Endless Love

What is Love?

When the mood strikes me, I can really enjoy a good, mushy, love song. You know what I mean? One of my favorites is by the singer Bett Midler. In her song, The Rose, she compares love to many things. A river that drowns reeds. A razor that cuts. An aching hunger. Then she insists that it is a flower. The world often defines love along these terms. The Bible uses 7 different words for love, which I’m sure that you are familiar with, at least several of. There’s Eros, or romantic and passionate love. The love one has for a spouse, especially at the beginning of a marriage. Then there’s Philia, the kind of love that authentic friendship espouses. Then there’s Ludus, or flirtatious or playful love, often referred to as “puppy love;” that kind of love that’s fleeting and the sort of “love” that describes a crush. Next is Storge, or unconditional familial love; the love of a parent and child. Next, we have Philautia, or self love. I don’t think we have to go over that one very much; it’s pretty self explanatory. Then we have Pragma, or committed companionate love, the kind of love that follows Eros, as a couple learns to truly cherish, honor, and respect one another.

Then you have the last word for love in the New Testament: agape. Many of you know this word. It conveys “to have love for someone or something, based on sincere appreciation and high regard”1 That’s a tall order of love, isn’t it, Saints? I mean, when do we use this word, generally speaking? When we talk about God’s love for us or what should be our love of God. Today, brothers and sisters, I am going to give you a new context for this word. Or perhaps a new take on an old context.

Turn with me to our Scripture Reading for today, Ephesians 5:22-28 (I’m reading from the ESV today) - “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

Yup, on the occasion of this being Valentine’s Day weekend, we’re going to talk about romantic relational love and how it relates to Christ’s love for us and our love of Him.

As we are talking about love, I want to first define love, within the context of the sort of love we are talking about today. Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to what Bible verse I’m going to now ask you all to turn to? Yes, that’s right, let’s talk about 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a for a short bit: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

What kind of love is being discussed here? Agape love. This is the sort of love that God calls us to have for each other. In John’s gospel, Jesus spells it out so very clearly and tells us to “Love one another as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35). And this love isn’t just for each other, meaning believers. No! Matthew 5:44 tells us to agape our enemies!

SO, now that we have defined love, lets’ look at our verse today in the context of a relationship. Love is relational, love has rules, and love requires sacrifices.

1 Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, in Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 292.

All You Need is Love

You know, relationships are hard, and I believe that this applies especially to marriages. Think about when you and your other half were dating or courting. What was life like then? Things were pretty easy, right? I mean, guys, we were constantly on the worry about how we looked, how we treated our special lady, and how we smelled. Let’s be real: we wanted to make a consistent good impression. How many people here were wealthy or very well off when they were dating? Did that change at all when you first got married? NO! You were broke! You didn’t have anything and it was okay! You were married and finally got to do that one thing that you waited for marriage to do. You know what I’m talking about…But marriage is hard. It was easier when you did not know anything about each other’s bad habits, or annoying idiosyncrasies. How easy is it to see the trats that you used to see as being so cute and/or endearing as becoming something close to a deal-breaker? Her outspoken and independent nature has just now become loud and obnoxious. That adorable way she would take food off of your plate during dinner is now annoying and irritating. Speaking of dinner, have any of you gentlemen had the following conversation: “Hey sweetie, what do you want for dinner?” “Oh, anything sounds good. I’m just hungry.” “Okay, what about [insert name of restaurant you like here]?” “Oh, absolutely not, I hate that place!” “Oh, okay, and then where do you want to go?” “Oh, anywhere.” And it doesn’t have to be so dramatic; spontaneity becomes reckless and responsible, their feet on the dash is no longer hot and attractive, but just another distraction in your already busy life, or their endearing stubbornness has become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity. But it’s not all that bad. Usually, it’s a matter of things just being okay. Not bad and not great, but just okay. And that stretches on for a few weeks. Then months. Then maybe years. Years of no particular highs or lows. Love becomes apathy.

Now I want to ask you a poignant question: what does it look like when the relationship is not with you and your spouse, but with you and God?

