It’s hard to raise
our children or grandchildren today to care
deeply and love others well and properly when we hear so much anger and hatred
spewed in public today. Our politicians, who should model respect and decency
often seem to care only about scoring points against their opponents. There’s
racism, hatred and fear directed towards those who are different and it’s
played out on social media so our children and youth are saturated in it. Today’s
our country’s birthday and there are so many things to celebrate about living
in Canada, yet there still seems to be a lack of love for people who are different. Even
among churches there can be a lack of love because of differences which comes
out in negative, hurtful language. Yet this isn’t anything really new, John is
called the apostle of love because he keeps reminding people that the good life
is a life of love.
There are a number
of words for love in Greek, the word translated as love
in this passage is agape. Father John Bakas writes,
“The
most powerful word in the New Testament is AGAPE...the Greek word for love. It
is sacrificial seeking to serve. The word “agape” is rarely found in ancient
Greek literature. It only appears in Homer ten times. Three times it appears in Euripides.
But it appears 320 times in the New Testament. Agape is sacrificial. It says, I love you when you are not very lovable.
Agape is the cross, extending its arms to embrace all humanity. Agape loves
when it is not always convenient and when it is not reciprocated. It extends to
both the deserving and the undeserving.”
Paul calls us to
love one another, to sacrificially love each other, whether the person
deserves it or not, even if it’s hard to love or like them. Paul roots this
love in God, “everyone who loves has been born of God
and knows God because love comes from God.” Love is a verb, a way of being,
living and interacting with people. Love is how you live with people,
especially people you don’t care for, disagree with, or want to go away. God
loves us by sending Jesus, his own son, to be a sacrifice for our sins. This is
what agape love looks like. You know the verse,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” God
now calls us to live out of gratitude for Jesus’ sacrificial love.
“Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” When I read this and think
about it, love is tied to suffering. God’s love took Jesus to the cross. Love’s
not all fairy tales and happy ever after, love leads to different kinds of
suffering because it calls for sacrifice. Joyce and I celebrated 37 years of
marriage this past week and this is something we’ve learned at a deep level in
our family. When you love, you offer others a piece of your heart and they
won’t always treat it well, gently, or with respect. God knows this suffering
that comes from loving us with agape love, it
cost him his son, because sin entered into the world through the breaking of
relationship by Adam and Eve.
Throughout
history, God looks down and has compassion on his
people as he sees their suffering and this stirs his love. Over and over again
it’s told that Jesus saw the suffering of the people and he’s filled with
compassion and love. On the way into Jerusalem just before Jesus is crucified, he
weeps for the people because he sees the hurt in their lives, the suffering
that’s coming, the reality of how sin has broken so much in the world and is
going to continue to bring suffering until he returns to end all suffering.
Love brings
suffering and the deeper the love, the greater the
suffering. When you’ve been married and intertwined your lives together so that
you’re one and the Lord calls one of you home, or when a child you have poured
love and hope into is taken home by Jesus, the suffering enters deep into your
soul. There’s the brokenness of betrayal from someone you love, whether it’s a
spouse or child, the hurt goes deep because you love deeply. The only love that
counters hurt this deep is the love of Jesus, a redeeming love that says, “I understand your pain, I was there, and I
am with you now.”
In one of her
latest blog posts, as she watches her daughter working with her
dad in the fields breaking the earth for seed, Ann Voskamp writes, “Relationship
is the essence of reality — and to have a relationship, you have to learn how
to suffer—and to suffer like Christ, because this is love. Tell that to the newly weds, the
new parents, the new graduates, this brave new world. When you are most
loving—suffering will most likely result.
Doing the right thing may not look like success but like suffering—and that may
be the most successful of all. Doing
the right thing—may mean suffering through things—because things are
broken in this world. But this isn’t
the sexy or trendy thing to concede, so nobody’s trying to hawk this on the
social media streams or the shelves of Target and my heart kind of breaks. Watching
the breaking up of the earth down the expanse of the field, it can come: Is
God’s definition of love about breaking our happiness—or breaking us free from
the self-love that threatens to imprison us all? This is the question that can reshape our world. God is
love—doesn’t translate into: God is about my desires. God is love—doesn’t mean
God is about self-fulfillment. God is love—means to deny self. God is love—means God is about
suffering. God is about being broken open and poured out.
Love doesn’t win if you’re really just loving yourself.”
Paul writes, if we love one another, God
lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is why we’re
given the Holy Spirit, to guide us to acknowledge Jesus
as the Son of God, and when we do, we know that God
lives in us and we live in God. The question then is, do we love each other with an agape love,
a love that is sacrificial and focused on being a blessing to others because
this is who God is, what Jesus revealed to us in his life and teaching; a love
that is about denying ourselves for our brothers and sisters and Jesus. When
Paul tells us that God is love, it’s
self-sacrificial agape love that’s not afraid to suffer. Jesus knows that love
draws people to him, that love saves lives, that love
conquers over a host of sins. It shows people who experience this love
that they matter, that they are noticed. This kind of love drives away fear
because we know that we don’t stand alone, that Jesus stands with us. Are we
willing to pay the cost, to put others first, to love and welcome the unlovable,
to embrace those who are different and allow them to guide us into knowing
Jesus through different eyes, are we willing to sacrifice our dreams and wants
so others can come to know Jesus’ love for them?
Love gives us
confidence as we journey through life. Children with
parents who are serious about their own faith in Jesus and helping their
children grow in Jesus, learning to love like Jesus, modelling Jesus love in
their own lives, raise children who are able to face life without fear and confidence
because they have experienced the blessings seeing the power of agape love
lived out. This is why we do mission trips, this is why we are rebooting our
youth ministry this fall, but mission trips and youth ministry alone are not
enough. As parents you need to place Jesus first and teach your children to put
Jesus first. I know you want them to have the things of the world, to fit in
and have whatever you feel you missed out on, but if you want children who grow
up into adults who know what deep meaningful love is and how to love well,
children who can change the world, it begins with teaching them to focus first
on Jesus and his love by modelling it yourself.
Grandparents, you
also have a role to play, sharing your stories of God’s love, of
Jesus’ presence in your life and modelling it in your lives. A grandparent’s
influence is powerful, especially when you are working with your children and
church family to raise them to be Jesus followers who love as Jesus loves. It
all comes down to the fact that we love because God
first loved us. Shaping our lives and our church around this will impact
your families and the community in powerful ways as we live it out in relationship with all those God has placed in our lives.
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