Tough Love

(On the platform with me I have two items: a bird in a birdcage and a fish net. )

Today concludes our sermon series. We have emphasized that love is at the very core of what it means to be holy. All of God’s commandments can be summed up in two statements. We are to love God with our whole heart, soul, body, and strength; we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We have discovered that love is first of all a behavior or action, not primarily an emotional feeling. Christian love is not something I feel, it is something I do. We have learned how to love our enemies and that to forgive is the type of love that makes us most like Jesus. Today we will be looking at Christian love from a completely different perspective.

Sometimes the most difficult part of loving is knowing how to express love. Most of us have been in situations when the issue for us was not whether or not we will love someone, but in what way we show them love. These are situations when it’s tough to know how to love; these are situations when love must be tough.

Sometimes it’s really hard to know how to love. Usually this involves people in our lives that we love dearly. How are we supposed to love someone when we know bad decisions are being made? It has happened to all of us. Maybe it’s one of our children, or a dear friend. We can see they are doing things and going in directions that they should not go. We love them, and are desperate to help them. But what do we do? How do we love someone in such a way that we can influence them to make better choices?

This becomes even harder when our past efforts to love them have not worked. It is so frustrating to love someone who is really messing up, and everything we’ve done to help them has not worked. We’ve tried and tried to help them, but they continue to disappoint us and break our hearts. What are we supposed to do?

It becomes even more difficult when we know the consequences are severe. We can tell they are on a path to destruction. If nothing changes, lives will be forever harmed. Because we love them so much, we know that our own heart will ultimately be broken.

Fear of failure is overwhelming because so much is at stake. We know we need to do something. Not only do we not know what to do, we know that if we fail bad things will happen. It is truly frightening to feel that if we make the wrong decisions on how to love, the worst could happen.

Some of you here today are facing situations like this right now in your life. You are filled with concern, confusion, and fear for them. Others of us will certainly be dealing with situations like this in the future. My prayer is that this message today will help you be able to show tough love when it’s tough to know how to love.

Before we read our Bible passage today, I’d like to talk with you about two ways of loving that almost never work. However, these are also types of expressing love that we are most inclined to express. By the time things get really bad, most of us will have employed one or both of these ways of loving, and found they have not worked.

Before I tell you about these two ways of loving that won’t work I want to emphasize that people who do these things really do love those they are trying to help. It is because we love so much that we tend to do these two things. For many of us, these are the only two ways we know how to love. Loving like this does not make someone a bad person. It’s just that we need to be able to see how loving in these ways may not be the wisest or most effective strategy to help the person we love so much.

Let’s look at one of the ways we have tried to love. I have in my hand a fishing net. It represents a kind of love that serves to enable the person we love to continue in their bad behavior. I call this “safety net love.” Safety net love is love that’s always there to catch the person when they fall. It is love that is there to pick up the pieces when life is broken. We do this when we cannot bear to see the person we love hurt by their decisions. When something bad happens, we are always there to help out and minimize the consequences. Enabling love is filled with noble intentions. We really do want to help. By being a safety net, however, we are actually assisting them to continue in the bad behavior. Our efforts to love someone by being their safety net make it more likely they will continue to do the wrong thing.

I suppose the most common safety net relationship is that of parents and their children. As a parent, I don’t want my kids to suffer. When they hurt I feel it is my duty to salve their wounds. When they fall, we are there to pick them up. If we always doing this, our children never have to experience the full consequences of their behavior. The result is we encourage them to continue to do the wrong thing.

Another relationship that often results in enablement is the spouse of an alcoholic. They will call in sick for them when they have a hangover. They make excuses for them when they do embarrassing things. They are afraid of doing anything that might drive the person away. In the end, the loving spouse is actually contributing to the problem rather than making it better.

Now, let me tell you about the other type of love that almost never works: love that controls. I call this “bird cage love.” Take a look at this bird in a cage. Now I don’t really know how this bird feels, but I think I know how I would feel if I were this bird. If this were me, I would not like being kept in this cage. I think I would find it way too confining. I would want to get out of the cage and fly. I would continually be looking through these bars, longing for freedom and liberty. I think if I was this bird, I would spend most of my time trying to figure out how to get out of the cage. I would really resent the person who put me in there. When they came around to feed and water me, and they put their hands in this cage, I would peck at them with all my might. They might try to tell me that they have me in the cage for my own good. If I got out, I might get hurt, or even killed. They might try to convince me that the reason they have me in the cage is because they love me. I wouldn’t believe them. How can they love me when they keep me caged up?

