Who recognises these lyrics? I won't sing. But if you recognise them, feel free to sing the song. What's Love Got to Do, Got to Do with It? What's Love But a... What's love got to do? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? Yes? Everybody knows I I'm ageing myself big time. If 2001 is old, then I'm just ancient. Tina Turner. Tina Turner, yes. Actually, she didn't write the song. In fact, apparently, she hated it when it was first given to her. But because of the song's massive impact when it was first released, the title ended up being used for the 1993 biographical that was about her life. And unlike traditional ballads, it's considered an anti-love song. The lyrics describe a woman who does not want an emotional attachment. Dismissing love is a second-hand emotion in order to avoid further heartbreak. So they said she didn't write the lyrics, but yet they are very applicable to her own life experience. Because if you know anything about her life, or maybe please tell me you've heard of her, but Tina Turner injured 16 years of severe physical, psychological, and financial abuse during her marriage to Ike Turner.
She suffered repeated violence, strict financial control, and even life-threatening trauma that led to a suicide attempt. And eventually, she escaped with nothing but 36 cents, a gas card and her stage name. But this song describes the love that is actually common in our society, a love that many of us have experienced. Even for those who may not have experienced the extremes of abuse in the name of love, most of us have experienced conditional love at some point, love that doesn't last the test of time or circumstances. The lyrics talk about love with suspicion. The words ask, What's love got to do with it? And they call love a second-hand emotion. And the heart is portrayed as something that's fragile, and it portrays love as being risky. Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? Love in that vision is optional at best and dangerous at worst. It's something that you protect yourself from because it might hurt you. That's not just as it relates in romantic relationships. People have been hurt by those who claim to love them. It could be a friend, it could be a parent, other family member, as well as romantic partners.
Those that have been hurt this way often hold themselves apart from love because they don't want to risk that pain. In their experience, love has caused that pain. Here we are celebrating February as Love Month. I'm just wondering how many thought that being Valentine's Weekend, you were going to come into yet another sermon on 1 Corinthians 13. Surprise. Not happening. So as we celebrate Love Month, we are asking an important question. What do we actually mean when we talk about love? Because for many of us, love is actually a complicated word, shaped by relationships that have blessed us and others that have left scars that we still carry. We know love is something that we long for. But sometimes it's also something that we've learned to be wary of at best or avoid at all costs at worst. Now, the song asks what love's got to do with it. What's love but a second-hand emotion? For many, that has been their experience. For some, What is called love was not love at all. It was control wrapped in affection. It was manipulation disguised as care. It was being told that harm was normal, that confusion was your fault, that silence was loyal reality.
And when love has been misused like that, it can leave deep wounds, not only in our relationships with each other, but in our ability to trust love itself. So when we hear God loves you, it's natural to philtre that through our own human experiences. And for some, that is through a lens of love that has been unreliable, controlling, or even painful, leaving us to wonder if love truly can be safe, trustworthy, or real, even if God is the source. So Psalm 116, however, helps us to answer that question. This Psalm invites us to encounter a love that does not hurt, a love that responds to our cries, a love that is openly offered, it's accessible, and deeply trustworthy. Here, love is not distant or fragile. It is personal, it's redeeming, and it's steadfast. So for many people, believing that God exists is not actually the primary hurdle to faith. They can often accept the idea of a creator, a higher power, even a sovereign Lord. Hard. But the difficulty comes later when faith becomes personal, when our question shifts from, is God real? To learning that God loves us. Our response could be one of unconscious weariness as we wonder, is God's love safe?
There are many attributes of God that we can acknowledge without much hesitation. But hearing that God loves us, that's different because love asks something of us. It invites trust, and trust can feel risky. God's love can be difficult to trust if our experience of human love has not felt safe. If love has meant control, unpredictable, disappointment, or abandonment, then love no longer feels like good news. It feels like exposure. It feels like the possibility of being hurt again. So even if someone believes that God exists, they may quietly keep their distance, emotionally only guarded and spiritually cautious. And others struggle because of suffering. They may believe God is there, but unanswered prayers, grief or injustice raise hard questions. If God loves me, why did this happen? The issue is not God's existence, it's whether his love can be trusted in the dark places. And still others wrestle with shame. They believe God is real, but they're unsure of whether his love truly extends to them. Maybe they suspect that it's reserved for people that are strong or more faithful or more morally consistent, not for someone who doubts, who fails, and who carries regrets. Christian faith ultimately answers not only that God exists, but that his love is steadfast, it's unchanging in character, it's not manipulative, it's not conditional, and it's not fragile.
It is not a love that traps or shames. It's a love that restores and remains constant. And sometimes the most courageous act of faith is not affirming a doctrine about God, but slowly and carefully learning to trust that his love is safe. Do you find that surprising? Because it makes sense when we consider our stories. If love has left us feeling vulnerable in the past, we may quietly fear that God's love will do the same, that it will expose us, that it will leave us open to rejection, or somehow require us to become someone we don't think that we can be. We may wonder whether receiving God's love means losing control or losing parts of ourselves that we've worked so hard to protect. And sometimes we're afraid that being fully known will lead to being pushed away. Sometimes we fear that love will come with expectations that we can't live up to. And so even as we long for God's love, we may hesitate to trust it completely. But in Psalm 116, there's a different story. Love is not a second-hand emotion, something distant or unreliable. It's steadfast. It's trustworthy. And the very reason the Psalm cries out with confidence is because he's heard.
