What is Love? Valentine 2022 Sermon

ME

The year was 1997.

Brittany Willoughby was my first girlfriend, and we were both in 9th grade at the Mj. Juliet High School Annex.

*Show 9th grade pics*

She was a skinny kid and I was kinda pudgy (she thought I was cuddly)

I lived in a small home in Old Hickory, TN, and she lived in a huge home in a neighborhood in Mt. Juliet called Willoughby Station (not named after her family.)

We had been dating for a while when I went over to her house for New Years Eve.

We watched an Episode of South Park (not family friendly) and hung out waiting for the ball to drop.

Now I was convinced that we were going to have our first kiss when the ball dropped at midnight.

I was ready bruh!

So there we were, in the upstairs bonus room, counting down ”10, 9, 8, 7,….

But there was one HUGE problem… her Mom and Dad were in the ROOM WITH US!

So I completely froze- like I was NOT going to kiss her In front of the parents bc I might not make it out alive.

EPIC FAIL.

And Brittany broke up with me a week later for some dude named Jacob (lame).

Looking back, it‘s silly now.

But that little 9th grade heartbreak hurt me for like that whole school year...

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WE

We’ve all seen or experienced this before. Maybe you’ve hurt someone and as a result they no longer wanted to be your friend or date you anymore. You didn’t call when you said you would. You said something that was unkind; you didn’t think it was a big deal, but he or she did. Maybe someone has hurt you, and even though other people might forgive what happened, you just know that you are better off without them in your life. We all have a line. We all have a certain amount or a certain kind of hurt that we just can’t take.

But what if you were told; what if you were promised that there was nothing that you could do to make someone stop loving you? What would someone have to do to prove to you that no hurt, misunderstanding, or betrayal could cause him or her to stop loving you? That would be hard to prove, because no matter what you did you would wonder, “is this going to cross the line? Is this going to be the hurt that is too big to come back from?”

GOD

“I am always going to love you. I am never going to give up on you.” That is the message that God was trying to show to His people, the nation of Israel, in the book of Hosea. For a few hundred years the nation had been in this pattern of disobeying God, worshiping other gods, and then begging God to save and protect them when they needed it. God had sent prophet after prophet to tell them that He loved them, and would be faithful to them no matter what. He had given them a covenant that he had not made with any other nations or peoples. He had given them His word, the Law, and said “here is what you do to have a right relationship with Me, and here is what you do in case you mess up. I love you. You are mine and I am yours.” But they continued to turn their backs on Him.

God wanted to show His people the way He loved them in a way they would understand, so He told the prophet Hosea to do something that sounds a little crazy.

Now Hosea is about 60% of the way through your Bible, it is the first of the books that we call Minor Prophets. They aren’t called Minor Prophets because they weren’t important, but just because they aren’t as long as some of the other books. Hosea comes right after Daniel, and before the book of Joel in your Bible. Look with me at Hosea 1:2-3 (NIV).

Hosea 1:2–3 NIV

When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” So he married Gomer (Complete) daughter of Diblaim (TWO RAISIN CAKES), and she conceived and bore him a son.

Here’s what I think of when I hear the name Gomer:

Show Pic of Gomer Pyle

God told His prophet, a good and righteous man, to marry a woman who was certainly not good and righteous. Promiscuous and adulterous are the kind ways that Gomer is described; other translations call her a harlot and a whore. God wanted Hosea to know what it felt like when the nation of Israel turned her back on Him, so poor Hosea fell in love with, married, and had children with a woman who he knew would turn her back on him. They had three children together, and then she broke his heart. She left. But she didn’t just leave. When she left she began prostituting herself all over town.

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God loved His people so much, He still loves His people so much, that every time they strayed, every time we stray, it felt and feels like being cheated on. Think about Hosea, he had a good reputation; everyone in town knew he was a good guy. Imagine what they thought when he married Gomer. Imagine what they whispered to each other when she left. He was hurt and heartbroken personally, but he was humiliated publicly. God wanted Hosea to know exactly how it felt when the person or people you love the most turn their backs on you, because that is how it feels to God every time we disobey Him or chase after other things instead of Him.

But just because God’s people hurt Him, it doesn’t mean that He stopped loving them, and even when we turn our backs on God, there is nothing we can do to cause Him to stop loving us. Look at what happened with Hosea and Gomer two chapters later.

Hosea 3:1 NIV

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

Even though she had left Hosea, and had been unfaithful again and again, God told Hosea to love her. God wanted Hosea to love Gomer in spite of all she had done, the same way He loved Israel even though they followed false gods and loved worshiping them. The weird part at the end about raisin cakes, although it really does sound delicious, is probably a reference to a certain cake that was eaten as a part of worshiping the idol Baal.

So Hosea did what God told him to do:

Hosea 3:2–3 NIV

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”

He doesn’t just take her back. He doesn’t just forgive her. He pays off anyone who might try to claim her or do her harm. He sacrifices his pride, and he sacrifices his wealth because he loves her. The sad truth is, fifteen shekels and a little bit of barley was barely anything. It was less than you would pay someone if you accidentally killed their slave in those days. The men she had left Hosea for, the ones she had chased after thought she was worth less than a dead slave. Hosea paid them off, took her home and basically said “I love you, and I am going to keep loving you like you never hurt me, so please don’t hurt me again.

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YOU

The message that God was trying to get across was “No one is going to love you like I do. I am going to love you no matter what you do or have done.” As much as God tried to get that across to His people, they had a hard time grasping it, because it was so different than the love they experienced from everyone else in their lives. If we are being honest, God’s love is sometimes hard for us to grasp too. We think that, just like everyone else, we are going to get to a point where we are unlovable or unforgivable, but that’s not how God loves!

WE

If God’s love is different than the love we experienced from everyone else in our lives, shouldn’t our response to it be different as well? In Hosea 3, when Gomer saw that Hosea was willing to pay off her debts, forgive her, and love her in spite of all she had done, her response was different. Once she saw the magnitude of his love, she no longer tried to test the limits of it. She didn’t try to see how much hurt he could deal with; she stayed with him, because she finally understood that he loved her. But the love Hosea had for Gomer was only a fraction of the love that God has for you and for me.

If you have put your faith in Jesus as your Savior, He has paid your debt of sin, He has forgiven you, and He loves you in spite of all you have ever done. If you haven’t put your faith in Jesus, what are you waiting for? You will only ever experience this kind of love through Him! Now the question is, how are you going to respond to this love?

*God that Saves Music Video*