What's Love Got To Do With It? | Dr. Jerry Mason

And the church said, Amen, you have your Bibles turned with me

this morning. Please to the book of first John

1 John 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4. God's love is amazing.

His love is amazing. Who else can love you

unconditionally? I want more.

That should be our anthem this morning.

Give honor to our pastor who is not here.

I always considered a high honor to stand in this pulpit,

especially when he is not here. The trust that he gives I do not

take lightly on our Bishop this morning, a youth pastor and all

the ministries of this church. My beautiful wife who is going

to accompany me this afternoon to Sullivan IN preach.

So you're in good hands tonight with Brother Alex.

He is the son in whom the Father is well pleased and we are so

thankful for that. First John chapter 4 and verse

1 John 4 · chapter mention

#8 the Bible says he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is

love. Everybody say that with me, God

is love. Today I want to introduce and

answer a question presented. This may be a little unorthodox.

I don't want to make anybody uncomfortable today, but I've

never been one to back away from a challenge.

I'm going to compare and contrast to a hip hop rock song.

That said, what's love got to do with it?

Some of you can hear the TuneIn your head now.

It's a good tune, just bad lyrics.

So that's my topic today. We sing about love, we preach

about love, but I believe many still quietly wonder what's love

really got to do with it. Even in church, it's possible to

know all the songs, all the verses, all of the the childhood

Bible stories and still feel unsure that it's safe to believe

in love. If we're honest with ourselves

today, if love always healed, the pews would not be filled

with people carrying hidden pain.

It's not just a song lyric, it's a silent question in the hearts

of non believers and believers alike who have been hurt by

love. So I want to answer the question

today. What's love got to do with it?

Would you lift your hands and ask the Lord to help us this

morning? Jesus, mighty God, in your name,

today we come before you and we ask you to take this presence

that we feel and allow it to linger a little while longer

here this morning as we break bread and before the gates of

heaven, Lord. And we ask you to minister,

Lord, in ways that only you can do by the word and the power and

the Spirit of Almighty God and will not fail to give you praise

and glory and honor for today and Thanksgiving in Jesus name

in the church said Amen. You may be seated.

The Lord bless you for standing. That is a courtesy and not a

command. The lyrics of this song suggests

A skeptical and guarded attitude toward love, especially in the

context of past emotional hurt or trauma.

Turner's narrator questions the role of love in a relationship

that appears to be primarily physical or based on simple

mutual convenience. What's love but a second hand

emotion? That's what the lyric says.

The third line says who needs a heart when a heart can be

broken? These lines reflect A

disillusionment with romantic ideals, possibly stemming from

personal experience of pain and betrayal.

Tina Turner is singing that love, once revered as the

central emotional bond, might actually be overrated, even

dangerous, because it can lead to emotional damage.

This song. I want to give you some

statistics on the reach of this song.

It was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 1, 1984.

It stayed there for three weeks. It was her first and only number

one hit to hit the Hot 100. It hit number one in the country

of Canada. It was also a top ten hit in the

UK, Germany, Australia and multiple other countries.

At the 1985 Grammy Awards, it received Record of the Year,

Song of the Year and she received Pop Vocal Performer.

The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012.

It was certified gold, having sold over 500,000 copies in the

US and over 2 million copies worldwide.

Why is this important, especially on a Sunday morning

church service? It is because this song reflects

how many people feel from its release in 1984 until today.

Love hurts, love fails, and it's easier to keep your distance.

That's the common worldly perspective, not just in

romantic relationships. People have been hurt by love in

almost every area of life. Family, romance, friendship, in

church, work relationships, you name it.

It runs the gamut in our alphabet from A-Z.

If you can be hurt, people have been hurt.

When love is supposed to bring safety, belonging, and joy, but

instead brings rejection, confusion, and trauma, the

natural reaction is to say one of the following statements, if

not all of them. It's not worth the risk.

Keep your distance. I'll protect myself by never

letting anybody get close to me again.

These are statements often made from an emotional state, and

they are based on the person's feelings.

