Love, Simply

Welcome! Today I am excited to be starting a new series with you on Relationships. Today I want us to contemplate what love really is, according to the Bible. The world and the Bible have different definitions of love, and so it is critically important that we really understand what love really is, or we will have no way to properly understand countless passages in the Bible.

I want to start with an excerpt from a story. The story is The Road to Oz, one of the L. Frank Baum Oz books (no relation, by the way). In this particular story several characters are wandering through the wilder parts of the Oz world together: Dorothy, of course, and her little dog Toto, too; Button-Bright, a small boy who was not so bright and loved to say “Don’t know” to every question, the Polychrome, the Rainbow’s Daughter, a fairy whose natural home was in a rainbow, and the Shaggy Man, a man who loved to dress in rags and who was the proud possessor of a magic talisman known as the Love Magnet. The Love Magnet caused all who were close to its owner to love its owner.

Anyway, at one point in their travels the four of them (five if you count Toto) came across some strange looking people. These people did not have a back and front, like ordinary people, but two fronts, one as black as ink and one as white as fresh snow. When addressing people, they liked to jump from back to front and back again (or I guess you could say, from front to other front to the first front again). When the first one appeared, Dorothy asked the group what they thought it was. Button Bright of course said, “Don’t know.” More began to appear, and Polychrome asked, “Are they friendly to us, do you think?” “Can’t tell, Polly,” replied Dorothy. “Let’s ask them.” More and more appeared, and they didn’t appear to be friendly; even Toto became afraid and crouched down at Dorothy’s feet.

“Ask ‘em who they are, and what they want,” whispered Dorothy; so the Shaggy Man called out in a loud voice: “Who are you?”

“Scoodlers!” they yelled in chorus, their voices sharp and shrill.

“What do you want?” called the shaggy man.

“You!” they yelled, pointing their thin fingers at the group; and they all flopped around, so they were white, and then all flopped again, so they were black.

“But what do you want us for?” asked the Shaggy Man, uneasily.

“Soup!” they all shouted, as if with one voice.

“Goodness me!” said Dorothy, trembling a little; “the Scoodlers must be regular cannibals.”

“Don’t want to be soup,” protested Button-Bright, beginning to cry.

“Hush dear,” said the little girl, trying to comfort him; “we don’t any of us want to be soup. But don’t worry; the Shaggy Man will take care of us.”

“Will he?” asked Polychrome, who did not like the Scoodlers at all, and kept close to Dorothy.

“I’ll try,” promised the Shaggy Man; but he looked worried.

Happening just then to feel the Love Magnet in his pocket, he said to the creatures, with more confidence: “Don’t you love me?”

“Yes!” they shouted, all together.

“Then you mustn’t harm me, or my friends,” said the Shaggy Man, firmly.

“We love you… in soup!” they yelled, and in a flash turned their white sides to the front.

“How dreadful!” said Dorothy. “This is a time, Shaggy Man, when you get loved too much.”

I think we have many misconceptions about love and about God as He relates to love. We may think of the second half of I John 4:8, which says that “God is love,” yet we may tend to think that really only describes the situation in the New Testament. This is false! Do you realize that the Mosaic covenant, the Law, is repeatedly described as the covenant of love? In Deuteronomy, speaking to the Israelites, Moses, chosen by God to be His spokesman, said this:

The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh King of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. – Deut. 7:7-9

Centuries later, Solomon said essentially the same thing. At the time of the dedication of the Temple, He prayed to God and said,

O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth below—You who keep Your covenant of love with Your servants who continue wholeheartedly in Your way. – I Kings 8:23

And centuries after this, the prophets Joel and Jonah both said,

Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. – Joel 2:13

I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love. – Jonah 4:2

The prophet Joel properly thought this was a good thing; Jonah, on the other hand, was so blinded with hatred that he raged against it. But the bottom line is that God has not changed – He is a God of love in the Old Testament just as He is a God of love in the New.

But just what is this love? When it says God is love, that He abounds in love, that He makes covenants of love, what does this mean?

