Jn 14:15
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
ESV
Most of us have a biblical understanding of love. But barring what I think we already know, I’m going to go over some things I’ve learned about love in my own personal study.
First off, did you know that the greek word that we associate to sacrificial love “Agape” is the only type of love in the Greek that is capable of being commanded? The word used for love in John 3:16 “For God so loved…” is a form of agape. In a similar manner of how God commands us to be Holy for He is holy, in John 13 we see that God is commanding us to love because he loved which again is agape; we must agape because He agape. How is it commandable and how do we do it? These two questions are what I mean to answer for us tonight.
One must choose to agape, or to love. The word itself is a verb, not an adjective. True agape love is not something influenced by emotional highs or lows though it is driven by passion as it also means to hold in high regard or esteem. It could be said that certain sports fans who stick with their teams through the bad times have a type of agape. They made a choice to remain faithful despite the adversity. A married couple will have to exhibit agape at certain points in their life. When they choose to get over the grievances the other may cause, no matter how little yet nerve racking it may be, in order to be successful they must make a choice to love their spouse and remain faithful despite that hardship.
Understanding that a choice exists is key, but so is understanding that neither of these are made due to emotional influences. If emotions were in control, the avid fan would jump ship or the spouse would become unfaithful. Emotional love is selfish by nature and if put in its proper place, it is not dangerous. In affect one cannot show true agape until they have been given a choice to not agape. It is probably safe to assume that you’ll never know if you can agape until you are in an undesirable place. When at this place, there will be multiple outs (two at the minimum: to remain faithful or to leave and become unfaithful).
If we also understand the concept of submission, which is to make a choice that our authority would have us to make, then we can understand why or how agape is commandable: by virtue of being able to choose something other than God, we are given the ability to choose God. Pastor Sibley constantly states that God doesn’t want robots, he wants free will beings. In order to have a free will being, they have to have a choice. Adam and his wife were given the ability to choose wrong from right in two manners: 1) There were told to till the garden 2) they were told not to eat the fruit of a particular tree. See, some choices are just too plain easy, making temptation too easy to overcome. But there are others that require more sacrificing of self to obey. To not till the garden would be unthinkable because obviously they had to eat and to do nothing would be very noticeable. Not to mention there wasn’t a consequence explicitly given to not tilling. Adam was not taught how to think so it’s safe to assume that logic alone told him enough, no tilling equals no living. But where consequence (no matter how steep) seems to be delayed, where the choice seems to be less noticeable and justifiable, this is the place where the two choices of obeying versus disobeying begin to war and to our detriment, obeying tends to lose. It is also this place that Jesus is trying get us out of, by bringing attention to this failure and making it plain that it is this place that must be overcome if we want salvation.
If you missed the “how is it commandable,” let me make it simple:We ought to consider life as an open book exam. Life will throw us questions that will have a minimum of two answers to choose from with some being true and false while others are multiple-choice. Unfortunately, life is not full of pranks so as to make it clear that certain answers are wrong while certain ones are right, so how do you know what to choose? Whenever there is more than one option to choose, if you want to know the Will of God you must first know the Word of God and to our advantage, life’s exam is an open book test. You may not be the best test taker but if you would hide the Word of God in your heart (which is to read it, quote it, think about it), all of those struggles that make your mind fail you when you need it the most, the Holy Ghost will bring to remembrance those things and will even lead you to answers you may not have been prepared for mentally.
We are commanded to Love (Love God, Love People). In each case, there is something that is noticeable and capable of being seen by other people. The scripture text at the beginning is the nutshell of this matter. If we agape Jesus, we will keep his commandments which is to say when life’s questions come at us, we will choose the answers he has ordained to be the correct answers. It is only in these choices where we can see sacrificial love. We are no choosing to obey because of emotional attachment nor because we feel like it, but rather because we want to please our Lord and Savior (which has a few added benefits of salvation, blessings, signs and wonders, divine protection, etc—a lesson for another time).
I think it worthy to note that a direct result of this agape love that God commanded us will not only enable us to be in God’s love, but it will also be a key factor in reaching the lost!
Jn 13:34-35
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
ESV
Check out this spiral / domino effect:
Jesus says that those whom keep his commandments agape God and abide in God’s agape.
We want to show we agape Jesus and receive his agape, so we obey his commandments.
He commands us to agape one another and that by this people know that we belong to Christ.
We want to obey his commandments, so we agape one another and people recognize we’re of Christ.
Jesus says no one comes to Him unless the Father draws them.
God begins to draw people you know to Jesus, People recognize you have Jesus.
People seek path of least resistance and go to you, you minister the Gospel because it’s commanded!
People begin to obey the gospel and thus obey God’s commands,they restart the cycle of life!
This is just one form of outreach and is not the only method we are expected to use. However, it is by far probably the most meaningful to our generation (in my non-professional opinion). Signs and wonders may have helped Jesus with gaining popularity, but they didn’t always bring people to redemption in Christ. But if we agape God and keep his commandments, whether or not we are ever used in signs and wonders, the only thing that is guaranteed to be noticed is agape style love.
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