For The Love Of God Is...
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."
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"For The Love Of God Is..."
(1 John 5:3-4)
INTRODUCTION:
An eight-year-old little boy by the name of Arnold wrote a letter to his pastor: , "Dear Pastor, I know God loves everybody but he never met my little sister."(1)
Sometimes kids say the funniest things. And sometimes in the midst of that humor, there's a message from God. I think the message is about love. Love happens to be the most talked about and discussed topic of all time. Not counting songs like, "Beans In Your Ears" or George Thorogood's "Get A Haircut and Get A Real Job" or Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" most of the popular music of our day and almost any day is about love. It might be about the mushy, hand-holding, big eyed, heart throbbing kind of love or it might be the broken-hearted, down in the mouth kind of unrequited love that causes the blues. I would say that ninety percent of Country Western music is about the fall out from broken hearts, like Alan Jackson's ""Up To My Ears In Tears."
But what is this thing called "LOVE." Popular music paints a pretty confusing and sometimes conflicting portrait of what love is or what love is all about. Just look at some of the titles of some of our love songs. Love is Kind, Love is Blue, Loving Blind, Love is True, Love Hurts, Love bites, Love Stinks, Love Is Strange, Love Me Tender, Love Potion #9, Love Makes The World Go Round, Love Boat, Love American Style, What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love, Love Letters In The Sand, All You Need Is Love, To Know Him Is To Love Him, Never My Love, and Love Lifted Me.
I really didn't mean to get your mind racing like an oldies station. But as you can see, one of the big topics of music is love. And every song has a different twist or a different spin on love and what it's all about. In the New Revised Standard translation of the Bible, there are 489 verses with the word "love" in them, 262 of those appear in the New Testament alone. There are well over 600 variations on the word love and over 750 words that can be associated with various kinds of love. It's all rather mind boggling isn't it. So what is this thing called "Love?"
That's sort of the question I asked at one point in time. What is love and what is the difference between God's love and our love? How does that effect our lives and our faith? A couple of months ago, this passage rolled around in the Lectionary, a three year plan of reading the Scripture for the Church. I preached from this passage but while I was preaching, I had an inspiration for a whole series of sermons based upon these two verses. I get lots of sermon ideas in lots of different places, Joshua says that my favorite phrase is, "Ooh, that will preach!" and that I can find a sermon or sermon illustration in almost any event. And he's probably right but that's my job. But I usually don't get sermon ideas while I'm preaching. However, this time I didn't get just one but several and they dealt with the phrase from verse 3, "For the love of God is this..." So for the next few weeks I'm going to be preaching a series on The Love Of God. I may shift gears a little during our stewardship campaign or when we celebrate the Lord's Supper but our focus for the next couple of months will be God's Love and what it is.
In the English language, love is one of those ambiguous terms which means all kinds of things from a mild affection to unselfish motivation. We have one word, "Love," for all the different aspects of love but in the Bible there are four different words used for love. Storge, Eros, Philia, and Agape. Each word concerns or defines a different aspect of love or a different kind of love. And each kind of love is unique unto itself. They are very specific in their meaning. The first three are always used to describe worldly attributes or worldly human kinds of love. And the fourth is used to describe God's love and the highest form of human love.
I. WORLDLY LOVE:
A. AFFECTION: Often times we use the word love when we really mean affection for something mainly inanimate objects. It's what we would call love for stuff like when we say, "I love pizza or peanut butter or chocolate." or "I love the works of Charles Dickens and John Grisham." Or even, "I love your house." But it's not limited to inanimate objects. It also has to do with those things which cannot reciprocate. I think maybe that's why this kind of affection also has to do with the feelings we have for pets. You can love a cat but they're so independent that you're never quite sure they return your affection. I saw a bumper sticker that read, "If you call a dog and it will come. If you call a cat, you get it's answering machine and it might get back to you."
Speaking of cats, our orange friend from the comics, Garfield, walks up and sees a cake sitting on the table. His eyes light up and he says, "I love chocolate cake!" And then in typical Garfield fashion, he gobbles down the whole cake in one bite. As he tosses the plate away he says, "Love is fleeting." (2)
Garfield is right when it comes to our love for things. Things never fill the void in our lives. Things can bring some happiness or add pleasure to our lives but they never fulfill that longing for a deeper relationship we all have within us. Things never reciprocate. Who can have a deep and abiding relationship with a pizza or a stereo. They can give pleasure but our affection for them really is fleeting.
B. STORGE: But the kinds of love which the Bible talks about are different. They are reciprocal in nature. The words we're going to look at all come from the Greek and Greek is filled with words that have meaning and shades of meanings, some of which are dependent upon the words that modify it. The first of these Greek words for love is "Storge."
