Latest / Relish: a Christian podcast / Agape Love: The Most Radical Kind of Love

Transcript

Agape Love: The Most Radical Kind of Love · Relish: a Christian podcast

• 0:01
  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
• 0:05
  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
• 0:08
  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what
• 0:11
  we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life welcome back
• 0:17
  ladies and gentlemen to another another episode of relish rowan miller and this
• 0:22
  is don patterson as always and this week we are trying something a little a
• 0:28
  little different. And it made me nervous. Yeah.
• 0:32
  It's one way of getting it over on Don.
• 0:37
  I still didn't give him much time, but we're going to do this episode and some
• 0:43
  of the following episodes devoted to the fruits of the spirit.
• 0:47
  And so in hearing Galatians 5, but the fruit of the spirit is love,
• 0:52
  joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
• 0:56
  The law is not against such things.
• 0:58
  That's right. So we are starting today with love and we will continue the series.
• 1:05
  And I decided I should, if we're going to ask him for an episode's worth of,
• 1:11
  information here, we should give him time ahead to prepare.
• 1:15
  So we had 12 hours. He had 12 hours.
• 1:20
  Oh man. But it's a good subject to do that on.
• 1:23
  And then I'm willing to go there. And I think the difference in format might
• 1:27
  be helpful too, just to shake it up just a little bit.
• 1:30
  Because especially when you talk about the fruit of the Spirit,
• 1:33
  and I put it in context, notice the fruit of the Spirit is just the opposite of what comes before it.
• 1:41
  The sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft,
• 1:46
  hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions,
• 1:52
  envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. That's against the fruit of the Spirit.
• 1:57
  And so just so you know, the fruit of the Spirit's good stuff.
• 2:01
  And it's a contrast to bad stuff, like what they're talking about in 19 through 20, 21.
• 2:09
  So when we talk about love, especially in the Old Testament,
• 2:13
  and this word is agape love, it's a contrast to some other kinds of love.
• 2:18
  And so you love hamburgers, right? Yep, I do.
• 2:21
  Yeah, we love hamburgers. In
• 2:23
  the English language, we have such a poor idea of what to do with words.
• 2:29
  And so you can love a hamburger. You can love your wife. You can love your mom.
• 2:33
  You can love a lot of things.
• 2:35
  I got a tree or a rose bush in the yard. I think that it's very lovely.
• 2:42
  But when we go to the New Testament and the Koine Greek language,
• 2:46
  there are about five words that are,
• 2:50
  translated in the New Testament, English, as love.
• 2:54
  And so you take five words and you translate it as the same word in the English
• 2:59
  language, we're going to obviously get quite a wash down of what it really, really means.
• 3:06
  Eros, I think we often think of eros as love. That's the romantic kind of erotic love. Eros, erotic.
• 3:15
  Phileo would be brotherly love, like you're my brother.
• 3:18
  Philadelphia comes from that kind of love, city of brotherly love.
• 3:26
  But agape love is a sacrificial kind of love.
• 3:32
  And I point to John 3.16, because in John 3.16, well, I don't have to— Don't need it.
• 3:39
  For God so loved agape, the world, that he sent his only begotten son,
• 3:44
  that whosoever believes in him should not flourish, but have everlasting life.
• 3:50
  That love is much different because it has a sacrificial flavor to it.
• 3:58
  So when we talk about that kind of love, what do you love so much that you would give up?
• 4:07
  And then, so it's sort of like a barometer.
• 4:10
  So you love ice cream, right? We've never had ice cream. We should probably
• 4:14
  go out to ice cream sometime.
• 4:16
  But is there a topic you really like more than other topics on your ice cream?
• 4:22
  I'd probably take like a Snickers over like, I don't know, Heath or something.
• 4:26
  Okay. Or Carmel. Carmel. Yeah. Okay.
• 4:30
  And so you like one better than the other. Yeah. Yeah. And so in that sense,
• 4:35
  would you give up more for the Butterfinger?
• 4:39
  What was it again? Snickers. Snickers.
• 4:41
  Yeah. Would you give up more for the Snickers than if I offered you a caramel sundae?
• 4:47
  Probably. Yeah. Yeah. So it'd be worth more to you, right?
• 4:51
  Agape carries that kind of barometer of love that,
• 4:56
  barters, if you will, or is known by the sacrifice behind it.
• 5:02
  And so, it's the kind of love to which you would go to an end for.
