January 12, 2003

“THE FOUNDATION OF A CHRISTIAN HOME”

1CORINTHIANS 13

Add a new endangered species to the list. It’s not the bald eagle. It’s not the humpbacked whale. The new most endangered species in the world today is the family.

The statistics on the condition of the family speak for themselves:

ÿ One in three Americans are now a member of a blended step- family, and that is expected to rise to one in two by the turn of the century.

ÿ In 1960, one of every twenty babies was born to an unmarried mother. Today an astounding one in four babies was born out of wedlock, an increase of more than 450% in thirty-nine years.

ÿ Domestic violence has increased to the point that now every 15 seconds a woman is being battered somewhere in America. That means by the time this service is over, some 300 women will have been physically abused.

ÿ We are experiencing the highest divorce rate in the history of the world and steadily increasing. That is clearly evidenced by the fact that between 1970 and 1990 the marriage rate fell nearly 30%, while the divorce rate increased nearly 40%. In 1960 there were 393,000 divorces in America – by 1985 that number had increased to 1,187,000 – three times more than before. And today, demographics are telling us that more than _ of all marriages will end in divorce.

What are the implications for the children of those homes?

We now have the highest rate of child abuse, desertion, and neglect we have ever seen.

We also have the highest rate of adolescent suicide, alcoholism, and drug dependency we’ve ever seen.

And the rate of violent crimes among juveniles is the highest in American history.
Consider the statistical portrait of the 3.6 million children who began kindergarten in September:

14% were children of unmarried parents.

40% will live in a broken home before they reach the age of 18.

1/3 is latchkey children with no one to greet them when they come home from school.

And those statistics represent a study done over ten years ago!

My friends, those numbers are more than disturbing trends in some sociologist’s database somewhere – those numbers represent real people with deep pain and intense needs. The family needs help, because our houses are FAR from homes.

What is the answer to those complex and complicated dilemmas?

Well, immediately we would say that the answer to those problems is Jesus. And what those families need in their lives is a relationship with the living God, and then all of their problems would begin to iron themselves out. And I couldn’t agree more. The families of our world desperately need to experience the redemptive love of Christ in their lives.

The problem is it’s not just people outside the church who are struggling in family relationships. Many Christian families are also in turmoil. “Christian” marriages are breaking up – “Christian” children are being lost – and “Christian” families are being fractured into a thousand little pieces.

A beautiful house does not make a home. You can have 6 bedrooms, a three-car garage, four fireplaces, and a tennis court . . . yet still not have a home.

This sermon series can be beneficial for all of us because all of us are part of a family. Whether you’re single, married with children, married without children, or widowed you’re still a part of a family and you are impacted by family relationships.

I am not an expert on the family. I am neither a perfect husband nor father. I am not the perfect son and I’m not the perfect brother. In fact, I can relate to the person who said: “I believe God can turn houses into homes, but what if your house is a fixer-upper?”

But regardless of how we feel about how we’re doing in this area, I am convinced that God has provided a plan, by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to be families that reflect accepting grace and unconditional love. So let’s begin today by taking a look at the foundation of a Christian home?

The words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 are familiar to us. They are not words that require us to be convinced of their truth. All of us know that love is important to the vitality of any relationship.

A study was recently conducted among college students from various countries. They were asked two questions: (1) would you marry someone you did not love? and (2) Is it best to divorce if love has completely disappeared from a marriage?

The results of that survey were fascinating.

51% of college students from Pakistan said, yes, they would marry a person they didn’t love. And by far the majority said they would not divorce for lack of love.

Only 2% of American college students said they would marry someone they didn’t love, and 35% said they would divorce if love had completely vanished from that relationship.

Those statistics help to verify the fact that a Western view of love does and always has played a major role in our family relationships. But what is most startling to us about Paul’s words to the church in Corinth and Jesus’ words from the Gospels is that LOVE IS A COMMANDMENT! “You SHALL love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And you SHALL love your neighbor as yourself. There is no COMMANDMENT greater than these.”

Does that surprise you? I think for the Western mind to be commanded to love someone comes as a bit of a surprise, because most of us believe that love is involuntary – either you’re in love or you’re not in love.

