{"id":33682,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/learning-to-love\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"learning-to-love","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/learning-to-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18940.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;m\ngoing to speak about learning to love. What I have to say may pertain to many\nof you who are married, but if you&#8217;re not married, hang in there, because the\nprinciples we&#8217;re talking about apply not only to marriage but all\nrelationships.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">People experience misery in\nmarriage for 4 reasons.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let\nme begin by asking this question. Why do marriages begin so well and often end\nso badly? I&#8217;ve been a pastor for a number of years, and no one has yet come to\nme to say, &#8220;Pastor, our great desire in life is to have a miserable marriage.\nWould you please tell us how we can live in real misery?&#8221; No one has ever said\nthat. Amazingly there are some couples whom I have married who are living today\nin a good deal of misery. Why? Let me give you a few reasons.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">First,\nthey are miserable because of unrealistic expectations. Some people actually\nthink marriage is going to make them happy. Here&#8217;s a young woman who says to\nherself, &#8220;I am going to marry a man whose  responsibility is to make\nme happy.&#8221; She marries him, and he has responsibilities other than that\n responsibility. She begins to chip away at him to make him into the\nkind of man who will make her happy.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It&#8217;s\nbeen said that a bride thinks of three things on her wedding day: the aisle,\nthe altar, and him. Actually it&#8217;s this: &#8220;I&#8217;ll alter him. I&#8217;ll make him into the\nkind of man who can make me happy.&#8221; I just want to say this: if you are\nmiserable as a single person, it&#8217;s entirely possible you&#8217;re going to be\nmiserable married. Marriage does not automatically produce happiness. Some\nyoung women don&#8217;t marry a man; they marry a dream. When the dream shatters,\nthey&#8217;re shattered, too.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There&#8217;s\na second reason, and that is the myth of the greener grass. J. Allan Petersen\nhas a good book by that name. Some people always live on the slope of a\nquestion mark: &#8220;If only.&#8221; A woman thinks to herself, If only I had married\nanother man. If only we had more money. If only we had not had five children in\nfour years. Surely things would be better if . . .<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;m\ngoing to tell you very plainly: No marriage is ever happy, no marriage is ever\nfulfilled for those with &#8220;if only&#8221; in the back of their minds. If you&#8217;re\nmarried, you&#8217;re married to that person, and there is no use trying to think of\nwhat might have been. No marriage is happy with the myth of the greener grass.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A\nman walked into a mental institution one day and was taken on a tour. The tour\nsaw one cell where the man was beating his head against the padded walls. He\nkept saying, &#8220;Linda, how could you do it? Linda, how could you do it?&#8221; The\nguide explained that the man was in love with Linda, and when Linda jilted him,\nhe drifted off into the ozone. He couldn&#8217;t handle it.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">They\nwent to the next cell, and there was a man saying, &#8220;Linda, Linda, how could\nthis happen? Linda, Linda.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nvisitor said, &#8220;Who&#8217;s he?&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nguide said, &#8220;He&#8217;s the man who married Linda.&#8221; That&#8217;s the myth of the greener\ngrass.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Number\nthree: Many marriages fail because they misunderstand the role of conflict.\nCouples get into their first argument, and they think they must have married\nthe wrong person. They thought their marriage was going to be all sweetness and\nlight.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nonce met a man who said, &#8220;In the forty years we&#8217;ve been married, my wife and I\nhaven&#8217;t had an argument.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nsaid to him, &#8220;Well, my marriage has not been quite that boring, personally.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nkind of like what that Britisher said when he heard that in the United States\nthere are many divorces because of incompatibility. He made an amazing\nstatement. He said, &#8220;I thought incompatibility was one of the purposes of\nmarriages.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That\nmay be true. What if you take two  people and bring them together?\nWhat else can you expect except incompatibility? God wants us to grow through\nour incompatibilities.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There&#8217;s\na fourth reason why some people live in misery. their failure to distinguish\ndivine and human love. For this I ask you to turn now to Luke, chapter 6. Jesus\nis speaking in the Sermon on the Mount.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What\nI&#8217;d like to do is to give you three statements regarding love.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>Statement one: If you love those who love you, what credit\nis that to you? (Luke 6:32)<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Statement\nnumber one:<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;If\nyou love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even &#8216;sinners&#8217; love\nthose who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what\ncredit is that to you? Even &#8216;sinners&#8217; do that. And if you lend to those from\nwhom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even &#8216;sinners&#8217; lend to\n&#8216;sinners,&#8217; expecting to be repaid in full.