But here's the thing about love that we need to understand

today. Love, and this is both biblical

and it is scientific. I don't have time to get into

all the science of it today. But love, ladies and gentlemen,

is not a feeling. The confusion comes into play

because we have feelings. Does love accompany feelings?

Yes. But love is not a feeling.

Hate is a feeling. Hate is an emotion.

And love and hate are not opposites of each other.

We often think they are, but they're not.

Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision.

Love is a judgement. Love is a promise.

Love is a conscious choice. If you get married, let me go

into marriage Bible study one O 1 here for about 45 seconds.

If you get married on the basis of believing that love is a

feeling, you will not stay married.

I promise you, because as much as I would love to stand here

and tell you that after almost 32 years of marriage and nearly

40 years of relationship, Lord have mercy.

That sounds like a really long time when I say it out loud.

Yeah, I see you smiling back there.

I would love to tell you that every day of my relationship

walk with my my wife has been accompanied by the blissful

feelings of love. And perhaps this statement is

more so on her end than it is mine.

But it hasn't been because what happens in our human nature when

we don't know each other, we're on our best behavior when we get

to know each other a little better.

We start letting our guard down and the early morning bark comes

out because I've not woke up yet.

I didn't mean it. It just kind of slipped because

she's been out of bed for 45 seconds.

She's dressed, teeth brushed, hair done, and she's thinking

the world is great. You hear her back there, don't

you? And when I'm 30 minutes in, I'm

like a newborn pup. My eyes still aren't even open

yet. That's a time of life where

feelings are not appropriate for me to judge my marital bliss.

Just an example. Love is not a feeling.

So it begs the question, what's love got to do with it?

Everything. That's the simple answer.

Because without love we remain guarded, empty and hurting.

But with the love of God, we are healed, we are restored, and

we're made whole. That's the powerful fact of the

matter. The world's love is often

wounded and untrustworthy. Who needs a heart when a heart

can be broken? This lyric reflects how people

protect themselves after pain. Our culture often promotes

emotional detachment as a means to avoid vulnerability.

Emotional detachment is a defense mechanism.

It's a psychological skilled people often use, consciously or

unconsciously, to avoid being vulnerable and therefore avoid

being hurt. Because in our humanity, after

you've been hurt once, you might get hurt again and you just

might let your guard down one more time, but you get hurt

enough, your guards getting up, walls are going to be built and

you're going to start protecting yourself.

And often times, emotional detachment is how we do that.

Because God forbid I ever allow you in.

Because if I allow you in, see, it's a trust issue.

If I allow you in, then I'm trusting you.

And I can't trust you because I've been, I've trusted before

and I got burned. So here's how emotional

detachment works. It reduces the risk of rejection

or disappointment because vulnerability requires opening

your heart. But if I don't get too close, I

can't get, I can't get let down. It blunts emotional pain.

Detachment numbs feelings. If I don't feel deeply, I won't

hurt deeply. That's the thinking.

It maintains control. Vulnerability often means

surrendering control, but emotional detachment keeps

things on the surface. No one can hurt me if I don't

let them in. It protects fragile self worth.

People with wounded identities may fear that being truly known

will lead to rejection. If they really knew me, they

might walk away. So I better not let them in.

Last but not least, emotional detachment preserves

predictability. Vulnerable relationships are

uncertain, but detachment brings a certain emotional

predictability. It's lonely, but at least I know

what to expect because I'm not going to get hurt.

It may feel like strength, but it's often protection dressed in

silence. It keeps pain out, but it also

keeps healing away. You will never heal in an

emotionally detached state. You cannot heal until you allow

there to be trust and you become vulnerable again to allow God to

help you. The Bible acknowledges the

brokenness of of humanity in Jeremiah 17 and 9.

He says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately

wicked. Who can know it?

That's what the Bible says about the heart.

That's why we don't lead our life based on how we feel.

That's why we don't serve God simply from an emotional state.

Emotions and serving God are great, but I do not serve Him

for the emotion. If you serve God only for the

emotion and the euphoria and the hype that you feel when the Holy

Ghost falls, when he doesn't show up, you're going to start

questioning God. I love the power of the Holy

Ghost that we feel. I love the fact that we

celebrate. We serve a real live God and I

love the fact that He shows up in our services when we start

talking about Him. But there are times.

