This is a talk I gave to a group of high school students on a Teens Encounter Christ retreat weekend on August 5, 2011. It’s based on a provided outline for the “God is Love” talk, and it was the second time I’d given this talk. Here’s the first time. I’m posting it online for the sake of having a complete archive of my sermons.
God is Love
Good morning…everyone awake? Happy Easter Morning! So, as Christin said, I’m Daniel, and I’m giving the God is Love talk. Ok. So. There are three words in the title: God. Is. Love. Well, the entire weekend is about God, so I suppose I ought to talk about God…I hope we’re all pretty clear on what “is” means, so I’ll start with the last word: “Love.” As I was starting to figure out what to say today, I wanted to listen to some music, so I searched through my iTunes library for the word “Love.” Turns out I have 97 songs with the word “Love” somewhere in the title. So, clearly, love must mean something.
I know I use the word “love” a lot. Just the other day I told some random man in a hallway that I loved his tie. I love eating ice cream. I love the Harry Potter books (the books, not so much the movies). I was around some middle schoolers who were talking about how they love Justin Bieber.
Maybe those song titles are helpful. In my 97 love songs I have songs like Say You Need Love, Love Comes True, No Ordinary Love, Love is in the House, the generically named Song of Love, Cry for Love, Love Them Like Jesus, (that one might be helpful…), Landslide of Love, When You Love Someone, and one of my favorites Love, Liberty, Disco. Justin Bieber has 37 songs (Yes, I looked it up), and 3 of them have the word “Love” in the title (Love Me, Somebody to Love, and Runaway Love, in case you were wondering…and no, none of them are in my iTunes library.)
Not sure how helpful that was…anyway, my point is that the word “Love” can mean a lot of different things. Everybody here have a Bible? Hold up your Bible. —Really…hold up your Bible. Ok. Guess what? The Bible mentions Love a lot. Guess how many.
697. The NIV Bible (the translation you’re holding) has the word love 697 times. Sometimes it’s referred to as a love letter from God. Hold that thought.
As you might have realized, the Bible was not originally written in English…the New Testament was written in Greek, and Greek has four different words for our one English word, “Love.” Ready? Storge, Eros, Philios, and Agape. The differences are kind of important, and I’m guessing that not everyone here is an expert in Greek (I actually took a year of Greek in school, I’m probably one of the experts in the room…), so let’s look at each of them.
First one: Storge. Storge is family love, love for those people who are supposed to always be there for you. Even though sometimes family drive us crazy now, it was someone, maybe a literal family member, maybe not, who taught you to walk, to talk, who was there for us when we were helpless babies. Storge love is that family love of the people you’re sort of stuck with.
OK, second type of love: Eros. Eros love is the mushy, chick-flick love…the romance love. It’s the root word for “erotic,” and it’s that sort of love that sometimes we don’t really mention a lot in church, except for at weddings. However, it’s definitely a good thing…without Eros love, none of us would be here! I think most of the songs written about love are probably talking about this sort of love. Unfortunately, the world we live in doesn’t usually put the right kind of value on this kind of love, and it has some pretty awful standards for eros love. God is the one who created it, and God definitely has stuff to say about eros love, like treating others with respect, seeing them the way God sees them, not as an object to make yourself feel better. Not letting others treat you as an object, stuff like saving yourself for marriage. Personally, I’ve been dating my wonderful girlfriend for about four and a half years now, and let me tell you, following God’s standards instead of the world’s can be tough! Sometimes really tough! Sometimes, and I’m sure we’re not the only ones who’ve gone through this, there are things that the world says it’s ok to do that sound awfully attractive. But I think it’s worth it trying to treat the awesome gift of eros love the way God says to treat it. It’s a gift intended for one man and one woman for life, after marriage. In the Bible, there’s an entire book, Song of Solomon, that we don’t read in church much, that’s about eros love. Enough about that.
