11/16/2003

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Just a reminder if you have particular prayer needs, praises or requests, or if life is great or if life is bad, or if you have certain issues coming up in the not to distant future that you need prayer for, there are prayer warriors in the room just across the foyer from us here and they would love to pray with you and continue to pray for you. 

Father, we thank You that You are one who is intimately interested in our lives. You know every aspect of our life, You know us, You love us, You care for us, You want to hear from us. So Father, this morning we pray that You have heard from our heart, not just our lips, but our hearts of praise. As our hearts might be in tuned with You and that You might appreciate what we had to say and what we had to sing. Father help our thoughts and our intents of heart to be pleasing to You, in Jesus' Name, Amen.

What was Friday? Valentine's Day, that is good. I am glad some of you remembered it. What did we do for Valentine's Day? What do people normally do for Valentine's Day? It is, of course, the day that Hallmark created so they could sell cards and the florist created so they could sell flowers. And also somebody created it so Brazil would be happy because 80%, I heard the other day, of our roses come from Brazil for Valentine's Day. So I am sure Brazilians are dancing in the streets now too. Because of all the roses that were sent during the Valentine's Day season here. It is a time when we tell the ones we love, that we love them and give them a hug. How do you go about doing that? A lot of people use different ways, of course. Some people send cards, some are card senders. Others leave notes on pillowcases or in the kitchen or wherever, in a baggies so people open it later when they are on a trip or something. There are a lot of creative ways you can do it. You can go out for a meal, you can go out with friends, some people like to go just to two of you spending time together, some like to go with friends just make it kind of an enjoyable evening that way. Some like to do the traditional date of the middle age which is Mancino's, a movie and Wal Mart. And some of you have seen that before, haven't you. We have met people in Wal Mart that we have met on dates and so if we don't go to Wal Mart that is not a true date. So that is something that some people do in romantic evenings now days. 

By the way, I heard a joke. You may not think it's funny. They closed all the Wal Mart's in Iraq and the Meijer's and they put in Target stores. Ok.

So, it depends on how you live with your spouse or how well you know your significant other if you are dating or have a boyfriend, or girlfriend what kind of things you do as a Valentine's celebration. But it is a day that does commemorate love. Loving each other, loving the very significant people in our lives, our family, especially our spouses during that day if you are married.

God appreciates love, of course. You know Jesus was asked, what are the two greatest commandments? Of course the first one was to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. 

TURN THE TAPE

You may have heard of the five love languages. They are words of encouragement, quality time, gift giving, acts of kindness, and physical touch. If you are one of those you will tend to give love in that manner and you will also tend to receive love in that manner. It is called a language because it is kind of the emotional way we speak to each other in terms of love. When we in were in Macau last summer we heard of much Cantonese and Manderin spoken around us that if we heard somebody say something in English our ears perked up and we looked their way because hey that is the language I speak. I like to see who it is that is speaking that way. We were on a bus ride in Hong Kong on the way back from Stanley Market, you may have seen that on Hong Kong specials. We have seen it two or three times since we got back. It is a marketplace where you spend lots of money for things. In fact, I got this tie there. This is my friend, Bugs. In case you hadn't figured that out, you wonder what kind of design that is, that is Bugs Bunny. I got this over there for. I think we got 12 ties for the equivalence of about $5.00 and so it is kind of fun to get things cheap over there. On the way back there was some people speaking English and so I stopped on the bus ride back and ask who they were. One was a girl from somewhere in the middle of Europe. She planned to spend her time traveling the globe, but she spoke English and learned English because that was the language that many people wanted to learn across the countries and so she was able to communicate in many places with English. As soon as I began to hear her speak with somebody else in English all of a sudden I take interest, because that is the language I speak. 

