Sermon Tone Analysis

Opener

In 1969, the Beatles published their album Yellow Submarine.

Part of that album was a song called “All You Need Is Love.”

The message of the song is basically that there is nothing you can’t do, no one you can’t help, nothing you can’t learn, nothing you can’t accomplish.

There is a superpower within you, the song argues, and with that superpower there nothing you can’t achieve.

What is that superpower?

It’s love.

Now the thing about this song is that there is nothing in the song to explain what kind of love they mean: is it romantic love, neighbor love, friendship love?

The song doesn’t tell us.

How does it operate?

The song doesn’t tell us.

What does it look like and what are its characteristics?

The song doesn’t tell us.

How can we get it for ourselves?

The song doesn’t tell us.

I like the song.

I like the Beatles.

And I know one song can’t begin to say everything there is to say about love or anything else.

But the song illustrates the point I want to make: our culture is hopelessly confused about what love is - what real love, biblical love, true love, Christian love - is.

This is part of our sermon series on summer theme.

What was last year’s summer theme?

What is this year’s summer theme?

Be The Church.

You can see the permanent logo for our church on your screen.

Now you can see the summer theme on your screen.

Be The Church.

What does it mean to be the church?

It means to worship, serve, grow, and love.

It’s the purpose of these sermons to help you understand what it looks like to worship, grow, love, and serve.

May the Lord bless the preaching of His word.

#1: Christian love for others originates in God’s love for us

Our love for others originates in God’s love for us.

That is to say, love comes from God.

Real love comes from God.

We see this in 1 John 4:9-10 on your screen.

The apostle John writes, “in this the love of God was made manifest among us” - in other words, this is how God has shown us His love.

How? “that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

God is love, John also says.

God is not merely a loving God; He is love itself.

We are broken lovers.

We are called to love God with all that we are and our neighbor as ourselves.

But we cannot do this on our own.

Sin has left us selfish and self-centered, and as a result we are to varying degrees selfish and self-centered lovers.

And that’s what John means when he then says in verse 10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation” - or the sacrifice that atones for our sins, the offering Christ offered in offering Himself on the cross for us and in our place.

God’s wrath toward us was exhausted and absorbed by Jesus; the penalty for us breaking the law is death, and Jesus satisfied that penalty.

God has sent His Son to us when He needed Him the most and when we could do absolutely nothing to repay Him.

That is love.

Not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us.

You’ve probably heard it said that you can’t love others if you don’t love yourself?

No, that’s not true.

Some of you might not like me saying this: Our deepest need church is not to grow to love ourselves; our deepest need is to understand God’s love for us.

Then we can learn to love others.

The Bible seems to be pretty clear in saying to us that we already love ourselves and that moreover this self-love is the root of all of our problems.

Self-love drains us and leaves us feeling empty and hopeless and unloved.

His love fills us up.

And out of that fullness, we learn to love others.

Christian love for others originates in God.

#2: Christian love for others is shaped by the truth of Scripture (Head)

The second thing the Bible teaches us about true love is that Christian love is shaped by the truth of Scripture.

We see this in 1Cor.

13:6.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

Our culture’s definition of love disagrees.

Our culture’s idea of love says that if you love me, you must affirm everything about me.

If you love me, you will celebrate every choice I make.

But church, that is not love.

I don’t always make the best decisions; some of my decisions you cannot and should not celebrate.

Not everything about me needs to be affirmed.

Some things about me need to be called out for the sin that it is.

And when Paul writes that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing”, he means just that.

He means that real love does not celebrate sin.

Real love does not affirm what is wrong.

True love does not condone the things about us that work against love and destroy it.

True love does, however, Paul says, rejoice with the truth.

What does that mean?

What is the truth?

Our culture is just as confused on what the truth is as they are about love.

It means the contents of the OT and NT.

It means the character and attributes of God as described in the Bible.

It means the commandments and instructions for living found in both the OT and the NT.

And especially for Paul and the apostles, means the gospel according to Scripture; the truth that Jesus Christ came and took on flesh and lived a perfect life for me and died a substitutionary atoning death for me and rose in victory to give me eternal life and resurrection power to not only spend eternity with Him in heaven but also to begin learning how to live a holy and godly life here.

That is the truth.

That means it gives me tremendous joy to see you all grow in your relationship with Christ.

It gives me tremendous joy to know that you all are fighting temptation and confessing sin when you fail and receiving grace when you fail.

It should give you joy to see your fellow church members learn to love and show mercy.

It should give you joy to see.

It gave me tremendous joy to see that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday.

I cannot affirm or celebrate abortion.

That would be as Paul says to rejoice at wrongdoing.

I don’t think abortion is an unforgivable sin.

I don’t think women who have had abortions are monsters who don’t love their children.

I think most women who have abortions are in what seems to them to be an impossible situation.

And they’re simply taking the path that our society says will bring them the most fulfillment and happiness in life.

I also think churches have a responsibility to really prove that they’re pro-life when it comes to these women.

I think now that Roe v. Wade is overturned, now is our time, church.

We claim to love the women who are walking into the abortion clinic.

Will we?

It’s easy to hold up a sign.

It’s harder to befriend a pregnant teenage girl and bring her into your home and give her a place to live and support her financially and emotionally and spiritually all the way through pregnancy and after.

If we’re going to ask women to do the hard thing and bring their babies to term, we need to be there for them in that hard thing just like we would anybody else who’s going through any kind of struggle.

It does not give me tremendous joy to hear that a dear friend of mine has left his famliy and his wife for another woman.