One of the stranger enigmas of modern history is the 18th century French thinker Rousseau (Johnson 1-27). Rousseau’s ideas were immensely influential in 18th century Europe. Rousseau believed he loved the entire human race with a unique and special kind of love. Yet Rousseau’s life was a complete mess of failed relationships and sexual perversion. Rousseau exploited his family for all the cash he could get, and he then sponged money of wealthy families. During his unconventional life Rousseau had four illegitimate children, and he abandoned all four of them as infants on the steps of the local orphanage. Rousseau knew full well that three-fourths of all babies in the orphanage died. So by abandoning his four kids to the orphanage, Rousseau all but ensured that they’d die in childhood. Yet he proclaimed that he loved the human race more than any other person every had. What a living contradiction. Rousseau’s life reminds me of that other great philosopher, Linus, who once said to Charlie Brown, "I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand."
How do you define authentic love? Obviously Rousseau’s definition of authentic love was quite different than mine and probably yours as well. What is authentic love? When you close your eyes and think about what real love is, what do you see?
Some people equate authentic love with ROMANCE. Movies like the blockbuster film Titanic focus on this kind of love, the kind of love the ancient Greeks called eros. Eros love is a passion that seeks to possess the object of its desire. Eros is that flutter you feel when you find yourself incredibly attracted to someone. Eros is erotic love, the kind of love that draws men and women into relationships. Titanic is a vivid example of our culture’s obsession with eros, romantic love. This is especially clear in the movie when Rose describes her lover John Dawson by saying, "He saved me in every way a person can be saved." The message is that only eros can truly fill the human soul. Romantic love is good--I’m certainly grateful for it--yet left unchecked, romantic love can turn terribly destructive. Some people in pursuit of romantic love go from sexual partner to partner, from marriage to marriage, all in search for the kind of romantic love that fills the soul. A person who’s life revolves around romantic love sometimes can’t take "no" for an answer when someone doesn’t reciprocate that love back. Out of control eros love is what drives people to become stalkers, and even worse when they can’t have the object of their passion. For many people in our culture, romantic love is the highest kind of love there is.
For others authentic love is FRIENDSHIP. The ancient Greeks used the word philia to express this kind of love. Friendship love is the warm affection we experience with people we share things in common with. You can see how this love has been catapulted to center stage in TV shows like Friends and Seinfeld. In those shows romances come and go, boyfriends and girlfriends change with each episode, families are places of dysfunction and pain, so real, authentic love is experienced in friendship. These friendships become the only place you can be yourself, the only safe place where you’re accepted. Many people who’ve become disillusioned with the idea of romantic love turn to friendship to find meaning and purpose in life.
For others authentic love is PATRIOTISM, love of our nation. According to C. S. Lewis, the ancient Greeks used the word storge to describe patriotic love. This is the kind of love we saw in the Mel Gibson film The Patriot. It’s only natural to have a special sense of pride about our nation, to feel that we share in our nation’s story. Yet patriotic love can at times become blind and hateful. Think about all those patriotic church members in Germany who wholeheartedly embraced Hitler’s anti-Christian nazi agenda in the name of patriotism. The German Christians of the Confessing Church movement who refused to go along with Nazism were viewed as unpatriotic, disloyal to their nation, and some like Dietrich Bonhoeffer were even executed. As important as love of our nation is, it too can become evil if there’s nothing higher to regulate it.
For still others authentic love is FAMILY. The Greeks used the word philadephia, which literally means "love of brothers," to describe this kind of family love. Christians today are often associated with this kind of love, with all our talk about family values and focusing on the family. It’s certainly true that Christians believe that the family is important, that it’s the most basic building block for a healthy society. When families erode, all of society suffers.
But not every family is a safe, loving place. A family’s outside veneer can be a covering for horrible evil, like violence, unfaithfulness, and abuse. Often these evils are covered in the name of family love, with people saying, "If you really love this family, you won’t tell." Families do fragment, the tragedy of divorce does happen at times. With no higher standard of love, a fractured family means never being able to experience authentic love.
How do you define authentic love? What does authentic love in action look like? Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day Christians commemorate the birth of the Christian Church on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 in the Bible. Pentecost Sunday is a great time to talk about "Authentic Love in Action" as we continue our series through the New Testament book of Romans. We’ve been in a series called Good News for Our Times, where we’ve been going through Paul’s letter to the Christians living in the city of Rome. Last week we saw that an appropriate response to God’s mercy means surrendering ourselves to God fully, evaluating ourselves honestly, and serving in the Christian community actively. We also saw last week that each of us need our minds renewed from the ideas of our culture. One very specific where area we need our minds renewed is in our understanding of what authentic love really is. Today we’re going to see in Romans 12:9-21 three dimensions of authentic love that goes beyond romance, friendship, patriotism and even family love.
