He Came To Demonstrate God's Love Series

He Came To Demonstrate God’s Love

I Am Jesus – part 6

Video ‘What Is Love’

Sermon Spice

What is love? NOW – that really is a good question… Defining love is not really an easy thing to do. I MEAN - how would you define it? YOU KNOW – I thought those people in the video gave it a good try…

• I like the guy who said that love is - ‘The essence of all things that leads to the ineffable”

• And the guy who said that love is – ‘fleeting. Every time you try to grab it, it disappears. Invisible. Ethereal (intangible). That which you constantly chase after but never catch up to.

• And I like the honest response of so many others; ‘I really wouldn’t know’ ‘I have no idea’ ‘I can’t describe it to you.’

NOW – I think that part of the problem in defining love is that love is the most overused word in the English language (The word love is thrown around more then a football at the super bowl). I MEAN - we use the word love to refer to so many different things… WE say, “I love my wife, I love my kids, I love God. I love my country. I love really spicy food. I love McDonald fries, I love catching rays on the beach, I love it when Steve preaches for a really long time …(man are you going to love today’s message) ”

We have love letters, love stories and love songs “I love you baby” “I can’t help falling in love” “I’ve lost that loving feeling” “I just called to say I Love you” “you are the sunshine of my life” “I love you just the way you are” “All you need is love,” “How Sweet It Is To be loved By You” and that all time classic --- “hello I love you – won’t you tell me your name.”

AND – this time tomorrow many people will be thinking about love… What’s tomorrow? Valentines Day… A DAY OF – cards, candy, flowers, dinners, roses, gifts and jewelry… Tomorrow is a day when love will be THE focus. A recent fox news poll indicates that 75% of Americans plan on celebrating V-day.

LOVE – even though hard define… still a lot of people want to tell you what it is… Here are a few definitions I found this week… LOVE IS;

• A warm hand on a cold night

• Friendship that has caught on fire

• A game you win by letting others go first

• What you’ve been through with somebody

• Heartburn w/o chili

• Surfing w/o a board and bungee jumping w/o a cord

• Not knowing how you feel and not feeling what you know

• A lot like jelly beans you have to eat the bad ones to enjoy the good ones

• Man’s attempt to no longer think

• Blind

• A battlefield

NOW – the bible, the word of God ALSO has a lot to say in regards to what love is;

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

(Understand – What Paul IS saying in those verses IS THAT without love; what you say, what you know, what you accomplish, what you give…AND EVEN your faith -- doesn’t matter!)

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.

- 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 (NIV)

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. – 1 John 3:16

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:6-8 (NLT)

Prayer

THIS MORNING – as we continue in our message series ‘I Am Jesus’ – we are making a slight course adjustment. NOW - for the past 4 weeks in our effort to understand Jesus better we have been talking about (Jesus, His Person). We have been unpacking various names and titles for Jesus found in Scripture and seeing what they reveal about Him. AND – what we have found… IS - that those names and titles are rich with meaning… UNDERSTAND - as we plunged the depths of the names;