Amen. Hey, can I hear a hearty amen to that? Praise the Lord. What a blessing. Just singing about God's attributes. And I was thinking too, Pastor Fox, is it a requirement to be married into the Fox family to be able to sing? Is that something, one of the things you find? One of the things you put on Phil's list. Thank you so much, Beth and Nikki and the Fox family for the special music. What a blessing it is. We've been worshiping God, haven't we? Amen. We've been worshiping him. We've been uplifting his name. We've been giving him glory. And we're just going to continue doing that as we hear his word preached. What a blessing it is to meet together. And what a joy it is to be with you. Let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 136. Psalm 136. You've been standing up and sitting down for about 40 minutes now. I was instructed not to go past 1230. Why don't we just stand up and we will read this passage of scripture together. Not the whole chapter, but just the first nine verses. And I want us to read responsibly. I'll read the first part of the verse, and then I want you all to echo back to me that chorus that's repeated over and over again, for His mercy endureth forever. Can we do that together? I'll read the first part of the verse, and then every single verse has that one phrase repeated, word for word, for His mercy endureth forever. Let's begin in verse one. I'll read, O give thanks unto the Lord, together, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever. O, give thanks unto the God of gods, for His mercy endureth forever. O, give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His mercy endureth forever. To Him who alone doeth great wonders, for His mercy endureth forever. To Him that by wisdom made the heavens, for His mercy endureth forever. To Him that stretched out the earth upon the waters, For His mercy endureth forever. To Him that made great lights, for His mercy endureth forever. The sun to rule by day, for His mercy endureth forever. the moon and stars to rule by night, for His mercy endureth forever. Heavenly Father, I pray that You would be with us this morning. I pray that You would take these few loaves and fishes and multiply them and cause them to feed a multitude. Thank You that You will bless Your Word. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. You can have a seat. I woke up yesterday morning and I thought I had a dream that I had gotten a text from Pastor Allen saying that he would be too sick to preach on Sunday so that Pastor Aarons and I would have to decide who would preach Sunday morning and Sunday evening. And I was thinking, man, that's a weird dream, until I looked at my phone and discovered it really wasn't a dream. I did have a text like that from Pastor that I'd gotten during the night. And it was just in my groggy state. I'd reached over, read the text, fell back asleep, and just assumed it had been part of my dream. But so Pastor asked us if we could take the services for today. And I'm thankful that he's able to take the time to rest. We certainly do miss him. And I know that he'll be in our prayers, that he would get better. Well, after that, I really sought the Lord and prayed a lot about what I should preach and decided that just instead of tipping my hat to the fact that tomorrow is Valentine's Day, we would use this as an introduction to what God would have for us this morning. And now, men, if I just now reminded you that it's Valentine's Day, please don't spend the rest of the preaching time strategizing as to how you're going to convince your wife you're just planning a surprise for her, okay? And please don't whip out your iPhones or iPads or whatever you have and start booking some online reservations for restaurants during the message. Technology enables us to do a lot of things. Hope that you young guys don't be like that guy I heard about who he went to the jewelers and he said, I want to buy a necklace for my girlfriend and I want to get it engraved. The jeweler said, yeah, you want to engrave her name on that nice silver heart there? And he thought for a while. He said, no, I want you to engrave to my one and only beloved. And the jeweler said, wow, that is really sweet. And the guy said, well, actually, I just want that engraved just in case I break up with her and need to use it again. Certainly hope that those of you who are married won't be like the guy whose friend asked him, so what did you get your wife for Valentine's Day? And he said, well, I got her this nice new belt and a nice new bag. The man said, wow, I bet she's going to like that. He said, yeah, and I'll like it the fact that our vacuum cleaner is working again. That would certainly put you in the doghouse this Valentine's. The title of my message this morning is God and Valentine's Day. And it has a more theological subtitle, but I'll give us that a little later on. And my message will basically form a circle. We'll first talk about human love, our relationships with each other, our relationships, relationships between husbands and wives, between father and son, mother, daughter, the love that we experience as humans, and then we're going to transition into talking about God's love. And as we begin to talk about God's