The Perfect Lover!

Part 2

Sermon Notes

February 21, 2010

First Sunday in Lent

Rev. Jim O’Neal, Senior Pastor

Sun Lakes United Methodist Church

9248 E. Riggs Road, Sun Lakes, Arizona 85248

(480) 895-8766

John 3:16 NRSV

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

A. Introduction

1. Valentine’s Day Dinner

a. A college fellow named Dan took a young lady named Carol out for dinner on Valentine’s Day. They had been going out for several months and Carol thought their relationship was getting a little more serious. After they finished their delicious meals he gave her a beautiful Valentine’s Day card. Carol shyly smiled as she read the card: “You fill my soul, you are my world. I will give you the sun and the stars, and everything you desire in return for your love!” Then the waiter dropped off the check and Dan said, “Carol. I’m a bit short of money today. Why don’t we split the bill?”

b. Today, I continue the sermon series on love. Last week we acknowledged that love is important to our lives. Further, we remembered how too often we mess things up and get it wrong when it comes to love, and because of that our world desperately needs real love.

2. Peanuts Comic Strip

a. In the Peanuts comic Strip, Peppermint Patty calls Charlie Brown on the phone. She says, “Marcie and I are about to leave for camp, Chuck. We’re going to be swimming instructors.” Marcie gets on the phone and adds: “We just called to say goodbye, Charles. We are going to miss you. We love you.” The two girls then say goodbye and hang up. Charlie Brown lingers by the phone with a huge grin on his face. His buddy Linus asks, “Who was that?” Charlie Brown answers, “I think it was a right number!”

b. When it comes to understanding what real love is all about, Jesus Christ is the “right number.” He is our example and our Lord. Today, we continue this sermon on love by looking again at our world’s desperate need for love and above all by focusing on Jesus the perfect lover.

B. The world desperately needs real love.

1. This Past Week’s News

a. Does anyone have any doubt about the world’s desperate need for love? This last week the following things happened in our own country: A man went to the hospital and received life saving surgery. His insurance was billed, but paid nothing for unknown to the man, who had been paying premiums for several years, was the fact that the Insurance Company was a fake and a sham. A fifteen year old girl was mugged in New York while security guards watched and did nothing. In California a former Olympic athlete was shot and killed. The prime suspect his wife. An untenured professor at the University of Alabama is accused of killing three of her colleagues.

b. The news of the world produced these stories: Coming home by airplane from the Olympics, Governor Mitt Romney was attacked by an angry passenger who did not like being asked to put his chair in the upright position for takeoff. The country of Dubai issued warrants for the arrest of the people who killed a visiting businessman. Further details revealed that the slain man was an alleged terrorist for Hamas buying guns to be used to kill Israelis. A U.S. bank in Athens was bombed. Damage was minor and no casualties have thankfully been reported. A German bakery was bombed in India. Nine people died and sixty were injured. An Israeli “cult leader” was arrested on sex charges for abuse of family members and for keeping women against their will as his sex slaves. Iran continues to defy U.N. sanctions concerning its development of nuclear weapons. The war in Afghanistan has escalated with, at the time of my typing these notes, four days of fighting in Operation Moshtarak. Authorities keep saying to expect lots of casualties. Since the operation is ongoing details are scanty. Several coalition soldiers have been killed, at least fifty Taliban leaders have died, and there have been fifteen civilian casualties. In addition the top Taliban leader was captured.

2. Last Week’s Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

a. Last week’s Scripture lesson tells us what real love is and the kind of love our world needs: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a RSV)

b. This is the love we need. This is the love the world needs. This is real love.

3. Mary the Eskimo

a. The kind of love that our world needs was demonstrated by an Eskimo woman whose Christian name was Mary. If you look at a map of Alaska you will see there in the middle of the State a settlement called Mary’s Igloo, and a river called Mary’s River. These names are testaments to a woman’s love. During the Gold Rush Days many a white prospector stopped at the settlement. It had a different name back then. The Native Americans in this village were noted for their hospitality. In exchange for the generous food and lodging the miners gave trinkets and tools. Sadly the prospectors, also, brought influenza. All the adults except Mary died. She lost her husband and all her children. Mary though very sick cared for all the remaining children. She nursed the infants. She hunted game and collected berries. She carried water; she cut wood and tended fires. Mary cooled fevered heads and gave the children medicine. She held the children and she prayed for them. She worked day and night. Initially there were around thirty children in the village. Mary’s loving care saved fourteen of them. These children all came to think of Mary as their mother and the village was renamed Mary’s Igloo.

b. This is what real love is about. This is the kind of love that our world desperately needs. How are you doing in sharing this love of God?

C. Jesus is the perfect lover!

1. Jesus!

a. If I said to you, “Who is the perfect lover?” You would know the answer.

b. Professor Eugene Lowry said this: “We know the end of every Christian Sermon. It is Jesus. He is the answer.” Jesus is the perfect lover. He is the best example of what real love is all about.

2. Condemned Soldier

a. From history comes the true story of the young English soldier condemned to die when the bell was rung from the old Church that evening. The man’s fiancé pleaded with the judge and the man who had given the order: England’s strict leader Oliver Cromwell. Her pleas were in vain. The hour of execution approached and the young woman tried to bribe the Old Church Sexton. The old Sexton was deaf and not very sociable. The woman stood at his door, she spoke, and she motioned with her hands, and finally wrote her request on a scrap of paper. She tried to hand him money, but he refused. “No!” he said, “I ring the bell as always.” And so the old sexton did yank the rope hard with a sick gusto that evening. Again and again he pulled upon the rope, but not a sound was heard! The young woman had climbed up into the belfry and wrapped her own body around the clapper. When the sexton was done the young woman dropped to the platform below. Her hands were raw to the bone. Her nose was broken and her face was bloodied and bruised beyond recognition. Her body and limbs were bruised and bleeding. Stumbling and falling she made her way to the place of execution. She then fell at the feet of Oliver Cromwell.

b. The poet Harwick Thorpe put it this way:

At his feet she told her story, showed her hands all bruised and torn,

And her young face, still haggard with the anguish it had worn,

Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light.

“Go, your lover lives,” cried Cromwell, “Curfew shall not ring tonight!”

c. Jesus, of course, went far beyond this sacrifice. As the Bible says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16 NRSV) Jesus to save you and me from sin gave His life upon the cross. In the greatest act of love Jesus died to save us from an eternal separation from God the Father.

D. Conclusion

1. Recap, from last week and this week:

a. Love is important to our lives!

b. The world desperately needs real love.

c. Jesus is the perfect lover!

2. South Pole

a. Paul A Siple led a scientific expedition to Antarctica. They were stationed near the South Pole and they were studying climatic conditions on the coldest continent. A visiting reporter noted a large globe of the world in the workroom, and it was upside down! The reporter said, “Your Globe is upside down.” Siple replied, “When you’re right side up at the pole, it’s the rest of the world that’s upside down!”

b. The rest of the world is upside down when it comes to love. Only those who follow Jesus get it right. Jesus is the perfect lover! He is the answer. His love is the kind of love our world so desperately needs. Open your heart, receive Him in, and then share His love!

The Perfect Lover!

a. Love is important to our lives!

b. The world desperately needs real love.

c. Jesus is the perfect lover!

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NRSV

¹If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

John 3:16 NRSV

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.