1. Authentic Love For God (Romans 12:9, 11-12).
Let’s look at v. 9 together. The Greek word for love Paul chooses here is different than all the previous Greek love words we talked about. It’s not the youthful passion of eros, the warm friendship of philia, the courageous resolve of storge, or the family affection of philadelphia. The word Paul uses here is the Greek word agape. The Greek word agape was a relatively rare word in the ancient world before Jesus came and Christians began trying to find words to express what God had done through Jesus. The early Christians looked for a word to give new and distinctive meaning to, to describe the unique kind of love that only those who’ve encountered God through Jesus Christ can appreciate. They found that word in agape. So far the noun agape has been used four times in Romans, and up to this point its only been used to describe God’s love for us (Rom 5:5, 8; 8:35, 39).Yet here agape is used to describe how we’re to love God and other people.
Essentially agape is an unselfish love that gives regardless of worthiness or return. It’s an self-forgetful kind of love that gives without thought to what one will get out of it. It’s a kind of love that transcends romance, friendship, patriotism, and even family. It’s the kind of love that can regulate all other loves from turning destructive. Agape is the kind of love that’s seen most clearly in Jesus Christ’s death for the sins of the human race. According to the Bible, this is authentic love.
In fact, the Greek text here simply says, "sincere love," with no verb, almost as if "sincere love" is a heading for everything else in this chapter. The rest of the chapter is a commentary on what authentic love in action looks like.
The first dimension of authentic love is love for God. Let me just give you this dimension, then we’ll look at the text together: We show authentic love for God when we CULTIVATE CONSISTENT DEVOTION.
I’m going to look at the verses a little out of order, so let’s begin with vv. 11-12. The phrase "lacking in zeal" means giving up on putting any effort into our spiritual lives. It describes a person who’s become a spiritual couch potato, someone who views the church as a kind of religious Wal-Mart that dispenses religious goods and services to meet their needs and their family’s needs. This is a life of spiritual inactivity, where we don’t do anything that takes effort or costs us to further our spiritual lives.
In contrast to a life "lacking in zeal" God wants us to "keep our spiritual fervor." This refers to spiritual enthusiasm, a passionate commitment to keep moving forward spiritually. In fact, the Greek word "zeal" here was sometimes used for water that’s boiling or a fire that’s burning. Both images describe what it means to keep our spiritual fervor. This is burning with passion for Jesus, bubbling with enthusiasm in our spiritual life of following Jesus.
Now lots of people begin the spiritual life full of this fervor, but they eventually they become spiritual couch potatoes. How many of us have met people who once burned and boiled with passion for Jesus, yet that passion has become tepid and cold, yet they might still do religious things like going to church or reading the Bible. You see the spiritual life of following Jesus isn’t a sprint but it’s a marathon, and its important to not only start strong, but to finish strong.
The rest of these two verses give us some specific ways to avoid becoming spiritual couch potatoes, to keep our passion burning and boiling. Consistent service ("serving the Lord" v. 11) is absolutely essential to cultivating this consistent, long term devotion. When a person slips into inactivity--no longer serving the Lord in specific areas--they soon find themselves lacking in zeal, no longer full of spiritual fervor. Now don’t misunderstand me, because we all go through times when we need a break, but for some people the weeks turn into months, the months into years, and soon there’s an entire lifestyle of inactivity when it comes to service.
Another component of cultivating consistent devotion is a future focus. This is what Paul means in v. 12 by being "joyful in hope." You see, Christian hope is a confident expectation about the future God has for us, and our present experience of joy is directly tied to how focused we are on that hope (Schreiner 666). A genuine hope bubbles up in spontaneous joy, an optimistic attitude that God has something exciting and wonderful for us. A sure sign that we’re no longer future focused is when a negative, critical spirit infects our attitudes.
Another component of cultivating devotion is endurance. Endurance is what we find in the phrase "patient in affliction" in v. 12. Difficult problems that are part of life can threaten our spiritual fervor like few other things, and when painful suffering comes into our lives, it’s easy to begin "lacking in zeal." In the midst of these problems, God wants us to endure, which is to actively and steadfastly stand under the pressure of that problem, refusing to surrender to the hopelessness, but to believe God is working in the midst of the pain. I can think the word "endurance" best describes Pastor Bruce and Teresa attitude since they found out Teresa had breast cancer and they’ve been going through chemotherapy and just this week finished radiation. They haven’t given in, lost hope, or given up-even though it’s painful and difficult-but they’re enduring in the midst of an enormous burden.
