How Do I Love Thee?

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday morning, Valentine's Day, the 14th of February, 2021, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  This was an abbreviated service due to constraints put in place from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Our YouTube streaming channel is:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.  Look for the video of our recorded services on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

In her beautiful sonnet, Elizabeth Barrette Browning asked, “How do I love thee?”.  To answer her own question she continued, “Let me count the ways”, and went on to enumerate emotions that are so often difficult to put into words.

It’s so easy to say those three little words: I love you.  And they will be spoken today all over the world by millions of people in various languages.  I love you.  But what does it really mean, to love?  Some people put conditions on love – if you really love me, then...  How can we show our love, how can we prove the depths of our love?

I think the Apostle Paul gives us a very good lesson on love, what it is, what it means, how to show it.  Please listen and follow along as I read all of chapter 13 of Paul’s 1st letter to the church in Corinth, and I’ll be reading this from the Living Bible…

1 If I had the gift of being able to speak in other languages without learning them and could speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, but didn’t love others, I would only be making noise. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything, but didn’t love others, what good would it do? Even if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, I would still be worth nothing at all without love. 3 If I gave everything I have to poor people, and if I were burned alive for preaching the Gospel but didn’t love others, it would be of no value whatever.

4 Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, 5 never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. 6 It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. 7 If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him.

8 All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end, but love goes on forever. Someday prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge — these gifts will disappear. 9 Now we know so little, even with our special gifts, and the preaching of those most gifted is still so poor. 10 But when we have been made perfect and complete, then the need for these inadequate special gifts will come to an end, and they will disappear.

11 It’s like this: when I was a child I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I became a man my thoughts grew far beyond those of my childhood, and now I have put away the childish things. 12 In the same way, we can see and understand only a little about God now, as if we were peering at His reflection in a poor mirror; but someday we are going to see Him in His completeness, face-to-face. Now all that I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now.

13 There are three things that remain — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.

--1 Corinthians 13 (TLB)

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for giving us the gift of love, of loving and being loved.  It’s easy to see that love is very important to You, so it should be to us, too.  Please help us to love other people in the same way that Jesus loves.  Help us to love sacrificially, unconditionally, selflessly.  And Father, please keep us safe from the devil’s attacks and from those who do his bidding.  Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and purpose in our love and worship, and healthy and safe through these trying times.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit and better understand the message You have for us this day.  Open our hearts that we might love others as You and Jesus love us, showing them Your love.  This we pray in the blessed name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

William Gladstone, in announcing the death of Princess Alice to the English House of Commons, told a touching story.  The little daughter of the Princess was seriously ill with diphtheria.  The doctors told the princess not to kiss her little daughter and endanger her own life by breathing the child's breath.  Once when the child was struggling to breathe, the mother, forgetting herself entirely, took the little one into her arms to keep her from choking to death.  Rasping and struggling for her life, the child said, "Momma, kiss me!"  Without thinking of herself the mother tenderly kissed her daughter.  She got diphtheria and some days thereafter she went to be forever with the Lord.  Real love forgets self.  Real love knows no danger.  Real love doesn't count the cost.

A mother’s love for her child is a great example of what God intended when He told us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  A love that reaches out.  A love that helps in times of need with no thought of consequences to self.  A love given freely without conditions or requirements.  Real love forgets self, knows no danger, doesn’t add up the cost before being given.

Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians by saying that it doesn’t matter what we have or what we do if we don’t have love within us, if we don’t act out of love.  Anything we might do, if not done in love, will be a worthless accomplishment, of no value.  Even if we sold everything we owned, gave the money to the poor, and gave our lives for spreading the Good News of salvation through Christ Jesus, it would all be wasted effort if we did not love the people we tried to help, if our motivation was not love.

God can see into our hearts.  He knows what moves us, what drives us.  If we act out of some reason other than love, our actions will have no value in God’s eyes.

Paul goes on to tell us how to recognize love, what true love looks like.  It is patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude.  Love is not demanding or irritable or touchy.  Love is not vengeful, but instead is devoted and loyal.  And if I may, I might add to Paul's descriptions that love – true love - is sacrificial, unconditional.

And finally, love is eternal.  The first thing God gives us is love, and we carry it all through this life and on into the next.  Someday this world and everything in it will come to an end, but love will go on forever.  Yet three things will remain:  faith, hope, and love.  Of these three, love is the greatest.

As I mentioned earlier, love is a prominent theme in our culture and certainly in our Bible.  The word “love” itself is mentioned 504 times in the New King James Version.  The most well-known verse in our Bible states, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”   This alone should be sufficient to tell us that God loves us, all of us.  Do we return that love?

A scribe of the Pharisees once asked Jesus a question, hoping to trap Him.  Jesus responded so that we would all know what God wants of us.  Listen to the exchange as recorded by the Apostle Matthew in chapter 22 of his Gospel account, verses 36-40…

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

--Matthew 22:36-40 (NKJV)

Love God, with all that is within us, and love others as we love ourselves.  Everything else hinges on this.  Like Paul said, without love, nothing else matters.  So how do we complete the first part of that?  Loving others may be difficult to accomplish, but it’s easy enough to understand how to go about it.  But how do we show God we truly love Him?

We show God that we love Him and His Son by doing as They command us, by loving others, seeing to their needs, praying for them, helping them.  And all without expectations of anything in return.  True love, the kind God wants to see in us, is given freely, unconditionally, sacrificially, with no regard for cost or gain.  It’s the kind of love He gives us, the kind He showed when He sent His only Son into the world to offer us forgiveness and salvation.  Unconditional love, sacrificial love, freely given to you and to me.

Family, love is hard and quite often very expensive.  And it can be really painful.  Our hearts can be broken, or mended by love.  But no matter what happens, we must continue to love, to help when we can, to show God we are sincere in our love and our service.  For if we don’t have love in our hearts, nothing we do will have value to God.  Without love – God’s love – we are nothing.

On Valentine’s Day we celebrate love and we try to show those we love how much we cherish them.  Let’s extend that love out to all others we encounter.  And let’s make every day Valentine’s Day.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the one true Son of God, the epitome of love.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for loving us.  Thank You for giving us love, the ability to love, the joy of being loved.  Thank You, Father, for loving us so much You sent Your Son to save us.  Father, please help us remain steadfast in our faith and love even in these trying times.  Help us serve You and do Your work among those who really need to feel Your love and see Your love at work in their lives.  Help us show You our love by loving them.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more faithful and true, putting all our trust in You and Jesus, and seeking Your help as we do so…

Lord Jesus, You not only preached love when You walked among us, You were love.  Every fiber of Your earthly being was filled with love for God’s creation and for we sinners stumbling around in the darkness of our sin.  Thank You, Jesus, for so great a sacrificial love.  Please, Lord, help us be worthy of Your love and sacrifice.  Help us return Your love by showing true love, real love, to all others we encounter.  Help us be an extension of Your love, living as an active example of Your love.  And Jesus, please help us keep our focus on the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer us.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.