Family Strong: LOVE
Romans 5:7-8
Last week, we talked about partnership. Going back into Genesis, we saw how God’s design for marriage was pure and fulfilling. Then something went terribly wrong. Sin entered, and the resulting sin natures of both the husband and wife corrupted the balance.
Yet, Jesus came to redeemed damaged souls, marriages and families.
If you would like a copy of that sermon audio, submit a request to the office and we will get one for you.
Today, we look at a second, very important element of Family Strong: Love.
Let me share with you a heartbreaking letter:
Dearest Jimmy,
No words could ever express the great unhappiness I've felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you'll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Marie.
P.S., And congratulations on willing the state lottery.
One weary heart wrote, “Love is a very splendored thing until it becomes a very splintered thing.
Before Jesus came, the Greek philosophers were knocking around a deeper concept of love than previously considered. It was considered a sacrificial love that was unachievable in humanity. Philosophers deemed it impossible because, if you do not give adequate love to self, but sacrifice all wellbeing, you will have nothing to give, or offer love from.
AGAPE love was defined as the love that sacrifices all for the one who is loved. And then Jesus came.
1 Tim. 2:5 “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Jesus is the example, the very definition of pure love.
God said that man and woman, husband and wife, were very good together. And again, something went terribly wrong. I believe the clue to what this was is seen in the temptation, whereas the failure of partnership is seen in the consequences.
Let’s look at this.
Gen. 3:1-6 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Notice the effect of the temptation. Do you see the direction of temptation, in verse six?
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate”
If love is outward looking, others minded, that was not the direction Eve was tempted. So part of the first temptation was to act outside of love.
The sin nature thus contaminates the ability to love as God created us to love. And, as the Greek philosophers determined, apart from redemption, it is impossible to achieve. That is how we get to 1 Corinthians 13.
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
If you list the attributes of AGAPE love, you will see that we fall short of it. It is too perfect for a sin-warped human to achieve, apart from the redemption of Jesus Christ.
Jesus died and gave His life in perfect love so we could receive, and have the capability of giving, perfect, godly love. 1 Cor. 13 gives us a good description of AGAPE love. However, it gets us no closer to it, as for as how to love. It adequately clearly tells us what pure, godly love looks like. But in it is not found the secret of living it, giving it, incorruptibly.
For that, the best passage I know of as for the mechanics of love, is Romans 5. Let’s pray, and then we will can look at that together.
Romans 5:7-8 “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This passage hits the depth of the Agape love concept that the Greek philosophers thought was not possible. It touches both ends of the spectrum of an unbridgeable gap.
First, it speaks of a totally selfless, sacrificial love. The scholars of the day understood that there may be someone deemed worthy for one to sacrifice their lives. Soldiers sacrifice their lives for their country. Secret Service Agents are willing to sacrifice their lives for the President of the United States and his family. A mother would die for her child, and children would give their lives to save their mothers.
A man may be sacrifice his life for his wife, and a wife may be willing to sacrifice her life for her husband. The same may be true for girlfriends and boyfriends.
But typically, there is not many people in any life that one would die for. It seems that our willingness to sacrifice our lives for someone in our lives is based on the value we hold in them in our hearts.
But this passage talks about the other end of the spectrum. Jesus died for the one’s nobody deemed valuable. He died for those no one else would die for. When we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
To die for one who is valuable to you is one thing. To die for one who offers you no value, but in truth is a debtor to you, is AGAPE love. That is because, apart from God, AGAPE love is not something that we would otherwise know, experience, or offer.
How can this love be? Because it is different from natural love in three ways.
I. What it is based upon. (The Decision to love)
2. What it is back by. (The Determination to love)
3. What it brings forward. (The Demonstration of love)
I. The Basis.
The basis for AGAPE love is simply the decision to love. “…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
What was the reason God loved us? There is not one. He loved us because He decided to. All God was faced with was reasons to not love us. We were still sinners. We were undeserving of love. We betrayed God, struck out against Him, stood against all He stood for. There was no redeeming value to warrant His love. God just said, “I’m going to love that sinner.”