So, if your language of love is gift giving, it means that you think of gifts that you could give to somebody that mean that you care for them. It means that you recognize that, that is something they would appreciate and you give your love to them in the form of a gift that is very meaningful. As we were studying this a few years ago I kind of looked at my own family and tried to figure out what each one was. It wasn't to difficult cause Owen, he is not here right now, but you want to be on his list. Because he is a gift giver. He thinks seriously about gifts, in fact, a year ago at Christmas time he had my sister's name as a name gift for Christmas and so he gave her a picture album of some sort. I can't remember how it was formed, anyway you flipped through it and there was a place for a lot of pictures. And he took time with it and made sure that it was well filled with pictures, all of himself, to give to my sister. She just loved it, I don't think she put anybody else's picture in there. And she thought it was the most hilarious thing, but it took thought, it took time of make the pictures, it took time to get them produced and to put them in the thing and it took a great deal of thought and it really fit well with my sister who opened the present. And she about died laughing, she thought that was the most wonderful gift. Well, that is how he is. If you are on his list and he needs to give you a gift, he will think of who you are and think of something appropriate too. He has given my wife some very beautiful gifts and others. 

April is a quality time person. She is the one who if she can sit down with you and talk, and talk, and talk about world events, about life issues, all those things. That is the person she is and that is how she expresses love and that is how she receives love. And so if you try to give her wonderful gifts she may say, Thank you, but she will also say why don't we sit down and talk. In fact, she is one of those that if you get in the car and go somewhere you don't need a radio, you don't need anything else. Because she will be talking the whole way about any issue in life. She is happy to talk about it. And that is how you say I love you by spending time.

If you are Audrey, you are an active service kind of person. She would love to show her love for you by stepping in and doing something for you in a practical way that tells you that I care for you. Many times we would have guests over to our house and she would be the one who would be the homemaker in a sense. She would be the one offering water or juice or something to eat or something like that because that was her way of telling you that I care because I do something in your behalf. Now that is how she hears love too. If you want to tell Audrey you love her you do something for her. Take the kids for a day or so, please. That is one of the things you can do for them, Audrey and Adam. We have shown them too much love lately, they really miss their kids. 

But if you want to do something great for Owen find a gift that really is meaningful to him. If you want to do something for April, spend time with her. Now Kate is really confusing. I have not figured her out yet. And neither has she. Ok, you can give her a wonderful gift and she likes it. You can do an act of service and she likes that. You can do all these things like that, but we have to figure out which one she is. I know which one I am. I am touch. Touch does not mean sexual touch here by the way. Touch means just being a person who communicates love through physical touch and closeness. A person who is a touch type of person, that is their language, they are the ones who will tend to want to have a hand on your arm as they talk to you, or someway that is appropriate to the moment and be able to say, I want you to know that you are important to me right now. So this is the way we can express that. And so I give love that way, I receive love that way.

A person who is a word of encouragement type person is somebody who is going to say, you sure look nice today. You sure did something well the other day, especially in the hearing of other people, because that encourages them in their life and they do more of it. And that strengthens them and puts courage in. That is what encouragement means. But they also give love that way. So we tend to speak one of those languages and as we do that we give love in the language we speak and we get love.

Have you ever tried to speak to somebody who speaks a different language? You tend to get louder. Thinking if you are louder they will hear you better and understand better. Well, that is how people are in love too. If they want to express love to somebody, but they are not getting it they tend to use their language louder. And it still may not fit, we may be talking just like this anyway. So the key is listening to each other to figure out what the other person is like. So that we can speak to them in their language. Whether it be quality time or touch or whether it be words of encouragement or acts of service. Any of those gifts or languages of love we listen to the other person so we can respond to them in the way that they sense love and the way they communicate love. Often times we tell them, we love them in a way that fits us, but they don't hear it because it is not a language they speak. So we need to figure out how to do that. That is not just with people in our own household, that is also people around us. There are many times we think we are doing something kind and caring of somebody and it just doesn't hit the spot, because maybe we don't know them well enough to be able to do what is really necessary for their life in such a way that they hear it.

So God say love your neighbor as yourself, or as Christ loved you. And then he says, love God. So the loving each other is difficult enough, but turn to 1 John, way back in the back of your Bible. 
By the way if you know what your language of love is, make sure you let your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend know what it is so they can learn to speak your language. Tell them exactly what would be helpful and nice, because if we speak a different language it is a foreign language to us. So we need some instruction. If you are going to learn a new language you have to have somebody who knows that language to tell you how to speak it. And so you have to ask them what fits them. By the way, it is interesting that we can show love in a way that they receive if they don't show love to us in the way we receive, our kind of emotional tank is emptied after while. So we need to learn how to give to each other in a way that is understandable.

