at the necessity of love. Why does love matter?
Love is a necessity because it moves us and shapes us.
Love moves us.
Love moves us.
God cares about not just what we do, but why we do it.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
God created humans to love him and love each other. It’s not a robotic devotion, but a genuine warmth and affection we’re to have for one another.
Imagine you got a Christmas present from a friend and you said, “Wow, this is really thoughtful, than you!” And they said, “Yeah, I read a blog that friends should give at least one gift a year to each other and so here is your one gift we’re good now right?”
That’s a lot different than someone giving you a gift with a kind note that says, “You mean a lot to me and I’m so thankful you’re in my life.
Love matters because God didn’t make us to be robots but loving partners with him to bring love to his creation and spread the news that God loves his world.
Love shapes us.
Love shapes us.
We become what we love.
In Deuteronomy the call is to love God in part because if we love God we become like God.
Have any of you ever had a friend who dated a number of people and each time they dated someone they changed their personality to match the person they were dating?
As a kid I loved Gary Payton the Sonics basketball player, and he would always chew gum and so I would pretend I was chewing gum.
The story of the Bible is a story of love. The God of love made us to rule with him in love. But we loved ourselves more than God and this is what the Bible calls sin. And it distorted our very identity away from the God who loved us.
Hosea is a great book in the Old Testament on God’s love, and it says in Hosea 9:10...
10 Like grapes in the wilderness,
I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree
in its first season,
I saw your fathers.
But they came to Baal-peor
and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
And so the Bible would say the problem with humanity is not a behavior problem that can be managed by changing some habits or tweaking a few things. It’s a heart problem. The Bible would agree, “The heart wants what it wants.” And apart from God that’s not a good thing. Humanity’s problem is not that we don’t love, but that we love the wrong thing.
15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
16 They have mouths, but do not speak;
they have eyes, but do not see;
17 they have ears, but do not hear,
nor is there any breath in their mouths.
18 Those who make them become like them,
so do all who trust in them.
Love is a necessity. We can’t help but love. We’re made in the image of the God of love. The question is who or what will we love.
And so the good news of the gospel is that God sent Jesus to save us from our misplaced loves.
We’ve talked about the nature of love, the necessity of love, and the nativity of love.
From what we’ve said so far, I don’t think the nature of love is all that controversial. Nor is the argument that love is a necessity is that controversial either.
We live in such a “You do you” culture. Love is what we all want. If that means you go to church and have community groups, awesome, if that means you practice yoga and have a Shaman, that’s cool too. If you just smoke meat on the weekend and watch football, that’s cool too.
What’s controversial about Christianity is that we say love was mostly clearly seen in God sending Jesus. Yes, you can love all sorts of things and people and love yourself, but true love is seen in Jesus.
And this is where we lose people...
How can God be loving when the Bible teaches some people will be sent to hell? How can God be loving when he says some love is sin, specifically gay marriage or sex outside of marriage?
I was in jury duty this week. For two hours thank you Jesus! The case was a domestic abuse case. And as you can imagine, many of the potential jurors had experience. One guy said, “Yeah for the first ten years of my life my step mom was abusive towards my dad.” Or another person said, “Yes my aunt 30 years ago was killed by an abusive spouse.
How can God be loving if he allows that kind of suffering in our world?
How do we see the love of God in the advent of Jesus?
In the coming of Jesus I think we see that
God feels love for us.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Love compelled God to send his son. As a what…a military general? A full-grown pastor? No, a baby.
Teague....
In the nativity of Jesus we see God’s affection for humanity. He sent a baby!
God’s plan to save the universe was to send a human baby. That can’t be the plan of a heartless, unaffectionate, spiritual force.
Does God care about you? Does he care when you have a bad day? Does he care when your life is falling apart? He’s got a lot of stuff to do?
I think back to that jury room handling the domestic violence case. How can God care if he allows that to happen in our world?
I think in Jesus, we clearly see that God feels something for us. Love is the strongest thing that God feels deep in his heart for his people. He cares about you. How?
Think about the life of Jesus. Jesus was born…the king of the universe. And who is he greeted by? Stinky shepherds.
The king of the universe is greeted by stinky shepherds, and then he and his family have to move and become refugees fleeing to Egypt. How do you think that was? I don’t want to be in a refugee camp in the year 2022 let alone the year 2.
Then he gets older and we have no record of this but likely he has other kids teasing him, why? Because his accused of being an illegitimate son. Jesus who’s your daddy?
Does God care? Does God understand? Yes. I don’t know why some things happen, but I know that God cares about you.
God acts in love towards us.
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Love is also not just a feeling for God, it’s an act of devotion. And it’s shown most clearly on the cross.
We know that God feels love for us, but he went beyond feelings to an act of pure covenant loyalty by dying on the cross to defeat the powers which held our love captive to idols that could only harm us.
God loved us so much that he died for us.
So while it is true that those who reject God will receive punishment in eternity, it’s also true that God desires all people to be saved and Jesus died so that all people might be drawn to to him for healing. God acted in love to save us.
Not only that, but God is love.
God doesn’t just feel love or do love, but he IS love. And we see that in Jesus.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Does the Bible say gay marriage is a sin? Yes. Does the Bible teach about the doctrine of hell? Absolutely. But does the Bible also unequivocally say that God desires all people to be saved, that he draws all people to himself, and that at his heart he is gentle and lowly and his essence is love? Yes.
We see that in Jesus.
How do we cultivate love?
Love is the mark of Christian maturity.
Pray -
Do you pray to be a person of love? This seems like a prayer that God will answer.
Maybe you’re like me and most of your prayers lately are for physical health. Or peace, or situations to change. That’s not wrong, but consider starting your day by asking God to help you be a person of love.
I imagine if we all begin praying, “God make us people of love.” Then we might have some unsavory people show up in our lives. Why? Because God’s love is measured in our ability to love our enemies and listen to those we don’t like.
But guys, love is the mark of Christian maturity. It’s the goal. And the story of the Bible is we can’t do it on our own.
Practice -
Church is the place we practice love. Families are important, but the New Testament is written to the family of God.
Two options to consider -
Community Group
Sunday mornings
Ponder -
Advent is a great time to ponder the love of God. What we think about matters.
To grow in love is to grow in Christ. How do we grow in Christ? Stare at Jesus. Ponder his love.