The third word for love in Greek is Philios. Philios is love between friends. The people you eat lunch with, the people you’d go see a movie with, the people you just like to talk to. You care about them, you check up on them on Facebook or now maybe on Google plus. They’re the ones you go to when you’re going crazy at home from all the storge love. Sometimes when I feel awkward writing “Love” at the end of a letter, I write philios, but that might just be me…Quick story about philios love: My dad is an electrician, and he has been laid off quite a bit in the last few years, so my family has struggled a little with money. Well, another family in our church knew Dad was laid off, and one day they gave my mom four blank checks on their bank account. The only condition was that if any one of the checks was over ten thousand dollars, we were asked to let them know so they could transfer some money to cover it. They didn’t tell anyone, or claim it as a tax deduction or anything like that. They just wanted to help some friends. True story. Even though we didn’t end up needing the money before Dad got another job, that’s still a pretty cool way to show philios love. There’s a Bible verse in Ecclesiastes 4 that talks about the value of a friend. Ecclesiastes 4:10 (page 584) talks about two friends walking together, and says, “if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” Even the Bible says that helping your friends is important. It’s the late night phone calls when your friends are fighting, or just sitting and being with your friend when she thinks the entire world is against her, and that she doesn’t matter. Philios love is a huge part of being a Christian.
So storge, eros, philios, …that’s three. The fourth type of love, the most important, is? Anyone paying really close attention? ————–Agape. Agape is perfect love. Unconditional love. There’s a song in my iTunes called The Love of Christ. That’s agape love. Agape love is what this weekend is about. Agape love is what we saw last night, a God who loves enough to die for you and I. Agape is the kind of love that God is. There’s a verse I like. In Romans 5:7 (page 979) it says, ” Very rarely will someone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.” I love my friends, but would I be willing to die for them. It happens…soldiers have thrown themselves onto a grenade to save their friends, so maybe for one of my really close friends.
But would I be willing to die for someone I don’t like? Or for someone who hates me? Because that what Jesus did. Are there people who would die for me? I think maybe, possibly? Under the right conditions? But I know myself better than they do. I know the things I think sometimes, even sometimes do. Like Caitlin talked about in the Who Am I talk yesterday, everyone sees different parts of me, and I know that no one else sees everything that I’ve done. You’re probably like that too. You have things you don’t want anyone to know. You’ve done things, thought things you’re ashamed of, things that you hide. Guess what? Everyone has things like that. It’s called sin. Romans 3:23 says that everyone has sinned. Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody’s Perfect (that’s a song too.) No one. Period. (Yes, the Hannah Montana song). Sure some people have done worse things than others, but compared to God? God’s perfect. Everyone else is equal…equally flawed, broken. Sinful. So who would die for anyone like that?
Go back to Romans 5 (Page 979). Everyone look this one up. Page 979. Let’s read a few more verses. Starting at Romans 5:6: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly (for us). Very rarely will someone 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.” Underline that in your Bible. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God loves us enough to die for us, even though he knows us! Know the song “Amazing Grace”? (“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me”) Grace is God forgiving us for everything we’ve done, and loving us anyway. Grace is free to us. It’s not cheap, Jesus paid for it with His life. But it’s given to you and I as a free gift. Cool, right? That’s agape love.
Giving someone a blank check is still an amazing example of love. But compared to what Jesus did for us? God gave himself for you and me, we saw that last night as we went through the stations of the cross. But I think it’s even more amazing that God did that even knowing everything that we do wrong. He knew everything that was written on those pieces of paper on the cross last night, even the things you didn’t write because you really really really didn’t want anyone to see them. And God still made the choice to die on the cross for you and me. That’s…crazy. Ridiculous. Almost unbelievable. But it happened. There’s a song in my iTunes called You Love Me Anyway. It doesn’t matter what you have done, or what you will do. God loves you anyway. And you can’t do anything about it! (That’s a good thing…) Stand up. Find someone else in the room, look them and say, “God knows everything about you. Guess what. God loves you anyway.” Ok, sit back down.
So what do we do about it? If we can’t make God love us, or make Him stop loving us, what do we do? Well, guess what? Surprise! Another song in my library. (I like songs). I have one called Love Them Like Jesus. That’s also a big part of what’s going on this weekend. Secret for you: Everyone serving on team this weekend is human. (Shocking, I know). We can’t love as perfectly as God can. But we’re here to try to show a little glimpse of God’s love to you.
So, anyone remember the four types of love? Storge is family love. Eros is romantic love. Philios is friend love. And agape is God’s unconditional love. One last Bible passage to share with you, possibly my all-time favorite. Romans 8:38-39 (page 982) says “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Hear that? If you don’t remember the Greek words for love, I’m actually ok with that. But, do remember this. Remember that God loves YOU and nothing you or anyone else can do can separate you from that amazing, agape love.
This is a song called “More” (by Matthew West), and it’s written from God to you.
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