In 1 John Chapter 4, Verse 7 it says,

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

So God knew what our greatest need was. Our greatest need is salvation through Jesus Christ. So He met that needed Christ. But beyond that there is more. In Verse 13 it says,

By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have behold and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.

So he says as God showed us and we live out the love that God has given us.

For there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 

In a sense our learning to love each other is a practice for loving God. So he says. If you say "I love God" and yet don't know how to love your brother, you are not loving either. You don't know how to love God, because he says, For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. So we practice the love for each other as a way of doing it to express our love for God. We will get there in a minute. 

Verse 21, And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Verse 1 of Chapter 5 says, Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

So he says our love for God should be expressed to those around us. Our love for those around us becomes an expression that we can use in order to love God. To show our love for Him. The questions, of course, that would be appropriate one to ask is this. Does God know that you love Him? And how does God know that you love Him? Well, God has created us in His imagine, hasn't He? That is what the Bible says. So that means some of the things that are true about us, are true about God in terms of will and character, and some of those things. Not to the highest level that He has, of course. He is infinitely all these things, we are temporally and shortly or small, finitely so. And so I believe some the of same languages of love that we know for each other are kind of indicative of the ways that we can learn to love God. 

Touch. Touch, how do you touch God? How to you touch the arm of God? How do you touch the heart of God? We pray. We talk to Him, we get close to Him. We intend to know Him as Scott said a while ago, God not only loves you, He likes you. He likes you if you haven't understood that God likes you, you pray in a different way than if you just think God is up there who loves us. No, if we likes you, you tend to want to respond to Him.

Words of encouragement. How do you give God words of encouragement? Well, the Bible says that praise and thanksgiving and worship are like sweet incense to his nostrils. These are things that He loves to hear. Loves to know from us as we appreciate the things He does. Thanksgiving, gratefulness, thanking God for the things that He has given us every day. Thanking God for the people He has given every day. Thanking God for life itself, thanking God for the promise of eternal life. Thanking Him for the things that He has provided for us, our words of encouragement. Our worship, itself is a form of encouragement to God, because He knows then that we appreciate what He is doing. That is what we do when we thank somebody, we appreciate them and encourage them. We are saying that I appreciate that you are in my life. We say the same thing to God. It becomes a word of encouragement, as it were. They of course don't always exacly fit just like they would humans, but to some degree. 

Gifts. We give gifts to each other. Are there gifts we can give to God? Of course, there are gifts. We can give our self. We can give our self completely to Him. We can give high quality whenever we do anything. When we do anything. Like the kids up here, they were well practiced in Pioneer Club, of course it doesn't always show when they have a bunch of people watching them, but we can do our very best of what God has ask us to do. If he has asked us to teach a Sunday School class, do the very best that you can do. If he has asked you to serve your neighbor, do the very best you can do at it. We give of ourselves, if He has asked you to give money in terms of tithes and offerings, give it cheerfully and happily. We are giving ourselves to God in this way. In fact, if you read in 1 Corinthian's when Paul talks about giving, 1 Corinthians 9 he said that the Thessalonicians who were such great givers, gave out of their poverty, but first they had given themselves to God. Give yourself to God and that means He owns everything we own anyway. So he says giving in the way that I direct is a way of showing God love. We love God in this. 
Also the quality time. That is not to hard to figure out, is it? Do you have a time in your life, in your day when you spend quality time with God? Where not only do you do the talking, but He does the talking. In one of the courses that we took with some of the parents a while back, Growing Kids Gods Way. They suggested that you take couch time. Couch time is when you come home together, the first time you are together during the day, you spend 15 minutes on the couch, just husband and wife, and the kids can't be there. They can be in the area, but they are not interrupting, they are not doing the talking, it is time when husband and wife talk to each other. That tell the kids how much the parents love each other. And their love for their kids flow out of each other. Kids need to see that. That Mom and Dad really do love each other, they like to spend time with each other. So quality time is just spending time with each other, just as being there. And there are times when we need to sit aside time, 15, 20 minutes, half an hour, hour, whatever you can do and say, God, I just want to be in our presence. I just want to be where you are. I just want to be here for a while. If you have stuff to tell me, I am listening. And let me tell You a few things in my life. Life is good now, thank You. Life is bad now, can You help me? I need some wisdom, can You tell me some things? But God I am just glad to be here in Your presence. 