There are times in singing, There are times in playing.

There are times in worship. I feel Him differently than

others. Let me say it just a bit

clearer. There are times I don't feel

Him. And sometimes, if I'm going to

admit it to you today, sometimes they are the most inconvenient

times for me not to feel him because I need to feel him.

But for whatever reason, in the power of divinity, I don't.

I'm playing Brother Fred. I'm worshipping, hands are

lifted, vocals are up, I'm singing.

I'm doing all the things that I'm supposed to do.

I don't feel you. That's why the Bible says we

walk by. We walk by faith, not by the

things I see, not by my sensory developments, not by the things

that I feel. Because there are days there are

church services, there are Sunday mornings, there are

Sunday nights, there are Wednesday nights, there are

revival services, even that I can come to the House of God

with the weight of the world on my shoulders and I just simply

can't feel him. But I've got to put a stake in

the ground that says God, I believe your word.

I believe you're real. I believe you're for me, and I

believe just because I don't feel you right now, that doesn't

mean you're not real. And I will walk even though I

can't see you. Because love is a choice.

And the same love that is a choice for me, for my wife, is

the same love that I've got to make a choice in my relationship

with God. I don't love Him because of what

He's doing for me. I love Him according to the

Bible because He first loved me. Proverbs 14 and 12 says there is

a way which seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the

ways of death. There is a way.

It's kind of popular, might even be attractive if it if it wasn't

seeming right to man, it may not.

It may be pretty ugly, but if it's seeming right to me, it's

probably pretty attractive. It probably looks good, and on

certain days of the week it might actually feel good.

But if it's not the way, the end thereof are the ways of death.

God's love is the original. God's love is not second hand.

The song says what's love, but a second hand emotion.

The song minimizes. Understand this now.

It is minimizing love. It's minimizing.

It's reducing its value by questioning what's love.

It's nothing but a second hand emotion.

Second hand. If we define second hand, I'm

going to I'm going to define it the way that way that I see it

now, my wife and sister McGee and some others, they like, they

like thrift shopping. That's that's God bless them.

I never find anything except books.

Now I do enjoy that. Now you can call that a good a

good bargain. You can call it a good buy, but

what you can't call it is a good value because it's being sold at

a reduced rate. You get a Bishop.

I know you have better luck than I do and you like those things.

It's got the stickers on them and they're brand spanking new,

never wore and you get you a $3540 shirt for $3.

It's a good bargain, but it's being sold at that rate because

somewhere it lost its value. That's what second hand is.

You'd never get second hand for first hand value.

So if, if, if somebody is referring to love as second

hand, they are simply devaluing it.

God's love is the original design.

It's the first hand. It's not a flawed version where

human love often fails. God's love remains constant and

true despite our feelings, despite our grievances, despite

our complaints, despite the things that we're sad about,

we're mad about. We've got all the feels about.

God's love remains constant and true.

Turning to 1st Corinthians chapter 13, it's a bit of a

lengthy reading, but I'm going to read the entire chapter

because it's just that good. It says though I speak with the

tongues of men and angels and have not charity, charity is

defined as love. I am become as sounding brass,

or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of

prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and

though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and

have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods

to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and

have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long and is kind.

Charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself, is

not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her

own, and is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not

in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things,

believeth all things, hope with all things, endureth all things.

Charity never fails, but whether there be prophecies they shall

fail. Whether there be tongues they

shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it

shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we

prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect

is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child I spake as a child.

I understood as a child, I thought as a child, But when I

became a man I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then shall I know even also as I am

known and now abide of faith, hope, charity, these three.

But the greatest of these is love.

Like counterfeit money, worldly love may have a luster.

It may look good, it may look original, but it completely

lacks value. Love does have everything to do

with it. The gospel is grounded in love.

Jesus didn't just come to show power, but to show love that

redeems and love that restores, John 316 tells us.

For God so loved the world first.

John 419 tells us we love because He first loved us.

Psalm 3418 tells us the Lord is close to the broken hearted.

