Requirements

These sermons are to be delivered in class (1 in chapel by arrangement). The

outline for sermons must be presented to the lecturer before you start preaching as
this forms an important part of your assessment. If it is not submitted the sermon will
receive a 25 point deduction.

The first sermon will be 10 minutes long and conducted in the lecture room. It can be
on any topic, using any style. This sermon will be used as a measurement of your
preaching skills at the commencement of the class. It will not be graded though you
will be given feedback from the group and the lecturer on an approved form.

Brainstorming
Possible topics:
What has God been speaking to me personally about over the last few weeks? What does
he want me to say to my class?
Love

What do you want to say about love God?

I want to let them know how to remain open to love, and how that secures them. When
things go bad, that they can stand strong in the truth that I love them and still want the best
for them.

What is love?
Definitions of love on the Web:
 a strong positive emotion of regard and affection
 any object of warm affection or devotion
 have a great affection or liking for
 get pleasure from

Part DESIRE and part VALUE part RESPONSE/ACTION.

The highest love is unconditional and sacrificial.

Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment.[1] In philosophical context,

love is a virtue representing all of human kindness,compassion, and affection.

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In religious context, love is not just a virtue, but the basis for all being ("God is love"[2]), and
the foundation for alldivine law (Golden Rule).

 agape is descending, oblative love in which one gives of oneself to another; eros is

ascending, possessive love which seeks to receive from another. Logos is often translated
into English as "word", but can also mean thought, speech, reason, principle, standard, or
logic, among other things.

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16)

 In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even
a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For this
reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us
and which we in turn must share with others.... I wanted here—at the beginning of
my Pontificate—to clarify some essential facts concerning the love which God
mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man, together with the intrinsic link between
that Love and the reality of human love. – POPE

The one God...loves with a personal love. His love, moreover, is an elective love:
among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her—-but he does so precisely
with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly
be called eros, yet it is also totally agape... This is not only because it is bestowed in a
completely gratuitous manner, without any previous merit, but also because it is
love which forgives... 

 "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love,
I gain nothing" (1 Cor 13:3). This hymn must be the Magna Carta of all ecclesial
service; it sums up all the reflections on love which I have offered throughout this
Encyclical Letter. Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly
expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ

Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world
grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is
possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of
God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the
world

"God is love. On this solid rock the entire faith of the church is based."

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Key Passages on Love
God’s Love
 1 John 4
 1Jn 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
 1Jn 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and
sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
 1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has
to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
 Ephesians 3

 Romans 8
  Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us
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if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger,

or threatened with death?   (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every
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day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”)   No, despite all these things,
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overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

    And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither
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death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither our fears for today nor our worries
about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.   No 39

power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever
be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 Rom 5
 For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit
to fill our hearts with his love. – rom 5.5
 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we
were still sinners.11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship
with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. – Rom
5.8,11
 1 Cor 13
 Jud 1:21 Remain in God's love as you look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to
give you eternal life.

Our Love
 Most important commandment (Mark 12:28-34)
 All the law and the prophets hangs on Love (Matt 22:40)
 Deut 6:5
 1Jn 3:18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
 1 John 4
 1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever
loves has been born of God and knows God.

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  1Jn 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent
his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
 1Jn 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
 We know that we love God's children when we love God by obeying his
commandments. To love God means that we obey his commandments. Obeying his
commandments isn't difficult because everyone who has been born from God has
won the victory over the world. Our faith is what wins the victory over the world.
Who wins the victory over the world? Isn't it the person who believes that Jesus is
the Son of God? (1 John 5:2-5 GW)
 Rev 2:4 However, I have this against you: The love you had at first is gone.
Remember how far you have fallen. Return to me and change the way you think and
act, and do what you did at first. I will come to you and take your lamp stand from its
place if you don't change.

What does it mean that “god is love”?

Why does he want people to know that he loves them?

How should his love impact me?

How can I open myself fully to his love?