All You Need is Love: God’s Eternal Love

All you need is love…

Love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love…and this is how far I got before my family begged me to not sing acapella, and rightfully so. Today we have our final sermon in this series that looks at how human emotions are dealt with in the Psalms. Today, we’re examining the topic and emotion of love.

What is love? Is love an emotion, a feeling?

Is it twitterpation, which according to the wise old owl in Bambi “is when you’re walking along, minding your own business…and suddenly, you’re knocked for a loop.” mostly he says this happens in the springtime? That fluttering of emotion in your heart, that rush of attraction that occurs when your around a certain someone. You know what I’m talking about?

Bette Midler sang that some people define love as a river that drowns the tender reed and others a razor that leaves your soul to bleed (before she goes on to define it as a flower, with you the only seed.)

Iron and Wine say that love is a crying baby and the best sensation

Or are you in Lava, like in the PIxar short

Is it a burning ring of fire, like Johnny Cash sings

The Backstreet Boys called it kisses in the morning rain

Is it cuddling on the couch, either with a significant other, or if you’re a kid, with your Mom or Dad

Or is love something more….something magical?

We’re talking about love and I have the stage, so let me tell you how I am a blessed man. Mandy I celebrated our 21st anniversary in May. And it’s a storybook tale in many ways. Let me set the scene for you. It was September of 2002 - I was about to turn 22 and heading back to Chicago to visit Josh Cools at Hillsdale College in south-central Michigan. I fly into O’Hare and Josh and Michelle pick me up. I was someone who was super earnest in my relationships and a little boneheaded. So, I’m just over a month out of a relationship that didn’t work. I have lost all faith that I know what love is or how to spot it and most importantly, I feel like I don’t know how to hear God’s voice. I thought I had been doing the right thing, yet the relationships hadn’t worked out. So I’ve sworn off relationships. I’m going to be the guy who just focuses on my walk with God and serving Him. No more girls…for now. Famous last words.

4 hours later we pull up to campus and Josh says we should go meet a mutual friend from Portland (Joel’s cousin, Betsy Gann). So, we head to the Whitley Dorm and walk in the door and BAM - there she is, 21 year old Mandy, sitting desk. I have no idea who she is, but I was instantly floored. As in, distracted, twitterpated, so curious. I see Betsy, go say hi, and am introduced to everyone else in the room. Turns out Mandy was the RA sitting desk and I had heard Josh and Michelle both talk about her a bunch. Then my brain reminds me - STOP - you’re done with relationships for now. I was there for 4 days and I felt like a Jr High kid with his first crush. Every moment I was tracking where she was and how close to her I was, but you know, cool like. Watching Monsters Inc…she’s right next to me. After that week, I’m flying high, all the emotions and newness of infatuation are there and in force…but I’m not interested, remember. So, I go home and do what every self respecting 22 year old does in 2002. I set an alert on AOL IM and then hook my computer up to my surround system so that every time Mandy comes online, my whole apartment shakes with the alert (my roommate loved it). To shortcut this long story, as God would have it, I ended up seeing Mandy 2x in the next few months. She came to Vancouver, WA to see her grandparents over Thanksgiving and Jake Cools setup a time for the three of us to get together, then called me on the way to Idaho to tell me he wouldn’t make it and it would just be the two of us, but that’s ok, because she was meant to be my wife (he didn’t the feelings I was wrestling with). And it was great. Then right after Christmas we were both at New Attitude. I knew I had fallen hard for her when we were both bonding over our love of kids while making Mrs Grass soup mix inside of an empty 2 liter soda bottle with the hot tap water in the hotel room for the rest of our crew. Serving everyone else, crazy enough to make bootleg soup with me in a hotel bathroom, and she liked kids. When I came home after that trip, I finally had to admit to myself that I was head over heels for her (was it love?)

Fast forward to that next fall and I found myself road bound as Hillsdale’s second oldest freshman that year. It was time to pursue college before I got too old. If a relationship developed with Mandy, that was fine, or not. Our first date was Nov 1st, we were engaged Jan 23rd, and married by May 15th…we took it slow. 11 pregnancies, 9 kids, about 9 failed business ventures, 9 moves, and approx 40,000 dirty diapers later, I consider myself one of the most blessed men alive. We have experienced love, true, deep, real love in so many beautiful ways and I am so happy that Mandy is my wife.

And that is love…but, it hasn’t been perfect. I’ve been angry and short. I’ve failed my wife in so many ways. I’ve been proud, arrogant, and hurtful. Our love hasn’t been perfect, it’s been flawed. Love like every other emotion is tainted by our sins. What is or was beautiful, can be made ugly when we focus the selfish eye of sin, love becomes something distorted and ugly, not love anymore, but a malformed and broken version.

