The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 22, 25 & 26

ST. MARK'S LUTHERAN CHURCH

Watertown, WI

Pastor Michael Jensen

Love: It's More Than A Feeling

Today we're going to start with a little quiz. Now don't get nervous; It's just one question. And it should be fairly simple, because it's a basic question. So, are you ready? Here we go. The one question I want you to answer is this: What is love?

What is love? Go ahead. Ponder that for a moment.

O.K. Time's up. Well, what did you come up with? What is love?

What? I didn't give you enough time to think about it. But, that question is so basic to life. And, after all, you've been able to prepare for this quiz every day of your entire life. Sure you've been able to prepare every day for this question, because everywhere you turn, someone is telling you what love is. Turn on your radio and you can hear song after song describing what love is. When you turn on your television some afternoon and you can see an endless parade of people on talk show after talk and all of them want to tell you what love is. Books: from Harlequin Romances to self-help books, try to describe love for us. Yet, with all this preparation and information about love, why is it that we still don't have a quick and simple answers to the question: What is love?

But maybe that's the problem. Maybe we have so many different voices giving us so many different definitions of love, that we're not so sure just what love is. Maybe we've been looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in to many faces, so much so that we've come to the conclusion that there is no one simple definition of love. Perhaps, each of us to one degree or another has been conditioned to think that there is no one definition of love. But rather, love is totally subjective and its definition is a personal, individual thing based on each person's feelings. But this morning God reminds us love is more than a feeling.

Listen to Word of God as John, who has been called the Apostle of Love, speaks about love.

2 John 1-12

The elder [John],

To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth--and not I only, but also all who know the truth-- because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love.

It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.

I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

Did you hear the love in John's words? There's a lot of emotion . . . a lot of feeling . . . in John's words. Oh, how his heart went out to the people to whom he was writing. Oh, how he longed to see them. He loved those people. Yes, there's a lot emotion in his words. Yet, while we see his words are full of emotion, from his words we can also see that his love for them was not based on emotion. For while his words are full of great emotion, they are not designed to give them a good case of the warm fuzzies. His words to them are not all soft and cuddly. Not at all. Because John, the Apostle of Love knew, and he tells us, that love is not a just feeling. It's more than a feeling. Love is truth. Love is Action.

I. Love is Truth

The first John tells us is that Love is Truth or based on truth. But, her again we already have another problem. Because not only has our society told us that love is purely subjective, our society continues to tell us that there is no absolute truth, but rather truth is subjective. We've all been conditioned to some extent to think that something doesn't become truth until it becomes truth to me.

But John reminds us that truth is not relative. He says, " To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, -- and not I only, but also all who know the truth - because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever." And later he says, "It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth." John says that there is an absolute and it has been revealed to us so clearly that we can even walk in that truth through our lives. What is that truth? Jesus reminded us in our Gospel Lesson for today when He said to the Heavenly Father, "Sanctify them by the Truth, your Word is truth. [St. John 17:17]" What is truth? What God tells us is true in the Bible.

The Bible is where we find the truth and in turn the answer to the question: What is love? And this is the truth out of which true love flows: The God who is all love in love created us. He wrote His law on our hearts, not to make us miserable, or to cheat us out of good times. But, He wrote the law on our hearts in love, because He knows what is best for us and in love, He only wants the best for us.

The further truth is we rebelled against His goodness. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed our loving Creator. God had given them a command in love, because He didn't want their lives miserable with sin. He didn't want them to die. Yet, what are we told in our Old Testament Lesson for today? "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. [Genesis 3: 6]" Look at that. They followed their own emotions and feelings. The followed what they thought was good, pleasing and what they desired. They decided to cast aside the truth for a lie. The lie that each of us should decide what is true. In other words, they decided to cast aside God's love for some counterfeit, self-made love, a love based on feelings.

We are Adam's children. So we also were born into that lie about love. We were born sinners who think that truth and love depends on how I think and feel. And by nature each of us says, "I'm going to believe what makes me feel good. I'm going to love whatever and whomever gives me pleasure for as long as it gives me pleasure. And then, I move on to someone or something else."

