Some of the old-timers used to say that bad things come in threes. Did you ever hear that? There is a notion out there that you never have just one disaster, you always have three, closely grouped.
If there is a plane crash in the Andes today, look out, there will be two more in the near future. So says this superstition. Tornado in Texas yesterday? Look out for Tennessee today and Takoma Park tomorrow. Disasters come in threes, so they say. Like Internal .. Revenue .. Service. Like Nixon, Ford, and ... never mind!
That’s what the pessimists say, anyway. The negative folks: disasters come in threes.
But the optimists see something else. The optimists see that there is strength in the number three. The optimists believe that good things come in threes, strong things. Three tenses, past, present, and future: that covers it all. Three flavors, vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Well, that’s all they had when I was growing up. You mean to tell me there’s more? Three points in the sermon; that’s how you know when you’re almost finished! Good things come in threes.
There was even an article this week in the business pages about how it seems as though in every industry there is room for about three major competitors. Fewer than that and there isn’t enough competition. More than that and the smaller ones do not survive. So you have Safeway, Giant, and SuperFresh; you have Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Crown; you have Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Oh, by the way, now that Chrysler is merging with Daimler-Benz, that makes my little old battered Plymouth really just the same thing as your shiny Mercedes, isn’t that right?
Well, pardon my whimsy about the number three. But there is a truth about things coming in threes that I want to get at. And that is that it really is true, in certain instances, that extraordinary strength, spiritual strength, lies in putting together three particular ingredients. They all have to be there, all three of them; but when they are there, they are invincible.
On this Mother’s Day, as we think about families, I’d like to show you that, according to the Bible, there are three indispensable qualities, which, if you take them all together, will give you the foundations for an enduring marriage, a functioning family, for productive relationships of all kinds. Three ingredients. Every one of them is important.
Paul calls them, “faith, hope, and love, these three.” He says they all abide, that is, that they all last. They are strong. They continue. And, though he does say that the greatest of these three is love, I think we are going to be able to see that each one is important. Each one needs the other two to be effective. Good things, very good things, do come in threes.
The best way I can make my point is to brush you up on your geometry. We learned in geometry, didn’t we, that the strongest and most rigid structure is the triangle? A triangular structure cannot be warped out of shape, it cannot be distorted or shaken. If you have a square, for example, and you push on the side of the square with a little force, it will start to lean. But if you have a triangle, push on it, shove at it, subject it to force, and it will not change. It will not yield. That’s why architects design tall buildings with braces that go from corner to corner. The triangle makes the structure strong. Good things come in threes. And the triangle, with its three sides and three angles, is a good strong thing.
Now let me get out of whimsy and, certainly, out of geometry, before somebody asks me to quote that theorem about a square hippopotamus or whatever it is. Let me get down to the preaching. Faith, hope, and love form a triangle. An equilateral triangle, that’s one in which all three sides are the same size. Faith, hope, and love form a spiritual equilateral triangle. And I intend to show you that the Bible teaches us that if we expect to have stable marriages, happy homes, productive relationships, we are going to need all three. All three under God.
I
First, Paul says, “faith abides.” Faith, hope, and love, these three. But faith abides.
To have faith means to have a trusting, believing heart. To let faith abide means that I assume that others around me will tell me the truth, that they want the best for me, that they intend no harm to me, that they are loyal through all kinds of challenges. If I have faith in someone, it means that I never have to be afraid that her commitment to me is wavering and wandering. If I have faith in someone, it means I am totally committed to his success. If I have faith in someone, it means that even when he or she disappoints me and fails, I will believe that that was just a momentary mistake, and that, overall, that person is worthy of my trust. Faith abides. Faith keeps on trusting.
I estimate that three-quarters of the counseling I do involves this issue of trust. You come in and you say, “I cannot accept what so-and-so is trying to do to me.” Week after week, I hear about the failure of trust. We have abandoned trusting each other. And trust lost is a very serious matter. When you no longer trust someone, that relationship is on the skids.
