We love because God first loved us.

July 1 2018 Mark Chapman

Let me begin by saying

that very basic to our faith is

the notion that God is love.

Note, not God loves as one aspect of God’s nature, rather God is love.

And so all of God’s works flow out of a heart that is love.

And because we are created in the image of God it means our very dna is love.

Science is just discovering what we have known from the beginning

and a little quote from Psychology Today:

“Given the importance of the need to be loved, it isn’t surprising that most of us believe that a significant determinant of our happiness is whether we feel loved and cared for. In our pursuit of the need to be loved, however, most of us fail to recognize that we have a parallel need: the need to love and care for others.”

So it seems that the more you experience unconditional love

and the more you live it out to others,

the happier you are and

the healthier you are

In a world of food fads, it’s really not what you eat, it’s what eats you.

There is ample evidence to show

that anger, jealousy, fear,  hate,

all negative emotions effect our physical health.

Incidentally the only food fad that probably really works is a glutton free diet.

So when the apostle John writes: that God is love, then it basically means that

you and I came out of love.

This is the act of creation – God creates out of love because God is love.

Love is our DNA.

And that means we are happiest when we are being loved, but more

we need to be loving.

You may have read a couple of weeks ago about a man who has been sending thousands of dollars to a woman he met on line.

And his kids are going nuts.

He is being conned but so desperate is the need to be loved

and have someone tell you, you are loved and love in return

that for him, it is worth it.

In the light of what the Bible teaches and science it is totally understandable.

We need to be loved and we need to love.

Mother Teresa reminded us that there is just about a cure for every disease, but loneliness. Unless there are hearts that care and arms that embrace.

Psychologist are simply saying

what we have known at least in the Judeao-Christian faith

for thousands of years.

Hence the greatest commandment

you shall love the Lord your God will all your heart mind and strength

and you shall love your neighbour as you love yourself.

And then the apostle Paul writes

and this is the genius of Paul

Gal_5:14  For the whole Law is summed up in one commandment: "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

What does he mean by the whole Law?

The first five books of the Bible including the ten commandments

and including

the command to love God with all your heart mind strength.

Paul understood

that in loving my neighbour

I am in reality loving God.

And Jesus would say:

I am the hungry person you feed,

the prisoner you visit etc and etc.

And a lot of us have to get our heads out of a ‘holier than thou’

cloud of super spirituality and realise God isn’t up there. God is out there

and sitting beside you today in the person next to you.

And I know brothers and sisters that sounds hard.

Because we would much rather tell God how much we love God, and sing hymns

and songs, and the Bible tells us to do that.

But the reality is we are actively called to love everyone because God does.

This is how we know we are children of God we have the same love for all people just as God does.

As Jesus reminds us, God makes his sun shine on the good and bad alike.

So therefore we too should allow our blessing to fall on everyone.

That doesn’t mean necessarily liking everyone

or what they do. Or believing what they believe.

But it does mean actively seeking their good.

Entering into their pain and dismay

just as God in Jesus enters into our pain

and invites us to find rest in him.

So a couple of things.

It seems that to be able to love you must need to have first experienced love.

Reports from prisons tell us that the majority of prisoners, in jail for violent crime, are men mostly

but woman as well,

who have never experienced

unconditional love. Absent parents

abusive parents.

Children growing up in fear and distrust.

Angry and resentful taking their anger out on anyone and everyone.

If you have never been loved as a child

you don’t know how to love

plus you grieve the loss of your childhood

and a major part of grief is anger.

And if that child wound is not somehow healed we take that anger into

our workplace, our marriage or relationships, we take it out on our spouses, our partners, our children.

And the cycle continues

the woundedness, the loss of love

is passed on to the next generation.

It is this state of woundedness that we call sin,

Sin is simply falling short of the Glory of God which is love.

We have to be loved to mirror love.

We need to know we are safe in our parent’s embrace.

