“May the Lord
make your love increase and overflow for each other
and for everyone else.” – 1 Thessalonians 3:12a
Would you
agree with me if I were to say, “Most Americans don’t understand love”? When we
talk about two people “falling in love,” it demonstrates a misunderstanding
about love. Love can’t be fallen into. When a husband or wife says, “I don’t
love you anymore,” that person doesn’t understand love. Love isn’t an emotional
switch that accidentally gets turned on or off.
If you
really pay attention, you’ll notice that we overuse the word “love” – a lot! I
say “I love you” to my wife and kids. But I also say, “I love In-N-Out Burgers.
I love going to Disneyland . And I love eating
carne asada tacos!” We’ve tossed around the word “love” so much over the years,
we need to go back to the source—God’s word—to be reminded what true love
really is.
There are
three Greek words that are translated as “love.” There’s “eros,” which is a
romantic kind of love. Next there’s “phileo,” which is friendship love, or
brotherly love, between two people who have a close relationship. And finally,
there is “agape,” which was chosen by the writers of the New Testament as the
best word to describe God’s love and Jesus’ love. Agape is a self-sacrificing
kind of love—a much higher form of love than eros or phileo.
You see,
eros love sets its sights on someone you’re attracted to. But agape love doesn’t
discriminate between someone you think is hot, and someone you think is … not.
And phileo love is directed at someone you already have a close personal
relationship with, like a family member or a close friend. But agape love doesn’t
discriminate between someone you know well and someone you don’t know at all.
It doesn’t even discriminate between someone you like and someone who drives
you up the wall.
Do you see
why agape is the highest form of love? It’s no wonder we find this word used
some 320 times in the New Testament in reference to God the Father’s love for
Jesus, God’s love for people, and Christ’s love for his church. And it’s no
wonder that when Jesus Christ commands us to love one another, he commands us
to “agape love” one another. Let’s take a look at what the New Testament
teaches us about agape love.
1. God the Father loves His Son. We read about this in John 17:26,
when Jesus prays to the Father for his disciples, saying, “I have made You
known to them and will continue to make You known in order that the love You
have for me may be known in them and I myself may be in them.” He says, in
essence, “Father, I know that You love me more than life itself. And I have so
badly wanted to share Your amazing love for me with them. So, I have taught
them about You and shown them through my actions what You are like. And as they’ve
taken it all in, they’ve taken Your love in, and they’ve taken me in, too.”
2. God the Father loves people. Agape is the attitude of God the
Father for His Son, but it’s also His attitude toward people. Without a doubt
one of the best-known verses in the Bible is John 3:16, where the love of God for
the human race is made crystal clear: “For God so loved the world that He gave
His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have
eternal life.”
Now, think
about it. What God the Father did 2,000 years ago is no small thing. He sent
His one and only Son from absolute Paradise to
this messy, smelly, sin-cursed world. Why would He do such a thing if He REALLY
loved His son as much as the Bible says? Well, He did it because “God so loved
the world.” God the Father loved God the Son more than life itself. But He also
loved you and me more than life itself. And because He couldn’t bear the thought
of all of us spending an eternity in Hell, He sacrificed His one and only Son
so that you and I could be forgiven and live. There should be no doubt in our
minds: God is love—agape love. And love came down to earth on that first
Christmas.
3. The Father desires for us to
love. The Bible is
clear that God expects His followers to love as He has loved. According to
Jesus, the two greatest commands in the Old Testament are, “‘Love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew
22:37) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). If the Bible is
true that heaven is absolute paradise and Jesus Christ is the only way to
heaven, there is only one logical conclusion we can come to: The most loving
thing you could ever do for any person is to do whatever you have to do at whatever
cost to yourself to help people have an all-satisfying relationship with Jesus
forever.
Jesus made
it clear that he wants us to agape love our fellow Christians. But true, agape
love never stops at the church door. Jesus also makes it crystal clear that he
also wants us to agape love our spiritually lost and dying family, friends and
neighbors. Jesus wants us to do whatever we have to do, at whatever cost to
ourselves, to help unsaved men, women and children get saved and have an all-satisfying
relationship with him. And that’s a Christmas present that will last for eternity.
Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of
First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information,
visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com and join us for church Sundays at
10 a.m.