If you ask a guy: “Are you in love with her?” He’s going to say: “Nope, haven’t seen her yet!” But then across a crowded room – BANG! – There she is and suddenly he’s in love.
You see, most of us perceive love in an entirely different way than what Scripture teaches because the Bible COMMANDS love. You say: “You can’t command love!” Jesus commands us to love God and he commands us to love our neighbor. Love is a decision, because love is a matter of the will. And the biblical model of love is that it is never simply an inner emotion alone, but it always manifests itself in concrete, outward expressions.

Now most of us think love is just emotional, because we get emotional once in a while and it feels so GOOD! But that’s not love: L-O-V-E. That’s luuuv: L-U-V.

And having an emotional feeling in love is not wrong, except that we’ve tended to limit the scope of love to the giddy feelings we have in our stomach when we’re around someone we care about. The problem is we can get giddy feelings in our stomach from eating too much pizza. But most of us don’t call that love! Christian love isn’t just a feeling. Love is a decision.

Sociologists wrestle with the ability of Mafia members to so deeply love and respect their families that they’ve become strong advocates for familial love. The Mafia! They have rules of respect they wouldn’t think of violating. Now I’m not suggesting that the Mafia is a good example of Christian love, but it does prove that love isn’t just based on a feeling. It is a decision. And becoming a loving person under the authority of God’s love is not just an emotion – it is a matter of the WILL – empowered by God’s grace.

I am grateful for the fact that my wife and I are “in love.” But I would MUCH rather marry a loving person than a person in love with me. Do you know why? Because a person can say they are in love and then be married. But ten years later they can also curse their spouse in the divorce court.

You see, this whole business of being “in love” tends to be rather self-centered. The truth is, if you were to marry a loving person they wouldn’t be thinking as much about what they were receiving as what they were giving. And if your spouse married a loving person then they wouldn’t have to worry about love being conditioned on how we feel at the moment, because if we’re a loving person then we’re more interested in giving than in receiving.

Psychologists will tell us that there are different levels that love goes through. The first level, and the first love we learn, is the love of appreciation. Unless a child is shown appreciation they will never really learn how to love. Appreciation is the most basic level of love.

From there we move into a love of admiration. We discover our heroes. Our hero may be an athlete, or a parent, or a teacher. But when we admire someone they become a part of our perception of love. And that is why the Scriptures call us to live Christlike lives. It is a way of modeling and demonstrating love.

From the love of admiration we move to the love of expectation. A father asks his son to cut the grass and his son does what he’s told. If the father has any sense whatsoever, he’ll put his arm around that boy and say: “Good job, son!” And he may even reward him with an ice cream cone or a pack of baseball cards. And that boy walks away feeling like his father loves him, despite the fact that the boy earned it. That is the love of expectation.

Next is the love of acceptance. When a mother gives birth to her child, she looks at that baby and sees an extension of herself. And unless someone tampers with her psyche, for the rest of her life she will look at that child with a sense of wonder. That’s why we sometimes say: “Only a mother could love that kid.” But you see, that is the love of acceptance. Every person needs both kinds of love and every parent needs to model both expectation and acceptance, because one without the other is dysfunctional.

If all you give your child is acceptance without expectation, they turn into weak, flimsy jellyfish that cannot function in the real world. If all you give your child is expectation without acceptance, they turn into cold robots and act like little computers with human flesh. Our children need both! Together they provide the vital balance of discipline and affirmation.

The next level of love is friendship love (from the Greek word filia from which we get our word Philadelphia). Brotherly love is the love of reciprocity. If you do something nice for me, I’ll do something nice for you. If you help me, I’ll help you. If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. And that is the way much of our world works today. I’ll give you my fair share of love, but until you meet me half way, I won’t give an inch. That’s the love of reciprocity.

The next level of love is intimate love (Eros – from which we get the word erotic). Sexuality is a wonderful gift of God, but we have all too often equated intimacy as equal to love. Sexual activity does not necessarily equal love. It is utterly amazing to me that our society has so conjoined sex with love that we feel justified to do anything we want to do. It seems that our cultures message is: Anything you want to do is fine, if you do it in the name of love. But sex doesn’t equal love. Therefore, even Eros, sexual intimacy, isn’t love. Sexuality is GUIDED by love, and we have to keep that in the proper order, because when the order gets turned around we move outside the boundaries.

