Valentine’s Day 2010 “God Is Love”
When Christianity began to become influential throughout the Roman Empire
it assimilated many of the pagan religious practices of the Roman Society
and Christianized them.
One such religious practice of the Romans was the Feast of Lupercalia-
A mid February spring fertility festival.
That Feast became St Valentine’s Day
Saint Valentine is shrouded in a bit of mystery.
Historians are not exactly sure who Valentine or Valentinius was.
There are several Valentines that were martyred for their faith.
The official word from the Vatican is that Valentine was executed by emperor
Claudius the Second around 270
Around 498 AD, Pope Gelasius declared 14th February as Valentine's Day to
honor saint Valentine of Rome
who became known as the patron saint of love and lovers.
Thus we have Valentine’s day—a religious holy day,
now almost completely separated from its spiritual significance,
honoring a man who died for his faith in Christ.
Thanks greatly to Hallmark, Candy manufactures and florists
we mostly think about the 14th of February as a day to celebrate our love for
another, our armoire.
Pepe Le Pew video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEdBndu0YUM)
Today I would like to put love on a more solid foundation than just a romantic
feeling,
that has the tendency to last only a short time and
beats you up as it departs.
A typical dictionary definition tells us that love is "an intense affection for another
person based on familial or personal ties".
But notice this love is “based on” which means that there is a degree
of personal preference,
which makes this kind of love conditional.
(http://www.allaboutgod.com/god-is-love.htm)
If you’ve paid attention, you’ve probably caught on that here at HBCC we have a
certain way of defining love.
After all love is one of those words that you must use in context to make any real
sense out of.
There usually is a huge difference in the meaning conveyed when
some says—“I love you” or when some says—“I love pizza.”
So we have defined love in four different emphases.
Love for God is demonstrated by our obedience to His commands
Love for Others is demonstrated by our seeking to meet the needs of others
often at the cost of personal sacrifice.
Love for the Earth is demonstrated by our wise stewardship of the material
things that have been entrusted to our care.
Love for Self is becoming the person God created you to be.
From these definitions we know that love is not a feeling.
Love is something that you do.
I am constantly amazed how the feelings follow the doing.
We’ve considered these definitions enough that I am confident that
if you’re not sure what they mean,
just ask someone else in the congregation and
they should be able to enter into an intelligent conversation
with you about the topic.
So today I want to consider a different aspect of love.
I want to consider 1 John 4:8 which reads
1 John 4:8 (NIV)
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God is love.
In the original language, the Greek, the word we’ve translated as love is the word
ἀγάπη agapē.
One of the definitions for agape is affection or benevolence,
or as with our love for others, a seeking to meet a need at the cost of a
personal sacrifice.
In philosophy class it was described as a disinterested love,
a love that does things without respect to the worthiness of the
individual.
In other words agape has no favorites.
Agape loves because that is what agape does.
Deuteronomy 7:7-8 (MSG)
“God wasn't attracted to you and didn't choose you because you were big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. God stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery…”
When we say that God is love we mean
“He doesn't love us because we're lovable or because we make Him feel
good;
He loves us because He is love.”
(http://www.allaboutgod.com/god-is-love.htm)
And that’s what love does.
God is love.
Since we know that everything rises and falls on relationships,
Love lives in relationship.
One of the results of love is right relationships
Jesus is God incarnate.
We can look at the person revealed to us in the Bible and
see love walking, talking, interacting with others;
we can see what love does.
Love seeks redemption and restoration, to establish right relationships.
1 John 4:9-10 (MSG)
This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.
When people who have little experience with spiritual truths hear that God is love,
they often have questions like:
“If God is love then why does He or did He allow….”
You can fill in the blank with just about anything.
Most of us have this notion that,
if God is a loving God,
then He must take care of all my earthly needs.
But that thought just doesn’t pan out in reality.
Voice of the Martyr’s clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXjlkaM-ikY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkBkO1DG_iA
I am pretty much convinced that Christians in America have an entitlement
mentality.
We expect that a loving God will keep us safe, healthy, prosperous.
But I can’t ignore the evidence that this idea is false.
Jesus told us that in this world we would have trouble. (John 16:33)
Jesus told us that we would be hated, persecuted and killed. (Matthew 24:9)
The Apostle Paul speaks of sharing in the fellowship of His suffering.
(Philippians 3:10)
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews commenting on God’s prophets,
the men and women chosen by God to deliver his message to the
world writes:
Hebrews 11:36-38 (NIV)
Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
I believe that worldly prosperity is not a sign of God blessings.
I do believe we should be thankful for our prosperity and
Use as much as we can to bless others
I believe physical health is not an indication that God loves you.
I do believe that God heals the sick, and for his healing we should be
thankful.
I believe that answered prayers are not a sign of God’s love.
I do believe that prayer is powerful tool to bring about divine interventions
in human affairs,
but neither answered nor unanswered prayer is a revelation of
the God who is love.
