What's Love Got To Do With It? - 02/20/2022

Grace Place Atlanta COGBF 4700 Mitchell Street Forest Park, GA 30297 Website: atlantacogbf.org Email: info@atlantacogbf.org Phone: (404) 241-6781 Wayne D. Mack, Pastor Pastor Wayne D. Mack Sermon Notes February 20, 2022 What’s Love Got to Do with It? John 3:16 The month of February continues to sail on. I hope you’ve found ways to express your love during the month traditionally celebrated as Love Month. At GP, I’ve promised to celebrate this month in preaching by taking a popular love song and correlating it with a message of spiritual significance. Today’s song wasn’t originally on my playlist of songs to be used in this series, but I credit Sis. Betty Johnson for her inspiring words of wisdom last Sunday that helped me decide. This morning, our love song of choice asks a question. And so, we’ll get a little help from Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” All I can say for starters is “Great question, Tina!” “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” 1 I think for those of us who are born again, the long and short answer to the questions is: Everything! “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Everything! But we can’t leave it there, we’ve got to make it plain and explain what we mean. I must admit, that in my typing notes for this message, I made a Freudian like slip and inadvertently typed: “What’s Love God to Do with It” – as if to say: “What’s the Love of God Got to Do with It?. That’s really the crux of the message and we’ll answer that momentarily. Meanwhile, a little background. What's Love Got to Do with It is both a 1984 number one hit song as well as a 1993 American biographical film based on the life of legendary soul singer, Tina Turner -- born Anna Mae Bullock – who discovers her love of singing in her Tennessee church choir. The meaning of “What’s Love Got to Do With It” is about one lover telling another prospective suiter or lover their attraction to each other will remain only that: an attraction. She sees their relationship as purely physical, and that love is irrelevant. So, to avoid commitment, the goal was to suppress true feeling, pretend no love existed between the two and keep it moving. Here's a taste of the lyrics: [The song starts off with a message to a lover: You must understand though the touch of your hand Makes my pulse react That it’s only the thrill of boy meeting girl Opposites attract It’s physical Only logical 2 You must try to ignore that it means more than that What’s love got to do, got to do with it? What’s love but a second-hand emotion? What’s love got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? She explains her feelings more in the second verse, but you’ll have to get those lyrics on your own. So, what does love have to with it? We’ve now come to the point of defining the real “It” {in this song and in life} [as it relates to second-hand emotions and broken hearts.]. “What is “It”? “It” What? For the benefit of this message entitled: “What’s Love Got to Do with It” – “It” is about RELATIONSHIP! If we were talking to a certain audience, the “It” relative to “Relationship” in our conversation would go like this: For animal lovers – “It” would define your relationship with Your Pet. For grandparents -- “It” would define your relationship with Your Grandchildren For Food lovers -- “It” would define one’s relationship with Food For Readers -- “It” would define your relationship with Your Books/ Publications For Saver and the Financial Savvy -- “It” defines your relationship with Your Money and Investments. For Singers and Public Speakers -- “It” would define your relationship with Your Voice. For People who are thirsty -- “It” would define your relationship with a thirst-quenching drink. You get the picture! 3 For those seeking to be right with the God -- “It” defines your relationship with Christ. “It” also establishes that Love is not just a second-hand emotion or a heart that is broken. But rather everything, it’s the only thing. No criticism for Tina, but a liberating truth to someone who is struggling to trust again and to recover from a broken heart. A broken heart is a reality. It’s a fact of life and love. Most of us have been there; some of us remain there. [Blessings to those who have found the consummate love connection]. But God’s love is the answer when you’ve tried love on many levels, and it’s only let you down. Perhaps you’re a victim of looking for love in all the wrong places. Or maybe you’ve experienced true love or what you thought was true, but it was one-sided or ended disappointingly. There’s an old saying that comes to mind: “I found love on a two-way street and lost it on a lonely highway!” Whatever the case, God’s Love is the answer to the question “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” It all begins with God because God is Love. Whether you’re saved and in God’s care asking this question or whether you’ve outside of God, He is the answer to “What’s Love Got to Do with It?’. A word to the wise: It is impossible to do life without the love of God! Now, although there’s more to this topic than I’ll be able to address in this message, there is one point of significance about today’s focus that serves both the saved and the unsaved. And that is - God is Love. What this is saying is that before any healthy, loving relationship can be formed outside of God, we must realize that true relationship begins with God. It is there that we learn self-awareness and who we are as a person of God’s creation. 4 And so, if God is love, then real love begins with Him and you. Now that’s real relationship. Again, God and you! God and me! No one else. There’s nothing like meeting someone who knows who they are in Christ. That is the epitome of True Relationship and True Love. God teaches us that learning to love self begins first with knowing the origin of Love. God is the beginning of Love. [Anything else is a fraud]. Tina said about Love – it’s a secondhand emotion. But the God of true love – the author, originator, and finisher of Love would have us know that we’re capable of loving only because He first loved us [according to 1John 4:19]. Love starts and stops with God. He created it out of His very nature, and He desires that we share and experience this wonderful gift to human kind. Here are four things regarding what LOVE has to do with you and me from God’s perspective: 1. We were made by God and for God – and until we understand that, life will never make sense. And, although we became separated from God in the Garden of Eden due to sin, our identity and purpose is discovered through a relationship with Jesus Christ – otherwise, we would be on a collision course with doom and death. 1 Peter 1:3-5 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 5 2. God’s love for us has been lavishly poured out to the point of overflowing within our hearts. God has implanted within our hearts evidence that we belong to Him in that we love the One who first loved us. Listen to how Romans 5:5-11 expresses this truth: 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6 For when we were still without strength, [d]in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. 3. God’s love is evident around us regardless of whether we acknowledge it or not. It is a display of His unconditional care and affection for us. You and I were created so that God could express His love to us and we could respond with love. Because He is love, and because that is His very nature, He wanted an object for His love. So He created man and woman. You and me. How does God express His love? Through creation (trees, mountains, nature); freedom to choose – choose to love Him or not – not robotic; by putting us in a family; by sending 6 the Holy Spirit to live within us and protect us and guide us; by causing all things to work together for good on our behalf; by providing us heaven and eternal life; by His constant presence in our lives. 4. Fourth and Final . . . thing regarding what LOVE has to do with you and me from God’s perspective. Having looked at some ways God expresses His love, we must also possess an awareness of what His love is like because He wants us to express that same type of love toward Him and our fellow brothers and sisters. What does God’s love look like? • His love is perfect; His love is everything it possibly can be. • His perfect love is a gift. We can’t work for it. God can’t help but to love us. • His perfect love that He gives us is everlasting. Jeremiah 31:3 reminds us “I have loved you with an everlasting Love; therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you”. We can do nothing to make God to stop loving us. • God’s love for us is unconditional. There are no “Ifs” in His love us. • God’s love is a sacrificial love. That is what the Cross is all about. • Finally, God gives us an immeasurable love. What’s Love Got to Do with It? 7