Suppose I’m the person who put this bird in its cage. I really do love the bird. I paid a lot of money to get the bird, and I probably paid even more money for this cage. I am faithful to feed and water the bird. I spend lots of time looking at the bird and watching it and listening to it chirp. I even get the bird out of the cage and hold it in my hand. But when I’m holding it, I am very careful to make sure it doesn’t get away. Because I love this bird so much, I always keep the bird in its cage. This way the bird won’t get hurt. This way the bird won’t fly away. By keeping the bird in its cage, it won’t be able to do its thing on the furniture. This way the bird will always be there for me when I want to give it attention.

Love that controls is very much like me and the bird in the cage. Because I love the bird, I keep the bird in its cage. The bird, however, doesn’t feel my actions as love. Instead it feels like I have put it in prison. It wants to be able to fly around, and I’m the reason it can’t. So how do you suppose the bird feels about me? If this bird could talk, I suspect it would say, “If you love me, let me go free!”

I think you know how we might express our love by controlling someone. Overprotective parents try to control every aspect of their child’s life. They do this because they love their children, and want to protect them. But the older a child becomes, the more he or she wants to be free. Perhaps the most difficult task of a parent is knowing when and how to let go of control of their children.

We may use controlling love in a relationship where trust has been broken. I know how difficult it can be when someone you have trusted has betrayed you. In situations when affairs and adultery have happened, the greatest casualty is trust. The faithful partner is hurt and knows they can no longer trust this person. The natural tendency is that the faithful partner will try to regain trust by putting the offender in a cage. They can’t risk giving the other person a chance to mess up again. However, the time will come when the only way trust can be restored is for the unfaithful spouse to be let out of his or her cage. I know this is a very difficult thing, and the timing must be right, but this is a step that must be taken if trust is ever to be restored to the relationship.

Enabling love and controlling love, though expressed with good and pure intentions can not only fail to convey love but make the situation worse. That’s why Christians must learn some important principles about tough love.

To better understand this love, I would like us to look to the Bible and an example of the tough love Jesus gave us. You have likely heard about the story of the prodigal son. It is a story Jesus told about two sons and their father. I would like to suggest to you that a more appropriate title for this story would be “The Story of a Father’s Tough Love.” Jesus told this story to teach us about the kind of love our heavenly Father has for us. The more we understand the father’s love in this story, the more we can comprehend that God’s love for us. The kind of love Jesus modeled is a tough love.

The first type of love we learn from this story is love that lets go. Let’s read the story of the father’s love for his younger son. (Read Luke 15:11-24. )

With his younger son, the father of the story was willing to let go. There are a number of things we need to note about it. First, let’s emphasize that letting his son go was not an indication that he did not love his son. It is important to clarify the reality of the father’s love for his son. Even though it may not feel like it, to let go is in fact a genuine expression of love.

The father went against what would have seemed to be his better judgment and still opened up the cage door for his son. I am sure this father knew that the request to have his inheritance early was a bad choice. I suspect that the father knew that if the son left home bad things were going to happen. The father certainly had it within his power to deny his son the request. Yet, even knowing all of this, he still let his son go.

Letting go is also something that our heavenly Father does for us. God knows everything, and certainly knows when we are making bad choices. God certainly has it within His power to keep us from doing what we should not do. Yet, because He does love us, God gives us our freedom to choose, even when our choice is to disobey His will for our lives.

Love that lets go allows the consequences happen, even if they could have been prevented. Did you notice that the father in the story does not chase after his son? Don’t you kind of wonder why, if he loved him so much, he didn’t go and try to find him and bring him home? No, when the father let his son go, he let him go and suffer the full consequences for his choices.

God’s love is like this too. He never forces himself into our lives. He does reach out to us with His Spirit. However, He doesn’t make us do the right thing. Instead, His is a love that often stands by and let’s us suffer the consequences of our behavior.

Love that lets go waits patiently for the chance to love again. When the time comes, love becomes a great celebration. Notice that the story emphasizes that the father had been waiting for his son to come home. Just because he had let go didn’t mean that he stopped loving or caring. No, the father waited and watched, perhaps for years, for his son to come home. When he saw him from far off, he ran to meet him, embraced him, and restored him to full and complete son-ship. Love that lets go waits for the day that the person who has gone comes home. When they do, it forgives, heals, and restores.

This is how God’s love is for us as well. We can know that no matter how far we may have strayed, when we come home, God is always there waiting to restore us and make us His child.

There is another type of tough love that we sometimes must use. This is love that intervenes. This is love that doesn’t stand by, but courageously, firmly, and lovingly confronts the person who needs to change. We can learn some things about this type of love from the father and his relationship with his older son. Let’s read the rest of the story. (Read Luke 15:12-32). While we are looking for direction in this, let’s also read Hebrews 12:5-6.

When I read the part of this story about the older son, my first instinct is to identify with him. Maybe that’s because I am also an older brother. I know what it’s like to have all the responsibility. For the most part, I’ve never been the one who has gone astray. The truth is, the whole situation isn’t fair. Why should this younger brother get off the hook? Why doesn’t he have to pay for what he did? Why should he be able to get away with his bad choices? Doesn’t he know how much he hurt his father? Why should the father treat him so well after all he did?