Those are different aspects of love: Appreciation, admiration, expectation, acceptance, friendship, and intimate love. But we still haven’t addressed the kind of love that Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 13, and that Jesus makes reference to in Mark 14. Which also means that we still haven’t come to the love that is the foundation of a Christian home.

The highest and deepest of all loves is agape or Christian love. Agape means to love without needing to have your love returned. It is God-empowered love that doesn’t demand reciprocity for it to be given.

Jesus went so far as to say: “My disciples will agape not only the ones they love the most, but they will even agape their enemies.” When we come to the point of being able to love without the need for reciprocity, we have reached the pinnacle of love and the essence of Christlikeness. Agape is to love without the need for that love to be returned. All of us certainly desire our love to be reciprocated. But Christians do not demand it, in order to give it.

Do you want to know why so many marriages are crumbling at the foundation? It’s because in far too many marriages love has conditions. All other loves are discriminating, judicious, guarded, and careful loves. But agape loves “anyway.” Agape is the power to love without the thought of that love being returned.

Have you noticed that almost all love talk starts this way: “IF YOU LOVE ME … if you love me you’ll go where I want you to go. If you love me you’ll do what I want you to do. If you love me you’ll be what I want you to be.” But have you also noticed that while love has two vowels, neither one of them is “I”.

Agape doesn’t put people on guilt trips. Agape never turns people into things or treats them as objects to be used. Agape refuses to use people as a means to an end. Agape loves so much that we’re willing to bite our tongues, rather than speak words of hurt. Agape loves so much that we’re willing to step back, even when we desperately want something, and refuse to manipulate the other person for selfish ends.

WHY? Because it is Christlike love!

Agape asks: What’s good for the other person?

Agape doesn’t judge by outward appearance. Agape looks at the heart.

Agape loves anyway.

Agape serves.

Agape doesn’t just love when she has a shape like an hourglass and a clear complexion.

Agape loves after children, and wrinkles, and age spots.

Agape doesn’t just love him when he is young and handsome. Agape loves him even after the 5 B’s: baldness, bifocals, bridge, bulge, and bunions.

Listen again to the words of Paul: “Agape is patient and kind. Agape is not jealous or boastful. Agape is not arrogant or rude. Agape does not insist on its own way – it is not self-seeking – it is not irritable or resentful – it does not rejoice at wrong, but it rejoices at the right. Agape always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always endures. AGAPE never fails.”

You say: “Where does agape come from?” It comes from the agape love of Jesus. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When we had nothing to offer him, he offered everything to us. He left his father’s throne, not for brotherly love, because there was no reciprocity. He came for agape reasons, because he loved us before we love him.

The ultimate expression of agape love is Jesus hanging on the cross saying: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” Loving no matter what. Loving when it costs you something. Loving when you don’t FEEL like it.

When we begin to understand the price Jesus paid to love us, we can choose, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us, to love another person without condition or price.

Every man can love his wife and child if he wills. Every woman can love her husband and child if she wills. Every son and daughter can love their parents if they will. We can love each other IF WE WILL! And we can even love the unlovable . . . if we will.
It’s really very simple. Christian love is always doing the best for the other person.

There’s nothing mysterious about that. Real love is a choice backed up by action.
You say: “But what if they don’t deserve it.” You’re a Christian. Love them anyway! “But I don’t FEEL love.” Agape isn’t rooted in a feeling. Agape is the power of God at work within you, to decide to love.

You can choose love today. You can do whatever is necessary to restore your marriage. You can decide to love your children unconditionally. You can refuse to be enslaved by up and down emotions.

And how do I know that? Because God never asks us anything, that He will not also empower us to achieve.

Agape is an act of the will, a decision we make, empowered by the Spirit of Jesus Christ at work within us. And if there is anything our families need today, it’s agape. If there’s anything that will turn our houses into homes, it’s agape. Agape love is the foundation of a Christian home and agape can begin today.