Psalm 147 and three tells us that He heals the broken hearted

and binds up their wounds. It's not a matter of if your

broken heart was caused by someone's actions to you, or if

it's a result of things even done by you, because sometimes

our broken heart is because of things we've done, not because

of things done to us. The restoration power of God is

still real, and it is not contingent on the purpose of

original failure of the heart, of the hurt, or the heart.

God's love addresses the very pain.

This song talks about betrayal, heartache, and the fear of

intimacy. So I would say to you today, if

you've been guarded or skeptical like the narrator in this song,

consider this. God's love is not second handed.

It's very difficult for some people to develop a relationship

with God when they have been hurt in the world.

And the very reason why is what I'm talking about this morning.

They've been hurt and now they're guarded.

May come to church, but we need to understand today that God's

love is redemptive, it is restorative, it is healing, and

it is eternal. It doesn't fade, it doesn't

stop, it doesn't give up, it doesn't quit waiting for you.

Once God starts running after you, He doesn't stop running.

He's waiting on you to stop running so He can catch you.

The hurt of the world does not stop nor deny God's grace.

The hurt of your past mistakes does not stop God from loving

you, or caring enough about you to restore you and to heal you

to a place of greater height. Romans 838 says, For I am

persuaded 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 what the love of God, which is in Christ

Jesus our Lord. Nothing can stop God's love.

I'll go as far to be blunt this morning, to say it doesn't

matter how stupid you can be Now, pardon me today, but

sometimes we do some stupid stuff.

It doesn't matter. He still loves.

I've done some stupid stuff. You don't need to know what this

I'm thankful today that his love is still real.

His abiding love is still ever present.

He still redeems, He still restores.

He still heals. He is worth taking the risk.

Pastor often says one of his one of his isms.

God's a gentleman. Oh, how true that is.

He won't embarrass you. He won't trick you.

He won't surprise you other than to surprise you how good he is.

He won't leave you. He won't hurt you the way people

hurt you. Because allow me to give you a

little commercial break this morning, people.

If people haven't hurt you yet, they're going to.

If people haven't disappointed you yet, hang around people a

little bit longer. They will.

And can I be as colorful this morning as to say there's people

in this church that's going to disappoint you?

We don't have to be 1000 member congregation to say that there's

people in this church that's going to disappoint you.

There may even be people in this church that's going to hurt you.

That's not a reason to stop worshipping God because let me

say this, and I say this with all the love that I can muster,

even if it doesn't look like it, it's there.

I just, my face just doesn't always show it.

I'm not here for you in my person.

I'm here for you right now in my personal walk with God.

I don't attend church because of you, so I'm not.

I refuse to allow you to allow me to make a decision to not

come to church. I'm not giving you that much

power over my life. Why do I come to church?

I'm I'm personalizing this right now so nobody can get offended.

Why do I come to church? I come to church because of him.

That's it. Now, as a minister and as a

leader, am I here for people? Yes.

Please don't. I don't.

I don't have time to qualify everything I'm saying this

morning, so I hope you understand that.

But I'm talking in my personal walk with God when I'm not in

the pulpit and I'm not on this platform, whenever it's just

Jerry Mason. I am here for God and God only.

So I cannot allow someone who is not God hear me well this

morning. We've got to get this into our

spirit today because this is part of our decision for

following Him. It's got to be a rooted decision

that's down deep in the ground because if you've got a shallow

walk with God, anything is going to trip you up and it's going to

keep you from coming to church. They made me mad.

I don't like what they said. I don't like how they dressed.

I don't know why. I don't like what they looked.

I don't like what song they sang.

You just get your notepad out and sharpen your pencil real

good. You can make a list of plenty of

things that you're not going to like, I promise you.

And guess what? If I allow myself Bishop when

I'm sitting on this nice, comfortable, cushy seat, can't

say Pew anymore, I love it. If I allow myself when I'm

sitting here, I can get my notebook of complaints out too,

and I can write up all the things that I see that I don't

like and that I don't like hearing.

