While today is Groundhog Day, what February is most known for is Valentines Day. As soon as Christmas is over, Christmas cards and candy are replaced with Valentines and chocolate hearts. We think of buying diamonds, roses, and chocolate as well as planning romantic dinners and getaways. February is the month of love and so we are going to take the next 4 weeks to explore what love is all about.
There have been countless books, poems, movies and songs that have talked about love. Here’s some of what we learned about love from some of Billboards #1 songs about love.
Hughey Lewis and the News told us about the Power of Love.
Wings told us that the world was filled with silly love songs… but what’s wrong with that?
The Captain and Tennille told us that Love will keep us together.
Stevie Wonder just called to say I love you
The Partridge family said, I think I love you so what I am so afraid of
Whitney Houston said I will always love you and
Diana Ross and Lionel Richie gave us the top #1 song on love that spoke of an Endless love.
But maybe it was the Beatles who said it best. They told us you can’t buy me love but all you need is love.
While that’s what the world has to say about love, today let’s look at the foundation of love in our lives:
We were made to
RECEIVE God’s Love,
RESPOND to God’s Love,
REFLECT God’s Love
We were made to RECEIVE God’s Love
If we go back to Genesis, we read about God creating the world and how everything God created He called good. God created the world and filled it with plants and animals, but then God created us in His image. But why did God create it all in the first place?
What moved God to start the process of creation and what motivated God to create us in His image and to be His children and to occupy a special place in the world? The answer is love. God created the world because God wanted to share and give His love.
We can understand this desire to love. When I was in 4th grade I had a paper route and one of the families on the route had a dog that had a litter of puppies. They said I could buy one if my parents said it was ok so I asked and begged my parents to let me get a dog. We had a dog at the time. It was the family dog and she was great, but she wasn’t my dog. I wanted a dog that would be mine. I wanted a dog because I wanted to give my love to something that was mine. I knew the dog was going to have to be housetrained and I would have to clean up after him and take care of him and that it was going to be a lot of work and heart ache, but I still wanted to get him because I had love to give.
Maybe that was part of the process you went through when you thought about having a child. It’s not that you wanted a tax deduction, or someone to do chores in 10-15 years, or someone to take care of you in your old age, you had love to give. You knew the problems that would come with a child. You knew there would be sleepless nights, diapers to change, messes to clean up, tantrums to endure, and that the entire process of raising a child was going to cost you a lot of money, but it would all be worth it because you had love to give.
The same was true with God. God created the world and placed us in it as His children because He had love to give. God knew we would give Him trouble and that we would turn away and that we would be willful, stubborn and sinful people, but God had love to give so He created the world and placed us in it. We were made to receive God’s love.
All through the Bible we hear God’s love for us described as a parent’s love for their child.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them.
4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them. Hosea 11:1-4
Here we see that God knows that as His children we will turn away, but He loves us anyway. As a good parent, God’s love endures and cares for us even when we sin. Jesus described God as a father and said we could pray to God as our father, not a distant parent but a loving dad who tenderly cares for His children. In another place. God is described as a mother hen who gathers her chicks under her protective wings.
We were created because God wanted to give His love, and so, the most important thing we need to do is RECEIVE God’s love. We need to accept God’s love and allow that love to shape and guide us. We need to allow God’s love to draw us close to Him in good times and in difficult times. We need to let God’s love fill us with a profound sense of value, worth, and dignity. The most important thing to know about love is that YOU are loved. You were made to be loved and God loves you. My prayer is that of Paul’s who said,
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19
Because this is the most important thing to know about love, and because nothing else we will learn about love will make any sense until we have this love firmly placed in our hearts and minds, we are giving out little pins that say, I Am Loved. (picture) We want you to know that you are loved by God.
When you aren’t feeling especially loved for any reason, this pin is to remind you that you are loved no matter what. We want to encourage you to wear the pin during this series and during the week keep it close by to remind you that God’s love is always there for you. You and I were made to be loved by God and when we receive this and allow God’s love to touch our hearts and lives, everything changes.
We were made to RECEIVE God’s love, but God’s love also calls for a response. We were made to RESPOND to God’s love.
God wants us to love Him in return. Going back to my first dog, when I brought him home, he responded to my love by giving me love in return. He would sit in my lap, sleep on my bed, and come to me when I called him. His response was to do what most dogs do, he loved me in return. This is what God wants. He wants us to love Him in return.