And I think that’s at the root of the issue with love - it’s that we experience it in a flawed way, because we love in a flawed way. I’m going to repeat that, I think we experience love in a flawed way, because we ourselves, love in a flawed way. And that leads us back to the question - what exactly is love, can we define it? And if so, can we understand how to love others well and to receive love well. The answer to that question, I believe, is a resounding yes.

Let us pray:

The narrative arc of scripture is that of a love story. For some of you, this is a well tread, familiar thought. But I want to pause on this idea. That means that the Old testament, full of its wars and battles is a love story. It might be the early part of the movie, the part full of cringy moments, but it is part of the love story. The New Testament is the fulfilment, the denouement. The Psalms - they are the poetry, the music, where we hear and feel the emotions from this story in vivid, heartfelt ways. Today, we’re going to look specifically at Psalm 107. I’ll be reading Psalm 107 out loud, but I’m going to break it up into sections and we’ll read/exegete each section, as we go. So, if you’ll turn to Psalm 107, we can get started. If you’re a guest or don’t have a Bible, you can find some under the seats in front of you. We’ll be starting on page ______

As we read, we’ll be looking at the following key points:

Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love (vs 1-3)

Love Lost…And Then (vs 4-32)

Overflowing Love (vs 33-43)

1. Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love

Vs 1-3 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

If Psalm 107 were a movie, it would start with one of those scenes where the narrator is giving you a hint/a glimpse of the end of the story, before it shuffles back in time to tell the rest. Here, the Psalmist praises Yahweh for His steadfast love. A love that He has put to work calling a people to Himself from every point of the earth. It’s the Gospel in Poetry. We’ll talk about this movement more in point 2.

The key word here comes from verse 1 - it’s translated Steadfast Love - and it’s the Hebrew word Chesedh - It’s a word used 248 times in the Bible and more than half of those occurences are in the Psalms. Hebrew is a very descriptive language with word pictures and ideas associated with their words. Chesedh doesn’t translate to English or Greek well. Our words, like love, tend to have many different meanings, and we have to rely on context or add more adjectives to make sense of them.

Chesedh is a complicated word. In our English translations it can be translated faithfulness, goodness, mercy, love, kindness, devotion, lovingkindness, or in our verse today, steadfast love. The word itself comes from a root related to bowing ones head towards another and refers to the idea of a covenantal relationship. In particular, when the stronger, greater person is making a covenant to someone who is weaker. In Genesis 15, God is making his promises to Abram to make him a great people and Abram asks God how this will come to be, since he has no heir. God has him cut animals in two and lay them on either side of a pathway. This was a common way that two people would make a binding covenant between themselves and witnessed by others. It was a solemn affair. Here, God puts Abram to sleep and walks through the pieces Himself, making a unilateral covenant with Abram that God would do as he promised and later in chapter 17 God iterates that this will be an everlasting covenant between Abraham and his descendents. It is this type of covenant that is behind the idea of Chesedh, specifically that of a more powerful person making a covenant with someone less so. So, think of God’s covenant with Abraham, the all mighty all powerful God is making a unilateral (dependent on Him only) covenant with Abraham - and how will that covenant be lived out - through Chesedh - a love that goes on eternally. While many people have tried to figure out the best way to translate the complex ideas behind this word, I think no one has done a better job than Sally Lloyd-Jones. In the Jesus Storybook Bible, she talks about Chesedh and uses the translation: “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” That is the love God has for His people and that is the love God has for you.

In our intro section, God is making the statement through the Psalmist that He is on a mission - He is going to search out every corner of the earth in order to call a people to Himself and it’s His never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love that is driving Him. I think it’s important that the Psalmist starts us here because for most of us, this type of love that’s being described might sound more fairy tale than what we’ve actually experienced in our life. And, if that’s you, stay with me, because that’s a good segue to our second point.

2. Love Lost…And Then

Read vs 4-32

Psalm 107 ESV

Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor; they fell down, with none to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he shatters the doors of bronze and cuts in two the bars of iron. Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction; they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy! Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Vs 1-3 setup God’s Rescue of His people from all corners of the earth and vs 4-32 introduce us to a cycle that might seem familiar. Summarizing what we just read:

We were wandering in the wilderness

We were hungry and thirsty

Our souls fainted within us

And then we called out to Yahweh

PAUSE

We dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death

Prisoners, in misery and chains

We had rebelled against God and spurned His counsel

And then we called out to Yaweh

PAUSE

We were fools, sinful in our ways

Our souls drew near to death

And then we called out to Yaweh

PAUSE

We were tossed by the storms

Our souls melted away in our misery

We were at our wits end

And then we called out to Yaweh

PAUSE

Let them give thanks to Yahweh, for his Chesedh, his always and forever love.