Finally, Paul mentions faithful prayer as a component of spiritual devotion. The word Greek translated "faithful" here means "to continue to do something with intense effort…despite difficulty" (Louw and Nida 68.68). That tells me that faithfulness in prayer never comes naturally, that it’s never effortless or easy, but that it takes consistent, disciplined effort. It takes a decision to pray despite distractions, despite the crying baby and another load of laundry, despite the Monday morning traffic and project deadlines at work.You see, authentic love for God is cultivating a consistent devotion that keeps the flames burning over the long haul. We can only cultivate that kind of devotion through consistent service, a future focus, endurance, and faithful prayer. This is the kind of love that pleases God, the kind of love that we’re empowered to give when we surrender ourselves fully to God.
2. Authentic Love for Our Church (Romans 12:10, 13, 15-16)
Not let me give you the second dimension of authentic love. This second dimension relates to our love for our church: We show authentic love when we DEMONSTRATE HUMBLE SERVANTHOOD in our relationships with other Christians.
This is what we find in vv. 10, 13, 15 and 16. We find several ways this humble servanthood works here. In v. 10 "brotherly love" is the kind of personal warmth you find in a healthy family. Related to this warmth in v. 10 is "honoring each other." We honor each other when we show respect for each other, when we lift up each other’s importance in front of other people. Our church is to be the kind of place where every person can be honored, no matter how much our culture tells a person that he or she is unimportant.
In addition to personal warmth for each other, we find generous actions are essential to loving in our church. Verse 13 tells us to share what we have with other Christians. This isn’t so much talking about our tithes and offerings to the church as its talking about meeting needs we see in the lives of other church members. It’s buying groceries for the single parent who’s having trouble at the end of the pay period. This is exactly what many of you have done with the Romanian Pastor daughter by giving $10,000 to help pay for her radiation treatment. The word translated "share" here is the Greek word koinonia. This is the Bible’s word for "fellowship," yet we often don’t think of fellowship as sharing our resources. We think of fellowship as coffee and donuts, as a social time, not of sharing what we have. Yet an essential part of fellowship is sharing what we have with others. Verse 13 also talks about practicing hospitality, which is opening our home to people we don’t know well. I used to think hospitality was simply inviting friends to come over, but the word literally means "to love someone you don’t know." In other words, its not hospitality if I’m only inviting friends over. Paul tells us to not wait until someone asks us to open up our homes, but to look for ways to open our homes to people in our church we don’t know well. People do this when they open their homes for home Bible studies and care groups, when they agree to host a Dinner For Eight group. These generous actions are an important part of showing authentic love in our church.
But in addition to generous actions, we also see life involvement in v. 15. In this verse "rejoicing" and "mourning" are like bookends that express the two extremes of everything that happens in our lives. "Rejoicing" is the birth of a baby, a promotion at work, graduating from college, a wedding, an athletic achievement, a relative coming to faith in Jesus. "Mourning" is the death of a loved one, the disappointment of being passed over for a promotion, being diagnosed with a disease like cancer, and so forth. By talking about "rejoicing" and "mourning" Paul is telling us to be involved in each other’s lives in the daily realities of life. Not only in times of rejoicing and times of mourning, but everything in between as well, to commit ourselves to life involvement with each other. To make time for these kinds of relationships, so when times of rejoicing come, we’re already there, and when times of mourning come, we’re already there.
Finally, Paul also talks about good attitudes in v. 16. This is an attitude that promotes unity rather than disharmony. It’s an attitude that treats everyone as important, everyone as having value. I remember a few years ago a person visited our church who one of the police officers in our church had arrested before. I sat back wondering how our member would respond to the guest, and I was delighted to see him go right up to the guy, shake his hand, and welcome him into our congregation. A good attitude isn’t full of self-importance and arrogance, but it’s willing to talk to anyone, not exclusive.
Now granted no one church demonstrates this humble servanthood perfectly, but every congregation is in process in growing in this area. But I find it fascinating that many churches delegate all these actions onto their pastors and church leaders. We expect the pastor to honor members, to give from the church’s resources to those in need, to visit people during times of rejoicing and times of grief, to associate with everyone. Pastors should certainly be doing this, but not because they’re pastors; because their followers of Jesus and part of a congregation. It’s as if a sick codependence has developed between church members and pastors over the years, where the pastors try to do what the entire membership is supposed to be doing and the church members applaud as spectators.
Yet a congregation can only experience this reality as every member takes the risk to do these things. Notice this section doesn’t focus on whether other people are doing this for us, but he puts the emphasis on whether we’re doing these things for others. Often we read this and we’re tempted to think, "Well no one here is showing me this kind of love, no one’s honoring me or inviting me over for dinner. No one’s rejoicing with me or mourning with me in my pain." But the emphasis in the text is on each member focusing on doing this for others--as a humble servant rather than as a consumer--and as we focus on the needs of others, our own needs have a way of taking care of themselves.
