Introduction:
A. The story is told of a husband and wife, who had been married for many years and who were having dinner one night.
1. As they ate, the wife commented, “When we were first married, you took the small piece of meat and gave me the larger piece, but now you take the large one and leave me the smaller one. I’m afraid you don't love me any more.”
2. The husband quickly and adamantly replied, “Nonsense, darling, I love you just as much or more than I did back then. The reason I now take the larger piece of meat is not because I love you less, but because you are a much better cook now than you were back then!”
B. Love, Love, Love…It can be such a confusing thing, can’t it?
1. Just what is love?
2. How do I know I am in love or if I am acting in love?
3. How do I know if others love me?
4. These are some of the questions that I hope we can address today.
C. We are in a sermon series called “All You Need Is Love!”
1. So far we have learned that love is the most important thing, and that it is the key to everything.
2. We also have learned that God is love and is the source of love.
3. But after establishing those two truths, it is time to define and explain what real love is.
D. As you know so well, we use the word “love” a lot, but it is often overused, misused, and misunderstood.
1. According to Amazon.com, there are at least 32,507 books currently in print with the word “love” in the title, and over 145,000 books that deal with the subject of love.
2. There are over 11,000 popular albums/CDs with “love” in the title.
3. And there are at least 121 million web-sites that use the world “love” as one of their key words.
E. So we can see that love is an important subject to all of us, but do we really know what love is?
1. First of all, let’s consider some wrong ideas about love.
I. What Love is Not.
A. The first false idea about love is that “love equals romance.”
1. Many people move from one relationship to another and describe them all as love, but were they really in love?
2. Most of the popular songs of any generation have to do with so called love.
a. 1976 was a very good year for love songs achieving the #1 position on the Billboard Top 100. First there was “Love Rollercoaster” by the Ohio Players, followed by Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” “Love Machine” by the Miracles, “Let Your Love Flow” by the Bellamy Brothers, “Love Hangover” by Diana Ross and the longest-running “love” No. 1 of the year, Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Silly Love Songs.”
b. More recent #1 love songs include Usher’s “Love in This Club” (2008) and Rihanna’s “We found Love” (2011-2012). I probably would not recognize either of those songs if I heard them, which tells you how behind the times I am.
3. Most popular “love” songs are about romance, at best, and lust or illicit sex, at worst.
4. Love and romance are not the same thing.
B. A second false idea about love is that “love is a feeling.”
1. Some of us from an older generation will remember B.J. Thomas’ song “Hooked on a Feeling.” (I’m hooked on a feelin’, high on believin’ that you’re in love with me.)
2. Thomas’ words sum up the idea that love is an emotion which gives us the warm fuzzies, or goose-bumps.
3. One person defined love as “a feeling you feel when you’re about to feel a feeling you never felt before.”
4. If love is only a feeling we feel, then what happens when the feelings come and go?
5. Some of you will remember the old Righteous Brothers’ song, “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling.” The chorus went like this: You've lost that lovin' feeling, Whoa, that lovin' feeling, You've lost that lovin' feeling, Now it's gone...gone...gone...wooooooh.
C. A final false idea about love is “love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
1. I’m dating myself again by illustrating this point with the 1970 classic movie “Love Story” starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal.
2. The famous line from the movie is “love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
3. In other words, love means never being critical or having accountability.
4. Love, so it goes, never takes a hard stand, it is devoid of truth.
5. Love is just a soft, mushy thing with no expectations or boundaries.
D. So these are some wrong ideas about love and where do these ideas come from? The world and the media, right?
1. Love is not just romance, and it certainly is not lust.
2. Love is not just a feeling.
3. Love is not just a soft, mushy thing that has no foundation or form.
4. So if that is not what love is, then what is love?
II. What Love Is
A. Let me begin to define love by telling a story that many can relate to.
1. Jeff, a college sophomore, attends the freshman mixer to meet girls.
2. On his way to the punch bowl, he sees Meg for the first time, and his mouth drops open in amazement.
a. Meg isn’t good looking, she’s a goddess – he has never seen anyone so beautiful.
3. Jeff’s heart begins to race, his mouth goes dry, and his palms sweat.
a. All he wants to do is get close to her and meet her.
4. He finally gets up the courage to introduce himself – they talk for a few minutes, then Meg excuses herself with a flirty smile.
5. For the next two weeks, Jeff can’t eat, sleep, or study.
a. He plans his day around bumping into Meg “accidentally” on campus.
b. They meet for lunch a couple of times, and he calls her and they talk.
c. On their first official date, they hold hands in the movie.
