Love is LOVE
Notes
Transcript
Intro
What is love?
What things come to mind when you thing about what you love?
Maybe you think about the songs: baby don’t hurt me
or your favorite food or FB team, band,
LOVE is a 4 letter word that we use a lot!
We use it for our most meaningful relationships and also our most trivial whims.
Other languages have many different words to better describe different kinds of love but english just has 1 word - love
It seems everyone has their own definition of the word love
With all the ways we love so many different things, do you think it is possible that we have lost the true definition of love altogether?
So often we think that love is based on feeling
What happens when feeling fade or change?
If it is a restaurant, what happens when your favorite one is no longer your favorite? you find another one right
When Chris got covid, his taste was affected. To this day, things taste different and what was once his most loved things are not.
That just might be problematic when it comes to relationships or understanding what true love is if it can change so easily
What if I treated my kids this way
I loved them when they were born - everyone knows how much I love babies, but when they grew, when things changed and I didn’t have a little cuddly baby to rock and sing to (who didn’t care about my voice) did my love change? Could I turn that child in and get another baby please?
This is actually very important: If we don’t figure out the reality of true love, then we’re bound to get confused
The truth is that love is not based on feeling
To find out what it is based on, we need to look in God’s word
Who created Star Wars? George Lucas
He created them and named the characters - Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Darth Vader - He alone can define them
I use this example to show that if we want the true definition of love, we have to ask the author of love - we have to ask God
Let’s check out this video
Body
God is Love
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Scripture clearly states that God is love
The better we come to know God, the better we will know and live in true love.
To say that God is love means to say that who He is the core of His identity, is love
We see this in the Trinity: God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit
show relationship from the beginning: mutual dynamic, other focused loving relationship with each other.
And when God created humanity, He invited us into that relationship of love!
Love comes from God and follows the pattern that God demonstrates
The Bible shows us repeatedly that the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit work together in perfect love.
We don’t have time to look @ all the scriptures but they are constantly glorifying each other which means to praise, to serve, & to pour love into one another
Simply put, it is the opposite of being self-centered!
God the Father laid down his only Son for you and I.
Jesus (the Son) submitted to the will of the father - even to death
The Holy Spirit comes and speaks only what Jesus speaks and serves and praises God
There is no competition, no concern for who is the best or most beautiful
They find delight in each other’s happiness and success, in perfect rhythm
This is the way that God works and it looks very opposite from the world’s definition of love
If this the the way that God loves, then we are called to do the same! which brings us to the 2nd point:
We are called to love as God loves - Baby don’t hurt me
Again look at our verse: 1 John 4:7-11
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
God did not just say that He is love, He showed it!
God pursued us before we even knew to look for Him:
He loved us before we loved Him back
He died for us while we were dead in sin
& now we are free to receive His love and pour it out on others
There are a lot of people that don’t like the church because they have seen how “Christians” have demonstrated “Love”
What would it look like if we truly loved people the way that God does?
Honestly tho, loving God’s way is hard to live out!
When sin entered the world, it broke everything beautiful, including our understanding of love
It thru us off rhythm - and we hear a different beat constantly
That is why it is easier to accept a warped definition of love based off the culture we live in.
We can begin to believe lies:
love has to be earned
love is a feeling
love is about what I get
Remember tho, when God created people, he invited us to join that beautiful dance of love (relationship) like He has with the trinity.
When we join that dance and love others, we get to experience true love ourselves
Jesus showed His Father love by obeying and sacrificing
Jesus didn’t obey to earn God’s love - He already had it
and so do we! God already loves you, there is nothing you need to do to earn it
Just as Jesus did, when we obey and sacrifice, we show love to God and others
we sacrifice our needs for the needs of others just like Jesus
and we continue to feel God’s true love with us, a perfect rhythm
Conclusion:
God’s love and the world’s love is so different
God invites us to personally experience His perfect love and to share it with others.
If you haven’t felt His love - you can, all you have to do is ask Him. He already loves you and He is just patiently waiting for you to invite Him into your life.
Group Discussion:
How would you describe God’s love to a friend who imagines God to be angry, judgmental, or harsh?
The Father and the Son pursued one another’s glory, and in turn, each was glorified. Can this work in earthly relationships? How can pursuing someone else’s joy lead to your joy?
Where do you think we can do better as Christ followers to truly love those around us? What would that look like and how do you live that out?