Storge is actually a noun which means affection and in the Bible it is used mainly to describe family affection, the love of parents for their children and children for their parents. It is the love that brothers and sister have for each other. It's that love that makes us do things for each other. It's the love that holds the family together. It's the love that allowed the little boy in the opening letter to write to his pastor about his sister. It's the love that makes teenagers roll their eyes and say, "Dad!!" in that two syllable way they have when you show them some affection in public or crack a dumb joke in front of their friends. They roll their eyes and push you away but secretly they're glad you're there and they love you for it. Storge is family affection.
C. EROS : The next form of love we're going to look at is "Eros."
Hagar the Horrible, the Viking in the comics is sitting in his easy chair with a beer in his hand. His wife, Helga, is completely frazzled from cleaning. She stands there, mop in hand, looking at Hagar and says, "Remember how you said I'd live a life of luxury as soon as your ship came in?"
Hagar says, "Yes?"
Helga asks, "It sank, didn't it?" (3)
We laugh at that partly because we've all been there and partly because of this form of love, "Eros." It's the root word of erotic. It concerns itself with the love shared between a man and a woman, especially a husband and wife. It encompasses the passion of human love and describes the bond between a man and woman. Within the passion of Eros there is always sexual love. Eros finds its deepest fulfillment in the sexual passion and relationship between a husband and wife. This is the purpose for which man and woman and marriage were created, to bring passion and fulfillment and companionship to one another. But our human understanding of Eros became corrupted. We began to think of Eros only in terms of its negative, sinful side: lust. As a consequence, Eros never appears in the New Testament either in its noun or verb form. Eros is love shared between a husband and wife.
D. PHILIA: Then we come to Philia. This Greek word describes brotherly or sisterly love. It describes the best in friendship and personal relationships. It describes a person's nearest and dearest and truest friend. Everybody has friends like that. Folks who you might only see once or twice a year, if that often, but the minute you see each other, you pick up where you left off. You and the times may have changed but the friendship has stayed the same. Several of you have introduced me to your best friends or friends you have had and known for almost twenty years. This word is the one which describes the kind of love you have for each other. It goes beyond just friendship and almost into family. It can be sacrificial in nature.
A young boy of about 12 noticed a young man polishing his new sports car one afternoon. The boy went up to the young man and asked where he got the car. The young man said, "My brother gave it to me." Then the boy said, "I wish . . . " and paused. The man with the car thought he was going to say "I wish I had a car like yours." But, instead, the boy finished his statement, "I wish I could be a brother like that."
The young man looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively asked, "Would you like to ride in my car?"
"Oh, yes! I'd love that!"
After a short ride around the block the boy turned, and with his eyes aglow said, "Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?"
The young man smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride in a big automobile. But he was wrong again.
"Will you stop right where those two steps are?" the boy asked.
He ran up the steps. Then, in a little while, he heard the boy coming back, but he was not coming fast. And this time he was pushing his wheelchair bound little brother. He stopped on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up next to him and pointed to the car.
"There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him, and it didn't cost him a cent. And someday I'm gonna give you one just like it. Then you can see for yourself all the things that I've been trying to tell you about."
The young man got out and lifted the little boy into the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable ride.
Philia has about it the willingness to give of itself. It's like the little saying, "I set out to find a friend, but couldn't find one; I set out to be a friend, and friends were everywhere." At it's very best, Philia is giving in nature. All of these loves are powerful. Storge, Eros and Philia have about them the willingness to give of themselves, that's when they are at their very best. We also know what they can be like at their worst. Family affection, love for your spouse and friendship are three of the most important aspects of love there are but there is one that is both like and yet very different from all three of these.It's the love that shapes us as Christians. It shapes our relationshhip with God and with each other. It shapes our behavior and out attitudes. Without it, we couldn't have the other three.
II. GOD'S LOVE IS DIFFERENT:
A. This form of love is know as AGAPE. This is the word that is used to describe God's love and the love of Jesus Christ for us. It is unconquerable. It is constant goodwill toward others, no matter what others do to us. Agape is sacrificial love. It makes the sacrifice for no other reason than to prove its love. It continues to love and wish nothing but good even for its worst enemy, the one who maligns it or mistreats it the most. It is the ultimate in love. This is the word which is used whenever God's love is mentioned, especially as it relates to the work, ministry and
sacrifice of Christ.
This is probably the most difficult to understand and to accept. We live in a world where you never get something for nothing. There's no such thing as a free lunch. It's like the woman who bought a new TV and they were trying to sell her a service contract. She looked it over and checked the warranty on the TV and told the salesman that she would rely on the free service covered under the warranty. The salesman said, "Look lady, if you want something for free, you gotta pay for it." Generally speaking, that's very true, sad but true. But in relation to God that attitude is a million miles of the mark. God's love is free. You don't have to earn it. You don't have to be at a certain giving level in the Church. You don't have to belong to all the right clubs and organizations. You don't have to do anything but accept the free gift of God's love.