Well, first of all, biblical love is only supposed to be something that happens in relationship, between person and person, or between a person and God. In English, we use the word love to describe far more than this. You might love the perfect shade of blue, or a new car, or a big thick juicy steak, but we really mean we just like these things. Now sometimes, our desire or hunger for things can rise to a much deeper level, and the Bible repeatedly warns of this. From I John 2:

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. – I John 2:15-16

Do not love the world or the things in it. The answer to this in my opinion is not that we behave like the Monks of past ages or even today who gave up all worldly possessions. It doesn’t say we cannot possess anything in the world, or even that we cannot enjoy things; it only says that we should not “love” them. Love, whatever love exactly is, is reserved for people, for God.

Biblical love is love borne in relationship. God, who made us, was in relationship even before He made His creation; the details of it are a mystery, beyond us, but God, who is One, was yet trinity, three-in-one. In Genesis 1:26, He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness…” and even the name for God in Genesis chapter 1, Elohim, is a plural word.

And from the beginning, God’s plan for man was not only that man would have relationship with Him, but also that man would have relationships with others of his own kind. The phrase “not good” is used for the very first time in the Bible in this verse:

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” – Gen. 2:18

And so, from the very beginning, the God of love intended for man to have relationships with God and with people so as to live out love.

Now, in the New Testament, Jesus, on His final night with the disciples, waited until Judas the betrayer was gone and then, only a few verses later, gave His disciples a command. What was the command? To love! Here is the command:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another. – John 13:34-35

By the way, the disciples totally missed this command. It went in one ear and out the other. Look at the surrounding verses:

“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for Me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” Simon Peter asked Him, “Lord, where are You going?” – John 13:33-36

Jesus went on to answer Peter’s question, Peter went on to boast of laying down his life for Jesus, and Jesus told him that, by the next morning, Peter would deny Jesus three times. But the command to love was essentially ignored. There is no sign that it registered in the disciples’ minds at all, at least, not at this point in time.

I think that, as Christians, we too are frequently guilty of the same thing. In our association of churches, we are quick to remember the command of Matthew 28:19-20, the Great Commission: go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. But John 13:34-35 is every bit as much a command to us from Jesus as is the Great Commission!

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another. – John 13:34-35

Let’s look at this carefully. Let’s use the five “reporter’s questions,” the “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” and “why.” And I’m going to add one more, “how.” First, who? To whom is the command given? A new command I give… you. It’s given to the disciples, followers of Christ. That includes us every bit as much as the Great Commission command includes us. So the “who” is us.

What about the “what”? What is the command? Love one another. The Greek is agapateallelos; agapate has as its root agape, which I will come back to, and allelos means one another but it also means reciprocally or mutually. The idea is that whatever this agapate means, we are all to do it, and we are all to do it all-out. For those of you in school, it’s not supposed to be like a group project where only one or two of the people do all the work! And it also doesn’t mean that we can just pick a subset of people to love. Every one of us is commanded to love every one of us. Agapateallelos.

When? Well, the agapate tense is present, meaning the when is now! More precisely, the tense is present, the voice is active, and the mood is what is called subjunctive. This is a form that is used again and again in commands. The implication is that the when is now and always, now and forever. Always, forever, love one another.

Where? Well, this is not addressed, which means there is no specific limitation to the location where we are to love one another. Love one another everywhere.

Why? I think there are two answers we can give. The first one is, well, to use parental language, because Jesus said so. It’s a command, not a request. It’s an instruction, not a suggestion. Now how many of you can think of times growing up you asked why and a parent said “Because I said so”? Now I realize this answer probably wasn’t very satisfying, but it is a valid answer. It’s a shorthand kind of answer. What is it shorthand for? Something like, do this because I am the authority in your life. I believe I know what is best in this situation, and I have reasons for my decision, but I don’t feel compelled to give them to you at this moment. If you can see that I have led you well so far in life, you should trust me to continue to do so. But even if you don’t fully trust me, you should still obey me. Likewise, God expects us to obey Him whether He gives us reasons for everything or not.