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Human\nlove depends on the person who is loved. You do good to those who do good to\nyou. You do a favor for someone who has done a favor for you. As long as he is\nnice to you, you&#8217;re nice to him. That&#8217;s human love. Human love is therefore an\nattitude or a disposition. It is often laden with heavy feelings because you\ncan&#8217;t help but liking some people for what they do for you.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There\nare two ways to be impressed by people. First is their personality. There are\nsome people who just exude love and openness. We&#8217;ve all met people like that.\nSomeone will say, &#8220;Oh, you&#8217;ll just love John, because he&#8217;s just such a\nwonderful fellow.&#8221; A person who has that kind of openness may have other\nweaknesses, but it&#8217;s true that everybody loves John. We&#8217;ve all met people to\nwhom we are instantly attracted because of their personality.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nother thing that impresses us about people is appearance. Some people are\nstrikingly beautiful. The minute they walk into the room, every eye is on them\nbecause of the magnetism of their looks. Put beauty and magnetism together and\nyou have a tremendously powerful package. Look at people like that, and they\nmake you feel good. They may stimulate you sexually. You&#8217;re attracted to them.\nThat&#8217;s human love.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You\nask, &#8220;Is there anything wrong with human love?&#8221; No. It makes the world go\nround. Some of you should think back to the days when you understood human love\na little better. There&#8217;s only one problem with it. Even though Jesus calls it\nlove, he says sinners love those who love them.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Someone\nonce challenged me, &#8220;You should not talk about human love as being love.&#8221; Jesus\ndoes. He says sinners love those who love them. It&#8217;s human love. The problem is\nthat human love is not strong enough to weather the storms of many marriages.\nThat person no longer may do something for you. Perhaps he&#8217;s changed and not\nthe person you married.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nwas preaching in the Midwest one day, when a woman came to me with a little\ngirl at her side. This woman showed by the cast on her arm and some scars on\nthe side of her face that she had been in the hospital. She said, &#8220;I was in the\nhospital because of a very serious fire. There were burns over  of my\nbody. My husband walked into the hospital room, took one look at me, and said,\n&#8216;You&#8217;re not the woman I married.&#8217; &#8221; He left her to marry someone younger and\nmore beautiful.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Human\nlove says, &#8220;As long as you stimulate me, as long as I can be proud of you, as\nlong as you&#8217;re beautiful, I can love you. If you change, my love for you\nchanges.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nheard a song on the radio not too long ago. Here are the words:<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> I don&#8217;t love you anymore.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> To waste our lives would be a sin.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Please release me, let me go.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Release me and let me love again.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">We\ncould say that again and again and again, trying to find somebody who makes us\nhappy. That&#8217;s human love.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Biblically\nit is important to marry the right person, but the Bible doesn&#8217;t say much about\nthat. It stresses being the right person. I know we must seek God&#8217;s will\nregarding a mate, but being the right person is where it&#8217;s at.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Statement two: Love your\nenemies (Luke 6:27).<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Here&#8217;s\na second statement. I told you that human love depends on the one who is loved.\nDivine love is based on the lover. Look at what Jesus said in verse 27: &#8220;But I\ntell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless\nthose who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus\nis talking about the kind of love that loves enemies. It&#8217;s not a feeling or a\ndisposition. You can&#8217;t make yourself feel happy and excited about an enemy. You\ncan&#8217;t turn feelings off and on like a faucet. Jesus&#8217; love is strong enough that\nyou may even love your enemy. Jesus said it involves sacrificial action.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Notice\nwhat Jesus said you should do for such a person. It is a kind of love that is\ndivine. &#8220;Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us long\nbefore we loved him.&#8221; That&#8217;s divine love. It is based on the lover. Notice what\nthe text says divine love does for those who are your enemies.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Perhaps\nyou read the story about a woman and her husband who came to a pastor and said,\n&#8220;We&#8217;re going to get a divorce, but we want to come to make sure that you\napprove of it.&#8221; There are people who come to the pastor hoping that when they\nsay there is no feeling left in their marriage, the pastor will say, &#8220;Well, if\nthere&#8217;s no feeling left. then, the only thing you can do is split.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Instead,\nthe pastor says to the husband, &#8220;The Bible says you&#8217;re to love your wife as\nJesus Christ loved the church.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He\nsays, &#8220;Oh, I can&#8217;t do that.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\npastor says, &#8220;If you can&#8217;t begin at that level, then begin on a lower level.\nYou&#8217;re supposed to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Can you at least\nlove her as you would love a neighbor?