B. You see, God loves us whether we accept that love or not. God loves us. We are created in God's image for God's purpose. And that purpose is to be in a loving relationship with God. Now we haven't always chosen to live in that relationship. More often than not, we've chosen to try and live unencumbered by God's love. We've rejected the relationship God desires and set out on our own. The theological term for that is "The Fall", the Biblical term for that is "Sin." And they both simply mean living apart from God's love.
Every time we choose not to live in a loving relationship with God we alienate ourselves from God and wind up alienating ourselves from each other. And when we try to bridge the gap between us and God and us and each other on our own, we never seem to get it right. We get further and further away from our home with God. So, God had to show us the way back home. And God did that by sending his own Son Jesus, the Christ, to live and walk and be one of us. God sent Jesus to show us just how much God loves us and wants us back in a loving relationship with God. And just how much does God love us? Enough to give his own Son for our sakes.
It was late in the afternoon and cold, the windows of the bus were fogged by the hot breath of the weary miners. Half of the fathers in the village worked in the coal mine outside the small Irish village and made their way home each day on the company bus to a waiting family and a hot meal. The roads were slick with ice. It was one of those times that you dare not put on the brakes or turn sharply for danger of skidding off the road. There was a solid rock wall on the right, and a shear cliff on the left to the quarry below; the driver carefully guided his precious cargo down the narrow road. Suddenly, as they approached the village, through the dim light the men could see the form of a small boy sitting in the street, playing in the snow, back turned to the fast approaching bus. An erie hush descended on the bus as the men realized the impact of the situation. In just a few split seconds the driver was forced to make a decision no man ever wants to make. To attempt to stop suddenly, or swerve, meant certain death for half of the fathers and husbands in the small village. To continue on meant certain death to the oblivious boy ahead. In those few seconds he must decide. The boy? or the men? With tears in his eyes he made his decision. The men awaited the impact.
The driver was the first one out of the bus and ran back to pick up the lifeless body of his own son, whom he had hit with the bus. How can one describe or even imagine the anguish that man experienced that day as he chose to sacrifice his own son to save the lives of those men? (4)
I'm not so sure I could have made that decision if I had been driving the bus that day. Ask me to give up my truck, my guitar, my computer, my dog, my sight but please don't ask me to give up my sons. My decision would probably be selfish rather than selfless. I aspire to be like God but God's love is different. God didn't even spare His own son. Instead, God gave his son so that we could live, so that we could have a second chance. Jesus willingly gave himself so that we would know just how much God loves us and how much God wants us back in a loving, grace filled relationship.
Through Christ we have come to know the deepest sense of God's love for us, agape love. Unselfish, uncompromising, sacrificial love for us. There is nothing that we can do to earn it. There is nothing we can do to make God love us. And there is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us. God loves us and that's Agape. It's different from any other love out there, mainly because it's from God.
CONCLUSION:
There was a little boy and his grandmother who were visiting a museum of science when they came upon an exhibit about the human heart. It contained a clear plastic model heart that showed the blood pumping through. It was obvious that the boy was fascinated by the model. They stood there studying the heart for a couple of minutes and then the boy asked, "Grandma, where's the love?"
That might be a question you've asked yourself from time to time, because sometimes it's hard to see the love in this world of ours. Especially when we're separated from the love of God. The deepest expression of love the world has ever seen is found in the Son of God who gave himself for our sakes. The deepest expression of love that we can make is to accept the love of God in Christ. That's where we find this thing called love. That's where we are empowered to love with the same sort of love with which Christ loved us.
If you've ever wondered with that little boy, "Where's the love?" The answer is, as near as your heart. As Bonnie Raitt asks in a John Hiatt song, "Are you ready for this thing called love?"(5) All you have to do is be ready and reach out to Christ who gave his life for you. Experience the unselfish, sacrificial agape love of God for yourself. Open your heart to God through Christ.
This is the Word of the Lord for this day.
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1. Dear Pastor by Bill Adler, (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN, 1980)
2. "Garfield" by Jim Davis, 7-26-94
3. "Hagar The Horrible" by Chris Browne, 5-28-91
4. Based upon a true story that occurred in the village of a friend of Jay Herndon, Seminarian, Mill Valley, CA. Submitted to Parables, Etc. by Jay Herndon.
5. Thing Called love by John Hiatt, Vocals by Bonnie Raitt on her Nick of Time album by Capitol records.