But in this case, Jesus does give us another answer, another explanation: By this all men will know that you are My disciples. Why is this important? Because it will corroborate their testimony about what Jesus did and who He is. Obeying the love commandment helps us to obey the Great Commission commandment.

And the sixth question: How? How are we to love one another? Again, the passage tells us: as I have loved you. We are to love in the way Jesus loved us. And at last we learn what real love, what agape is: it is the giving of one self, one’s energy, time, help, prayers, and even one’s life to another. Jesus did all these things. He served them. He taught them. He helped them. And He died for them. And in doing so He rescued them. He saved them. He gifted them. He equipped them. He empowered them. He encouraged them. And through the Holy Spirit, which comes to dwell in each believer from the moment of salvation, He continues to do these things today. He teaches us, helps us, prays for us, serves us, gifts us, equips us, empowers us, encourages us.

I said that the disciples seemed to totally miss this message at the moment it was given. However, there is no question that they later seemed to really remember it and be deeply affected by it. Consider these passages from the book of I John:

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. – I John 3:11

John here is certainly referring back to that last night, to that final supper they spent together with Jesus. John goes on a few verses later to say this:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. – I John 3:16

In speaking of this verse, I love the thoughts in the Barnes’ commentary:

(1) We ought to have such love for the church that we should be willing to die for it, as [a] patriot is willing to die for his country.

(2) We ought to have such love for Christians as to be willing to jeopardy[ize] our lives to aid them – as in case of a pestilence or plague, or when they are in danger by fire, or flood, or foes.

(3) We ought to have such love for the truth as to be willing to sacrifice our lives rather than deny it.

(4) We ought to have such love for the cause of our Master as to be willing to cross oceans, and snows, and sands; to visit distant and barbarous regions, though at imminent risk of our lives, and though with the prospect that we shall never see our country again.

(5) We ought to have such love for the church that we shall engage heartily and constantly in services of labor and self-sacrifice on its account, until, our work being done, exhausted nature shall sink to rest in the grave. In one word, we should regard ourselves as devoted to the service of the Redeemer, living or dying to be found engaged in his cause. If a case should actually occur where the question would arise whether a man would abandon his Christian brother or die, he ought not to hesitate; in all cases he should regard his life as consecrated to the cause of Zion and its friends. Once, in the times of primitive piety, there was much of this spirit in the world; how little, it is to be feared, does it prevail now!

Again and again, John comes back to this theme in I John, here in chapter 3:

And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us. – I John 3:23

And in chapter 4:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. – I John 4:7-12

I love that last part – you may have heard of the skeptic’s saying, “seeing is believing.” In contrast, here we have a much better saying: Loving [one another] is [really] seeing. To put it another way, there is something better than seeing God physically: seeing God’s power live in and through us through our loving one another.

Loving one another, like the rest of the Christian life, is not something we try to do in our own strength. We start the process – through prayer, taking first baby steps, etc. But God is the one who multiplies our efforts, who makes us able to do great things. God is eager to enable us and supply us with what we need to love one another with the love of Christ, with that kind of love that joyfully dies to self and serves another.

We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love His brother. – I John 4:19-21

To me, it is almost humorous how John keeps coming back to this. I’ve lost count of how many times he says it. We aren’t just to love those people we like; permit me to say it this way: we are also to love those people we “hate.”

By the way, if love, agape love, is this kind of self-sacrificial service towards others, what is the opposite of love? I think there are many possible answers, but let me suggest the idea that the opposite of agape love is wanting people to be in your life for selfish reasons. What are such reasons?

One is loneliness. If you find yourself wishing you had a friend because you are lonely, you are seeking someone to love for what you can get out of it rather than so you can die to self and serve them. This applies not only to friendships but also to a desire for a spouse. If you want a spouse because you want someone to fulfill you, to take away your loneliness, you are looking at a very poor starting point for marriage.