• 5:08
  Now, what we see in Jesus is that he was willing to go to the cross.
• 5:13
  But what we don't realize is he emptied himself of deity for this mission that he was on.
• 5:22
  So, So when we see Philippians chapter 2, your attitude, verse 5,
• 5:30
  should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being the very nature of God.
• 5:33
  Can we imagine being the nature of God? I don't think so.
• 5:37
  Did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself
• 5:41
  nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
• 5:46
  Can we imagine what it was like for Jesus, who's part of the deity,
• 5:51
  Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to empty himself of deity to come to earth.
• 5:59
  Now, what kind of sacrifice is that? That's major.
• 6:04
  That's taking, emptying him of himself so that he could be like us for the reason of love.
• 6:13
  I mean, the motivating thing behind that act of Jesus to come in human form
• 6:19
  is one of the definitions of this love, this agape love, that he was willing to empty himself,
• 6:27
  give up his position as deity to come to earth.
• 6:31
  Well, then you add to that, that all the teaching he did was taking from what
• 6:36
  he had learned in the Old Testament and gave it a new concept.
• 6:42
  And he does that so well in the New Testament. Primarily, we see that in the Sermon on the Mount,
• 6:48
  Matthew 5 through 7, and how many times his love comes out of those words in,
• 7:00
  Matthew 5-7, it flips our way of doing things on its head because agape love's behind it.
• 7:10
  In other words, there's a sacrifice behind it. There's a reason behind it.
• 7:14
  So it's a sacrificial love.
• 7:19
  And the third piece is he was willing to die for us.
• 7:25
  That's a sacrificial kind of love.
• 7:29
  That means that agape love, that love of the Spirit, then is one that we value
• 7:37
  the other enough for that kind of sacrifice.
• 7:42
  So that when we think of agape love, he says, love your neighbor as yourself.
• 7:52
  In Mark 12, he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart,
• 7:55
  with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
• 7:58
  And we can love God, right? And give him all those things that we really won't notice, the loss.
• 8:06
  But he also uses agape love there to love your neighbor as yourself,
• 8:10
  which means I'm going to measure that cost of loving you.
• 8:15
  And how much am I willing to sacrifice for caring for you?
• 8:21
  How much are you willing to sacrifice for the person in your life, that is your agape love.
• 8:28
  So when we start thinking about love as a fruit of the Spirit,
• 8:32
  in light of that, then it changes our relationships.
• 8:38
  Because it's not, oh, I love you. Yeah. Yes. I love you.
• 8:45
  It carries this love when it's that agape love.
• 8:48
  In fact, so many times I wish in our English translations, we could circle when
• 8:54
  it says agape rather than when it says phileo.
• 8:58
  And then we could illustrate better what's coming out of God's word.
• 9:04
  I remember how much it hurt Jesus. Do you remember John 21?
• 9:11
  Okay, here's Peter. he's denied Jesus three times.
• 9:16
  And in John 21, this is a passage that sort of proves out my point on the difference between the two.
• 9:21
  John 21, 15 through 17, 18, excuse me.
• 9:28
  So when Jesus had finished eating, and this is after he rose from the dead and
• 9:34
  was on the beach and he had the breakfast ready.
• 9:38
  And Peter all of a sudden recognized him and just hopped in the water and went
• 9:42
  after him and came up to Jesus. When they'd finished eating,
• 9:46
  Jesus said to Peter, Simon, son of John, do you truly agape me?
• 9:53
  Make sure you mark that in your Bible, agape me more than these.
• 9:57
  And remember, at this point, Peter had denied Jesus three times on the night
• 10:04
  before his crucifixion.
• 10:07
  And Peter responds, yes, Lord, you know, I phileo you.
• 10:13
  Can you imagine what Jesus felt?
• 10:17
  Man. So he loves him. Do you truly love me? Wouldn't do stuff.
• 10:23
  Exactly. So he's, here is Jesus saying, do you agape me, Peter? Yeah.
• 10:29
  Do you agape me? He says, well, you know, I phileo you. You know,
• 10:34
  it's just, I can't imagine what Jesus was feeling.
• 10:39
  Then Jesus says, feed my lambs. And again, Jesus said, verse 16,
• 10:45
  Simon, son of John, do you truly agape me?
• 10:49
  He answered, yes, Lord, you know that I phileo you.
• 10:56
  Brotherly love. Jesus said, take care of my sheep.
• 11:01
  In verse 17, notice this change. The third time he said to him,
• 11:07
  Simon, son of John, do you phileo me?