So there are different things that we can do that can express our love for God. Turn to Revelations, the last book in the Bible, Chapter 2. There is a danger that He expresses here and it is a danger in all of our relationships that can happen. Is that they tend to become stagnant. They tend to just kind of float along. And we just kind of go where the current takes us, as it were. It is kind of like the old joke about the guy who was complaining about his wife's cooking. Yeh, he said, she made me some biscuits the other day, I just took them for granite. Well, you don't want to be taken for granite, but we do take each other for granted. Our love is there, it is like one old fellow said, I told you I loved you when we got married, if I ever change my mind I'll let you know. Well, that is kind of, that is not the way you want it. One old guy is quite unemotional said, Well, honey sometimes I love you so much it is almost more than I can do not to tell you. Well, you want to tell them. You want to tell them once in awhile so that they know that they are not being taken for granted. Well, here Jesus is talking to one of the churches, one of the seven churches He addresses in Chapter 2, verse 1 he says,

To the angel of the church in Ephesus: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary.

He is saying there is really nothing wrong with our relationship here. There is nothing going bad in our relationship here, but he says in Verse 4

But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

You have left your first love. We know that when we met the new person. Kate and I met in Michigan History class way back when Michigan was first begun. That Michigan History Class was first begun I mean. Our love for each other started up here and as time goes along it kind of becomes the normal level of love that you are going to live for a long time with. So nothing is really wrong. But sometimes it is nice to go back to the emotional high that you started out with. So he says, I have this against you. Nothing is really wrong in the church of Ephesus, but you don't love me like you did at first. So how do you restart that first love for each other and that first love for God? He says do this, Verse 5,

"Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place-unless you repent.

So he says losing our first love is a matter of sin to some degree. Even though everything else may look great. You need to change and go back and do the things that you did at the beginning. What kind of things did you do with your boyfriend and girlfriend at the beginning? What kind of things did you do? Did you leave cards, and notes and things like that? Did you call each other and say I can hardly stand it without you? Things like that. It is like, wow, maybe if we started doing some of those things the level of emotional response would begin to grow also. The same with God. What kind of thing did you do with God when you were first a Christian? You couldn't wait to read the Bible. You couldn't wait to tell your friends about Him. You couldn't wait to be near Him. You couldn't wait to sing His praises. Now it gets to the place where nothing is really wrong you are not really sinning a lot, but you really don't love God like you used to. So He says go back and do the things you did at first, because quite often the activity raises your moral. We tend to hope that we start feeling good so we will do things. No it is the other way around.

Have you ever done exercising? Ok, I don't like to exercise. But once I begin to exercise I actually begin to enjoy it to some degree. Because I like the results. And so we begin to play the first time out and we start huffing and puffing and then we start getting a little better at it, and after awhile it is no problem anymore. You actually enjoy it so much you actually do it once in awhile just because it is fun.

So the activity brings the raising of moral. You don't wait for a raise in moral and then start doing it. In fact, an interesting passage in the Old Testament where the people have just finished the foundation of the temple, I believe. And the people were crying because it was not like Solomon's temple. One of the prophets, either Ezra or Nehemiah said, No, no, no quit your belly aching. You go back and have your friends over, eat food, have a feast, have a good time. Do the things that raise your moral and your moral begins to arise. So what did you do at the first when you trusted Christ? Go back and start doing them again. You will find you love for Him increases. What did you do when you first started going with your husband or with your wife, boyfriend, girlfriend. Go back and start over again. That increases our love for each other, our expressions of love. We love each other more. 

So Jesus said love God, love each other. The learning to love each other shows us how to love God. And in either case, start back where you began. Do the things you did at the beginning if your love as grown cold or things are just kind of floating along. Nothing is really wrong, but the fun is gone. Well, start doing the things that you used to do then. With your spiritual life and with your married life.

Let's pray. Father, we thank You so much that You give us love. The Bible says that we love because You first loved us. We learn to love our neighbor, so we can learn to love You. And they kind of go hand in hand. So Father, help us to return to that first love where we learned how to do the things that we did at first, with You and with those that we love. So that we can rebuild that joy of the relationship aspect of our lives and we will thank You for it. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

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