God Is Love

-Do y’all know what the number one pop love song of all times is?

-It is actually “Something” by the Beatles

-The lyrics to the third verse are actually very interesting

-It goes, “You’re asking me will my love grow,

I don’t know, I don’t know.

Stick around, and it may show,

But I don’t know, I don’t know”

-That is the way the world looks at love

-We see it all the time on television and in the movies

-People jumping in and out of bed with people other than their spouse

-It is sentiments like the lyrics of the Beatles’ song that leads people to say, “I don’t love you anymore” or “We’ve fallen out of love”

-When you are dependent on your own source to come up with love that is what you get

-When you find out that your Sleeping Beauty’s beauty is now asleep or your Prince Charming is really a frog, people want to bolt

-But it is different for us, as Christians

-The text that you’ve chosen talks a lot about love but it really wasn’t meant to be a wedding text

-Actually, in the chapters before and after our text, the Apostle Paul is addressing a problem in the Corinthian church

-God had blessed them with many great spiritual gifts but that apparently filled many of them with a lot of pride

-Some were able to speak in other languages without having to study

-Others were able to interpret what others said in other languages

-Some were able to do miracles

-Some were even able to prophesy and foretell the future

-The problem was they started having disagreements over whose gift was the greates

-You see, they all wanted to show off their gifts for the assembled worshippers

-It became something like a circus act, each trying to upstage the others

-It made worship chaotic

-How would it work it everyone of y’all sitting out there all tried to come up here and talk and do miracles all at the same time?

-That’s right chaos

-So the Apostle Paul writes to them telling them that none of their gifts is of much use if they don’t have love

-If they are more interested in putting their best foot forward, that isn’t love

-Paul is trying to get them to see that allowing others to put their best foot forward is what love is all about

-And that is what Jesus demonstrated for us

-He said, “I have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.”

-Some of you might be saying, “Hey, wait a minute. He’s talking about Jesus in a wedding sermon. What’s he doing?”

-If I didn’t talk about Jesus in a wedding sermon I would be remiss

-In fact, if I didn’t talk about Jesus in a message on love, I wouldn’t be talking about love at all.

-He is love

-In the Bible it says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

-Because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience against God in the Garden of Eden, it not only separated them from God but also from one another

-But God through Jesus Christ, is putting it all back together again. Jesus died to reconcile you to God but also to one another.

-As it says in Scripture, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”

-As we talked about in premarital counseling, you have the ability to hurt one another like no one else, because you know each other so deeply

-You know the things that, if said, would really hurt the other person

-That is why Christ’s death and resurrection is so important for your marriage and for every other human relationship

-I’m sure you’ll be fine as long as you continue to stay plugged into chapel.

-Remember the stats that we talked about in premarital counseling

-Couples that live together before they get married divorce at a rate of 80%, those that go to church together regularly at 40% but those that read the Bible, pray and go to church regularly at .1%

-That is because God is loving through each person to touch the life of the other

-Maybe you don’t have a relationship with God right now

-But maybe you’d like to

-I’m be happy to share with you the difference that it can make in your life too