2024-06-16 - Daddy, How Do You Spell Love?

Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:7–16 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

Introduction

One Saturday afternoon while a father was mowing the lawn, his four-year-old daughter came to the back door and shouted, “Daddy, how do you spell love?” He gave her the four letters, which with her newly found skill of printing she placed on a drawing she later proudly presented to those she loved.

How do you spell love? It is more than a matter of putting four letters of the alphabet together in correct sequence. We spell it as we express it and live it in the way we fulfill our personal relationships. In that way love may be the most misspelled word in the vocabulary of our lives.

There is abundant evidence of the disastrous consequences of a misdirected and inadequate love:

• the teenager whose parents have given her everything but the gift of their presence and love

• a battered spouse victimized by one who had earlier said, “I pledge to you my love”

• a church torn by jealousy and misplaced priorities

• the words whispered in the ear of a date as the car stops in front of a motel: “You love me, don’t you?”

How do you spell love? Our children are asking. A world desperately in need of Christ’s love is watching and waiting for our response, which will make the difference in the quality of life now and forever.

I suggest we spell love with:

Trust that accepts the risks

Involvement that is willing to share

Commitment that stays until the finish

I. Trust, involvement, commitment.

A. Trust.

There can be no genuine love without trust—trust that accepts the risks of sharing with another your life, thoughts, goals, and dreams.

Love does not keep a child tethered to a parent who is unwilling to trust their well trained young person to make decisions.

This isn’t to say that if trust is broken in this relationship that you don’t have discipline or consequences.

Nor does love motivate a spouse to grill their spouse about every single normal friendship. Unbiblical Jealously leaves no room for trust and risk.

The apostle Paul said, 1 Corinthians 13:7 “(Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” “Love believes all things.” That does not mean love is gullible or blind, but it does mean love possesses the attitude of trust, trust that with God and in God we can let each other live our lives and we can leave them in God’s capable hands. If the ones we love get off track, we can trust God to restore them to a right relationship with Him and us.

B. Involvement.

Love is also involvement that is willing to share.

Some who are legally married live like singles:

She is involved in civic club activities;

He is on the golf course.

Each is doing his or her own thing—no involvement, no commitment, no sharing.

Their “first love” goes undernourished until, afflicted with emotional and spiritual malnutrition, it finally dies in the cold, sterile environment of what might have looked like a perfect marriage.

Some Christians are this way too: (Application 1)

They get involved in ungodly activities

They put good activities before God

They do good things and don’t invite God to be part of them

They are doing their own thing - No involvement, No commitment to God, No sharing life with Him.

Their “first love” goes undernourished until, afflicted with emotional and spiritual malnutrition, it finally seems and feels that they are in a cold distant relationship from and with God.

C. Commitment.

Love is also commitment that never gives up. Paul said, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:7–8 RSV). It has a commitment quality that is willing to persevere and fine-tune the relationship.

This should prevail in all our relationships—

husband-wife,

parent-child,

employer-employee,

pastor-congregation.

At every level of relationships, love is not blind emotion; it is an act of the will, a decision of commitment.

II. Two biblical examples.

Two examples from Scripture illustrate this kind of love.

A. A father and his daughter.

The Old Testament book of Esther describes the relationship between a father and his daughter. (Actually the relationship is between cousins, but the Bible says that Mordecai had brought up Esther because “she had neither father nor mother” Esther 2:7 “And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman was lovely and beautiful. When her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.” .)

Esther won the Ms. Kingdom Pageant and became queen.

Haman was, elevated to power by King Ahasuerus, which then he issued an edict that everyone should bow before him.

He became furious when Mordecai refused to obey the order.

In his fury, Haman issued an order to annihilate all the Jews.

Esther, who had not seen the king in some days—and that tells us much about the lack of involvement, communication, and trust in their marriage—was encouraged by Mordecai to intercede on behalf of her people.

To do this meant a possible death sentence. Esther said, Esther 4:16 “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”

What a risk! What involvement! What commitment!

Esther had come to know this love through her adopted father, Mordecai.

B. A father and his two sons. Luke 15 gives us another example of love, the story of the prodigal son.

The younger son asked for his share of the coming inheritance that he might go out on his own.

Dad gave it to him—no fuss, no fighting. He had loved his son and reared him and then let him go, risking him to the far country.

The father never gave up and later reaped the reward of renewed and deepened love.

He had a commitment that stayed until the finish and later saw the boy’s return.

He did not meet the boy with “I told you so!” but “My son, welcome home!”

He wrapped his arms around him with a love that had never really let go.

III. The Father’s love.

The crucial thing about love is that it can be spelled only with help from the Father. Just as the daughter asked, “Daddy, how do you spell love?” so must we come to God in order to know the true meaning of love.

The apostle John said, 1 John 4:7–9 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.”

We cannot know what true love is outside of a relationship with the Lord.

In creation God has shown his love for the entire world, over which we were called to “have dominion.” What a risk!

In Christ, God “became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14 RSV).”

In Christ, God became involved with the full dimensions of our lives—temptation, suffering, joy, death. He was willing to share it all in order to give us life.

At the cross he demonstrated commitment of the deepest kind (Rom. 5:8).

Facing the cross, John noted the commitment of love: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1 RSV).

Through the church he loves us still; he has trusted us with the ministry of reconciliation. He risks the mission of winning the world to the likes of us. He isn’t finished yet! (See Phil. 1:6; 1 John 3:1–2.)

Conclusion

“Daddy, how do you spell love?” The Father tells us to spell it with trust, involvement, and commitment. In his letter to the Ephesian Christians, Paul prays that we may know the dimensions of Christ’s love and be rooted and grounded in it. He begins the prayer with this hope: Ephesians 3:17 “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,”.

There can be no love until Christ is first accepted into our hearts by faith.

We must acknowledge our sin and failure and accept Christ’s death for sin. Trust is risking it all for him.

We must make a commitment and become involved. Then we can know the love of God.