Another is to fill some kind of hole in your life, to fix some kind of brokenness. We are often attracted to people who have something we think we lack, or to people who tell us something we are desperate to hear. An example is a child who never hears, who never feels, that his parents love them. When they grow up, they often become desperate to find someone, anyone, who finds them attractive and says so. They can be so hungry, so starving, for this message that they attach themselves to otherwise terrible people just so they can hear this message a little. Even Christians in this situation may choose friends and spouses who aren’t believers, who are abusive, and so on, just so they can hear this message. Again, these are people primarily looking for someone to satisfy a hunger rather than someone they can love in the agape sense.

Now, let me be clear, those desires for fulfillment, for taking away loneliness, for fixing a hole or brokenness are not sinful. But if we seek people to fill this hole, rather than God, we are looking to use people as idols. And although people may take away the loneliness, just like food takes away hunger, we will find that although there may be temporary relief, there is no healing, no curing, no lasting improvement in our lives.

In a way, what we are doing is not that far from “loving people in soup.” We want people to fill us up and, in a sense, die to us, rather than wanting to serve them and die to self for them. And yet, this is what the world teaches that love is all about. Think of the stereotypes of romantic love. Guy sees girl. Guy thinks girl looks great. Guy wants girl. Guy starts taking steps to get girl. Guy wants girl in soup. OK – maybe not that last one, but do you see how it has the same spirit?

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another. – John 13:34-35

Let me add to this something else Jesus said. In John 17, Jesus’ final prayer at that final supper began with Jesus praying specifically for his 11 remaining disciples. But then he prayed for us. Here is what He prayed:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. – John 17:20-23

We could spend hours on this passage, trying to get its incredible truths to really sink in. God does not want us to remain hurting or broken. His love for us is such strong agape love that the more we grasp it, the more healed and changed we become. He did die for us, for each one of us. If there had only been one of us, He would have still died, gone through the horrors of the cross and separation from God, bearing the penalty for our sins. He loves us with His life. We are never alone.

And He prays for our unity. On one level this is talking about divisions between groups of believers, and that is a prayer of Jesus yet to be fulfilled. It will one day be fulfilled. But I want to focus on how this is also a prayer for each one of us, that we would not have divisions, broken relationships between any individual believers. If you have a broken or strained relationship, whether with a child, a parent, a sibling, a former friend, with a spouse, or even a former spouse, God desires reconciliation – first with Him, that all would be in a living, saving relationship with Him, and then with each other. Jesus prays for us for our reconciliation with one another. He wants it to happen. And He will help it happen. His Spirit will help it to happen. He will use one another to help it to happen. And this applies to strained relationships, not just broken ones. He prays that we would be brought to complete unity; He prays that the quality of our relationships would be like the quality of the relationships within the Godhead! And if we allow Him to heal and grow our relationships, He says the world will know that God did it. The world will know Jesus through our restored and mended relationships with one another.

I want to finish today with an application step. Take out your welcome card. On the back, where there is room for prayer requests, write down four words: Pray for me that… Now you don’t have to put your name on the welcome card, but you are welcome to and even encouraged to do so. What you write will only be seen by the pastors, by John and Fred and I. We will keep confident (and we do keep confident) whatever you write. But go ahead, write “Pray for me that…”

I want you to think and reflect about two things we discussed today. The first is whether you sense you have a hole, or a hunger, or a brokenness in you that, whether in the past or right now, you have tried to fill by “eating” other people or seeking other people to “eat.” That is, you have wanted or tried to use people to satisfy something that only God should satisfy, that only God can really heal. If you know that this has been going on, is going on, on your welcome card write down how we can pray for you.

Second, if there is a broken relationship in your life, or even if it isn’t broken but just strained, write this down. Pray for me that my relationship with xxx would be improved, or restored, or whatever it is you seek. Be specific and we will be able to pray specifically. Again, we will keep whatever you write completely confidential. But write it down.

My prayer for all of us is that we would see real growth in our capacities to love, real healing in our lives, real reconciliation with others during this series on relationships. God desires to dramatically change us in these areas; He desires to so transform us we will hardly recognize what we will become. Think about this: God is love, and we are made in His image, and so we are to be love, too. Jesus has already prayed these things for us and continues to do so. Let us pray for them as well.