Here we have a rawness of human experience that should feel familiar to all of us. This is an experience of peaks and valleys. Repetition here mimics our experience. We go on this roller coaster from the heights to the depths. We equate love when things are good to something hot, burning bright, impossible to ignore, but when the emotion takes us to the valleys, we encounter despair and depression, fear and anxiety. What once burned bright now sinks like a cold dead weight in our soul. For some of you, my intro section on love that dealt with the more syrupy side may have created a little dissonance b/c of your own experience. Everyone in this room has seen love go sour. A parent who may have loved you, but didn’t demonstrate it, or worse, was abusive. A significant other who acted contrary to their vows. Or maybe it’s just that the “spark” has gone out of your marriage and you feel like you’re two people living inside different realities. Maybe you’ve been betrayed by a friend or a coworker that you trusted and loved, not in the romantic way, but as a friend. Maybe it was a brother, a sister, or your son or daughter. As I’ve read this list - nearly every one of you has had someone or multiple someones pop into your mind, and I’m sorry to bring up traumatic experiences, because there are few emotional pains as acute as when love goes wrong. But, if we’re going to address the idea of healthy emotions by looking at the Psalms, we have to look at both sides of the equation. Love is complicated because it invariably calls us to open ourselves up, to be vulnerable, to hope for the best in someone else and to believe in a beautiful future. And when you do that, you will get hurt, a little piece of you goes with each friendship that ends up broken, with each relationship where the other person hurt you. So, for us to think about how we handle the emotion of love, we have to examine both how to do it right and what to do when our experience on earth doesn’t mimic that beautiful Chesedh love we just talked about.

It’s why I think this section speaks in such a beautiful and authentic way. The Psalmist connects to the valleys we’ve all experienced, but in each movement we have this: And then they cried out to Yahweh and Chesedh - they are rescued by God’s Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.

The pattern in Psalm 107, is the same we see throughout scripture. God made everything and it was good. Man walked with God in perfect love and relationship, everything was in perfect harmony, can you imagine that, a time when nothing was broken? And then sin entered the world. Queue the valleys, only for God to rescue His people, again, and again, and again. Notice the language of the rescue. Man hits bottom, and then cries out to God. We see this same language throughout scripture. In Judges, every story involves the people turning their backs on God, life gets rough, and then they cry out to God and He rescues. Proverbs 18:10 talks about how God is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe. Even in salvation, the Holy Spirit moves on our heart and then we cry out, we confess Jesus as Lord and repent of our sin. In the supernatural melding of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility, there is an impetus on us to press into God, to cry out to Him, to run to Him. While we walk this earth, we will experience love that is both beautiful and a reflection of that that time of eternal harmony and love that is broken and jagged. What do we do when we experience the pain of love gone wrong, we run to Jesus.

Question for you all: When you are in the valleys and struggling - are you calling out to God. In your moments of emotional struggle, are you calling out to God to rescue you, like in the Psalms here. If not, let me encourage you to start doing so. God’s covenantal love is as present today as it has ever been - the same love that rescued Joseph when he was in Pharos prison is working tirelessly on your behalf today - cry out to Jesus.

Our emotions often reveal our need for rescue. These aren’t just ancient stories—they’re mirrors to our lives. And every time the people cry out, God’s chesedh love responds. That’s the gospel at work.

3. Overflowing Love

read with me vs 33-43

Psalm 107 ESV

He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste, because of the evil of its inhabitants. He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. And there he lets the hungry dwell, and they establish a city to live in; they sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. By his blessing they multiply greatly, and he does not let their livestock diminish. When they are diminished and brought low through oppression, evil, and sorrow, he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; but he raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

Our final movement here speaks to anyone who has been brought low by the brokenness of the world. Whoever is wise - consider: God’s Chesedh, Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.

Vs 40 says that God pours contempt on princes who bring others low through oppression, evil, and sorrow. While this is speaking to the power of God to humble earthly rulers, there is also a prophetic word in this statement. Our great enemy, Satan, the serpent in Genesis 3 continually rears his head to strike us and lay us low.