All the angels of heaven stood amazed and wondered why. God explains that the reason He loves us is all about Him and not about us. We offered nothing. He gives all.
You might be thinking, that is also true with natural love. A mother doesn’t decide she is going to love her baby. It just happens.
IF that were true, all mothers would love their children. There would be no abortions, no child abandonment, no abuse from parents towards children.
Often the decision to love happens in the background. That may confuse us. But in natural love, it happens. And in natural love, it happens for a reason.
Look at the poets, song writers, philosophers of our day. Poetry, music and textbooks are filled with “the reasons I love you.” One old song writer nailed it when he wrote, “I love how you love me.” Others write, “I love how you make me feel.” And the divorce rate will verify, those reasons can go away.
Husbands and wives, if you want to build a strong family, choose to love your spouse because you made a commitment to. Not for what he or she does for you, or inside of you, or makes you feel.
We in the West scoff at arranged marriages because it takes the choice of love away from the man and the woman. It put it into the hands of the parents. But once that couple chose to love one another, the marriage becomes no different than what we end up with today.
Choose to love, and ask God for His power to do that.
II. Its Backing.
AGAPE is backed by a determination to continue to love. Notice the usage of the word “while” in the text. “…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
When I mention its backing, I am talking about what sustains it and keeps it going. Since Christ died for us while we were still sinners, obviously sins did not derail His love for us. God love us despite our sins, even while we sinned.
I think I know about you, but I certainly know about me. I still sin today. I still struggle with the flesh, poor attitudes, a lack of checking with God before I speak and act. Yet God keeps on loving me, despite my unloveability.
If God’s love starts without any value in me, despite the debt it cost God, and Jesus Christ, nothing can be too bad in me for God to stop loving me. That is the entire point of Romans 8:38-39:
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
You may be thinking that, this is also available in natural love. If this were so, it would be a guarantee in the love between parents and their children. Have you ever heard of a parent disowning a child?
That, too, unfortunately, was something common in Bible days. If a child disappoints you, turns from your faith system, marries someone you can’t stand, steals your wealth, or any other egregious thing, it was expected that you disown the child. That is what made the story of the Prodigal Son so shocking to the listeners.
Husbands and wives, if you want to have a strong family, commit to loving others with AGAPE love that never fails. That is what 1 Corinthians 13 is about.
III. Its Bounty.
When I mention the bounty of love, I am referring to what it brings; what it demonstrates. Our text was written with the bounty of love in mind. That is its focus. Hence the word “show” or “demonstrated”.
AGAPE love can be seen. AGAPE love was shown by Christ in His teachings. Matt. 7:9-11 “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
There is a direct correlation between the love of a father and how he responds to the needs of his children. AGAPE love should be seen when no other love is capable. Demonstrations of love should be seen from believers when non-christians would pull away in disgust or anger.
The bounty is shown in the teachings of the disciples. James 2:15 “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
You can’t have faith without loving others. You can’t love others and just stand by and see them suffer. It is not based upon their worthiness, but your love for Christ, your commitment to love.
Finally, AGAPE love is seen in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. “…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
In the early Church, it became noticeable that the faithful followers of Jesus were not the rich, elite, powerful, wise and educated. They were just common folks, not worth much to the world which operated in a “dog eat dog” society. In such a competitive, those which ended up following Christ were those who would be chewed up and spit out by the rest of the world.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 1:26 “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;”
These are the ones Christ died for. These are the ones that God poured out such beautiful, pure love, that the world could not understand it.
Husbands and wives, if you want a strong family, demonstrate your love to your family. Show the kids that you love your spouse because of your commitment. Show them that you love your spouse in their worse possible moment. Show them that no word, no action, no thought can stop the demonstration of love you show to one another.
May I end with this? If this standard, the standard of 1 Corinthians 13, is beyond the capability of natural love, for us, even as believers to show AGAPE love, we have to depend upon Christ.
Your response to the Love of God is ask God’s help to love our spouse and your family. IF you have never personally experienced the AGAPE love of God, you can receive His love today. By believing in Jesus Christ and calling on Him to forgive you, you can be adopted into God’s loving family and start the adventure of exploring the love of God.