love and search the scripture to discover really the true nature about God's love, I want us to capture a vision of God's love, because as we come down and complete the circle, we're going to talk about our love again. And I want us to be able to see our love through the lens of God's love as we complete that circle. I want us to be able to capture a vision of what God's love is, and we can take that back with us and apply it into our relationships. First of all, our love. Valentine's comes at an interesting time of our nation. It's a time when marriage is being redefined and cheapened. By that, I mean there is confusion about what love really is. We live in a time when marriage is almost like a piece of moldable wax to be twisted and pressed into whatever shape people want it. I was reading the news this morning and pulled out this article from the Washington Post not noted for their conservatism. I might add an article by a lady who is married to a lady and the title of her article is why the word marriage matters. Throughout about the fifth paragraph in her article. She says this marriage matters because marriage is how societies Society decides whose relationships matter and whose don't She says this no matter what gay people will fall in love and make homes together as we always have Marriage equality is about whether straight people are going to recognize those relationships. It's how they decide whose family We live in a very confused time don't we a very confused time a At the time, in an unprecedented way, people have begun to try to define marriage, but not just in the overt way of trying to define marriage as possibly between two members of the same gender, but also a time when marriages are as brittle as thin icicles, are as temporary as a breath in a cold day. It's when love is being defined as a surge of a feeling, as adrenaline or whatever chemicals are going on. And with all the attention and the discussion over defining marriage, we might lose the fact that marriage, even between members of the same gender, is being cheapened because it's so temporary. And we could lose the fact that this is also where we're at as a nation. I realize also I'm talking to individuals, people all across the spectrum. I'm talking to young people whose love life is in front of them, right? Boy, as a youth pastor, you tend to hear about this a lot. And it's great. Who am I going to marry? What is he going to look like? Will he be tall? Will he be short? Speaking of which, I thought Mrs. Fox brought this over for me when I saw this. This is for Malachi. What is he going to look out like? When do I know? How do I know if I'm in love? How do I know if this is the one? These are the questions that are facing us, but we are in a time when young people especially are being bombarded with a redefinition of what love is. And the culture has a lot to say about love. I'm talking to people who bear a thousand scars from broken promises, from unmet expectations. from unfulfilled dreams, from hurtful words, from relationships that have turned sour. Only God knows how deep those scars run. I may be talking to people whose marriage is like an empty fireplace. It's where the warmth and light once was, but is not now. See, that's where many of us are in our relationships, where our love is. Where's your love? And into all this mess of different stages of where we are, whether we have love to anticipate, or whether we're in a relationship, or whether that relationship is not what we want it to be, or whether we look back on past relationships and grieve with them or rejoice over them, or find pain over them, wherever we are, God comes right into the thick of it and gives commands about love. It's like God presumes to regulate and to place restrictions on and commandments about what seems to be just a natural outflow of human emotions. God enters into the picture. And God tells us, first of all, that we must love. He says in Deuteronomy 6, 5, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God. He actually gives a command about love. He commands us to love others. Matthew 22, 39, Jesus is giving what is the second greatest commandment after having been approached by a lawyer, asked him, Lord, what is the what is the greatest commandment? He said the greatest commandment is this, love the Lord thy God with all the heart, soul, mind, and love thy neighbor as thyself. Husbands are commanded to love wives. God tells us even what not to love. 1 John 2.15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For married people, not to be in love with others. So the question that we want to ask is, why is this such a big deal to God? Why does God presume to regulate and to place commandments and restrictions upon our love? I mean, this seems like it's our thing. Especially for unbelievers who think we can define marriage how we want to. We can say what marriage is and is not. We can say what love is. And God comes down with eternal, objective, unchanging truth into our world, into our lives. The question is, why is this such a big deal to God? It's not just a big deal because it affects us emotionally or because it affects us socially or because it affects our nation or because it affects our relationship. This