Layers of Love: Love Is About All We Do

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us such powerful examples of love in the way you act toward us and your commitment to us. Now bless us with your Holy Spirit so we can begin to comprehend that love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

This week, we continue our sermon series about love. Last week, remember Pastor Burcham talked about love is a commitment without any Plan B, “When it gets this bad, I’m out of here.” It’s a commitment with no Plan B or opt out clause. Now this week, we’re going to build on that and talk about the relationship between that commitment of love and the actions of love. And this has been evident in God’s behavior towards us since the beginning of time. God’s love and His commitment to us has been intertwined since the time of creation when He created this beautiful world. He called everything into existence in six days and He made it in perfect harmony, a beautiful paradise for us to live in.

God’s love was also evident when He created the first people because He created them in His image. Now the bible describes it as being created in God’s image and that means we have a capacity to have a relationship with God. We have the ability to receive His love and to give love back to Him. That’s what it means to be created in God’s image. And that demonstrates His love because He wants to have a relationship with us. He desires to be with us and commune with us.

God’s love is also evident beyond that point as we know the story how our first parents were tempted in the garden and sinned and how, from that point on, all kinds of pain and suffering came into the world. But even in that terrible moment of their sin and God’s conviction of that sin as He walked in the garden and they hid in the bushes and then He confronted them and called them out and He spoke to them, Adam and Eve, and He confronted them with the reality of what they’d done. Even at that terrible moment, His love is not absent because, in those words, He makes the first gospel, the first proclamation that He would send a Savior to rescue them from their plight, from their sin.  He says to Eve, “Your seed with crush the head of the serpent.” Jesus would defeat the devil and He did that, we all know, when He died on the cross.

And that sin that came into the world, that’s a terrible thing, all that pain and suffering that it brought with it. And we live in the reality of that today, all the pain, suffering, illness, everything that is in this world is a result of sin. Because when God created everything, he lovingly created it perfect, a wonderful place for us to live. But because of that sin that came in through Adam and Eve and was passed down from generation to generation, we suffer today. That sin has been passed along not just genetically but spiritually to all of us. The scripture says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Everyone has sinned.

The bible also tells us that there is even worse news than that. Sin is the bad news but the worst news is Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” What we earn because of our misdeeds, our sins, our misbehavior, what we deserve is death. And you and I know it’s not just the end of our days here but what we deserve because of our sin is eternal suffering in hell. Now I know we don’t want to talk about hell too much because it’s awful and negative and a downer and all that kind of stuff but that’s what the bible teaches, that those who sin, which is all of us, deserve eternal suffering in hell. Now eternal anything is difficult to comprehend, so think of it this way. Think of the worst moment of your life, the most terrible painful feelings, the anxiety, just the hopelessness. Imagine that moment lasting forever. That’s hell.

But God loves us. And His love has been intertwined with his commitment to us since the beginning of time. His loving acts have been obvious throughout history and we see it everywhere we look. And He’s not happy with our predicament. He loves us. Each of us is precious to Him and that’s why He sent His Son because He doesn’t want anybody to suffer eternally. John 3:16 says it this way, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That means if we go through the very worst that this life has to offer, death, that even in that terrible moment, God’s love is there and we will be rescued from the sufferings of this world and carried into that beautiful paradise called heaven to live forever with Him in eternity.

Now again, eternity is difficult to comprehend so think of it this way. Think about the greatest moment of your life, the happiest moment. It may be when you were married or your first child was born or you finally got that last one out the door. Think of the greatest moment of your life with all its joy and celebration and imagine that moment lasting forever. That’s heaven. That’s what heaven is like.

Can you see how God’s actions and His commitment have been connected throughout history, the two going together? Now let’s take that principle of loving actions and love commitment and apply it to marriage. In the beginning, when we first fall in love, that’s a great time, isn’t it? Do you remember when you first met and you came home, “I’ve met the woman I’m going to marry.” “I’ve met the man I’m going to marry.” Or when the proposal finally happens and you say, “Yes,” and all those great feelings, it’s like your feet don’t even touch the ground.

