Love In Perspective

What is Love?

If someone asked you to define love, how would you define it? Love is one of those elusive concepts that we all believe we know, but have difficultly providing an easy definition for it.

Definitions

Dictionary says, “an intense feeling of deep affection”. Really, so love is about how one feels towards another? I believe love is more than a feeling. I believe love is a state of being.

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Really, so…I never need to say sorry if I love someone. I believe that love means learning how to say you’re sorry.

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye asks his wife if she really loves him. She replies, “For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned the house, given you children, milked your cow. If that’s not love, what is?” Is that love? Merely performing actions that care for another? I believe love requires action, but the action doesn’t define it.

“All you need is love!” Really, nothing else? Based on these lyrics, everything rests on love. Knowledge, life, direction, fulfillment, self-discovery, and even salvation is all found in love. Funny thing is, there is some truth to it when we properly define love. However, love as defined by the world will always lead to emptiness in the end. I believe all we need is God, because He is love.

SO, what is love? I think this morning we need to put love in proper perspective.

God’s Love

The only way we can truly discover the meaning and definition of love is through its Source, God! In fact, I believe that the greatest apologetic we have for the existence of God is Love. Through the years I’ve had many people say to me, “So you believe God exists, prove it!” My response has over time has come to simply be a question, “Do you believe that love exists?” To which most (not all) would say yes. At that point I simply say, “Prove it!”

You see, love is something we can’t fully define, but we know with all our hearts that it exists. In fact, we will spend our lives looking for it. We idolize it and desire it above all else. But what we truly desire goes beyond love, we often just cannot see it. So, this morning I’m going to tell a crazy prequel to the Christmas story. One that will help us understand God’s love and how it was fully expressed when He sent His only Son into the world.

Christmas Prequel

To tell this story, we have to go back to the book of Genesis in the most unlikely of places. The story of Jacob. Turn with me back to Genesis 28. While you are turning there, let me set up the story a bit.

Jacob’s Love

After Jacob had received the blessing from Isaac, his father sent him off to get a wife from Rebekah’s brother, Laban. Isaac did not want him to find a wife from among the Hittites as Esau had. On his journey, Jacob has a dream and encounters God. He makes a vow to God that demonstrates his conditional love for God at this specific moment in his faith journey.

Looks at Genesis 28:18-22, “So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.’”

Jacob’s heart (love) was not fully devoted to the God of his father, Isaac yet. His faith and love for God was inherited, but not yet owned. This plays a big part into his coming struggle.

Jacob enters the home of Laban and begins working for him. But he finds himself smitten with one of Laban’s daughters. Let’s read…

Genesis 29:15-21, “Then Laban said to Jacob, ‘Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?’ Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, ‘I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.’ Laban said, ‘It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.’ So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, ‘Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.’”

The text here shows us how absorbed Jacob was with Rachel

He committed 7 years of labor for her (an enormous price for a bride)

But the years seemed like days (v. 20)

He was so enamored by Rachel that he couldn’t see through Laban’s veiled response. Laban never said “yes.” Look at his response (read verse 19)

Jacob wanted to hear “yes” so he heard “yes.”

He was so blind with “love” that he didn’t consider that it was customary for the older sister to marry before the younger. He didn’t care, he just wanted Rachel.

When they were through all he wanted to do was take her as his wife and have…well…let’s just say relations with her. This Hebrew phrase is very graphic here so we will just keep it PG this morning. Essentially he said to Laban, “I can’t wait any longer to have relations with your daughter. Give her to me now!”

Jacob was overwhelmed with an emotional and physical longing for Rachel that he had allowed it to consume him for seven years.

In fact, he was so drunk on “love” that he didn’t even know that he had relations with the wrong woman. In verse 25 it says, “And in the morning, behold, it was Leah!” Surprise!!

Why did Jacob focus on this and allow it to consume him?

Because his love was an empty love focused on a person.

Think about it this way:

Jacob was never had his father’s love (Isaac loved Esau – Gen. 25:28)

Jacob lost his mother’s love as he was separated from her

Jacob had not yet come to know God’s love and care (Gen. 28:18-22)

Jacob came to believe that Rachel could finally be a source of something good in his life. So, he fixated on her and waited seven years to receive the love he had always wanted. In his mind, when he finally got her all things would be fixed in his life. Jacob, like so many of us today, focused all the longings of his heart for meaning and affirmation on Rachel.

When God is not the focus of our love, then what choice do we have? People then become the focus of our love and we expect that they will fulfill all our deep-seeded needs for meaning and affirmation.

If you listen to secular music and watch television and movies you will find this sentiment. After all, if there is no God, then we must fill that need somewhere.

We hold on to the idea that if we find our true soul mate, then everything wrong in our lives will be healed.