is not a big deal just because of the practical outworkings of how we think about love. This is a big deal because it's intrinsically tied to God's character. The reason why our love is a big deal, the reason why God presumes, presumes, I say, to come down and say, this is what you must love. This is how you must love it. This is what you may not love. And this is how you may not love it. And this is the degree to which you must love. These are the people you must love. The reason why God does that is because it goes back to God's character. It is something that is true about God. Specifically, the most cherished and beloved aspect of God's character to us, and that is the love of God. We're talking about our love and the dilemma that we're in, the issues that we're in now. We're transitioning to talk about God's love. And I want all of us to come away with a clear scriptural understanding of what God's love is. not an assumption of what God's love is based on popular songs or based on our own feelings, but we want to understand what the Bible says about God's love. And I find no other way to really summarize what God's love is than the word committed. I realize it falls far short of really summarizing everything, but God's love generally, to summarize, is committed love. God's love is committed love. Let's just say that together. God's love is committed love. It's a love of commitment. It's a love of a covenant. In fact, the word for that's translated loving kindness or mercy or goodness throughout the Old Testament is a very, very important word in understanding God's love for us. And I want us to, I know this might get a little thick, but I want us to understand the meaning of this word. This word, it's an important word in the Old Testament. It occurs 247 times. It's translated variously, goodness, good deeds, favor, pity, loving kindness, merciful kindness. It's very often translated mercy. It's that word that we repeated nine times, as you read in Psalm 136. It's that word for His mercy endures forever. That's the word that's translated loving kindness. That's the word that carries the idea of God's committed covenantal love. That's the love that God has for us. I'd like us to turn to Genesis chapter 15. As we understand this idea of God's committed love and we're going to just look at three Aspects of God's love that I want us to carry away with us three specific Aspects designations about God's love that we're going to fix in our minds that come from scripture But before we look at those three aspects of God's love I want us to understand the overarching concept of a covenant and commitment that God has here Genesis chapter 15 God has called Abraham out of the ur of the Chaldees and Abraham had done nothing good to commend himself to God. Abraham had nothing special about his character. God merely pointed him out and said, you, I want you to go into a land that I promised you, and I will give you a blessing, and I will make of your descendants a great nation. Problem, Abraham didn't have any kids. And he was really, really old. That's a problem, right? Old people don't have kids. And Abraham knew that. And Abraham is saying, how can this happen because I'm old and my wife is old? And God said, you need to believe me. And the Bible says that Abraham simply took God at his word. Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness. Now, God wanted to demonstrate how much he loved Abraham and how committed he was to his relationship with Abraham. He appeared to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 verse 1 after these things the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision saying fear not Abraham I am my shield and I exceeding great reward and then Abraham Gives the objection that he is childless and then suggests his servant Eliezer as actually propagating Abraham's as a descendant of Abraham and And then in verse 8, if you run your eyes down your Bibles and look at verse 8, Abraham says this, Lord God, whereby how shall I know that I shall inherit the land? And God says, I'm going to show you. And so God tells Abraham to do something that we would consider to be very unusual. He said, take a three-year-old cow and a three-year-old goat. a three-year-old ram and two birds a turtle dove and a young pigeon and he told Abraham to take these animals and with a knife cut them in half and then God caused a deep sleep to come upon Abraham and And then God proclaimed himself to Abraham. And then, verse 17, it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. God, yes, what's going on here? God here, representing himself by this burning lamp, a burning furnace, is passing between these pieces of animals cut in half. So if you could just picture with me here, Abraham has these three animals. They're cut in half, separated by a distance, and then two birds also cut in half. And what they would do when they wanted to make a covenant with someone, they would do this to animals, and then the people making the covenant would walk between these severed animals. In essence, they would be saying, if I break this covenant, let happen to me what happened to these animals. That's what's going on here. When people made a covenant back then, that's what