One of my professors at seminary told the story of how his future wife and he were walking in a park and he saw some wild flowers but they were on the other side of this ravine so he said he climbed down and climbed up the other side and he picked the flowers and carefully brought them back and gave them to his future wife and he said, “I about broke my neck doing it.” He says we’re just crazy when we’re in love like that. And I can remember when I met my wife. It was about twelve years ago, August 9, I met my wife. Now we had been corresponding a little bit but that was the first time I met her. And August 9, we met. She stayed ten days. She stayed at the house of one of my elders and I can remember every day, I would pick her up early in the morning, all day long we’d spend time together. I took the day off and spend every minute together, just talking about hopes and dreams and life and things like that. It went late into the hours of the evening and finally, 12:30, 1:00, something like that, I’d take her back to where she was staying and drop her off. But I hardly slept. I’d wake up about 5:00 or 5:30 and, hum, “When can I go get her?” I’d call them up about 6:30, “Is everybody awake yet? Can I come pick her up?” That’s how it went for ten days. We were just having the greatest time. We met on the 9th, got engaged on the 11th and it’s been fantastic ever since. But you know, it’s crazy, isn’t it, that in the midst of all those wonderful feelings that you felt and I felt, we make a commitment. When our feet aren’t even touching the ground and we can’t even answer a question that anybody asks us, we’re so overjoyed with our love, we make a commitment. We commit to honor, to love, to cherish and protect our spouse, good times, bad times, sickness, health, poverty, wealth. We make a commitment until death. Isn’t that amazing?

And then you know how it goes. From that point on, everything we do is loving. It’s intertwined with that commitment. Everything we do all along the way is an act of love. Or not. You know what I mean. At first, with all those feelings, you’re just promising the world. You’ll do anything for that person. You love them so much. But then some of the feelings fade. You kind of get into the day-to-day operations of life and it kind of seems to go away. You’re not so nice to each other. And that’s when it really gets tough.

Gary Chapman is a Christian author who wrote a very helpful book to help us with this time. He watched many couples who would meet with all this euphoria and excitement and then, as the feelings faded, their relationship would fall apart. And he studied it and he puzzled over it. And he wanted to know how to help people avoid that trap and stay in love and stay in a great relationship. So he wrote the book The Five Love Languages and the basic premise is that all people give and receive love in one of five basic ways. The five love languages are words of affirmation, encouraging people, complimenting people, cheering them on, giving gifts. Some people, their love language is giving gifts. If anybody out there that’s your love language, I like you. What a great love language. You give gifts because you care about people. You want to show them your love by buying something for them. Other people, their love language is spending quality time together and for others, it’s performing acts of service. And finally, the fifth love language is expressed through physical touch.

Now Chapman says as we give and receive love in these ways, very often we marry people who don’t have the same love language we have so we’re naturally expressing our love in our love language and they’re expressing their love in a different love language and the result is we’re not speaking the right language. So the key to all of it is discovering your love language and choosing out of your love and commitment to your spouse to speak their love language.

This is how it works: My wife’s love language is acts of service. So when she gets up in the morning, maybe you can relate to this, from the moment she gets up, she’s working. Our bedroom is on the second floor. I would say, nine times out of ten, in the morning, as soon as she gets up, wakes up a little bit, she’ll grab a basket of laundry and take it down with her as she goes downstairs. The next thing I hear are dishes rattling as she’s unloading the dishwasher or cleaning up some things from the night before and then it just goes on like that all day long, at home, at work, acts of service. That’s how she communicates her love and commitment to us, our family and to me as her husband. Now when things get tough in our relationship and I can see there’s a little friction, I remember what her love language is and I think, “Hum, I’m probably just tired when I get home and I just want to sit and relax a little bit,” but she’s looking for signs of love from me and what that means to her is I need to do something. I need to clean the garage. I need to straighten things up in the basement. I need to do a little vacuuming or wash the dishes or something. I need to do anything that is an act of service and that will communicate love to her.

Chapman says when there is a deficit, when we’re not speaking our spouse’s love language, it’s like a car with no gas in the tank and the feelings are gone. And the love for each other seems to fade away. But when we’re speaking that love language, then the tank is full and you feel good again and you feel content and secure in your relationship.