We need to know the sacrificial love of a mother, a father, a parent

to be able to discover what love is.

And yes we will still go through the ego centeredness that comes with life

but if we have been loved,

and we call human love the shadow love,

it is a reflection, a hint of God’s love,

if we have experienced the shadow love,

we grow out of, it’s all about me,

and we begin to seek

the source of love which is God.

Incidentally this is why the gathering of the church is so important. We provide models for younger people

and new Jesus followers, of what love truly is.

This is why if you are Jesus followers, we really have to be the real deal – we have to be sacrificial love.

Secondly, the apostle John can write:

We love because God first loved us.

And here I think for a lot of us lays the difficulty.

Let me use a human illustration

keeping in mind that when we speak of God,

the only language we have is metaphor.

Imagine a long term relationship with someone you have never met.

You’ve heard about that person

and you have a picture

and maybe you have skyped them or whatever. And you read their expressions of love. But you’re not sure.

Because generally we are afraid to tell others who we really are.

Because they may reject us.  

So we tend to tell people what we think they will like.

We don’t lie we just don’t tell the whole truth.

But then the day comes when you meet face to face. And you have the opportunity to gaze into the eyes of the other for the first time.

I’m told that this is not something we do easily. You can check it out later.

It seems to be, that when you are truly in love and you trust the love of the other

you can gaze intently for a long time into the eyes of the beloved

knowing that he/she knows your deepest secrets

joy, fears, failings, longings, and knowing everything about you

still loves and adores you.

In other words love is knowing the other person in their totality and remaining steadfastly in love for them and in them.

And in that time of eye to eye gaze

you experience joy, and saving grace, and safety, and the realization that you can absolutely trust the other to always care for you and protect you.

Right? And you can move from that eye to eye gaze and still carry with you the knowledge of the beloved’s total devotedness to you.

Or, you can gaze into the others eyes and experience avoidance, disgust, fear, criticism – and you know love is absent. And live in a relationship of distrust. Unfortunately many marriages are like that.

That’s why eye to eye contact is important. The eye is the mirror of the soul.

So with God. How do we know that we are the beloved?

First we read the Bible,

we can read about the divine love

but it seems that not until we enter into, not a mind experience, but a heart relationship, that we begin to discover the heart of God, and as writers have said, gaze into the eyes of God through prayer, and stillness

and as it were gaze into the eyes of Jesus through stilling prayer and silence, that we begin to become aware of a love that won’t let us go,

In the words of a song:

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride

That I may in Your house but kneel.

And then begin to get a sense of what the apostle Paul is saying when he writes:

Ephesians 3:17-19  .. I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love,  (18)  so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love.  (19)  …. and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.

And then joy abounds. The child is found, the father throws a party. And then suddenly the light comes on and the big picture erupts in your mind

and you know, having gazed into the eyes of love, knowing that this lover, God, knows everything about you and still loves you.

You see we really want to be known.  

We really desire to have that one person who we can be totally honest and open to because we need that for healing and for hope and for joy.

So gazing into the eyes of God we know that God knows, and we know God. For his eyes speak only of love.

As Paul writes: In him there is no darkness. You know God’s love for you will remain

long after this world is dust.

You discover the truth, and the truth has set you free.

It’s not a head thing. It’s a heart thing. You have come home and found the Father running to greet you arms outstretched, restoring you to who you have always been in God’s heart.

It’s not a head thing. You cannot contain God in your mind.

Often we want the mind trip.

Debating what the apostle Paul really means. It’s all up here (in the head).

Only in your heart can you know God.

Intellect has nothing to do with it.

It’s a heart connection.

I think we saw it in the early charismatic renewal when there was a sense of being in love with Jesus.

And of course as intellectual Presbyterians we said, no – that’s just for simple minds.

The simplest and the greatest brain can experience the wonder of God’s love.

And then, well when that happens, and only then, can we become love.

Amen.