&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nhusband says, &#8220;No. That&#8217;s still too high a level.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\npastor says, &#8220;The Bible says, Love your enemies. Begin there.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Notice\nwhat Jesus said we should do for our enemies. This is divine love. In verse 27\nhe says, &#8220;But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who\nhate you. Give yourself to their legitimate needs. If your enemy thirsts, give\nhim to drink. If he hungers, feed him. You do good to him.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s\nimportant in all relationships and certainly with those who are difficult to\nlove. You should do good to them. It says, &#8220;Bless them who curse you.&#8221; That\nmeans you say good things about them rather than bad.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;ve\nbeen a pastor for a number of years, and I know women often live with men who\nare really hard to get along with. There&#8217;s no question about that. Some men are\njust egocentric and insensitive. They are  and difficult. But\nthe temptation is for the woman to tell other people how awful her husband is.\nI think there is a legitimate place to discuss that with a pastor or a\ncounselor. Often though, she is not blessing her husband. She is speaking ill\nof him in certain contexts to people who are neither a part of the problem nor\na part of the solution. Therefore, she may be undermining something that God\nwants to do, because the Bible says what you should do is bless him.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A\nwoman came to a lawyer and said, &#8220;I want to get a divorce. I really hate my\nhusband, and I want to hurt him. Give me some advice.&#8221; In addition to wanting\nto get the gold and give him the shaft, she was wondering about some other way\nthat she might do him in.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nattorney said, &#8220;Look, you&#8217;re going to divorce the guy anyway, so for three\nmonths don&#8217;t criticize him. Speak only well of him. Build him up. Every time he\ndoes something nice, commend him for it. Tell him what a great guy he is, and\ndo that for three months. After he thinks that he has your confidence and love,\nhit him with the news and it will hurt more.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nwoman thought, &#8220;I can&#8217;t go wrong on this. I&#8217;m divorcing the guy anyway. Why\nshould I speak badly about him anymore? I&#8217;m going to speak only well of him.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So,\nshe complimented her husband for everything he did. For three months she told\nhim what a great man he was. You know what happened to that relationship? After\nthree months, they forgot about the divorce and went on a second honeymoon.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus\nsays, &#8220;Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.&#8221; Do good to\nthem. Bless them.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">How\nshould we pray for our enemies? Should we pray that God will bring them into\njudgment? I don&#8217;t think that that&#8217;s the kind of praying Jesus wants us to do in\nrelationship to our enemies. What Jesus wants us to do is to be able to say in\nprayer to him, &#8220;O God, I pray that you might mightily bless this person. I pray\nthat he might be led to worship you. I pray for his spiritual growth.&#8221; Uphold\nthem positively in prayer, because God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,\nand plenteous in mercy. That&#8217;s what the text says we should do to our enemies.\nWe should do them well.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let\nme say to those husbands who are listening. I talked about divine love\ninvolving sacrificial action, doing good, blessing, praying. Do you know what\nelse it may mean in relationship to your wife? It may mean giving that\nsacrificial action, answering her need for communication. You know that women\nare made by God to desire a man who communicates with them. They need time,\nlove, and appreciation. They need to feel wanted.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nremember counseling a young woman involved in an immoral, sexual relationship.\nShe said, &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t because I enjoyed that relationship so much. I just wanted\nto mean something to somebody.&#8221; That&#8217;s the cry of many marriage partners today,\nof both men and women. They want to mean something to somebody. Wives desire to\nmean something to their husbands. The question for those of us who are married\nis whether we are willing to give the time, the love, and the sacrificial\naction to recognize that our first responsibility is to our spouse, in\nmaintaining that love relationship. That is divine love.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Divine\nlove says, &#8220;I may not need this, but you need it, and I put your needs and your\ndesires above my own.&#8221; That&#8217;s very difficult to do, but that&#8217;s what God expects\nus to do for one another: sacrificial action. That&#8217;s divine love.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Human\nlove is based on the one who is loved. I can love you because of what you do\nfor me, but divine love is based on the lover. Divine love says, &#8220;I can be\nsacrificially involved in your life even at high cost, and even if I don&#8217;t get\nanything in return.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Even\nthe Mafia have a code of ethics that says if you do something for me, I&#8217;ll do\nsomething for you. That&#8217;s human love. Divine love says, &#8220;I can go on loving\neven if you don t reciprocate.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>Statement three: Love your enemies  you will be sons of\nthe Most High (Luke 6:35).