Jesus tells us that there are two great commandments: Love one another as you love yourself, and Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul.

Love is the key word there. Again, that Agape love. We are to look at our relationships with each other and with God and not let that relationship go stale!

Let’s look again at our passage: The entire passage relates to how husbands treat their wives and how wives treat their husbands. It’s relational by nature! In the beginning, God created man and woman and they were to be equals. We are always called to go back to that Edinic state as our example for marital relationships. That said, we are also to go back to that Edinic state for our relationship with GOD! Adam and Eve hung out with God on a day to day basis in the Garden of Eden. Life was great, and they had a cool relationship with the Lord.

The thing of it is, although we cannot be in God’s physical presence, we can have that same deep and intimate relationship with Jesus. It takes time, commitment, and a love for Him that requires that we make Him a priority in our lives. SO, let me ask you this: how much of a priority is your relationship with Jesus? Is He your first thought on waking and your last thought before sleep? Do you seek Him and His counsel throughout the day? If not, why is that? What, or who for that matter, is getting in the way? Whatever or whomever it is, it or they should never come before your Savior. I implore you to examine this part of your life and ask yourself where Jesus lies in your priority list!

You Know the Rules and So Do I!

I absolutely love and adore my beautiful wife Stacy. As with any relationship, there are rules that we follow. I’m not talking about those common sense rules that apply to any relationship, but those unique ones that are just for us. Each person has them. Here are some of mine.

First and foremost, we are adamant about knowing and showing affection through each others Love languages. For those not aware, people show affection for each other by different means and needs affection from each other by different means: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. Words of affirmation are when you tell each other nice things, uplifting things, or simply telling them “I love you.” Acts of service is pretty self explanatory, and is when you do something for someone else. Receiving gifts, while similar to acts of service, is showing or giving affection by giving or receiving a gift from someone. It could be as simple as bringing home flowers. Quality time is when affection is shown by spending time with another. Lastly, but not least, is physical touch. This one nowadays is tough, but is, as the name implies, physical contact, be it a hug, a kiss, a handshake, or touching someone’s shoulder.

For my wife, her love language is acts of service. As such, I like to do things for her like fill her gas tank (she hates doing that), filling her water bottle before bed, bringing home her favorite drink from Starbucks, etc…For me, it’s a tie between physical affection and words of affirmation.

The next rule we have is that we talk about and discuss everything. And I mean everything. There are no secrets between us.

Next, we don’t hide affection from our children. We believe that, within appropriate bounds, we can demonstrate a healthy marital relationship by showing physical affection in front of our kids, like hugs, kissing, etc...

Next, Stacy gives me a personal space with which I can get some space when I need it. As I wrote this sermon, I was sitting in my office at my desk. It’s nice to have a space to oneself, and my wife is great about giving me that.

Add to that, I get a total of 20 minutes post an event or gathering in which to socialize. I am an extrovert, in case some of you didn’t know. And I love to socialize. Post events, my family is extremely supportive of my need to socialize after gatherings and events. I get 20 minutes and my family is ready to leave.

Lastly of the list I’m sharing today, is that, between she and I, the last one to bed checks the locks. Cheating is allowed. Meaning, the first one ready for bed and in bed, doesn’t have to check the locks and doors. Stacy cheats, sometimes using my getting her water bottle filled to get ready for bed. Don’t get me wrong, there are days in which my chronic fatigue get the best of me, but those days are the days I go to bed early, and she’s the one doing it.

As we can see from our Scripture reading, God puts rules to our relationships as well.

Wives are to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, it says. If I ended there, there would be a significant number of this congregation that would want to have words with me. The passage goes on to say that wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. This is not to say that wives are to be doormats, you husbands out there. It also doesn’t mean that they are to be subservient to you. It is not something that should ever be coerced. It means that you husbands out there have a special role as the head of your household and the wives are to honor that, by choice and out of a willingness born of agape love for her husband.

