Sermon Series: Love's Greatest Hits (I want to know what love is)


Love’s Greatest Hits
“I want to know what love is”

· It’s February and we’re told by advertisers everywhere that love is in the air.
· Big red hearts and cupids all over are
· Told everyone must have someone to love on the 14th or else….
· If you're human then you know the desire to love and the need to be loved doesn’t begin and end on Valentine's day.
· All of us, no matter of age, sex, religious beliefs, background, education - everyone has deep seeded desire to be loved.
· Ex. We are born with the need for love - Hard scientific evidence shows that love, attention, and affection in the first years of life have a direct and measurable impact on a child's physical, mental, and emotional growth.
· Love and touch actually cause your child's brain to grow
· That continues through elementary, middle, and high school
· Everywhere we turn are books about love, movies about love, advertisements about love, and music about love.
· Face it, we eat, sleep, drink, and breathe love.
· Over the next few weeks we going to dig way deep into what the bible says about love.  And we’re going to use our desire for love and our enjoyment of music as our launching pad each week.
· 128 #1 song with love in the title.
· Guess First? Benny Goodman & Helen Forrest Taking a chance on love 1943
· Why so many love songs?
· Nothing is more complex and essential then relationships and connecting with each other. And nothing is desired more then to love and be loved.
· Could it be that love defines our life?
· I can’t think of a better song to kick off our newest sermon series then foreigner’s #1 hit song from 1984 that simply states, “I want know what love is”.


What resonates so deeply within us about this song and the reason it was a #1 hit was it asked the two biggest questions we could have about love:
· What is it and what does it look like?
· So what is love? Everyone seems to have very different definitions of it. In one conversation we say we love pizza, our kids, and God.
· With our use of the word love so much, shouldn’t we have a concrete starting block.
· That’s why for our foundation of love we’re going to turn to what God defined loved as. So what does the Bible say love is?
· 1 John 4:7-8
· In 3 words the bible tells us what love is: God is Love
· God’s character is Love. We desire and need love because we were made in His image.
· We desire the things that make God God
· But John goes a step further and makes it clear that if you don’t know God, meaning if you aren’t born of God, or  follow Him, then it’s impossible for you really know love
· This makes a lot of sense if you step back and look at it.
· We as humans have this incredible desire for love and to be loved. Without that relationship with God in place, what do we turn to fill that desire? Relationships, sex, stuff, jobs, popularity, fortune, acceptance
· When our desire for love is quenched by God, all those other things become a lot less satisfying
· John goes on to describe not just what love is but where it comes from.
· 1 John 4:9-10
· Basically you can’t out love God. He loved us so much he was willing to demonstrate this by giving us Jesus as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so we could continue our love relationship with Him for all eternity
 · John then not only tells us what love is and where it comes from but then tells us how it should look
· 1 John 4:11-12
· This is where it gets tricky. What one person calls an act of love another might call annoying
· Paul lays out 15 key examples of love and each is based on the way God has demonstrated His love to us
· 1 Cor. 13
· Love is…
· Patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not self seeking, does not dishonor, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth, it always protects, trust, hopes, perseveres, never fails
· Each of those examples of love were lived out in the life of Christ.
· So how are you doing w/love?
· Ex. Mike is…(patient, kind, etc)
· Phil 1:9 (Message Bible)
· Not just love much, but love well. Just as Jesus did
· John knew this so when he states that we should love one another since God loved us he’s simply saying live your life of love following the examples Jesus set.
· That leave no room for individual interpretation. Kind is kind, hope is hope, trust is trust, envy is envy. It’s all universal.
· But reaching this kind of love is impossible apart from God
· You want to know what love is? It’s God.
You want Him to show you? He did in the life of Jesus. 

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