Love is not fragile. It's not disposable, something that we protect ourselves from because hearts can be broken. It's steady, and it's near, and it's openly offered, and it's deeply personal. And instead of leaving us shattered, God's love is what rescues us, it redeems us, and it restores us. So this Psalm, Psalm Psalm 116 is the fourth of the Hallal Psalms, which go from 113 to 118. These are the Psalms that Jews sang at Passover, and I believe they still do. But to celebrate how Yahweh rescued the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery, Jesus would have sung these Psalms with his disciples on the Night of the last supper. It's a personal psalm of gratitude and thanksgiving for God's deliverance from trouble, trouble that was so great that it nearly led to death. So the Psalm begins by saying, I love the Lord, for he heard my voice, he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. Love here is not fleeting. It's not something that just passes quickly. This is a love that is a response to experience. He loves God because he knows from experience that God listens.
And Tina sings, Loves the second-hand emotion, something reactive, unreliable, and perhaps not worth building your life on. Her life and experience would certainly have taught her that. But the Psalmist experience of love was the polar opposite, because Because it was God's love that he experienced, it was a love that listened, that heard, and could always be counted on, a love that didn't waver or push away, even in the midst of overwhelming circumstances. These verses tell us that because the Lord hears our voices and our cries for mercy, we can be confident that we have his ear. It's in that confidence that will encourage us to call on him as long as we live. Now, unlike love that's a second-hand emotion, this psalm It speaks of love that's a first-hand experience. It's rooted in God's character, gracious and righteous and full of compassion. It is not a fleeting passion, but faithful presence. This is a love that waits patiently for trust to grow. And for many of us, faith isn't about learning to love God more. It's about slowly learning that God's love can be trusted. And that trust doesn't happen all at once. It grows as we experience it again and again, and it grows as we learn that because of his love for us, God listens and he hears us, and he never turns away.
The personal nature of God's love is woven right in the grammar of the Psalm. The repeated pronouns, I love the Lord, He heard my voice, my cry for mercy. He turned his ear to me. You, Lord, have delivered my soul. Make this a testimony, not a theory. This is not a distant, second-hand emotion. It is deeply related rational. The Psalm speaks of my distress, my prayer, my rescue, because God's love meets him personally in his specific moment of need. And yet this intensely personal language does not make God's love exclusive. The same God who bends down to hear my voice is the God anyone can call upon. Their pronouns remind us that God's love is not vague or generic. It's particular and attentive while still being openly offer to all who cry out. Isn't it phenomenal that even when we push God away, when we ignore his voice or walk in the opposite direction from where he is leading, that he still openly invites us to sit at his table? His love is personal. He knows our wandering, our resistance, our unworthiness, but he never withdraws the invitation. No matter how many times we close the door on him, his door remains open.
And that invitation is not reserved for a select few. It's extended to all who accept. Now, what an amazing love is that? Because there is nothing on earth that compares to it. God welcomes those who have turned away and receives them not as strangers on probation, but as children coming home. So let's look at the Psalm again, and I'm looking at verses 3-7 now. The cords of death entangled me. The anguish of the grave came over me. I was overcome by distress and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord, 'lord, save me. ' The Lord is gracious and righteous. Our God is full of compassion. The Lord protects the unwary. When I was brought low, he saved me. Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. Now, where Tina's song suggests that love is a liability, something that leaves you vulnerable to heartbreak, the psalm sings of a love that's a refuge, a love that saves and a love that heals. As we heard, verse three was the writer's recollection of a specific time when he especially needed the Lord's help. Now, the message translation really brings it home in their wording.
It says, Death stared me in the face. Hell was hard on my heels. Up against it, I didn't know which way to turn. So when facing death in the face, what did he do? He called on the name of the Lord. Then in verse 5, we're told three beautiful things about who God is. He's gracious, he's righteous, and he's compassionate. That is his heart. In verse 6, we see how that heart shows up in action. The Lord protects the unwary. In other words, he looks after those who come to him with simple childlike trust. The Psalm says, When I was brought low, he saved me. That's personal. There is that lived experience again, like we heard at the beginning of the Psalm. Then in Verse seven, we see how we're meant to respond. Interestingly enough, it's with rest, with a settled soul, with gratitude. When you know God is like this, you can finally just let go know and trust, knowing that in his love we can safely rest. The writer tells us that he is broken, overwhelmed, and at the end of himself. And it is precisely there that God's love proves trustworthy. Instead of asking who needs a heart when a heart can be broken, the Psalm invites us to say, Only a God who loves like this can hold my heart safely.