How thankful we are that God doesn't love that way. But, He loves us even when we are not pleasing in His sight. So even when Adam and Eve didn't give Him pleasure, He loved them and immediately promised to save them from the lies they had chosen. He promised to send a Savior. And John reminds us that Savior is Jesus Christ, God Himself come into the flesh. Jesus came to save us. He came to save us by perfectly walking in the truth for us, because we never could walk in God's truth perfectly. He came to save us from our sins. He came to save us from ourselves. And finally, all truth flows out of this ultimate truth . . . all love flows out of this ultimate love: God became our human brother to save our human race.

Still, John was concerned because he knew that some who had been walking in truth and love, no longer were. He says there were many deceivers spreading lies about truth and love. They were trying to get into the homes of the believers in order to deceive them into thinking that truth is what you think and love is what you personally feel. So John, even though He knew the truth might hurt their feelings, in true warned them about such dangers. And knowing that false ideas about love were so destructive to faith., John said, even if it doesn't feel loving, "Do not take them into your homes or welcome them."

Well, if John had cause for alarm, what about us? Do we welcome false love's prophets into our homes and lives? Well, as people who read popular books and watch TV and listen to radios, we do. And these voices are constantly telling us that love is whatever makes ME happy. Love is what makes me feel good. And all those voices can make their case sound extremely appealing.

But ask yourself: Do they know the truth? Do they know the truth about the Triune God who created heaven and earth? Or is everything to them chance happening, so whatever you want love to be it can be? Ask yourself: Do the writers of romance novels know the truth about God's loving law which is for our own good? And ask yourself: Do Shanya or Madonna, Garth or Oprah, [or any other one name wonder] confess the one wondrous name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved? Do the people we listen to about love confess that the very Son of God, God Himself, has come into the flesh because sin is that serious and that's the only way sin could be dealt with? Sad to say: It doesn't sound like it. The bottom line is this: We are surrounded by so many voices telling us what love is. But if they don't know Jesus . . . if they don't Him as the Son of God and Son of Man, . . .. they don't know His truth, then they are bound to lead us astray on the question: What is love?

II. Love is Action

John reminds us that in another way love is more than a feeling, because love is also action. John writes: "This is love: That we walk in obedience to His Commands." In other words, love is not just feeling; it's doing. It's action.

This should not surprise us, because that's just how it is with God's love. He didn't just feel love for us. He did love for us. He showed love for us. The Bible doesn't say, "For God so loved the world, that he sat back and said "I feel so bad for them. My heart really oges out to them." No. It says, "For God so loved the world that gave His one and only Son. [St. John 3:16] " It tells us,"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [Romans 5:8]"

So as we walk with God through faith in Christ, love for us is more than a feeling; Love is an action a doing , a walking with God in obedience to His Commands. Love that is in response to God's love is an active, living thing that longs to keep step with God's commands to the best of our imperfect ability. It's striving to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength. It's striving to showing love for other people what we say and what we do.

That means love doesn't always feel all warm and fuzzy. Living and loving for Jesus doesn't always feel good. But, love is doing what is God-pleasing, even if it doesn't feel good. Why, if doing the loving thing had to feel good. You and I wouldn't have forgiveness of our sins and heaven as our home. Because, look at Jesus. Look at Him in Gethsemene. Look at Him as His sweat became like drops of blood. Why? Because He was doing the loving thing. He was conforming His will to the loving will of the Heavenly Father. He was going to walk in obedience to God's command even though it didn't feel good. He was going to walk to the cross. And as those nails were driven through His hands and feet . . . and as He suffered hell in our place . . . did any of this feel good?!!? No. But it was love. The greatest act of love this world has ever witnessed.

My dear friends, God made us emotional creatures, but we are also now sinful creatures. So, our emotions can and do lie to us about what love is. But, even when our own emotions lie to us, God does not lie to us. He tells us love is more than a feeling. Love is truth, walking in God's truth. Love is Action, walking in obedience to God's commands. Amen.