What is Love? Youth Group

Week 1

Overview

Summary: In the small group lesson this week, you and your students unpacked one of the most misunderstood topics in our culture: love. Scripture tells us that God is love, so we looked at him to define love for us, not culture and not ourselves.

We look at God’s very nature to show us what love is like. Jesus perfectly demonstrated this love through his life of sacrifice.

Key Takeaways: Students will have a true understanding that God is love. We are to receive his love and share it with others like Jesus did. Students will reflect on God’s amazing love for them and the beautiful, counter- cultural truth God offers us: we can love others because God first loved us!

Scriptures: John 5:20 / John 14:31 / John 17:4-5 / 1 John 4:7-10 / John 15:9-17

Sermon Script

Introduction: What is Love? What things come to mind when you think about what you love? How would you describe the word “love”?

Maybe some in the room immediately thought of the song, “What is Love?” (Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more!)

Others thought of your favorite food. Who loves tacos?

What about a band you love, or a song?

Love is a word that we use a lot! We use it for our most meaningful relationships and also our most trivial whims.

Let me ask you this question: 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 all together? When researchers asked, only 1 in 10 people your age said that they hold to a scriptural view of sex and marriage. 48% of teens believe that marriage should not exclusively be between a man and a woman. 63% of non-religious teenagers believe that gender, marriage, dating and all of the above are based on feelings and attraction. I share those statistics not to get into the nitty-gritty of marriage, but to show how there are a lot of definitions, understandings, and beliefs about love.

If everyone is holding onto their own truth, then how do we determine what is really true?

Cause remember, truth is not a relative thing. Truth is an objective thing. There can only be one truth.

There can be lots of opinions or ideas, but there is only one truth.

If we do not understand the reality of true love, then we’re bound to get confused. In today's world, I think we could make the case that we have no concrete definition of love at all. We throw the word love around when talking about our parents and our favorite restaurant! Love is based on feeling or attraction for many people. However, what happens when attraction or feelings fade? What happens when your favorite restaurant is no longer your favorite? What you love will inevitably change! 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. Let me ask you this question: who created the Star Wars universe? That’s right! George Lucas!

George Lucas is the creator of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and Darth Vader, etc.

He is the author and therefore, determines the names, the meanings, the universe, etc. He has full rights to the world of Star Wars!

I use that example to show that if we want the true definition of love, we have to ask the author of love. To understand love in its truest form, we have to ask God!

We see this truth laid out in numerous scriptures such as John 5:20 in which John writes,

“For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing...”

John 14:31 - Jesus also shows us how the Trinity works in perfect love when in one of his darkest hours before going to the cross, he said, “I will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I love the Father...”

John 15:13 If this is the way that God loves, then we are called to do the same!

Point #1 - We are called to love as God loves.

1 John 4:7-10 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins...

God did not just say he is love, but, through Jesus, he shows us that he is love! Have you ever heard the saying, “Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk?” What do people mean when they say that? They are saying, do not just say that you love something, care about something, or are passionate about something... live it out! When God says he is love, he did not just say it and then leave us on our own. He said it and 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. This kind of love is radical, sacrificial, and real! This is the kind of love we are to show those around us! Many people are discouraged by the church because they view it as people who say they love other people, but then don’t live that love out. What would it look like if we truly loved people the way God did? I think if we did that, we would see people drawn to Christ.

But loving God’s way is hard to live out! When sin entered the world, it broke everything beautiful, including our understanding of love.

That is why it is easier to accept a warped definition of love based off of the culture we live in. We can begin to feed into the lie that love is something we earn instead of something we freely receive. In the same way, we can also believe the lie that love is a feeling that is centered around ourselves, rather than a choice to serve and meet the needs of others.

In one of his last teachings to his disciples, Jesus taught about the true nature of love. He said: I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends……This is my command: Love each other...John 15:9-17

John 15:9-17 helps us move this understanding of love from talk to action. The way we respond to God's radical love is through obedience and sacrifice. Jesus demonstrated his love for the Father by obeying him. Jesus didn’t obey to earn God’s love; as his Son, he already possessed it. As followers of Jesus, so do we! Our obedience is a natural response of thankfulness for the love God has poured out on us.

Jesus demonstrated his love for us by laying down his life for us. He calls his followers to love in the same way. That means sacrificing our needs for the needs of others.

Biblical love = Making life more convenient for others by doing things less convenient for me. Now this is not to say that loving someone biblically is always draining and reaps no reward for yourself. I can honestly tell you that when you do things for those you love, it is your joy! You want to go out of your way to make them happy and serve them in some way. Biblical love is actually quite satisfying and rewarding (just in a different way…You don’t do things for yourself…rather you do them for someone else and then you also experience the joy). Example: driving about 6 hours the first time I went to pick up Ileana!