The truth is, that is true. However, no human being can ever be our soul mate. We are created to have only one soul mate: GOD!

When we place these expectations of love and fulfillment on a human being, then we are placing upon them God-like expectations that THEY CAN NEVER FULFILL!

Only God was meant to fill them. Then, when they fail to meet those expectations, we then question if we are really “in love” with them and quit and move onto the next person requiring of them the same God-like expectations. It is a vicious cycle of idolatry and the only solution is to find fulfillment is in God as LOVE!

We might look at Jacob and go, “Poor sap. What is his problem? Why was he so gullible?” But we have to realize that when the love of someone other than God becomes our idol, then it becomes our addiction.

Funny thing is, what we call addiction, God calls idolatry!

Our emptiness inside and fears of never being loved will make “love” a narcotic. And so, “love” becomes the way in which we “medicate” ourselves and when that happens, like addicts, we will make foolish and destructive choices in our lives.

When this happens, our “loved ones” are not just our spouse or romantic interest, but they become our “savior” and only one was meant to fill that role!

You ever heard the statement, “He/She worships the ground she/he walks on”? Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?

Leah’s Love

But Jacob is not the end of this story. The crazy twist in this story is Leah. Poor Leah! She was thrown into a loveless marriage and like Jacob, longed to be loved.

Leah is described as having weak eyes. Now, this doesn’t mean that she couldn’t see (especially in context). Instead, it either means she was cross-eyed or that she was just flat ugly as compared to Rachel’s beauty.

Laban knew that, due to Leah’s unattractiveness, no suiters were going to come calling soon (no arranged marriage in sight). So, when he saw Jacob’s deep attraction to Rachel, he saw opportunity.

Arranged marriages meant the father gained the payment (a substantial gift) from the suitor for the bride’s hand. The fact that Leah was not wanted due to her unseemliness meant that he would maintain the financial obligation of caring for her without making anything off her. He probably thought to himself, “I can kill two birds with one stone here and get double my money.”

So, Leah leaves a father who doesn’t want/love her to become the wife of a husband who doesn’t love her.

Crazy thing is that Leah had a deep hole in her heart that was comparable to the hole that Jacob had in his, but he was so love-struck with Rachel that he couldn’t recognize Leah’s pain.

Leah was the girl nobody wanted!

Leah, like Jacob, focused her “love” on the wrong person and desired to make Jacob love her somehow, someway.

Read Gen. 29:31-35, “When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, ‘Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me.’ She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.’ And she called his name Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.’ Therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘This time I will praise the Lord.’ Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing.”

“Now my husband will love me.” (v. 32)

“God heard I am hated.” (v. 33)

“Now my husband will be attached to me.” (v. 34)

“This time I will praise the Lord.” (v. 35)

Interesting that it is through this line the true Savior of the world comes. Just by chance?

Sadly, the story of Jacob and Leah teaches us a valuable lesson about the idol/god of “love.” No matter what who we put our hopes in (beyond God), in the morning we always find Leah, not Rachel. (NO disrespect to Leah)

No person can fill your soul. Only God can do that. To put on them the weight of these God-like expectations will ultimately weigh them down and leave you wanting. When that happens, you are going to go to bed thinking you are lying with Rachel, but will wake up to find Leah. This disillusionment/disappointment is unfair to place on those we love. It is not their fault, it is ours. We have placed the wrong sort of focus on them that should have been placed on someone else: GOD!

Fortunately, Leah came to her senses and turned to God. It appears that she finally took her heart’s deepest desires off Jacob and place them on God. Through her, the Savior of the world would come. Once she let go of Jacob and embraced God, she finds peace. And her peace brings her to praise the Lord and name her son, Judah. Through her, the unloved, the unwanted, the unworthy, God demonstrates the full extent of His love through the line of Judah. You see, the story of the birth of Jesus didn’t start with Mary, it started all the way back with Leah. And on that day, Leah discovered that God is the true bridegroom.

God’s Love in Perspective

Through the story of Jacob and Leah, God was teaching us a powerful lesson that would find its fulfillment in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God loves us so much, yet we mostly do not return His love. In fact, we often act like Jacob toward God when we wake up in the morning. And, behold, it’s God again.

So, like Leah, He too often feels unloved by the very people He created to love. Yet, He gives birth to His one an only Son not so that we will finally love Him (like Leah), but so that He could finally demonstrate the full extent of His love to us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

John goes on to tell us, “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.” (1 John 4:9-10)

So, love is all we need! If we define love as GOD! Because God is love. When we see Him, through Jesus, as our only true bridegroom, then we will truly find fulfillment. In that light we can love others as we have been loved by God. Because the Christmas season is not just about us receiving God’s love, but also about us returning it to others. This world needs love, but love put into proper perspective: GOD’s LOVE! And that is CRAZY LOVE!!!

PRAYER