Sermon Tone Analysis

*Show Me the Love!*

 

 

/Matthew 22:39 “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’”/

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/Romans 5:8-“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”/

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*TK-God loves the world despite their sinfulness; Jesus demonstrated this love*

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*TD-Love the sinners of the world like Jesus did*

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*Why-God does the same for us; we need to follow Jesus’ example*

 

 

/5~/13~/07-Mother’s day/

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Today we honor mothers.

Want to take a moment now to recognize what God designed into all women and the beauty that is amplified by motherhood.

(Guys…bear with it; they are worth it!)

The central point is that a mother’s love is what makes her beautiful & captivating.

That’s really what makes Christians…followers of Christ captivating to the world…the concept of love.

Jesus said that the greatest command of all is to love God (Matt 22:36-40) and the second is to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

It all about L-O-V-E!

But I think there is a lot of confusion about love…what is it really?

What is it supposed to look like.

Our culture is constantly asking this.

Something inside us is always looking and asking about love.

We make up stories and songs about it all the time.

Listen to some of the things we say about love; see if you can relate…

 

“when will I be loved”

“love stinks”

“what’s love got to do with it?”

“stop in the name of love”

“love is a verb”

 

Love can mean a lot of different things…depending upon our experiences in life and how we use the word.

“I love cherry pie”       “I love walking in the park” “I love dancing the Funky Chicken”

            “I love being with my friends”           “Man, I love my brother!”

            “I love you, man!”      “I love my wife”         “I love, God”  “Jesus loves you”

 

 

 

Ancient Greeks actually had 3 different words for different types of love”

 

Philia: “Friendship"Love for family, friends, community.

Loyalty  you feel for people close to you.

Eros: passionate or romantic love….desire

or longing for another person or an appreciation of their beauty.

Very physical or emotional kind of love.

Personally, I think this is what we usually think of when we talk about “love” these days.

There’s an expectation of a good feeling.

We think about someone or something we desire…something we like and want to be close to.

It’s a kind of love focused on something we FEEL, and on what WE get out of it.

In reality it’s a rather selfishly motivated type of love.

Agape love: commitment to another person.

Motivated out of a decision to care for another person, regardless of how they act or respond.

This concept of love…Agape…is historically understood mostly from the bible.

This is where historians most often find the word Agape.

Bible writers used Agape to describe God’s love for mankind.

When Jesus says, “Love the lord you God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, the writer used the word Agape.

Paul, when he wrote 1 Corinthians used Agape to describe love as patient, kind, not proud or boastful or self-seeking.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.

Defined Agape love!  Agape more about what you can do for the other person than what you get from them.

Eros is more about what’s in it for me.

Agape love see past all the bad stuff we’ve done in life and says, “I care about you and I’m going to stick with you no matter what!”

 

Think about you life…how often have you messed up….today.

God loves you “Agape’s” you despite all that.

Look at Romans 5:8-“But demonstrates his own love for us in this; while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”…Jesus

gave himself up for you…and me…people who daily decide we’d rather do things our way than God’s.

That is Agape love.

Mothers~/and anyone who has worked with kids understand this…you love them despite the fact that they leave their toys and dirty clothes all over the place and they rip holes in the pants you just bought them a week ago….that’s

Agape love.

I think that really helps clear things up a bit.

I mean, when you live in a world where the word “loooove” usually brings to mind that “eros” kind of love…images of being close to the one you “looove”: holding hands, romantic evenings, etc…the phrase “Jesus loves you” can bring up some disturbing images, right?

I’ve had conversations with my wife before about Jesus loving her passionately, and I’ve had some problems with that.

First of all, it brings up some jealous thoughts…”Hey that’s my wife!”

..it’ also causes some disturbing questions about my relationship with God…what does that mean if He loves ME passionately as well?....

…you see what I mean here?

Our reflex is to think “Eros” when we are really talking about “Agape”…God strongly Agape loves my wife….Oh good…I am actually blessed the stronger her relationship with God is

God Agape loves me…Praise Him for that!

He’s on my side, looking out for me; committed to my well-being and cheering me on despite my ability to listen carefully to him.

Whew!

So remember that when someone says, “Jesus loves you man!”

 

Think about that now when you read “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

First of all…how do you love yourself?

Are you content with who God made you to be?  What do you think about when you look at yourself in the mirror?

All the blemishes and problems?

All the ways you’re not living up to the world’s expectations.

I know…the world does expect a lot of us; and people are quick to point out how we’re not cutting it.

But God made you the way you are and he is with you through it all.

God LOVES you no matter what and He knows you have what it takes to be the person He wants you to be…he designed you that way!

So love yourself as God loves you.

Sure we all have things to improve on, but trust God to guide you through all that…don’t give up on yourself and love the person God made you to be!

 

Now consider how to apply that to other people around you…If you’ve experienced that Agape love from God, you want everyone around you to experience it, too, right?

That’s a main reason the church exists.

We want to be people that help others experience the true love of God in their lives.

Think about showing God’s love to others..

 

Don’t take the easy way out on this and start thinking about the people you want to be nice to.

Think about the people you want to avoid.

God loves them and wants us to love them, too.

I often ask myself how do we practically do this…it’s not always easy…I think the best place to start is to look at what Jesus did….

Luke 5:29-32: spent time with sinners.

Accused of excessive behavior by other “religious folk”, but knew what he was there for.

Not too long ago Anna Nicole Smith died.

Her life was played out on TV over and over as the drama over her son and inheritance unfolded…Her life was full of excess…drugs, alcohol, sex…all kinds of excesses.

As I listened to the news of her death I couldn’t help but feel sad for her...I wondered if she had anyone how really loved her…Agape loved her…She was doing a lot of bad, self-destructive stuff...stuff we often try to avoid, but she NEEDED a positive influcene to show her God’s love.

Not someone to come in and tell her all the things she was doing wrong, but someone to encourage here that God had something better for her and that He loved her.

Need to ask~/remind ourselves how God has responded to us…how does he respond to us today when we mess up even after we’ve said we WANT to follow him.

Some of these people we’re talking about haven’t even made that decision yet!

John 4-Samaritan women.

He connected with someone shunned by the Jewish people.

He did point out what was wrong in her life, but in a loving way.

Didn’t condemn here for it…He offered here something better

 

It’s not just people like Anna Nicole who need our help either.