"GOD IS LOVE" OR "THE LOVE GOD"
(A VALENTINE'S SERMON)

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The confusing origin of Valentine's Day ...

Long ago there was a miracle working monk in the city of Rome, or was it Terni, Italy? Whichever ... this monk aided those in prison and built a cathedral and restored sight to the jailer's daughter, which got him released from jail. But unfortunately the monk was martyred. He was thrown into prison by the prefect. His name was Valentine.

He conducted a mass wedding for all the young men and women because birds are married on February 14. Or at least that's what they thought. But one young man loved a girl who didn't love him back, so the miracle working monk named Valentine conjured up a box of chocolates. (Chocolate comes from the Greek word for love, or maybe someone just said that.) ... Anyway, Valentine said, "Yea Verily" (because people in those days said that a lot) – He said, "Yea Verily, you mayest eat of these assorted chocolates everyone of you, but of the chocolate that is filled with stuff tasting like Styrofoam thou mayest not eat – for lo, it is an abomination."

Try and find a decent description for the origin of Valentine's Day and all you will find is confusion ...

This is a good description of Valentine's Day – because we remain as confused, troubled, and comforted by love as anyone. There is a lot of good associated with Valentine's Day ...

• It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for some of us to show affection to our spouses.
• It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to buy a box of chocolate for a friend.
• It might help the economy, as long it doesn't break your budget, to buy a diamond.
• It is about time that some people finally got engaged and got married.
• It is good to share love and friendship. (Our Sweetheart Luncheon today brings together generations as friends.)

There's also a lot associated with Valentine's Day that isn't so good ...

• Loneliness is magnified on Valentine's Day.
• Valentine's Day reinforces the notion that we are only complete in a relationship with another person.
• Love is equated with sex. Sex has its place in God's creation, but love is much more than just sex.
• Too many marriages will attempt all the "magic" that the world has to offer to bring back the spark and rekindle the romance. Too many will be frustrated when it doesn't work.
• A price tag is placed on love and it is up to you to show your lover just how much he/she is WORTH to you.

I don't mean to ruin Valentine's Day. Enjoy it. Have fun. Really, Valentine's Day is no different than any other day. Any day of the calendar we can demonstrate our confusion about love. It shouldn't surprise us that we make a mess out of love. That's to be expected. The problem is when we substitute our best ideas for love with God's love. That's a problem because we may accept the "Love-God" for the God who is Love.

Acts 17 - The apostle looked around Athens and he saw many gods on display. We are more subtle about the display of our gods nevertheless they are around. We worship Vesta the goddess of the home without shame. We worship Venus and Eros the gods of marital love and sexuality. We worship whatever gods of the state come to us dressed in red white and blue and call upon our allegiance and love of country. God, country, and family -- Do we understand that GOD will not go up on the shelf easily with our other loves? Or do we stew them together and make a sort of heavenly hash out of our many loves? Maybe we even love church or the bible? We can love these tangible things more easily than we can an invisible god and they are good things yes? But they are not God, they only reflect his love.

C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves says that "love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be God." Or "Love begins to be a Demon the moment he begins to be a god"

God is love does not say the same thing as love is god.
For starters, the Love-God takes many shapes: Love of family. Erotic love. Love of country. Love of self. Things that are not really wrong and rarely seen as bad. But warped and imbalanced they are toxic to love of God. For we can begin to hear our loves as the voice of god.

• We can love our country so much that whatever favors the USA becomes in our heart the same thing as God's will.
• We can love our children so much that whatever they want or what we want for them becomes in our hearts the will of God.
• We can love our church so much that whatever promotes or preserves our comfort, our power, our preferences and conclusions can become in our hearts the will of God.

Ironically, this happens when these loves are at their best not their worst.

Lust is hidden because in the open it becomes ugly. Lust cannot change a nation of a people, but patriotism might. Patriotism dresses up well and can be good for it has in it elements of self-sacrificing love ... but if we never stop to realize the source, then the result becomes the god.

Marriage and family can become our mission. These are such good things. They are foundational, but if we exalt the family, we fail to exalt the God who blesses family and more so community.

The more that our earthly loves resemble God, the more likely we are to confuse them for God.

When we give our earthly loves the unconditional singular allegiance that we owe only to God then those loves can become gods and when our loves do not worship God, they become in turn demons. If you have trouble with demons, then understand it as Powers that destroy us and themselves in the process.

Our earthly loves should be no less than reflections of God's love, but they should not be anything more that reflections of God's love.

1 John 4:7-21 – Here is what reflected love looks like. We love because he first loved us.

1 Corinthians 13 – This is more than the wedding text. It is a prescription for a hurting, broken church. Beyond fine-tuning their worship or establishing rank or practicing the rules, they needed to love more – with God's love.

• This is a prescription for us. As a congregation we need to get serious about some fundamentals so that we can keep focused on the mission God gave us.
• We need to support our leaders – that was last week.
• We need to love one another – we need to cast out fear.
• We need to focus on God's love for us and how that love works in us – This is more important than being right or getting it right (which are all good) but we can strive for duty and excellence and do it lovelessly. If you strive for greater love (in word and deed) then we become more godly!
• Why did the apostle say, "Love covers over a multitude of sins?"

[Evangelism – John 13 – Everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another.]

End the Confusion: You and I will not figure this out in twenty minutes. We won't have it mastered by the end of Valentine's Day. But in knowing the God who is the ultimate definition and standard of love, then we may be made more like him every day as his power saves us by making us more like Christ.

What do you love today? Would you like to redeem that love by loving God with all your heart soul strength and mind?

Chris Benjamin

West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Morning Sermon, 14 February 2010

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