• 11:12
  Jesus changes the word for love and says, do you, okay, I heard you. You said you phileo me.
• 11:23
  Do you really, do you really brotherly love me?
• 11:27
  And Peter was hurt. Notice that. Yeah.
• 11:31
  Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time, do you phileo me instead
• 11:37
  of saying agape? And he said, Lord, you know all things.
• 11:43
  You know that I phileo you. And Jesus said, feed my sheep.
• 11:49
  I think that passage loses so much by just saying love.
• 11:56
  And when you put the two different words in there and really realize the emotion
• 12:01
  that Jesus must have had. Can you imagine that?
• 12:04
  Okay. I've done this cross thing for you, Peter.
• 12:09
  And I love you. I gave my life for you.
• 12:14
  As deity, I gave my all for you. Do you agape me?
• 12:20
  And to have him say, well, now I phileo you.
• 12:25
  I just can't imagine the hurt that Jesus must have had. And then Jesus then
• 12:30
  at the end says, okay, you really phileo me?
• 12:32
  You really brotherly love me? You really love me like a neighbor?
• 12:36
  Then feed my sheep. And that then comes to us as how do we love?
• 12:43
  So then you go to 1 Corinthians 13.
• 12:47
  Are you watching the clock? I am, yeah.
• 12:51
  Because I get on this one, it could take a while, and I didn't write it out word for word.
• 12:57
  When you come to this passage in 1 Corinthians 13, notice that this is agape love.
• 13:06
  This is really not for husband and wives alone this is for the church,
• 13:13
  this is the agape love that the church is to have for one another,
• 13:18
  and in our group in our churches our love should be patient it should be kind,
• 13:25
  it should not envy it should not boast it should not be self-seeking and it
• 13:30
  shouldn't be easily angered can you imagine how that would change our churches measures.
• 13:35
  We would go to bat for each other to that extent, to the extent that Jesus went
• 13:42
  to bat for his disciples, the way he went to bat for us. Yeah.
• 13:47
  It would change. It would change our churches.
• 13:51
  So when we start to talk about, then we go back to your original question,
• 13:57
  that it is a fruit of the Spirit.
• 14:00
  Part of our transformation as the Holy Spirit works on us and works in us will
• 14:09
  that we will produce that as a fruit.
• 14:12
  We will produce this sacrificial love for others as a fruit of what the Holy
• 14:21
  Spirit's doing in our lives.
• 14:22
  Our compassion will be changed by it.
• 14:26
  Our judgment will be changed by it.
• 14:31
  Our ability to walk with another through hard times will be changed by it.
• 14:36
  In fact, that's one of the other fruits that's coming up.
• 14:39
  Yeah. So this is key.
• 14:41
  This love is key to who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ.
• 14:46
  And it is one of the hallmarks, I think of living a spirit filled life before God. And so it, it,
• 14:58
  It's amazing because it not only will translate the church, because in the church,
• 15:06
  we're all supposed to be filled with the fruit of the Spirit,
• 15:10
  but it will change the church towards the community it's in.
• 15:15
  Okay. Because then we will want them to also have Jesus and this fruit of the Spirit.
• 15:22
  And our hearts will break because we desire for them to have this fruit that we're enjoying.
• 15:31
  Yeah. So it will change the church. It will change the people in the church.
• 15:35
  It will change us as individuals as that fruit of the Spirit moves in our lives.
• 15:42
  Wow. I'm tired now. That was a lot, and it is all very good.
• 15:48
  He had about overnight to prepare for it. I'm sorry. We might have been here a long time.
• 15:56
  Okay. If you'd have given me five days for that, that could have been even more.
• 16:02
  Yeah. That's a good question. I really enjoy this challenge. So keep right at it, bud.
• 16:08
  Yeah. And keep tuning in for the next Fruits of the Spirit.
• 16:14
  Yeah, we'll probably mix it up, do every other one kind of thing.
• 16:17
  Yeah, give Don a break. Yeah.
• 16:20
  Yeah. He's not preparing two sermons every week. Right, right. Yeah.
• 16:25
  Yeah. All right. Well, thank you guys for joining us.
• 16:29
  Feel free to keep sending your questions in, and we will see you next time.
• 16:33
  Thank you for joining us for this podcast.
• 16:35
  Feel free to become part of this ministry by sharing it with others.
• 16:38
  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
• 16:42
  and is calling to us in our daily lives Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.