A number of years ago, I saw what happens when trust is destroyed. I saw a church with a number of fine families and capable people in it. But one of the key leaders broke his marriage vows and got involved with another church member; obviously she too broke her marriage vows, she too violated the trust placed in her. Well, bad enough that these two did this kind of thing; terrible that they should violate the sanctity of their marriages. But what intrigued me was the fallout from this. It seemed to start an epidemic of trust-breaking. We would hear that first this couple and then that couple was breaking up. We would hear that this person was involved with that one, and then a couple of weeks later we would find out that yet others were giving up on the family into which God had put them. It was as though somehow when trusted people, like church leaders, did not take trust seriously, that gave permission for other people to abandon their commitments. It was a domino effect. Frankly, it got so bad that one young woman called our house one day and said she just had to come and see us, and when she got there, she said, “I have heard that you and Margaret are going to be the next ones to give it up. And if that’s true, I quit. I quit Christianity, I quit the church, I even quit hoping for a good marriage for myself.”
Well, we are ten days away from celebrating thirty-seven years of married life, and so there was no truth to that rumor. But my point is that when trust is abandoned, much else is lost. Indeed, everything is lost. The strength of a relationship depends on faith, it dwells on trust. Faith must abide for the triangle to have any strength.
II
But faith cannot abide if there is no hope. Hope means having goals and visions; hope is having dreams and directions. Hope means knowing that your life is counting for something out there in God’s Kingdom. Hope means you have places to go and things to do that matter. Hope means you’ve started back here somewhere, but you are headed toward something better, out there. Now if you do not have hope, what will happen? If you are in a family, or a marriage, or a relationship in which there isn’t any sense of hope, there isn’t anything to shoot for, what will happen?
Your relationship will implode. It will fall in on itself. Your care for each other will collapse, because if all you have to do is to look at each other’s faces and tend to each other’s needs, and shut the world out, you will get on each other’s nerves and destroy the strength of your relationship. No matter how committed you are to one another, you need to be able to go beyond “just us two”.
Let me illustrate. We all enjoy being around newlyweds. They are so into each other. They can shut out the rest of the world and be there for each other, and who needs anything else? “We have our love to keep us warm.” Newlyweds are totally focused on building their home, furnishing a place to live, getting the necessities of life together, and just generally adoring each other. Oh, it’s beautiful. Stars in the eyes, flutter in the heart, call each other every hour on the hour, spend every possible moment together, together, together. And that’s normal. That’s fine. After all these years of married life, not only can I remember that, I even go there sometimes. A confession. Sometimes you call our house and get our telephone answering machine. You think we are not at home. Guess what? We may be right there, but just not answering the thing, because we want to spend a little uninterrupted time with one another. That’s all right.
But if there is nothing else; if there is no great dream; if there are no goals; if there are no ambitions; above all, if there is no recognition of God’s call and what God wants us to do in our home, in our marriage, or in our friendships, then I suggest to you that it will implode, like those big buildings they blow up with dynamite, collapsing inward. Faith has to be blended with hope; trust has to be put together with purpose. The strongest families I see are those in which not only do people trust in and believe in each other, but they use that trust to do hopeful things. They do things for others, they work for Kingdom causes. Faith needs hope in order to abide.
One of my friends, when he retired, says that for the first few weeks he puttered around the house, he weeded the garden, he read magazines, he hovered around his wife and asked her six times a day, “What are you doing?” And finally she said to him, “Look, I married you for better or for worse, but not necessarily for lunch. Get out of this house and find something to do.” Well, when he discovered that his church needed him to tutor children, not only did he get a new sense of purpose. His marriage got better too. When he got involved with Kingdom business, things at home got happier too. Because hope is a part of the triangle. Making and building hope for someone else is God’s call; putting our energies to use for others, living for Kingdom goals. That’s hope. Hope is indispensable. Faith abides, yes; but so does hope. They are two sides of the strong and durable equilateral triangle.
III
But faith and hope, finally, also need love. Faith and hope need love in order to be strong. Faith, hope, and love abide; these three. But the greatest of these is love. This threesome is founded on love. These triplets are rooted and grounded in love. The most powerful side of the equilateral triangle is love.