they're doing. They walk between those pieces and they're saying, I'm so committed to this relationship that I'm going to say, this might as well happen to me if I go back on my word, if I go back on this relationship, if I'm unfaithful to this commitment. That's why the actual the Hebrew expression is cut a covenant. They didn't say make a covenant. They say cut a covenant. That's the word here. They would cut a covenant. And that's what Abraham and God were doing. But God is the one that passed through those pieces. And God was saying, I swear by myself, I am so committed to my relationship with you. That is the sort of love that God has. That is his committed love. Now, let me just give you three aspects, as I promised I would, about God's love, these three aspects of God's love. The first thing that we need to understand about God's committed love is, number one, that it is totally undeserved. God's love is totally undeserved. Another way we could put this is that God's love is unqualified. And the only reason why that may make you feel a little bit uneasy is because our concept of love is galaxies removed from God's love. Unqualified love I'm gonna love you no matter what no matter what you do to me no matter what you've done to me past present or future Take for example the story of Jacob Jacob the trickster Jacob the deceiver Jacob the wheeler and dealer And yet before either Jacob or his brother Esau had done anything good or bad God said Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Meaning that God says not that he had an antipathy toward Esau, but that he was choosing specifically Jacob. Jacob hadn't done anything. It was undeserved. In fact, all throughout Jacob's life, he was proved. He proved that he did not deserve God's love. He was a deceiver. In fact, he tried to make deals with God. And yet God was committed to Jacob. That is undeserved love. That is unqualified love. That's why God was so concerned to express to his people, the people of Israel, that he was not choosing them, he did not love them because of anything they had done. Let's flip back to Deuteronomy, chapter seven. Let's go to Deuteronomy, chapter seven. And verse seven. Listen carefully to these words and think about the fact that God's love is undeserved, unqualified. Deuteronomy 7, verse 7. The Lord did not set his love upon you, speaking to his people, nor choose you because you are more in number than any people. God said, I did not choose you because you were the greatest nation ever, the most numerous in population. Verse eight, but because the Lord loved you. And because he would keep the oath which he had sworn, because he was committed to his relationship with his people. And it is because of that that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. God is saying, don't think it was because of you. Don't think it was because of anything good in you. It's because of my character that I chose you. See, God's love is undeserved. Unqualified. First of all, God's love is totally undeserved. Here's a second aspect of God's committed love. God's love is eternally, and the only, the best word I could think for this was relentless. God's love is eternally relentless. What do you think when you think of the word relentless? A pursuit does not stop. I'm just going to run through some passages for you. I won't have you turn there, but let me just read these verses to you. And as I read them, think in your mind about God's relentless love. Listen to this. Psalm 5710, the psalmist speaking of the Lord, saying, For thy mercy. That's the word there. Loving kindness is great under the heavens and my truth under the clouds. Psalm 1038 says this. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous. And here's a word. Mercy, love. Loyalty psalm 103 11 for as the heaven is high above the earth so great is his Mercy his committed love toward them that fear him psalm 103 17 But the mercy the love the committed loyalty of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting And psalm 136 that passes we read I mean that phrase is repeated so many times. It's almost like you get tired of it if you're not thinking about it and It's just a course that just hammers away every single verse for his mercy endures forever for his love persists throughout all ages For his love is relentless. We might say it never gives up it never stops What can we compare to this You've been to the ocean you've seen Waves crashing on the beach over and over and over again. They're relentless. They never stop. When I think of the sun burning up in the sky, it's always shedding out its rays constantly. But even the sea and even the sun are going to cease, but God's love never does. God's love to me is relentless. It's never changing. It's constant. Totally undeserved, number one. Number two, eternally relentless. And here's the third one. God's love is intensely personal. God's love is intensely personal. Of all God's names that he designates himself with, Jehovah, King, Savior, There is one name that raises questions in our minds. And that is the name that we find in Exodus 24 and Deuteronomy 4. God says, my name is Jealous. Whoa. Is that OK? Is God allowed to be jealous? God says my love for you is so exclusive and