In the OT, God showed His love for His people by leading them out of slavery and into the promised land. After showing them this love, God said that this was how the people should respond:
love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
It’s known as the greatest commandment, but God really is saying that this should be our response to His love. We were made to receive God’s love but we were also made to love God in return. In fact, all of creation was made to love God in return and it does. The Bible says that all creation worships God.
Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds… Let them praise the name of the Lord.
Psalm 148, 3-4, 7-10, 13
All of creation worships God. When the planets align like they have recently, or we see a meteor shower, or the northern lights, it’s the heavens declaring God’s glory and singing their praise. When we hear birds sing, animals roar, rain fall and thunder roll, it’s the creation worshipping God. When we see the sunset, or the beauty of flowers, trees, and animals, it is creation giving praise to God. If the rocks cry out in praise, so should we.
We need to worship God with song and praise and prayer. We need to worship God with all we have and all we are. Too often we hold back in our worship of God, but we can’t hold back, we need to find ways to give God all we have and all we can as an appropriate response to God’s love. Take time every day to give God thanks and praise in worship, it is what we were made for.
We were made to RECEIVE God’s love, to RESPOND to God’s love and we are made to REFLECT God’s love. It’s not enough to love God, we have to reflect that love into our world. When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus linked loving God with loving others. He said,
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Matthew 22:37-40
Notice that Jesus said we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. So we have to first love ourselves. This doesn’t mean we become narcissists who make everything about us, or that we love ourselves over loving others or at the exclusion of others, but it does mean we have to love ourselves. Maybe a better way of saying this is that we first have to know that we are loved by God.
We can’t fully love others if we can’t first see that we are fully loved by God. This is why receiving God’s love has to come first. We can’t reflect and share with the world a love that we don’t understand and can’t receive. We have to first say, I am loved. I am somebody to God. I do have value, dignity and worth, before we can love our neighbors, family, or anyone else.
It is this love for others that we will explore in the weeks to come. We will learn what love looks like when it comes to forgiveness and mercy. We will look at how we can reflect God’s love in justice and service, in our relationships with family and friends, and in our daily living. There is a lot to unpack in all of this, but for now let’s consider how we can reflect just one example of Jesus’ love, His love shown to us at this table (communion).
Before Jesus presided at this Passover meal, He first served His disciples by washing their feet. After He did this, He told His disciples that He had set an example for them and that they should do what He had done. In other words, we need to reflect the love of God in this world by finding tangible ways to love and serve others.
The disciple John was deeply moved by what took place here and later wrote this about love:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7-11
God loved us so much that He not only created us and gave us life but when we willingly turned away, He brought us back and saved us through Jesus. We not only need to accept this love and respond to God in loving and grateful ways through worship, praise and thanksgiving, but we need to reflect this love to the world. In fact, if we don’t love others, then we don’t fully know and we haven’t received God’s love.
Right now, our world needs a reflection of God’s love. The world needs to see a love that is patient and kind, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. A love that will never end. In 1965, Burt Bacharach wrote a song that was turned down by many singers because they thought it was too preachy, but it became one of the anthems of the 1960’s. It’s a timeless truth that tells us that what the world needs right now is the reflection of God’s love. (What the world needs now…)
What the world needs now is love. God’s love. A love that isn’t just for some but for everyone. A love that can be reflected through you and me when we RECEIVE God’s love, RESPOND to God’s love and REFLECT God’s love to the world.
This week, let me invite you to allow love to change your life by doing three simple things:
Daily tell yourself, “I Am Loved”
Daily profess and express your love for God
Daily seek to be more loving to more people
Maybe the Beatles had it right all along. For our lives to be the best they can be and for the world to be the place God created it to be, all we need is love.
Next Steps
What songs, movies, poems and stories have shaped your understanding of love?
Read Genesis 1 & 2. How does the creation story teach us that God created the world in order to share His love?
We were made to:
RECEIVE God’s love
When were you first aware that God loves YOU?
Where and why do you struggle to see yourself as loved by God?
Daily tell yourself, “I Am Loved”
RESPOND to God’s love
How do you see creation worshipping God? (See Psalm 148)
How have you responded to God’s love for you?
What does it mean for you to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?
In what ways do you tell God that you love Him?
Daily profess and express your love for God.
REFLECT God’s love
Why does Jesus connect loving God with loving others? (See Matthew 22:37-40 & 1 John 4:7-11)
How are you currently reflecting God’s love in the world?
Where do you see that God’s love is needed in our world?
Daily seek to be more loving to more people.
