"What Makes You Think I Love You?"
Pastor Leslie Tipton
Exodus 34:27, Deuteronomy 10:12-22

Love…probably the most talked about subject in this country for sure. Love…what is it? Who gives it? How do we know when it’s really….love? Really, how do we know?

When we are in love with each other, or at least we think we are, there are lots of things we do for each other. We get mushy, don’t we? We send poetry like this one from Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise,
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints -I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Or this offering from Emily Dickinson:

It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

We bring things to each other…gifts, cards…we take each other out to dinner, lunch, breakfast…

This is what I bring to you today…this and my heart beside.

Love is the focus of this world…how to get it, I can’t live without it, how to give it, what it is, what it means, what is does for you…oh don’t look away from me now. We all know we want something out of love, and if you deny it, you’re only lying to yourself. After all, isn’t it all about me? I mean, not just me, but you say that too, right? It’s all about me?

Let’s take a moment this evening and translate this LOVE concept to our love from, with and for God. How do our earthly love relationships relate to our love relationship with God?

Year’s ago, the first time I ever read the Scripture theme of this year’s retreat, Obedience, not sacrifice, I became a bit confused. It seemed to me a contradiction within God’s Word, and knowing that God never contradicts Himself, I find myself in need of an explanation from Him. God, how can you say You don’t require sacrifice and offering, when I know that you went through an elaborate, and I mean ELABORATE explanation of ALL of the sacrifices and offerings the Hebrews were to make at the Tabernacle. I mean, let’s take a quick review of all of the sacrifices you asked us to make. Grain, doves, goats, bulls, heffers, lambs….shall I continue? It was all a bit too graphic and gory for me….can you relate? All that blood being sprinkled, all those PARTS laid up on the altar. It was enough to make me a vegan right then and there.

Why, oh why are we required to make those offerings if now He’s saying He doesn’t require them? In one word….LOVE.

Huh, I don’t get it…..stick with me here.

It’s all about love. Let’s take it back to the human version of love. We bring things to each other when we are in love not to define our love, but to be loving, or to show our love. I bring someone a card or a gift to be loving, but that gift is not my love. My love is so much more than just a gift. The gift is a simple expression of my love. By my giving, I am saying that I care enough about you that I want to give to you.

Let’s relate that to our love for God. When the Lord, Yahweh, set His laws in place, and set up the covenantal system with the Hebrews, He gave them a way to say they loved Him (sacrifices and offerings). Who set the whole plan in motion in the first place? God did…where? Up on Mt. Sinai…some of His laws are in the Ten Commandments. What are they? No other gods, no graven images, don’t use God’s name in vain, remember the Sabbath, honor your parents, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness against your neighbor, don’t covet. What do these translate into in the New Testament (or covenant)? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. The first four of the Ten Commandments are loving to God, the rest relate to loving your neighbor.

When Moses came down off of Mt. Sinai, after having rec’d these commandments, he went to the Hebrews and told them here is the covenant the Lord gave to me

·         Exodus 34:27 NIV

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."

Covenant, the Hebrew word berith, refers to an agreement between two parties. So we understand a covenant to be an agreement, but in this case, it is not a bilateral agreement. God didn’t come to us and say “Let’s sit down and write an agreement between myself and mankind. You bring to the table what you want, and I’ll bring what I want.”

No, God put it all together. He said to the Hebrews, “This is what I require of you, and this is what I will do for you.”

The sacrifices were not, and still are not, what God really wants of us. Let’s look at it in a practical way. Everything we have…all of our money, our possessions, our things, our homes….every single thing we have is ours because God gave it to us, right? You might say, “Well, I earned it at my job.” God gave you the job.

“I am successful in my business.” God gave you your intellect and reasoning.

“My family is wealthy.” God gave your family the ability to build up the wealth.

“My friend gave me this new car.” God gave your friend the finances to purchase the car.

God allows us to have or to own all the things we have. Follow me in my reasoning now. If God gave it all to us, then when we bring him sacrifices, offerings, TITHES….it’s not really ours in the first place, is it? We’re just giving what’s already His back to Him.

So what does He really want? I mean, if we can’t give Him anything that’s meaningful, what are we supposed to give to Him?

Obedience, and expression of grateful love.

Deuteronomy 10:12-22

In what parts of our lives are we not loving God? Where are we being disobedient? We may not see it as unloving, but God says it is. Where might we begin to make a course correction tonight?

Let’s allow our hearts tonight to be opened up to God’s request of love from us.

Instead of what Emily Dickinson wrote:

It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside

Let us tonight say, It’s all I have to bring today, this, my heart and my life.

·         Then I said, "Here I am, I have come-- it is written about me in the scroll.

·         I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."