personal. I have a jealous love for you This is the exclusivity of God's love let's turn to Isaiah 62 5 Isaiah 62 5 Isaiah is describing God's restoring of his people After they have been in captivity after they've been punished because of sins that they committed against God in an Isaiah 62 verse 5 Isaiah says this for as a young man Marriott a virgin so shall thy sons marry thee. Here's what we want to focus on as the bridegroom of rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. God is describing his intense, personal, exclusive, jealous love for his people by describing it in terms of the love that a bridegroom has for his bride on the day of their wedding. His eyes are fixed on her. His love and affection is for her. Isaiah is saying this is how God loves us. God's love for us is totally undeserved. It's eternally relentless. It's intensely personal. Where's our love? We've seen God's love. What does God's love do for us? First of all, God's love convicts us. As we see God's relentless love in contrast to our own hardness and our own meanness and our own inconsistency on our failures, it convicts us. Romans chapter two, four says, don't you know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? God's love draws us. Here's a verse that I absolutely love. It says this, Jeremiah 31, 3 says, the Lord hath appeared of old unto me saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And here it is, therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. God says, because my love is everlasting and because it is so intense, because it will never change, I draw thee with my love. God is saying, I pull you in as you as as we see God's love that's so intense and it's so all consuming as it's so eternal as it never lets us go. Our hearts are drawn to that love. God's love lose us. God's love draws us. It's almost as if God is tying around his cords and pulling us in by his love. I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore, with loving kindness. That's our word there. I have drawn thee. God's love convicts us, it draws us. God's love never fails us. Romans chapter 8 verses 38-39, Paul in triumphant proclamation says this about the love of God, for I am persuaded, something he's convinced of, something he cannot be shaken up from, that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. God's love never fails us. And God's love motivates us. Psalm 6233, because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. First John 419, that well-known verse, we love him because why? He first loved us. Second Corinthians 514, Pastor Alan preached on this passage a couple of weeks ago, for the love of Christ constrains us. God's love is within us, a motivating factor that drives us from sin and it pulls us to Him. This is what God's love does for us. So we've looked at our love and the mess that we tend to be in. We've circled up and we've gotten a view of what God's love is. Now, let's look at our love again. See, we can communicate something very strongly and powerfully about God's character by how we think about love and how we act out our love. See, it's not just about obeying some rules and regulations, it's not what it's all about. It's about saying something very powerful about God's character. See, young people, The world has you in its crosshairs. The world is targeting our young people. And the world is saying something about love that God does not say about love. The world is saying that love is a feeling only. And today, as you get a glimpse of God's exclusive love. The fact that God has set his eyes upon his people and says, you are mine and no one else means that you can celebrate that aspect of God's love by renewing your exclusive commitment to that one who will be your spouse. So you are communicating something powerfully about the nature of God's exclusive love by saving your eyes. and your mind and your emotions and your body for that person. It says something about God's love. It says something about what God says marriage is. It's not just a matter of following some do's and don'ts that your parents are putting upon you. It is a matter about uplifting God's character. So you could begin today as you look forward to that day when you will look someone in the eyes and you will say, for richer, for poor, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. And those are words, young people, that you want to be able to say with a conscience having saved yourself truly till death do you part for that one that can easily be tarnished by an unbiblical view of love. You can determine now to bind your heart in love with that person that God will lead you to. Can I speak to the husbands? Can I say this? Cultivate romance with your wives Can I hear some amens from the ladies? Have we grown too gruff and manly to be romantic? And what was the last time you reached over to your wife and just held her hand squeezed it just because Put your arm around her shoulder Drawn a heart in the fog in the mirror in the bathroom after you took a shower for her to see Just because guys You know, I had this really dumb assumption when I first started dating my wife. She wasn't my wife then, we were just dating. And that really stupid assumption was that once I told