What Is Love - 1 - Why God Loves Love

Today we are going to be starting a new series called “What is love?” We will be looking at why God values love and marriage so much.

Before we start talking about love I want you to have a think about what love really means to you.

On these cards I want you to draw what you picture love being, and underneath write down what it means to you.

There are lots of differing opinions in our society about what love means. Love can be attributed with lots, of things.

Someone might say that they love chocolate, or football. Some people might say that love is chasing after the girl or boy of your dreams. Others might see love as being adoration and respect other people. Some might see love as being the bond between ourselves and our family. Others might say love is sex and intimacy.

Love is in many of these things, however God’s design for it goes even deeper than this. God has great plans for loving relationships, both between us and other people, and between us and God.

In 1 Corinthians 13 : 4 - 7 we see Paul defining what the meaning of love is.

Is there anything here which surprised you?

You might remember from a few weeks ago when we were looking at Genesis that it says in Genesis 1 : 27 that we are made in God’s image. We also see in Genesis two than woman was made to be the companion for man, with woman being made from man. We see here that a man and a woman living together is marriage is also a reflection of God’s image.

Right from the beginning God has intended for us to live in relationship with each other as well as with him. As we know this closest bond is known as marriage, when a man and woman commit to being joined together by God.

We see an account of Jesus talking about this in Mark 10 : 6 - 9.

What key points can we see Jesus saying about marriage in this passage?

The Bible outlines the ideal situations for which he intends us to live, and show us the way that we should aspire to live and have relationships as we get older, to help us to have healthy relationships.

God gave us marriage as a structure or template for building a caring relationship. Healthy relationships are the key emphasis, not a list of rules for us as Christians to follow. We see an example of this in Ephesians 5 : 21 - 31.

God isn’t expecting us to do anything that he isn’t willing to do himself. Here we see that there are many parallels, or similarities between how we should relate with each other and how God relates with his church.

This is something that we can still learn from, regardless of whether we decide to get married in the future or not.

What things is this passage telling us about God’s relationship with us as his church?

As we have seen relationship is about caring for and respecting those we love. Ultimately acting as one unit, rather than two individuals. We are going to play a game know to illustrate the importance of keeping in step with each other.

Each of you need to find a partner for this game.

Like with this game, in order for a relationship to be successful we need to respect and listen to the other person. If we don’t we will end up getting out of step and disconnected from them.

Despite what people might think, God’s guidelines for marriage are intended to help us live our lives in healthy relationship rather than be a collection of rules and do’s and don’ts.

Another relationship that affect us all is the relationship that we have with our parents. God intends for us to have a healthy and loving relationship with our parents. We see Paul giving some advice on this in Ephesians 6 : 1 - 4.

Here we see that we can demonstrate our love for our parents by listening to them and doing as they ask us to do. Listening to our parents isn’t just something that would be nice for us to do, as we see in this passage we see that it is good for your wellbeing too.

Do you find this easy to do, or is this something that you find tricky?

One of the biggest differences between the love that we see in the world and the love that God intends is the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Ever since ‘the fall’ in Genesis 3, when Eve chose to go against the instruction of God and eat the forbidden fruit there has been darkness in our world which has disrupted God’s perfect plan for creation. The differences in the perception of love, relationships and marriage between God’s view and the world’s views can all be attributed to humans deciding to go against God’s perfect plan, and letting sin into the situations.

In every relationship that we have as Christians there is always intended to be a third party involved. That third party is the Holy Spirit. As we saw last week the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to equip us to live a live that is honouring to God.

As we saw last week, Love is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and is something that it can help develop within us as we allow the Holy Spirit to be present in our live, and be part of our relationships.

There will always be views that conflict with those we see in the Bible. However as Christians we should seek to follow God’s plan, as we know this is the one that will be best for us.

Let’s close in prayer:

Lord God, we thank you for pouring love into our lives and intro our world.

We thank you that you created marriage, as a permanent union between a man, a woman and your Holy Spirit.

We thank you that is permanent bond is a reflection of you, and your love for us.

We thank you for our family and the love that we have between us.

We thank you that you love us so much that you were willing to send your son to die for us so that we can remain in relationship with you.

Help us to value love in the way that you do.

Amen