6. After getting to know Meg better, Jeff is even more impressed and captivated.
7. Finally, one moonlit night after numerous dates, Jeff ecstatically blurts out, “Meg, you are so amazing, and I have to tell you that I love you.”
a. Meg says, “I love you, too.”
8. It’s obvious that Jeff and Meg are falling in love, but what kind of love are they experiencing?
B. If your answer is romantic love, then you are right.
1. There are at least four kinds of love in human relationships.
2. C.S. Lewis, in his well-known book, The Four Loves, identifies them by their Greek names – eros, philia, storge, and agape.
3. Storge is love that is expressed in family relationships and is a special kind of love.
4. Today, I want us to focus on the other three.
C. Let’s start with Eros.
1. We might remember eros by the statement “you make me feel so good.”
2. Eros is a more self-centered type of love that focuses more on the pleasure gained than the pleasure given in a relationship.
3. Although other types of love may come into play later in the relationship described earlier, but Jeff and Meg, and most of the rest of us, are initially drawn together by eros.
a. Jeff pursued Meg because her appearance pleased his senses.
b. He stayed in pursuit because, like taking a drug, being with Meg brought him pleasure, satisfaction, even a sense of euphoria.
c. In short, Jeff wanted to be with Meg because she made him feel so good.
4. At its very worst, eros is animalistic lust, and at its best, it is a deep physical and emotional longing for someone.
a. C.S. Lewis calls eros falling in love or being in love, and he differentiates between noble and ignoble eros.
5. Now, there’s nothing wrong with “being in love” in the best sense, as those who have fallen in love will attest, but eros is a poor foundation for a lasting and healthy marriage.
6. In reality, eros is not even mandatory for a successful marriage – consider the cultures where marriages are arranged by parents before the bride and groom even meet, let alone fall in love.
a. Those couples must set about the task of establishing a relationship based on something other than magnetic attraction.
7. If the love between a man and woman is going to flourish, then it must expand from self-satisfying, romantic eros to an other-centered, other-satisfying love.
D. A second kind of love is called philia – or friendship love.
1. You can remember philia by Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love), or by the statement “you’ve got a friend.”
2. Consider four friends named Walter, Ezra, Rueben and Chester who share an intense love for chess.
3. They meet at noon every Saturday in the park, rain or shine, and play chess.
a. The four friends talk during their games, but the subject matter usually is about chess.
b. Occasionally they talk about their careers, or brag about their children and grandchildren, or argue about politics, but pretty quickly everything turns back toward chess.
c. If these men didn’t have chess in common, they probably wouldn’t have met in the first place, or having met, they wouldn’t have become friends.
4. Friendship love, or philia, is a relationship of mutual admiration, and “give and take” based on common interests.
a. Lewis writes, “Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelors.”
5. Philia is less self-centered than eros, but if one member takes too much and gives too little, the friendship may be on shaky ground.
a. Friends take care of each other when needs arise, but that’s not principally why friends are friends.
b. Friends come together over a common task, idea, activity, cause, or experience.
6. If the common interest between friends ceases to exist, a higher level of love must become active to keep friends together.
7. For example, when Walter suffered a debilitating stroke, Reuben and Chester felt sorry for him, but they never went to see him – they were more concerned about finding a new 4th for their chess matches.
a. Ezra, however, visited Walter in the hospital.
b. And when Walter went home, Ezra visited him 2 or 3 times a week.
c. Walter could no longer play chess with his friend, in fact he couldn’t even talk about chess, having completely lost his ability to speak.
8. Ezra’s love for his friend had reached a new level – a sacrificial love that demands nothing in return, which is the last kind of love I want us to think about.
E. The highest form of love is called agape.
1. I want to encourage you to think of this statement as a summary of agape – “love without strings.” (or in other words – agape love is unconditional love)
2. Agape is love that is of God and is from God.
a. It is a love that gives without demand for return.
b. It is a love that makes the health, happiness, and growth of others as important to us as our own.
c. It is a love that is committed to provide and protect.
d. One person defined it like this: agape is giving someone what they need the most, when they deserve it the least, at great personal cost.”
e. Added to eros, agape can transform a romance into a dynamic, fulfilling marriage.
f. Added to philia, agape can transform a common friendship into a deep and meaningful bond.
3. C.S. Lewis calls agape “gift-love.”
a. Agape is the love of God who, needing nothing, “loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them.”
b. As we discussed last week, God’s gift-love was supremely demonstrated in the gift of His Son given for our redemption.
