Love is the Answer
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Love is the Answer
Romans 13:8-10
Title Slide
Good morning and welcome to worship today. I greet you as one who has been recently released from Covid Quarantine. I had tested myself before worship last week and I was negative, so all was good… then overnight last Sunday into Monday I woke up knowing that I was sick. Monday morning I used one of the free tests from the government and I was “positive.” So, I got to nap and binge-watch shows and read and nap… Following the current CDC guidelines that seem to change as often as a baby’s diaper, I completed my 5 day quarantine and I will wear a mask in public for the next 5 days.
I do appreciate the prayers that were offered on my behalf, and I am thankful that my illness wasn’t much more than a really bad cold.
OK, enough about that… we are here to talk about God’s word and today, we are jumping out of the Shipwrecked series to talk about LOVE. Ladies and Gentlemen, in case you didn’t already know this, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. The day we celebrate love and share overpriced flowers and chocolates with the object of our affection. Valentine’s Day is all about love, so that is what we will discuss today.
Yes, I know I talked a bit about love a few weeks ago when we looked at fear, that love is the antidote to fear, that love is the opposite of fear. But today, we are going to look at love a little differently. In fact, after we read today’s passage and pray, I have a little something special that I have written about Love that I hope you will enjoy. In fact, I invite you to listen for your favorite Love song.
Today’s scripture comes from Romans 13:8-10 and I invite you to that passage now. In the passage leading up to verse 8, Paul is sharing how we are to live a life doing what is right, follow the laws of the land, pay our taxes, and honor our governmental authorities… He is telling us that we are to live a public life that is above reproach, then he reminds us that the answer to everything is love.
Turn with me to Romans 13:8-10:
Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.
Romans 13:8-10 NLT
Prayer
Title Slide
“Love is the answer”. We ask ourselves, “What’s Love got to do with it?” We know love is “More than Words,” it isn’t just “Feelings.” Deep down we know that love isn’t just looking at our spouse and telling them “Baby, I'm Amazed,"or "You Look Wonderful Tonight.” The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, but then we look over “Heaven and Earth” and see who our neighbor is and ask, “How Am I Supposed to Love You?” while in our heart we understand that “God Only Knows” because “That’s the Way Love Goes.”
But, our God is no “Part time Lover.” God offers an “Endless Love”, actually it is the “Greatest Love of All.” The “Longer” we look at it the "More" we realize that we don’t need some “Silly Love Song” to recognize the “Beautiful” “Unforgettable” “Glory of Love” that is lavished upon us from above.
Our problem is that “Time after Time” we jump on the “Love Rollercoaster” and try to “Justify our Love.” When we miss “The Power of Love” we look at each other and say “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” and think that we are “All Out of Love.” We sing a “Love Song” about being “Safe in the Arms of Love” to find the answer when really, we “Just Want Somebody to Love Us” “Faithfully”. But we are so wrapped up in trying to find what it means “When a Man Loves a Woman” that we miss the true “Visions of Love.” “Perhaps Love” has lost its meaning.
“You and I” keep “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,” looking for our “Dream Lover” and trying to find "Who's Loving You" when what we need to realize is that it is “The Keeper of the Stars” that says, “I Just Called to say I Love You.” There is only one that says, “I Love you Always and Forever”, One who cries to us “Let me Love you", "Honestly." There is only one that “Truly, Madly, Deeply” longs for us to say “You Light Up My Life.”
This is the “Love” we seek, and once “We Found Love,” “Real Love” and “Don’t Stop Believing” we will hear the words “I Will Always Love You," "I'll Be There for You," and know that “By the time we get through, the world will never be the same.” Why? Because it is once we feel this love and recognize this love that we can look to God in heaven and say, “Because you Loved Me” I can live out a “Crazy Love” that guides me to live a life where I pray, “Everything I do” I do for “The One Who Loves Me.”
“It Must Have Been Love” that kept Jesus on the Cross. I don’t have to cry “I Want to Know What Love is” I simply have to look at the fact that “To Know HIM is to Love Him” and "To Be Loved." I don't have to wait for "Time in a Bottle" to be changed "From the Inside Out."
You see, because of Jesus, “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” because "If" I allow God to live in me, then “Love Will Find a Way” and… for you and me… It is only with the love of Christ in us that we can say “Love Will Keep Us Together.”
So, I hope I was able to touch on your generation, your genre, your culture. I pulled lyrics and titles from about 70 love songs spread from the 1950’s to the 2000’s. There were Hip-Hop, Mo-Town, Rock, Pop, Easy listening and Country. Why does that matter? Because love is the one thing that crosses generations, breaks down barriers, and bridges cultures. Love is what unifies us across all things that stand to divide us because love is of God. We sit in this room, “Red and Yellow, Black and White” we are wealthy and poor, we are in recovery, and we are in denial. We are a diverse bunch and I love it. But what unites us in our diversity is love, the love of God and the love of neighbor.
We can read Jesus’ words in Matthew 22 describing the greatest commandments. In that passage, the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus, or at the very least they were looking for some long explanation of the more than 700 Laws of Leviticus, but Jesus simply breaks it down to love. He says,
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.
Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)
Paul echo’s the words of our Savior in today’s passage. We read Paul’s words encouraging us to be obligated for nothing to anyone except love.
The only thing we owe one another is love.
Jesus and Paul both say that Love, to truly Love, fulfills all the law. It sounds easy doesn’t it? “Oh, if I’m all lovey-dovey I fulfilled the Law and I get in heaven.” Well, let’s think about that love. Let’s look at how we apply love.
First, As a disciple of Jesus Christ, who is our neighbor? The simple answer, Everyone. The one like us and the one un-like us. Oh, that doesn’t mean the Charles Manson types, right? Surely that can’t mean the Jeffery Dahmer types. Not the cheaters and swindlers and murderers, And surly not the Muslims and the Buddhists. But, when we read the scriptures, and we see Jesus example of who to love, it is precisely those that seem the farthest from God. You remember, Jesus said “The healthy don’t need a doctor, the sick do. I didn’t come for the righteous but for the sinner.” When we truly seek to follow Jesus we love our neighbors, all of them.
And another thing… Love changes the way we live each day.
So, let me ask you this. Does love effect the way you drive?
Does love influence the way you treat your family behind closed doors?
Student, does love change the way you respond to your teachers?… yes, even that one.
You workers, does love impact the way you act and react at work?
Does the love of God and the love of your neighbor effect the way you live your life?
As we look around the world and see what is happening in politics, in business, in human trafficking, in the crisis at the border, in the need for potable water in so many areas of the world… I could go on and on with the list of needs and issues around the world, and I’m sure you could add to the list. The solution to all these problems begins and ends with love – love of God and love of neighbor.
I know, I’m probably being too simplistic. I mean, love isn’t going to fix the problem with Putin and the Crimean Peninsula and Ukraine. Love isn’t going to eradicate COVID. Love isn’t going to stop thousands of people from flooding across our borders.
But, then again, maybe it will… maybe when we look at the problems before us not with eyes of fear, or eyes of hate, but instead with eyes of love, we will see the problem differently.
Maybe, just maybe, love isn’t just something to celebrate on Valentine's Day, but instead, maybe… just maybe love is a way we should live our lives.
Yes, love is the answer.
And I want to invite you to live that life….