LOVE

A few weeks ago, the youth group led our church service for the whole congregation. Jesse and I were chosen to each give a mini sermon on love. I wanted to share these sermons with you:

(My Sermon)

L-O-V-E. A four-letter word that, in our language, we use to convey a whole spectrum of emotions and concepts. We use it to describe everything from our strong affection for pizza to our deep-seated devotion to our family to our intense adoration of our spouse. And while this word has become completely cliché in our culture, often losing its true meaning, in reality, I don't know if it's even possible to accurately describe love in our human terms. It seems to be such a profound concept that only the tongues of angels could perfectly depict its meaning. And I'm here struggling to fit it on a single page of notes!

After hours and days and weeks of prayer and contemplation over what I should say today, I witnessed a short presentation, over-viewing the story told throughout the Bible. From the creation of Adam, the fall of man, the destruction and rebirth of humankind, the founding Fathers of Faith, and all of the prophecies that led up to the sacrifice of Christ, as He shed His blood to reconcile us to our Creator. And in the midst of it all, I saw a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross, similar to that which we've all probably seen countless times. But when I saw it, I was taken aback, in awe, recognizing it as the single greatest act of love in all of history.
I remember that as a kid my favorite quote said, “I asked Jesus ‘How much do you love me?’ ‘This much,’ He answered. And he stretched out His arms and died.” Did you know that outstretched arms are a way to convey a unit of measurement called a fathom, which is roughly 6 feet. Did you know that the same word, “fathom” also means “to comprehend or determine the depth of”. I find it profound that in a single action, stretching out His arms in love, Jesus displayed a love greater than we can fathom.

We know, though, that this display of outstretched arms in the crucifixion of Jesus was a horrible affair. He had been tortured, mocked and spat upon all night long and in the hours proceeding His grueling trek to Calvary. There nails were driven through His hands and feet and the raw, bloody flesh of His back was placed against a wooden cross. There, people mocked Him more, telling Him to come down if He were really the Son of God. But this death on the cross is not an example of victimization- It is demonstration of a love that nobody on this earth can comprehend. It’s not an example of a martyr dying for a cause- It is a King who came to die for His kingdom. It’s not an example of powerlessness- It is the love offering of the strongest, most powerful, most courageous human being that ever walked the face of the earth. Yes, He could have summoned legions of angels to rescue Him, but instead, His love for us held Him there. You see, God loves us just where we are, but He loves us too much to leave us there. Can you see that although you are not worthy of him, you are still of great worth to him? For He left the throne of Heaven to come to earth just to reconcile you to the Father.

Do you realize the depth of that reconciliation? The Creator of the entire Universe- the one who can merely utter a word and speak light and darkness into being, the one who marked out the dimensions of the earth, and who intricately sculpted mankind- wants to dwell within each of us- to draw us near to Him, after we have separated ourselves, and know us intimately. To know us in a way that we can call Him Abba... Father... Friend.

And all He asks in return is first that we love Him with everything we have, which if we truly recognize the sacrifice, the extent of this portrayal of love, that Jesus showed, how can we respond to Him with anything but love? And, if we truly realize that this sacrifice was something we never deserved in the first place, but complete grace, then we should be able to respond without hesitation to His second command that we love others with everything He has given us. 1 John 4 sums it up saying, “God showed us how much He loved us by sending His one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love- not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.”

So, this 4-letter word we use so casually in our culture not only is seen in complete truth in the sacrifice of Christ, but as we reciprocate our love to God, dying to self and living for Him, it then comes full circle, overflowing into love for others. No other action, no other emotion, no other declaration, no other virtue has as much impact as love does. No wonder Paul says that faith, hope, and love will always remain, but the greatest of these is love…

(Jesse's Sermon)

1 Corinthians 13:11-12
“When I was a child, I reasoned like a child. I thought like a child, and I talked like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; Then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

For much of my Christian life, I have not realized that I truly was trapped in my childish reason, talking, and thinking. I realize now that the reason for my captivity was because I had not yet grasped what it meant to be in God’s love. God has always know what I really have needed all along. God know that I was trying to find my identity or what Paul says, “A reflection in the mirror” in anything but his love. So he provided me with a woman that held me accountable more than anyone ever had before. But it is in our human nature that we choose to do it all alone.

Mandy and I have been in courtship for awhile. I had told her that I loved her many times, and vice versa. We had talked for a long time about marriage, and from the beginning were in agreement that you should ultimately only court with the intention of marriage. So we were very serious, and, to our benefit, so was God.

I, for one, had a lot of distractions, and, like I said before, I really hadn’t learned how to put my childish ways behind me. I was much like the Prodigal Son, as written in Luke 15, choosing to take what the God of the universe had given to me, and squandering it on temporary pleasures. I was so blinded by the enemy’s lies, justifying my sin, just as Paul states in Romans 1:29-31. I believed that I was good and I was justified in my “good humanism.” So it had become evident at this point that Mandy and I could no longer be together, because the Scripture says in 1 John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not understand it.” So through many hurtful words, all on my part, the bond God was creating had been broken between Mandy and I. Yet Got persisted through her.

The summer after I returned from college, God began to speak to me. He told me I had a choice: I could come back home to the Father, or I could continue to squander my life away in pointless, empty wild living. I chose to come home to the Father, but not because my heart was at home, but because I just knew it was the right choice. And I wasn’t going to make the wrong choice, because that really wouldn’t be of any benefit to me. It was evident that there was something missing.

So I had gotten settled back down here at home. I had found a good job, had a roof over my head, and really had nothing to complain about. Except, I was missing something. I had felt so empty, and lost in life. I would express this to Mandy as we attempted to be friends again. She would give me words of encouragement and options of roads to take, but I would push them away and think that “You don’t even understand what I’m going through.” It wasn’t much longer from this time that I was up late at night in my room, and I was going through things and came across a journal that Mandy had written about us and our entire relationship- good and bad times- that she had given to me. I began to read through it, and in the first pages it talks of things like, “God was teaching us so much,” “We were growing so close to each other and to God,” and one I remember very well, “When I told her for the first time that I loved her.” Things were so awesome in the beginning, but as time went on, I read of how sad things had gotten, how we had separated and how much she was hurt, and how in the midst of all of that, I treated her like dirt.

Mandy never stopped to be that accountability for me, though. I read how in all of the heartache, she knew that God loved me more than she ever could, and as Matthew 5:4 says, “You are blessed when you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One who is most dear to you.” God had embraced Mandy. And God began to manifest His unfailing & unconditional love for me through her.

Through reading this journal, I had been revealed a glimpse of God’s love in the midst of me, kicking dirt in his face and hammering the nails in his hands, when at any time, the God of the universe, the God of creation, the Alpha and the Omega, could have stepped down from the cross. This is surely an un-fathomable love.

So, in all of this, I have come to this conclusion:
God was patient in all my stubbornness. God was kind in all of my rudeness. God was not envious, when I was envious of the world. God did not boast, nor was he proud of my actions. God was not rude, or self-seeking when all I sought was self-gratification. God was never easily angered when there was much to be angry about my lifestyle. God kept no record of these wrongs, when there was much to be recorded. God never delighted in the evil within me, but rejoiced in the triumph of the Truth. God always protected the truth within, he always trusted in its effectiveness, and God always instilled within me the hope t hat led me to persevere. God’s love never failed.