4. C.S. Lewis described two kinds of agape that humans exercise.
a. The first kind, Lewis calls human gift love – which is our best attempt to love unselfishly and sacrificially, which on a human level is limited.
b. The second kind, Lewis calls divine gift love – which is the very love of God, the indwelling God of love – working in us and through us to protect and provide for others.
c. Only God’s divine love can allow us to love anyone and everyone without strings attached.
d. Lewis says that God’s divine gift-love allows us “to love what is not naturally lovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior and the sneering.”
e. It is to this level of love that Christ called us when He said, “Love your enemies” (Mt. 5:44), and “love each other as I have loved you” (Jn. 15:12).
5. Paul was speaking of divine agape love when he instructed us to “do everything in love” (1 Cor. 16:14), and “live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2).
6. Peter echoed the command: “Above all, love each other deeply” (1 Pt. 4:8).
7. The apostle John followed suit: “Let us love one another, for love comes from God…Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 Jn. 4:7, 11).
F. I want to conclude today’s sermon by pointing out that, ultimately, love is a verb.
1. If you look in the dictionary, you will see that love is listed as a noun, not a verb.
2. But what I want us to realize is that love is not something that comes over us against our will, rather, we must realize that the highest form of love is a decision. It is a choice. It is a commitment.
3. The highest form of love, agape, is a decision to act in the most loving way possible.
4. In future lessons, we want to get down to the most basic and practical demonstrations of love.
G. When we look into Scripture and study the subject of love, we realize that Bible never actually defines love, rather it only describes love.
1. As we have already learned, love is more than a feeling or an attitude.
2. Love is an action – it is behavior; activity.
3. Love is only love when it acts.
4. Look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
a. Love is something, because love does something. Love acts a certain way.
b. In the Greek, all those descriptions of love are verbs.
c. It should say, “Love is patienting, and love is kinding, and not prouding.”
d. I know that doesn’t make very good English, but that’s the idea – love is a verb.
5. Look at our Scripture Reading for today: 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. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth (1 Jn. 3:16-18).
a. Love is a verb.
b. Jesus loved us by laying down His life for us.
c. We love when we help our brother or sister in need.
d. The most important part about love isn’t “love in our heart” or “love on our lips,” but love in action.
6. A man named Henry Grady said it like this: “There is no such thing as love – there is only somebody who loves. Love, this thing called love, does not exist in heaven or earth or in any secret corner of creation. It exists only when somebody loves and only in somebody’s act of loving. There is no love; there is only a lover.”
H. The famous black preacher, Dr. E.V. Hill tells the story about a time when he was receiving many death threats.
1. His wife took those death threats very seriously.
2. One morning, when Dr. Hill got dressed for work, he came out of the house and went to get into his car, but it was not there.
3. He couldn’t imagine where his car was. Perhaps it had been stolen.
4. As he was still thinking about the disappearance of the car, his wife suddenly drove up.
5. He asked why his wife had left the house without telling him and why she was driving his car.
6. His wife said, “I was thinking…This community needs you more than it needs me. So if someone had rigged your car with a bomb, I wanted it to get me instead of you.”
7. Dr. Hill said, “I always thought that my wife loved me, but now I understood what love was all about.”
8. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this…” How did Jesus finish that statement?
a. Greater love has no one than…they have deep feelings in their heart.
b. Greater love has no one than…they tell everyone how much they love you.
c. Greater love has no one than…they buy extravagant gifts for you (not true but much appreciated!).
d. No, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13).
Conclusion:
A. What is love, really?
1. It is a decision…a choice…a commitment.
2. It is a verb…action…behavior…demonstration.
B. Are you willing to receive God’s love and to put it into practice?
1. If we really love God, then we need to show Him – Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (Jn. 14:15).
a. What was Jesus’ main command that we must obey?
2. Jesus’ main command is that we love one another – “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (Jn. 13:34).
3. Loving one another is all about the demonstration of love - The behaviors of love - living a life of love. What a blessing for everyone when we make love a way of life.
4. May God help us to do just that!
Resources:
Love is Always Right, by Josh McDowell and Norm Geisler, Chapter 6, “Love in Contrast”
God is Love, Sermon by Scott Bayles, SermonCentral.com (source for many opening statistics)
Following the Way of Love, Sermon by Jim Mooney, SermonCentral.com
Absolute Zero, Sermon by Byron Harvey, SermonCentral.com