And the songs I don't like? Listen, I've told you this

before. There are songs we sing that I

absolutely hate because we don't pick songs based on just what we

like. We pick songs based on what we

think the demographic likes and what God's going to be pleased

with. Just because I think that's the

right thing to do. I've got a choice to make.

I can. I can write my notebook of

complaints of things that I don't like.

And I can say there, you see there that one right there #9 on

my list of 32, I'm going to put a big Gold Star beside that.

That's why I'm not going back to that church and what you're not

understanding. This isn't in my notes this

morning. I'm just trying to follow after

what I feel like God has prompted me for.

So I hope this helps somebody. Today.

You walk away from the church. You aren't recognizing you are

walking away from God. You're not walking away from the

person that made you mad. You're not hurting them in the

least unless they just grieve over your lost spirit.

So we asked the question, what's love got to do with everything?

But there, there is a time in your decision making process

that that love, you've got to first start with loving

yourself. I can't do that.

I've made too many mistakes. If it's under the blood, come

on, come on. If those mistakes are under the

blood, if you've repented and you've been baptized and you've

allowed God to wash you clean, the Bible declares that when we

come up out of a watery grave of baptism that we walk in newness

of life. All that spiritual dirt and

filth and baggage that was all over us when we repented, it all

died. But now we're carrying around a

lot of death, and then we bury all of that dead stuff.

We bury it in baptism, and when we come up, we're washed clean.

All that stuff is gone. I'm lighter, I feel better.

The world is new, the world is fresh.

And at that moment in time, you've got to make a decision.

I'm not going back to the grave that I just came out of.

The restoration power of God is not contingent on my past.

He loves you in spite of your past.

Staying with me this morning, I'll, I'll hasten to a close

Today We began. We began with the question that

the world keeps asking in song. What's love got to do with it?

But we've seen over the last 30 minutes or so that love that

this song is not just a song lyric.

It's the echo of hearts that have been let down, shut out and

left behind by what people call love in the world today.

And the truth is, love has everything to do with it.

Not the shallow kind of love that fades.

Not the not the the lust that's labeled as love.

I'm talking real love. Not the emotion, but the

decision. Not the conditional kind that

says you prove yourself first, then I love you.

Not the broken kind that leaves scars instead of healing, but

the kind of love found in first. John 418 of our texts says

perfect love casteth out fear. God's love is different.

God's love does not demand that you be perfect.

I know, I know that there's a verse in the Bible that says we

strive for the mark of perfection.

But there is nowhere that I read that the Bible says that if

you're not perfect, the first mistake you make, you're done.

That denies the very essence of grace.

For by grace are we saved, and that not of ourselves.

It is the gift of God. He doesn't demand that you be

perfect. He just asks you to be open,

vulnerable, transparent. It doesn't wound.

His love restores. His love never walks away.

It always stays right where you found Him.

And if you ever find yourself without the love of God, retrace

your steps back to where you left Him and you will find Him

there. Some of us have been guarding

our hearts and our lives for so long, we don't even remember

what it feels like to trust real love.

But today God may be whispering in your heart.

Today let me in. My love can reach the even the

even the part of you that you've kept hidden.

So maybe the better question today isn't what's love got to

do with it? Maybe the better question today

is, am I ready to believe in a love that never fails?

This altar is open this morning. If this is you or if you, if you

just want to pray, if this is not you, I'm not trying to to,

to, to advertise anything here today.

But if you just want to come around the altar this morning

and worship and pray and draw closer to God, this altar is

open and here for you today. Maybe, maybe as I spoke today,

there's something that stirred in your heart.

Maybe you've been carrying the weight of disappointment.

Maybe you've been protecting yourself behind walls because

love has let you down. Or maybe you let love down.

Maybe you've even struggled to believe that God's love is any

different, or that it could ever be different for you.

But here's the truth. His love doesn't give up on you.

His love doesn't manipulate. It never fails.

It heals, it restores, and it saves.

And this morning, God, he's calling you out from behind your

walls, not to shame you, but he wants to set you free today.

This altar is open today for prayer, for healing, for

surrender. It's open for you.

Could we pray as we sing and we worship this morning?

Just allow your heart to draw closer to Him today.