The Need to Be Loved and to Belong (Part One)

July 30, 2017

The Need To Be Loved and to Belong (Part One)

I John 4: 7-21

In the time we have left before you need to get to the restaurants first today…..OK, maybe not first today, but as soon as you can, right? Let’s begin to step into a theme introduced at the very end of last week’s message. If you weren’t with us, we saw together that we all have needs and one important theme is a need for meaning and purpose in life.

Our top need is to glorify God and enjoy God forever….but there’s a lot to unpack in that statement. We saw how glorifying God can look like providing for the annual block party with lots of work, food and fellowship; we saw how glorifying God can be offering yourself to get someone who otherwise wouldn’t make it to church…get them to Church even if it inconveniences us along the way; yesterday we even saw that glorifying God can be providing roasted chicken along the roads of Cambridge and glorifying God can be providing clothing and a certificate for a back to school backpack provided through the Guernsey Association of Churches, the United Way and eventually through Walmart. There are lots of ways of glorifying God.

But why do we seek to glorify God? Isn’t it all about us, anyway? No, we seek to glorify God because God is God and we are not. Because deep down we know we need to be loved and we need to belong and, I pray, somewhere along the line you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, discover that the source of love is God. And the God who is God is love, and because God is the source of love, we deep down just know we first are loved by God, and we belong to God. We have this God-shaped hole in our hearts that can only be satisfied, only be filled by the love of our creator, redeemer and sustainer – God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

How many of you have ever held an infant? I remember the first time I had the opportunity to hold a newborn baby. I was petrified……I thought sure I’d drop it and would be forever banished from the world of newborns for the rest of my life. And the baby cried, and wiggled, and it was petrifying….until I think I just began to softly speak to it and stroke a finger. I didn’t hold on for too long, but it was awesome!

So along the way I’ve learned a thing or two about babies. In order for infants to thrive they need to be carried, they need to be caressed, they need to be cuddled and held and most especially touched.

Without a loving touch, I’ve learned they will die. So, far more serious than thinking I might drop the baby, God forbid……it’s more critical that you and I lovingly touch others. For a child, beingloved is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

So it is with all of us. We need to be touched….to be loved….to know we belong.

We all need to be loved…..to belong….to be touched by love. My message last week ended with,in terms of eternity, we’ve only begun. But our beginning is important. I pray you fill that God-shaped hole with God, not with anything the world has to offer.

Because bottom line, God gives each of us a choice – Choose God – Choose life. Reject God – reject God’s offer of eternal life.

God gives you new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade…you have been born again through the living and enduring word of God. I pray you allow the Holy Spirit to give you new meaning and purpose in this life….being remade in the image of God…….and what is the image of God? It looks like love. It is love.

Now I just want to introduce a next step in the words of the apostle John. Remember he was called the “one Jesus loved” often in the scriptures…..not that Jesus didn’t love other people of course, and that includes you and me even today, but John was kind of special to the Lord Jesus Christ….and I think that’s why John was able to give us these words….I John 4: 7-21. It’s on page 1280 of those pew bibles I encourage you to open together each week.

As you turn there know that all of this letter to the Christians in the Roman province of Asia which is modern day Turkey where Ephesus was located….this letter to the folks is here to encourage them then and it still should encourage us today.

It’s a book about love. Love is the key command of this beautiful letter. Christians are to follow Jesus Christ’s example by loving one another and caring for those in need, even to the point of laying down their lives for one another.

And as it says in this opening verse….Love comes from God. Genuine love can only be expressed as God lives in us and we live in God. So here we go.

…..

God is love. Love is God’s essential nature and in all God’s actions - God is loving. How is that demonstrated? Verse 9 tells us: God sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. God sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. We deserved and deserve to die for all the junk of our lives, for the sin that would separate us from God, but God stepped in and said, “I’ll die in your place.” I’ll provide the healing touch of love.

Since God would go to the point of dying for us in Jesus Christ…shouldn’t we be living for God by loving one another? That’s John’s challenge to those who first got this letter and for us always.

How do we know God still cares about you and me like God cared about the people back when John wrote this…..because God has given us God’s Spirit…the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t leave us alone….never has….never will.

Do we still need God’s love? You bet. Like the infant needs touch, needs love….we never outgrow the need for love. This doesn’t cease to exist when the baby becomes an adult.

God treats us the same way a responsible parent treats their own baby. They love them first.

God loves you first. Verse 19 says it: We love because he first loved us.

Love….the concept of love itself comes from the source of all love…..and the source of all love is God.

Then why do we love and still crave being loved and have a deep sense of a need to belong? There’s a lot to that which we can begin to unpack, Lord willing, next week. In the meantime I invite you to reread this whole section….what I’ve read and what was read earlier, OK? And take in the love of God…then take the love of God out into the world.

Let’s pray.