But for Chesedh - God’s covenantal love speaks to fulfillment, to an end to this cycle of oppression. The serpents head must be crushed under the heel of the woman's offspring. This problem needed an eternal solution, a final solution. God’s love for you, His child, demanded this. Ephesians 2:4–5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” The great love of God compelled Him to the greatest example of love that has ever been witnessed in all of creation. Jesus, who experienced perfect love within the trinity, chose the path of suffering and hardship, coming to earth as the fully man and fully God manifested in the baby Jesus. Subject to all the indignities of life on earth: hunger, thirst, cold, overheating, exhaustion, frustration, betrayal, pain, tears, and more. Jesus walked this path with one purpose in mind, to love His people so completely that He could affect His rescue and secure their freedom for all of eternity, to make it so He could call a people to Himself from north, south, east, and west. Hebrews 12 tells us that for the joy set before Him, he endured the cross. 1 Peter says He did this so that by His wounds we have been healed.

Just as we’ve been hurt by others and seen love go wrong, so we have treated God the same. Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” He gave us everything in the Garden and ever since then, we’ve majored on the valleys, turning our hearts and our eyes away from His goodness. Jesus turned the tables on Satan and fulfilled that prophecy when He went to the cross. Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabacthani Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why have you foresaken me” so that we would never have to. In doing so, Jesus showed what love truly looks like and gave you a path to redeem every bad experience you’ve ever had.

So how should we think and act after such a great love has been given to us… vs 43 Whoever is wise: consider God’s steadfast love

At the end of Matthew 22, Jesus answers the question of what is the greatest commandment in Scripture. His Answer:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind

The second, love your neighbor as yourself - all of the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

We’re told to love God and to love other people, and I don’t think any here would disagree with that directive…but how?

1 John 4:7–12 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

God is love. There is a reason the order Jesus gives to the commandments starts with loving God first. Want to know how to redeem the emotion of love in your life, turn to Jesus. Press into God, who is love Himself. Psalm 36 David declares how precious is God’s Chesedh love, saying we feast on it’s abundance as it overflows from God to us. In the famous verse in Lamentations, it’s Chesedh love that never ceases and is new every morning, available to us new, each and every day.

Romans 5:5 “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

If we want to know how to redeem love, we have to turn to Jesus. We must fill ourselves at the fountain of His love before we have a hope of loving others well. Then, as make Jesus the center of our life and focus, out of the overflowing abundance of His love, we turns our eyes to love others. And with Jesus’ supernatural help, we can.

I want to call out a few things as we head towards our close.

I’ve heard this statement from those in the secular world and some in the Christian world that you need to learn how to love yourself before you can love others. And I think I understand where that is coming from. If you loathe yourself, than you are in a bad place. But, as we just discussed, let me gently redirect your attention from looking inward and to direct your gaze to Jesus. You are not capable of loving yourself well enough to heal yourself. But, Jesus has. If you struggle with guilt and shame over your past sins and have a hard time seeing yourself as lovely in Jesus eyes - you need to surrender that my friends. You are lovely to Jesus, so lovely that He gave everything to be in eternal relationship with you. His actions on the cross have wiped the slate clean for all who worship Jesus and call Him Lord. Don’t try to love yourself more, accept Jesus’ Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love, it’s so much better. Receive that love and blessing, let it change you.

Love in scripture is something we receive, from Jesus and others, but when it comes to our agency, it’s an outward focused emotion. We are called to love God and to love others. When love goes wrong and becomes a disordered emotion, it’s because we turns the lens inward. What do I want, what makes me happy, etc… When you find your loves directed inward instead of towards God and others, ask God to help you focus it back on Him and to help you love others.

I want to pause at the end with homework from this sermon: I mentioned earlier that most of you probably had examples of people who had hurt you at some point. As you go home and reflect on God’s love, I want you to also pray and ask the Holy Spirit call to mind a relationship. Just as Jesus loved you extravagantly, I want you to seek Jesus this coming week and ask Him how you can love this person out of the abundance of His love.

I started the sermon off with the statement that our experience with love is flawed b/c we give love in a flawed way. Our emotions were designed by God and they find their true fulfilment in Him as well. At the end of the day, we all want to be held close and loved, no matter how rough or bad our day was. We desire to be accepted and loved, to know we’re safe, that we can let our guard down. To experience love well and to love others well, we have to turn to the love of Jesus that is patient, persistent, and unbreaking in loving us. If you’ve tried to find it elsewhere, you know that there is no love more beautiful than that which Jesus has for you. Accept it so that you may be loved well and in turn love others well.

Pray

Communion - Now we come to the part of our service where we celebrate the fact that love compelled our God to come and dwell with us as man - with a body and blood that He shed for us. We remember such a costly love, but we also look forward to that time when we will commune with Him in perfect unity again. When we’ll experience perfect love, forever. We call this celebration and remembrance communion. If you are a guest and you love Jesus and worship Him as your Lord and Savior, you’re welcome to join us. We’ll dismiss from the balcony and back rows and then moving forward. Come and get the elements and take them back to your seat where one of the pastors will lead us in communion.