The older son has a bad attitude. He is showing that he has a problem with love. He is jealous. He is unforgiving. He is self-righteous. He is arrogant. When the father hears about what the older son is saying, he confronts him. From this, and our Hebrews passage, we can learn some principles of intervention.

The father intervened with his older son because he had compassion for him. He loved his older son, and because he loved him, he confronted him about his behavior. But when you read this, you can tell that he is doing this, not out of anger, but out of love.

Our heavenly Father also, at times, confronts us with our bad behavior. We can always know that He does so because He loves us, not because He is angry or is rejecting us.

We intervene with a plan of action. When the father confronted his older son, we can tell that he already knew what he was going to say. He had a plan of action to present to his son regarding what he expected. God also confronts us with a plan of action. Most of the time, when the Lord is disciplining us, we already know what He wants us to do.

Whenever we are faced with a situation where we need to intervene for a person who is in trouble, it is important that we do so with a clear plan of action. Sometimes this requires us to seek professional help and wise counsel to know best how confront. I want to encourage all of us to not rely just on our own wisdom, but seek all the help we can find. We are blessed to have available here at our church many resources to help you develop your plan for intervention.

Intervening love requires us to clarify the consequences if certain requirements are not met. This is only implied in our story, but I believe it is still there. When the father confronted his older son about his attitude, he was very firm and unapologetic. The father seemed to be saying, “It’s time for you to straighten up and behave as a loving son ought to behave. I expect you to do what you are supposed to do.” The father made absolutely no apologies for celebrating his younger son’s return. He expected the older son to join in the celebration.

One of the important things about intervention is it requires not only a plan, but also clear consequences. Again, determining what the consequences are requires wise and careful planning. To decide on consequences is also something for which you may need to seek advice and counsel. We need to avail ourselves of all the resources we have to best love in this way.

The last principle for intervention is probably the most difficult, and often the biggest reason intervention fails. Tough love that intervenes must have a willingness to follow through. In the story about the father and his two sons, we do not know what happened with the older son. Did he change his attitude about his brother or not? I don’t know. I can hope he did. Based on what we know about this father, however, we can be fairly sure that he followed through on what he expected from his older son.

Intervention that does not follow through will most likely fail. If the consequences laid out in the plan are not implemented, there is little hope that change will really happen. Intervening love not only requires the courage to confront, but also the strength to follow through.

By now I’m sure you know why tough love is tough. It’s never easy to implement tough love. It is tough, because it is tough on the person being loved. Even though it is love, it doesn’t feel like love to them. It is also tough on the person doing the loving. Even though we may know we are doing the right thing, it is still hard to do something that will result in our loved one hurting.

I’d like to emphasize why it is important to learn that sometimes love must be tough. The reason we choose to love a person by either letting go or intervening is because we want to do what has the best chance for success. It is a strategy for bringing about positive results. This is so important to know, because when we express tough love, it rarely feels good. It doesn’t even feel like love. But we are choosing to do what we know is best and has the highest possibility of bringing about change.

Let me close with these thoughts. In order to employ tough love, I really must depend on God’s help. When we love this way, it is so important to bathe our situation in prayer. Pray for it yourself. Get other people to pray for you. Understand that you will need to continue in prayer throughout the whole process. Prayer is our greatest tool. We need to pray for ourselves in two ways. The first is that God will give us the wisdom to know what to do. It is frightening to decide on tough loves and it requires wisdom far beyond what most of us possess. The second thing for which we need to pray is the courage to follow through. We must follow through with letting go, and we must follow through when we intervene. Unless God strengthens us and sustains us, most of us will not be able to follow through.

I’m sure, as you have listened to this sermon, situations and people have come to mind where you may need to employ tough love. Tough love is a love to which I believe God calls His people, because it is the kind of love He has for us. So, I wonder, for whom is God calling me to show tough love? May God give us wisdom and the courage.

Closing Song: “Does Jesus Care?”

	First Sunday of Advent November 30, 2008
	Second Sunday of Advent December 7, 2008
	Third Sunday of Advent December 14, 2008
	Fourth Sunday of Advent December 21, 2008
	First Sunday After Christmas December 28, 2008
	Second Sunday After Christmas January 4, 2009
	Baptism of the Lord January 11, 2009
	Second Sunday After Epiphany January 18, 2009
	Third Sunday After Epiphany January 25, 2009
	Fourth Sunday After Epiphany February 1, 2009
	Fifth Sunday After Epiphany February 8, 2009
	Sixth Sunday After Epiphany February 15, 2009
	Transfiguration Sunday February 22, 2009
	Instructions for Advent Monologues