By the way, our worship services are probably the worst place to try to do this. It’s really in our ministries throughout the week--our care groups, our Adult Bible Fellowship group, our student ministry, and so forth--that this happens best. It’s in smaller groups where we really get to know each other that we can start actually doing this. So authentic love for our church is demonstrating humble servanthood.
3. Authentic Love For Our Community (Romans 12:14, 17-21)
That brings us to the third dimension of authentic love, which is love for our community: We show authentic love when we PURSUE PEACEFUL HARMONY in our relationships with people who do not confess Christ.
Let’s look at vv. 14 and then 17-21. These verses assume that if we’re truly following Jesus Christ, we will be in conflict with our culture at times. If we find ourselves in total peaceful harmony with our culture, it’s likely that we’ve somehow compromised our commitment to Jesus. Yet the text is also telling us to not look for ways to stir up dissention and conflict against our culture. Conflict will come, but don’t look for it.
This section echoes some of Jesus’ most difficult words. How do we pursue peaceful harmony?
Verse 14 and then vv. 17 to 19 really focus on non retaliation. When people hurt us and curse us, our natural reaction is to curse back, to strike back, to lash out. But, echoing the words of Jesus, Paul calls us to bless instead of curse, to not repay evil for evil. When a person cuts you off on the freeway, what’s your initial reaction? To tailgate them, to flash your lights at them or perhaps to make an angry gesture? Yet that infuriates the driver of that car, and so it goes. Responding to evil with evil merely intensifies the evil, which is why in v. 21 we’re told to overcome evil with good.
We’re told to do what’s right in the eyes of all people, which is an interesting idea when you think about it. Paul seems to be saying here that there are certain values that both Christians and non-Christians will both hold to, that there’s some common ground between the ethics of our culture and the ethics of Jesus’ kingdom. He says to be sure you live by those values as well, that its important to excel even in the values our culture holds as important.
We’re to make sure that we’ve done all we can do to live at peace with people. Now the phrase "if it is possible" means that sometimes living at peace isn’t possible. And the phrase "as far as it depends on you" means that living at peace doesn’t all depend on you. But we’re to do all we can to make sure we’ve sought peace with people. Even your daughter’s unfair soccer coach, your unreasonable boss, and that obnoxious neighbor.
Instead of taking matters into our own hands when people wrong us, we’re to leave room for God’s wrath. God is just, and no one slips through his fingers. So we can trust those who do evil against us to God instead of taking matters in our own hands.
But in addition to non-retaliation, Paul goes even further by commanding us to do good. It’s one thing to restrain myself from hitting back, but it’s quite another thing to do good to those who hate me. To give my enemy something to eat and something to drink is to actively seek good for those who hate us. The burning coals from v. 20 probably refer to the possibility of our doing good in bringing a burning repentance that leads a person to faith in Jesus.
These words are so difficult to actually live that Christians over the last 2,000 years of church history have tried all kinds of ways to find loopholes. Yet authentic love leads us to pursue this kind of peaceful harmony with our community, even those who hate us and do evil against us.
Conclusion.
Our minds need renewal in our very concept of what love is. Authentic love isn’t just romance or friendship, it’s not patriotism or family values. Authentic love is agape love, the kind of love God himself demonstrated by sending his Son to live the life we failed to live and to die the death we deserved to die.
We’ll never truly understand this kind of love until we encounter it through Jesus Christ. This is an indestructible kind of love, the kind of love that sought us out long before we looked for God, the kind of love that changes everything once we find it. Once we’ve encountered God’s incredible love, it can’t help but lead us to cultivate consistent devotion for God, demonstrate humble servanthood in our church, and pursue peaceful harmony in our community.
But each of us all falls short of this ideal, don’t we? We sit here today, and we realize all to much that our spiritual fervor is no longer blazing, our humble servanthood has been replaced with pride, and our love for our community has been overcome by a desire to get our own way. And so we’re tempted to simply try harder, to renew our spiritual passion, to truly care about each other, and to pursue peace in our culture. Yet, as important as that might be, the first step in moving toward this ideal is to remind ourselves of the incredible, indescribable, astonishing love that God has for us. When we remind ourselves of all that God has done to show his love, of the price he paid, and of how he’s lavished that incredible love on us, it empowers us, motivates us, and saturates our lives forward to live by this ideal.
Let’s close today by reflecting on this incredible, holy love.
Sources
Johnson, Paul. 1998. Intellectuals. Harper Perennial.
Schreiner, Thomas. 1998. Romans: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Books.