But what happens when you just don’t feel like living up to your commitment? What happens when you don’t even feel love for your spouse? I read a story about a woman who literally hated her husband. She felt trapped in their marriage. All the feelings had gone out of it. There was no happiness. She was hopeless. She felt trapped because she was a Christian and she made the commitment. She knew she was committed until death. And instead of bringing security, those words brought her despair. And every night, as she would stand by the sink and wash the dishes, she would list in her mind all the things she hated about her spouse. Finally, it got so bad that she decided she needed to see a counselor. So she went and told the counselor everything in the session. She described what she would do every night and how she would list all the things she hated about her spouse and, as the counselor listened, she responded and said, “Tonight, I want you to try something different. As you stand by the sink and wash those dishes, I want you to think not about all the things you hate but about your husband’s good qualities.” So that first night, she tried it, because she still felt this hollow sense of commitment toward her husband. So she tried. And it was hard because she wanted to go in that direction of hate but instead, after awhile, she thought of something. “He’s good at yard work.” That’s what she came up with. Well, it doesn’t sound like much of a beginning but the next night, she tried again. And she really did try. And little by little, the list got a little longer. And as the list got longer, she noticed she started to have feelings for him again. And she started to see the things she was remembering in her mind that were good about him. And their relationship warmed and they got on the track to having a successful marriage again. Why did it work? Why did that mental exercise make a difference? I believe it’s because she was acting loving, consistent with her commitment for love. She had made her vows just like all of us in our marriage and now she was acting in agreement with that commitment and I believe God was blessing it.
You know, while I’ve been working on this sermon, I’ve known I was going to preach on this for about a month and every time I’d think about it, it’s kind of convicting. Loving actions consistent with the commitment that we’ve made. And that was a good thing. Because I can’t tell you how many times that, as I was about to do something, I remembered I was going to preach on love and I would ask myself, “Is my behavior demonstrating my love and commitment to my wife or to my children or whatever situation I was in?” And it was sort of an accountability thing and it was helpful for me. It changed some of the things that I was going to do. Where I would have been selfish, I was more considerate. Where I was going to say no to my teenage daughter, I said yes. I acted in agreement with the commitment I made as a father or as a husband.

The other day, I was walking through our kitchen and there is a sliding glass door and a deck and I looked on the other side of the glass at our little beagle. And she was giving me that little beagle look, pleading with me to come out and play with her and spend some time with her. And I had seen her there before and a lot of times I would just say, “I’m too busy. I don’t have time to play with you right now.” Or, “I’ll do that later.” Or, “I just want to do something else rather than go out and play with you.” So I’d walk past but lately, instead, I’ve been going out and taking a few moments to play with her. She loves to go fetch her ball and stuff like that and just give her a little love. And what’s driving me to do that isn’t just this sermon but I remember the talk we had before we got that dog and how my wife was kind of reluctant to do it and how my daughters and I said, “We will take care of that dog. We will clean up after it and feed it and water it. We’re going to take care of that dog so no problem.” I made a commitment and, you know, when I act in agreement with that commitment, it just feels right. It feels right.

Unfortunately, many times, we just don’t do it. We don’t act in agreement with our commitments. We fall short and it’s at those times that we have to reflect back on God’s commitment to us. As we read throughout the Old Testament how He made the promise to Adam and Eve and it’s repeated again and again, there’s another phrase that comes up everywhere you look, “His love endures forever.” If you were to do a phrase search of the Old Testament, type that in, “His love endures forever,” you’d be amazed how many times that comes up. In fact, Psalm 136, it’s the refrain. Every verse, that’s the refrain, “His love endures forever. His love endures forever.” And that’s true for us, isn’t it? That God’s love endures forever. Every time we confess our sins, He forgives them and He sent His Son. As the apostle Paul writes in Roman 5, “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.”

As you reflect on God’s wonderful demonstration of His love for you, I pray that it releases you from the times when you have failed in your commitments. And I pray that it inspires you toward future success. Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church