For love, you see, is tough. Love is tough. It is not a namby-pamby, loosy-goosy, warm and fuzzy feeling. That’s Hollywood love. That’s sub-teen puppy love. That’s “I want” stuff. That’s cheap. But that’s not love as the Bible describes it. The Bible gives us a tough, resilient, seeking, persistent, redemptive love.
I am very suspicious when some sickly saccharine sweet Christians just ooze about how they “love everybody.” I don’t believe that. I literally do not believe that. Because love is not sweet sayings; love is self-sacrifice. Love is not a warm glow in the gut; that’s probably heartburn, and you need to chew on some Tums for that! Love is more than tender words and affectionate glances. Love is more than gracious gestures, good table manners, and finely-tuned social skills. Love is more than feel-good.
Love is self-sacrifice. Love is giving beyond what you have to give and moving into what you want to give. Love is, as Paul says it, bearing all things and enduring all things.
Love is discovering that a family member is sick, urgently sick, with a disease that is not only going to be fatal, but which carries with it a measure of shame. But love goes out and gets the help that one needs, without hiding his need from others just because of what they might think. Love is not worried about reputation. Love abides.
Love is seeing that someone you care about is mentally ill. But love does not fall into denial, so that she never gets any help. Nor does love become so protective that she never gets a chance to test herself in the world. Love supports, love intervenes, love pays a long-term price. Love abides.
Love is finding out that your spouse has cheated, made a huge mistake. An incredible mistake. But love finds it in your heart to accept his repentance, repair the breach, bridge the gap, and figure out what it’s going to take to build trust again. Love hangs on to what is right and shares in repentance for what is wrong. Love abides.
Love is learning that your child is taking drugs, abusing alcohol, on the path to self-destruction. But love does not wallow long in the “What are you doing to me?” question. Love looks for treatment, love is willing to find out what there was in the family system that made him want these chemicals. Love may even call us to reject or to punish if that’s what it takes to redeem. But it’s still love. Love abides.
Love is enduring the rejection of your child for a while. How could he turn his back on years of privileges and advantages? But he has. And love then is like the father in Jesus’ parable, just waiting until he has spent all and he starts that long journey home. Love waits, but when it gets a chance, love then runs to meet the wanderer, love tries to understand. Love abides.
In a word, love is redemptive. Love never ends. Love keeps on reaching. Love is paying whatever price has to be paid in order to keep marriages and families and friendships strong. Love is getting involved when you want to back off, and sometimes backing off when you want to get involved. But love is always redemptive.
Conclusion
Faith, hope, and love abide; these three. The greatest of these is love, for love cures broken faith; if I choose to love somebody, I will build them up again so that I can and will trust them.
Faith, hope, and love abide; these three. The greatest of these is love, for love gives birth to hope; if I choose to love somebody, I will not give up on what God wants them to become.
The equilateral triangle is strong. Good things do come in threes. In threes, like Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What an incredibly strong equilateral triangle is our God!
Like the Father, who has entrusted us with His creation, and whom we trust for daily bread and life itself. In the Father we have faith, for He is worthy of our trust, and in Him we learn to trust others.
Like the Holy Spirit, who brings hope. Who is the guarantee of our salvation, who is the ever-present promise that God will do for us what He says He will do. In the Holy Spirit we have hope, for He is guiding us toward His purposes, and in Him we see hope being born.
And, most of all, like Christ the Son of God, who is love itself. Who is such an expression of the love of God that He was given for the world, so that the world might be saved and not condemned. Christ, who while we were yet sinners, loved us enough to die for us. Christ, whose love went to a cross, paid a price, and gave and gave and gave. Christ, whose love never ends, whose love redeems, whose love encompasses all humanity, whose love is able to bear shame, endure suffering, and turn us around. Christ, whose love reaches to the highest skies and to the lowest hell.
Faith, hope, and love abide, that strong equilateral triangle; and in Christ we know that the greatest of these is love.
