Agape - Abiding in love

Now I like to think I am hopeless romantic. Before Michelle and I started dating, I remember her telling me that she likes the marshmallows in lucky charms. Now I was a broke college kid, so for me buying...... FINISH STORY

An example of this love in the Bible comes from Genesis 29 where we see Jacob work for 7 years to earn Rachel’s hand in marriage. After he works those 7 years, Rachel’s dad offers him Leah as a wife and tells him he would have to work 7 more years to win Rachel and he does that too.

Another example is Boaz who literally risks it all for Ruth. He redeems her and holds her in the highest esteem.

Ladies go get yourself a Boaz.

But in romantic love there is struggle and hardship. The people closest will be the ones who hurt you the most.

Storge: Familial love

Next is Storge which is familial love. Or as CS Lewis put it in his book the four loves, it is an empathy bond that rings together people who have familiar interests.

Story about family

In the Bible we see this with family loyalty.

Or lack there of.

Story of Joseph and his brothers

Philia: Brotherly love

This is the love that is had amongst brothers within a church body. Paul constantly starts his letters with saying something like brothers grace and peace and love be with you.

Agape: God's love for humankind

This is perfect love. We talked about it last week.

Agape is defined as DEFINITION

This is agape love.

Break down passage.

It is talking about the love that is greater than the rest. The love that displayed it self on the cross.

See romantic love will feel nice. It makes you all warm and fuzzy inside. But it will also fail you. When two imperfect people come together to try to make a perfect unity, there are thing that simply wont line up. Now there is grace and healing that comes through that process, but there is failure all the same.

Same goes for family.

Story about my family and struggle with them.

And brotherly love might the one that fails you the most.

People come from:

Different backgrounds

ethnicities

socioeconomic statuses

political views

theological views

People will:

Judge

Ridicule

Offend

Hurt

Even within a church culture.

There is a line in an NF song where he says that church is where I learned to love, but it is also where I learned to judge. That is true for so many of us. Me included which is why I said us. That judgment leads to hurt and hardship and sometimes it leads us to separating from the very thing that unites our brotherhood in the first place.

But Agape never fails. The unconditional love that we do not deserve never fails. That love was poured out on the cross for us.

John 3:16–21 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”