Where Tina's song reflects a very human instinct to protect yourself so you don't get hurt, the Psalm reflects a redeemed instinct. Trust the one whose love does not exploit our vulnerability, but meets it with mercy, heals what has been broken and restores what fear and pain have taken from us. Now, often what we experience as love in our human relationship is a love that comes with strings attached. It's help that carries leverage or rescue that creates a sense of debt, care that slowly turns into control. We may not notice it at first, but over time we feel the weight of that obligation, the sense that we owe someone something in return. But in the song, the love it talks about can feel distant, unreliable, or even dangerous, something that we protect ourselves from because hearts can be broken. But God's love is not like that. When God delivers, he does not demand submission through fear. He does not rescue in order to own us. His character is revealed as gracious and righteous and compassionate. And in this psalm, the writer is saved, not controlled, not indebted, not possessed. God's love frees rather than binds. Where human love may whisper, You owe me', God's love declares, You are free.
And fear-based love keeps people on edge. It creates anxiety about staying loyal. It uses guilt or subtle fear to secure closeness and withholds peace maintain power. You never quite get to rest. You're always watching. You're always walking on eggshells, always trying not to disappoint or to live up to someone else's expectations. But God's love moves in the opposite direction. The Psalm tells us that God invites the soul to rest, not vigilance. His love restores stability, dignity, and trust. He doesn't keep the Psalmist afraid in order to hold them close. Instead, his neerness brings peace. Conditional love speaks in pressure-filled whispers. Prove you deserve this. Earn your place. Don't mess up again. It keeps us striving and performing and constantly wondering if we've done enough to stay accepted. But God's love moves in a completely different direction. He invites gratitude, not repayment. With him, worship becomes a response to grace, not an obligation to secure it. Faithfulness flows not from fear of losing his love, but from the security of already having it. So let's look at the end of the Psalm. I'm starting at verse 12. What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will fulfil my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the 'The Lord is the death of his faithful servants. Truly, I am your servant, Lord. I serve you just as my mother did. You have freed me from my chains. I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the Lord. I will fulfil my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. In the courts of the house of the Lord in your midst, Jerusalem, praise the Lord. When I first came to faith, Wasn't that long ago. One of the things that really shocked me about other believers, especially those that had been believers for a very long time, was in some of them a level of indifference that seemed to radiate in regards to Jesus's sacrifice for our salvation. I was so on fire because You know new Christians, right? We're on fire. We haven't had time. We're just on fire. And in that state myself, I couldn't understand how anyone could be so blase about what Jesus had done.
But over the years, I've seen it time and time again, people's fire for the Lord just dying down to where there's only occasional sparks. But how does that happen? I believe the key to not drifting into spiritual complacency is by staying close to the heart of God. Instead of pushing ourselves away from his table because we think we're full, we have to keep coming back, asking for more, more of the very love that he has already poured into our lives, that he's continuing to pour, the love that he promises never to withhold. We need to keep coming back to his table. We need to keep sitting at the table with him. And as the Psalm says, we need to lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. And if we do, we will find that the cup he places in our hands will continue to be overflowing with mercy and life. Jesus stepped into our place and took the cup that was meant for us so that we could receive a different one altogether, a cup that was filled with salvation, welcome, and restored relationship. And when you realise that that love has your name on it, Something shifts.
Commitment is no longer duty, it's devotion. And public praise is no longer performance, it's gratitude that just can't stay quiet. If we keep coming back to the table, we We don't find the fire in our own spirit dying out. And when you've been loved by God, personally, sacrificially, and generously, you don't want to keep it to yourself. You want to tell the story because love like this is meant to be shared. So for some, the hardest part of faith is not believing that God is powerful. It's actually believing that God is gentle. It's not believing that God exists. It is living in submission grounded in trust. It's not believing that there is a God that's the problem. It's believing that God finds us worthy of love. That's where we struggle. But this psalm teaches us that God's love is poured out and into each one of us, that his love doesn't demand anything, but that because we are filled with his love, we cannot help but respond with gratitude. His love won't hurt us. In fact, it will heal us. And his love will never be taken away. We can't lose it because it's unconditional.
And therefore, we can safely trust in it. His love is freely offered to all. We don't have to work for it. We We don't have to jump through any hoops or meet any expectations. All we need to do is accept it, trust it, and share it with others. So the question we need to ask ourselves is, are we, because of our own human experiences, holding ourselves back from fully experiencing God's love in our life? And if we ask ourselves, what's love got to do with it? The answer would have to be everything. Let's pray. God, we are so grateful that you are our God and that you love each and every one of us. We don't deserve it. We can't earn it. There's nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy of it. It just is. You love us, and that love will never leave us no matter what we do. But God, as we saw towards the end of this psalm, your love is something that it overflows within us, and it needs to be poured out into others as well. We need to be sharing that love, that understanding that regardless of what human experience you've had, whatever love is meant to you in this life here on Earth, that there is love that is so beautiful, amazing, unending, and just so huge that we can't even comprehend it.
That is something that everybody needs to know. So God, give us the hearts to pour into others. Give us the words with which to speak. Give us the boldness of spirit to step into situations and speak those words to others, God. And most of all, make our lives just a living testimony of your love, God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