Remember when I said that wasn’t all? Yeah, husbands, your role comes with a whole other set of rules. It says Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up to her. How did Jesus love the church? He DIED for it. Are you, husbands out here, ready to die for your wife? Are you ready to die to self? How much you agape your wife shows how much you are willing to die for your wife.

You see, the lynchpin and key to these verses is actually found in the preceeding verse to or passage today, in verse 21: “…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ!”

Marriage relationships are about MUTUAL submission to one another! And, as it says to the Husbands, we are to submit to Christ, as we are the body of Christ and His church. What does that mean? As I’ve said before, it’s making Jesus the priority in your life. It’s making him not just your savior, but your LORD. Everybody wants a Savior, but how many of us want a Lord?

Bleeding Love

As I alluded to in my last point, love requires sacrifice. I sacrifice for my wife and my wife sacrifices for me. She puts up with my love of hobbies, like buying new commentaries and other bible resources. She actually bought me the very Bible software that I used to write and prepare this sermon! I sacrifice for my wife when I have things I want to do but when I see she needs quality time with me, I drop what I am doing and go spend some time with her. Again, it’s about that mutual submission.

Also, as I pointed out, Jesus’ love for us was so great that He literally gave up His life for us. Like, in a horrible, terrible, and gruesome death. Jesus endured the unendurable all for the sake of each one of us sinners, having died an ignoble and humiliating death on a cross.

The author Gayle Edwin puts the humiliation of Jesus’ death thusly: “We would all agree that Jesus died a notorious death, yet I found that I didn’t understand the extent of his shame. The truth of scriptural description was lost on me: 'For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. The cross was never foolishness to me. I saw it everywhere. It gracefully adorned lofty steeples. In polished silver or burnished wood, it decorated the interiors of churches and other religious buildings. It hung in expensive jewelry around elegant necks. It graced the lapels of suits and marked the fancy stationary of big churches. It was sung about and proclaimed. People carried huge and heavy crosses for penance or publicity. The cross permeated my world. But it was never foolishness. How could that be? Then it occurred to me that I didn’t truly understand the cross, primarily because people don’t die on crosses in these days. Had Jesus come to this age, we would have treated him far more ‘humanely.’ We would have have electrocuted him, or hanged him, or gassed him, or placed him before the firing squad, or at least injected him with a lethal dose of drugs. Imagine the results of such a modern execution. I would now be collaring people on the streets and witnessing in this manner: ‘Neighbor, my best friend just died in the electric chair for you. If you will believe this and take up your electric chair and follow him, you will be saved.’ Our great hymns would certainly be different. Can you hear us singing, ‘At the electric chair, at the electric chair, where I first saw the light.’? Or, “There’s room in the gas chamber for you.’? Or “Take up your firing squad and follow me.’? We would become the laughing stock of the world. We would be embarrassed that our ‘hope’ had died so shamefully, even though we knew he had been resurrected. Such a death is really tough on our image of the cross. Let us paraphrase scripture and see how it sounds. ‘Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Jesus electrocuted: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles...’, ‘For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him electrocuted.’”

When we look at things the way Pastor Edwin puts things, you may be able to realize the magnitude of the sacrifice that Jesus paid for us. Think about it. He was straight up murdered under false charges in a kangaroo court, by hypocrites, liars, and a lynch mob, after being beaten, lashed, and beaten some more, forced to drag his crossbar to his execution site, and laid out and strung up with nails in his hands and feet. Keep in mind that the Romans had perfected the art and science of crucifixion to maximize pain and extend out suffering. All to cover your sins, my sins, everyone’s sins. The sins of the past, the sins of today, and the sins of the future. John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God loves each of us, as Augustine of Hippo once wrote (I’m paraphrasing), as if there were but one of us to love. That is an agape love.

Is it so much of a sacrifice to cease rejecting Him and agape Him back?

I Will Always Love You

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. How much do we love this song?

The Bible tells us that God loves us with an everlasting love. A love without end. A love that is unfailing. A love that surpasses all understanding. The love, the agape, that we are called to in our lives should mirror God’s love for us, be it in our romantic relationships, between believers, and even with our enemies.

1 Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, in Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 292.