When we live out a life of obedience and sacrifice to the Lord, the way we love others is going to look radically different! That is a good thing! The world will never know the love of Christ if we do not show it through loving differently! This is because:

Point #2: The world's idea of love and God’s idea of love are different .

Take a moment to think about how the world portrays love.

Many of us would go back to our favorite Romantic Comedy, or the way our parents interacted with us.

Some will think back to a popular pop song or a crush you had in school. For some, love in the world is portrayed as a feeling, an emotion, a physical response, or something that fills you up. It’s all self-centered. What would it look like to prefer someone above yourself? What would it look like to sacrifice, to give, to pour into, and to radically love those around you?

God invites us to personally experience his perfect love and to share it with others. If you haven’t yet experienced the amazing love of Christ, ask him to reveal it to you through his Word, prayer, and in community with other believers. God has shown us what true love is, and when we experience it, it changes us. What does it look like to share that love with those around you? How can the way God loves you change your interactions with others?

As we close, if you haven’t thought of God as loving before, ask him to show you the depths of his love.

If you are a follower of Jesus, would those closest to you, like your siblings and close friends, describe you as someone who obeys God and loves them sacrificially?

Why or why not?

Ask God to reveal areas of sin in your life and trust him to lovingly lead you in obedience.

Together, let’s look for ways to pursue the good of others before your own and demonstrate the love of Jesus.

Discussion Questions: How would you describe God’s love to a friend who imagines God to be angry, judgmental, or harsh? 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?

Final Week:

Play movie clip to start class.

Then do review of what we have talked about:

God’s Love (is not selfish; costly to Him)

Who determines what is true? (The one who creates or writes something)

God is Love…so we come to Him to learn what it means to have love…

Today’s Story Takes place in a passage and a parable (an example that displays the point trying to be communicated) that Jesus shares

Luke 10:25–37 ESV

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Break down what we just read:

Lawyer tried to test Jesus (tried to trap Him with His words) (But Jesus answered very well)

Man wants to defend himself and actually sets Jesus up to display a great truth about how to love someone well

What were the principles that Jesus said we were important?

Love God with everything

Love your neighbor as you love yourself (we all do rather well at this)

Let’s talk about these two principles tonight!

Love God with your heart, soul and mind

What do you think Jesus means when He says that we should love God with our 1) Heart, 2) Soul, 3) Mind?

We are to love God with everything that we are

We are only able to do this when we surrender our lives to Him!

What does it look like to love Him in this way? It means to obey Him and do what He tells us in His Word (the Bible).

John 14:21 ESV

21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Jesus tells us that those who love Him are the ones who choose to obey Him! That is how we demonstrate our love for God. And I am thankful that the things He tells us to do are ones that bring us real joy. Not temporary happiness. (Kinda crazy that the things God tells us to do are the very things which are best for us…even if they don’t seem like it in the moment… and yet we often fight Him in this. Why do we fight God when He is simply asking us to do what will bring us the most joy and give glory to Him?)

In addition, Jesus tells us that when we love Him, He reveals Himself to us! This is encouraging! When we love Him and obey Him, He will allow us to learn more about what He is like and the love He has shown us. But this is really only exciting to the person who wants to know God. If you have no care or concern of Him, then you won’t be interested in this.

Again, this is why I have been challenging you all the past few weeks to pray to God and ask Him to show you His love. Have you? If you have, make sure you are actively searching for it! Because He will show it to you if you are honestly looking for it and for Him!

Our second point: Love you neighbor as yourself. This is where the video that we watched and the parable of the Good Samaritan come into play. Loving people is inconvenient most of the time isn’t it? It is this way because loving some one else well usually costs you something. If you both want the same thing, loving someone is easy. But what about when they want something different than you? That is a little more costly! Of all people, it was the Samaritan.. the outcast of society who stopped to love his enemy (the ones who would slander his name).

Let’s look at one more passage here:

Matthew 5:43–47 ESV

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

This should sound familiar because it is from the sermon on the mount which we went over a few months ago!

We are called to love in an extraordinary way because that is the same way that God loved us. Until we seek God’s forgiveness and join His family, we are enemies to God. We are enemies to Him because we curse His name, we choose to reject Him by choosing our sin over Him daily. Refusing to believe in Him or trust in Him.

The passage above demonstrates that there is no credit for loving people who are easy to love or who will love you in return. But when you love the unlovable or those who are the “rejects”… that is showing love.

Discussion Questions:

Are there a certain group of people that you find hard to love?

- What are some steps you can take to show love to this group of people?

Does social media help you love others, or does it cause you to objectify people?

- How do you see it playing a role in your love for others?

Finally!!! I have some questions for you to reflect on!

- Have you ever known or truly experienced the love of God?

- I challenge you to pray today and ask God to show this to you!

- If you have known God’s love, have you been able to display it to others? How can you do that this week?