her I loved her for the first time, that was settled. It was done. I loved her. If anything changes, I'll let you know. I love you. Oh, I pity the man who still thinks that. Listen, Man, we can remind our wives over and over and over again in so many different ways that we are still in love with them. Amen. See, God's love for us is committed. It's relentless. And he always puts things around us to remind us of his love. Unexpected events. Unexpected blessings. It's just another way God is saying, I love you. I love you. I love you. Look at this. I provided for you this in this way. I sent a friend to make an encouraging mark to you. I love you. And man, we could do the same thing. Wives, showing your love for your husband by giving him the respect that God wants you to give him. You might say, well, he's lost all respect I might have for him. That doesn't change God's expectations for you. And you might be surprised at what it would do for your husband if you begin to show him a respectful, deferential attitude. Valentine's Day is tomorrow. It is tomorrow. And maybe for you, Valentine's Day is not a happy day. Some people put it singles awareness day, right? And we laugh about that, but you know what? For some, it can be a painful reminder. And for those of you who bear the scars of the past, I want to say that God wraps his arms of love around you too. And instead of being a shipwreck of failure, you can be a lighthouse of God's grace by saying, here is how God's grace can transform what was a disastrous situation. And this is what God's grace has done for me. And now I am proclaiming God's love by how I act toward other people. What I want this morning is for man to leave his building committed to fanning the flame of romance again. I want young people to be renewed in their resolve to purity. I want people who have taken some hits in their lives to repent and yet to look to God and the grace that God can give you as restoring you. Because of God's relentless, exclusive and never changing love. Most of all, I want this. I want some soul in this building whose heart has been stirred by the love of God, to gaze afresh at the cross, because it was at the cross where God displayed his love in infinite manner. How does God show his love? Romans 5, 8, but God commanded his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The greatest, grandest display of God's love took place on that fateful day when Christ climbed Calvary's mountain and when evil men impaled him to two pieces of wood in the form of a cross. And when suspended between heaven and earth, Jesus cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And the answer that may not have been apparent at that time is clear to us now, because God was turning his back on his son because he was bearing the sins of the world. And there shines God's love. Maybe there's someone in this building, everyone thinks you're a Christian. Do you know you're not? You're the one God is drawing you by His love. I want us to close by turning to 1 John chapter 4. 1st John chapter 4. A prayer has been that God would have something for us this morning that His Holy Spirit can work on. That's His Word. 1st John chapter 4. Verses nine and 10 in this was manifested the love of God toward us. John is saying this. This is how God decided to show us how much he loved us, because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. Here is love. Here is love. Not that we loved God. That's not where love was found. Love was not found in the hearts of desperate humans who are blinded by sin and wickedness. Here in His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave Himself to be a propitiation, a satisfaction for our sin. That's how love is demonstrated. That's how God's love is shown. Beloved, if God so loved us, We ought also to love one another. God has shown us something about himself this morning. Something he wants all of us to deeply understand. And that is that his love for me is unchanging. It's relentless. It's personal. When I say a word of prayer, let's bow our heads and close our eyes. We'll have an invitation and I'm asking that you prepare your heart if the Lord wants you to come and just nail at these steps and spend a moment thanking God for his love for you and maybe something that God just put his finger on your life about. And you just want to spend a moment here at the front praying to Him in humility and submission. Play another verse of the song. It may be that you are hurting in your heart, and that God has prided you with His love, and that you need to look at God in His love to you. Or the situation is making you grieve or become bitter. Oh, how He loves you and me. All right, we're going to sing that song number 629, the song that the instruments were playing. Just before we sing that song, there's, as you go out in the lobby, the desk on your right, there's just little cards that summarize those points that we just looked at from Scripture. You feel free to take one of those cards. Maybe you can slip it in your Bible. It could be an encouragement to you as the summary of what was said about God's love and some Scripture with that. Grab one of those on your way out. Let's sing number 629, Oh, How He Loves You and Me.