When we look for a demonstration that God is love,
instead of the material we must look to the spiritual.
Revelation 22:17 (MSG)
Is anyone thirsty? Come! All who will, come and drink, Drink freely of the Water of Life!
Love is experienced in and through relationship.
Love desire to have fellowship with you.
The reason God desires fellowship with you is because that’s what
love desires.
When we say that God is love we are not saying that God is nice and fair and kind
to everyone,
bestowing health, wealth and prosperity and any other worldly
blessing upon people,
but rather offering everyone the opportunity of entering into a right
relationship with Him,
to enter into His love, to enter into Him.
God is love.
That means when you enter into the presence of God you encounter love.
It is a dogmatic Christian truth that God is Triune.
We believe in the Trinity One God revealed to us as Father, Son
and Holy Spirit.
Within the Trinity there exists that most intimate of relationships,
a shared consciousness,
complete interdependence,
total Satisfaction;
a communion that is life creating and life
sustaining.
Because the Trinity is love, God is inclusive.
One theologian describes the Trinity as an eternal dance (Migliore) set
to a self generated orchestration, whose melody sings the world
into existence, whose harmonies maintain creation.
(C.S. Lewis)
Love calls you up into that dance.
Human love at its finest,
as the best poet can describe it,
pure and wondrous and healing and sacrificing and always
winning in the end
is but a poor reflection of the way God exists;
of the way God is.
(Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT) quoting E. Brooke)
Of the way that is desired for you to experience
God is love,
It is in love that all things are created.
It is in love that we move and breathe and have our being.
It is because God is love that He seeks to redeem all things.
God does not hate what Love has made.
He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
He has destined no human being for Hell,
while not forcing Himself on anyone.
(Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT))
God is love explains creation. (Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT))
I’ve wondered on many occasions if God knows,
why bother to create humanity in the first place.
The Fall, and humanity’s constant failure to maintain fidelity must be
a continual source of grief.
human atrocities, the evil that men do, must be judged.
Why should He create a species that brings Him nothing but trouble?
Because love so rejoices over one person who enters into a right
relationship with Him, that it is worth the suffering the
thousand who reject Him.
God is love explains free will.
God had made humanity in His image so that we could be in a personal
relationship Him.
Love requires a free response of the heart,
it can’t not be demanded or coerced.
(Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT))
God is love explains the miraculous.
God intervene in human affairs to direct the course of history to His desired
outcome.
God didn’t create and then leave,
Love continues to care and nurture.
(Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT))
God is love explains redemption.
“If God had been only law and justice,
he would simply have left humanity to the consequences of their sin.
The moral law would operate;
the soul that sinned would die;
and the eternal justice would hand out its punishments.
But the very fact that God is love meant that He had to seek and save that
which was lost.
He had to find a remedy for sin.”
(Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT))
God is love explains life eternal.
“The fact that God is love makes it certain that the chances and changes of
this life have not the last word…” (Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)
This is where I find incredible hope.
Even though I die yet will I live. (John 11:25)
There is a resurrection from the dead.
Death does not have the final say.
1 Peter 1:5-7 (MSG)
God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all—life healed and whole. I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
Love does not exempt from hard times,
from catastrophe, from pain, from loss, from suffering.
No these things are the result of the Fall.
Because of sin People are not right,
the planet is not right, bad things happen to good people while
bad people prosper, while the strong oppress the weak.
There is injustice, poverty, disease and death.
But love redeems as many people eternally out of this situation
as will willingly come.
Beyond this life there is the life to come.
Revelation 21:4 (NIV)
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
You see, Love wins out in the end.
For now we are “aliens and strangers in the world.” (1 Peter 2:11 (NIV)
Hebrews 13:14 (NLT)
For this world is not our permanent home;
we are looking forward to a home yet to come.
It is not as important as what happens to us,
as what happens in us.
From God’s eternal perspective He knows the joy of what is to come,
for those who share in His love.
Everything is inconsequential except for your relationship with Him.
That’s what will last.
Suffering has a season, Prosperity has a season.
Friendships last for a season
Love lasts forever.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.
God is love.
It is into love that He calls you,
He calls you into Himself,
Into a love that exists eternally.
Into the most intimate of relationships,
Knowing and being fully known,
Accepted and belonging.
The path of that call is through faith in Jesus Christ.
In Jesus we see this Love which is God,
A love that knows no bounds.
To enter into Love,
Accept the fact that you are not in a right relationship with God.
Believe that Jesus death and resurrection makes a reconciliation
between you and God possible.
Commit yourself to knowing this God who is love.
Then ask God to accept your faith.
When Love does, you’ll begin the journey into Love,
On the path of Love, Sustained by Love,
Encouraged by Love.
On Saint Valentine’s Day,
the day the Church set aside to honor one who died for his faith,
remembering him as the patron saint of love and lovers,
Why not seek the lover of your soul?
If you seek Him with all your heart,
With purpose, with commitment, with determination,
He will find you.
And invite you in,
Into His koinonia of Love.