<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Here&#8217;s\na third statement: Divine love is based on the nature of God. Look at what it\nsays in verse 35: &#8220;But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them\nwithout expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you\nwill be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and\nwicked.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">We\nall pray, &#8220;O God, make me .&#8221; When people come into our lives who are\ndifficult to love, we don&#8217;t see it as an opportunity to grow in .\nWe want to get rid of them. I hope that&#8217;s not true in your marriage or in your\nwork relationships where there are people who are hard to love. What you should\nsay is, &#8220;Oh God, thank you for this opportunity for spiritual growth.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now,\nlet&#8217;s bring this down to concrete terms. There are a lot of things when we talk\nabout divine and human love that impinge upon reality. Forgiveness, for\nexample, though not stated explicitly in this text, is certainly implied.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nknow a young woman who got married but found she could not relate to her\nhusband. As a child, her stepfather sexually molested her for a number of\nyears. That experience had made it difficult to have any kind of physical love.\nA molested child may not like to be touched, even though the thing that they\nneed the most is to be touched and to be hugged.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But\nthis young woman was transferring all of the revulsion and the hatred for her\nstepfather toward her husband because of the depths of her shame and\nbitterness.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">She\ncame to a pastor, and he pointed her to Luke 6. He said, &#8220;What does the Bible\nsay that you should do to your enemies?&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">She\nlooked at verse 27 and said, &#8220;Love them, do good, bless them, and pray for\nthem.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\npastor said, &#8220;That&#8217;s what you have to do about your stepfather. Until you\nrelease all of the feelings of bitterness and you are free in your relationship\nwith him, you will never be free to love your husband.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Every\nfiber of her being revolted against such advice. She thought to herself, Why\nshould I forgive him? Why should I love him when all of those awful things were\ndone to me?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Yet\nthis young woman decided to apply this text of Scripture. She decided to bake\nher stepfather a birthday cake. Rather than speaking evil of him, she decided\nto speak well of him. Upon further reflection, she realized that there were\nmany good things she could say about him. In spite of this horrible sin against\nher, the fact was that in many other ways he was a good father. She began to\nthink about those ways and speak well of him rather than evil. She decided that\nshe would pray for him three times a day, that God would bless him, and that&#8217;s\nwhat she did.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Several\nweeks went by as she continued to obey the Scriptures and to forgive the man\nwho had so severely wronged her. She told the pastor later that she saw her\nstepfather leave a supermarket and walk across the parking lot with a bag of groceries\nin his arms. For the first time in all those years, there were actually\nfeelings of love toward him rather than revulsion. She said that except for\ntheir previous relationship, she could have gone and put her arms around him.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Then\nshe made the crucial statement that was very important to the survival of her\nmarriage: &#8220;Now I&#8217;m free to love my husband.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nBible says that the fruit of the Spirit is predominantly love. You may find\nthat you are absolutely unable to love. That is not too serious if you see the\nlove of God as being shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. You can tap\nsupernatural resources to enable you to love the unlovable and the unlikable.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus\nsaid, &#8220;By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one\nanother.&#8221; We do not have it naturally, but supernaturally God gives us the\nability to love with divine love&#8212;to love as God loves.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;m\nsure there are hurting couples with torn relationships and emotions in a state\nof convulsion. I urge you in the name of Jesus to confess and forsake hatred;\nby God&#8217;s grace and strength learn to love.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Dr.\nErwin Lutzer is senior pastor of The Moody Church in Chicago. He is also the\nfeatured speaker on &#8220;The Moody Church Hour&#8221; and on the popular evening program\n&#8220;Songs in the Night.&#8221;<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">(c) Erwin Lutzer<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Preaching Today Tape #99<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of Christianity Today\nInternational<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[1554],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3823,4395,4425,5270],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33682","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-erwin-lutzer","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-divorce","tax_ctp_tags-love","tax_ctp_tags-marriage","tax_ctp_tags-weddings"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Learning to Love - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/learning-to-love\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Learning to Love - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m going to speak about learning to love. What I have to say may pertain to many of you who are married, but if you&#8217;re not married, hang in there, because the principles we&#8217;re talking about apply not only to marriage but all relationships. People experience misery in marriage for 4 reasons. 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