The Power of Agape

Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24: John 10:11-18

There are some times in this job when the sheer breath and depth and extent of misery in this world comes back to me and I feel overwhelmed. About two weeks ago, Saundra and I went to Crisis Intervention training, learning how to help people when sudden negative events happen such as a school shooting, a sudden death in the family, a house burning down, or some similar issue. Immediately upon coming home, we were called to the home of a family who had lost a son. Over the next few days, between our six churches, there were a total of four families that lost loved ones and another three are worried that they may get the call within days. And we are asked to bring strength and comfort to all of these families, families who are experiencing death which has either just arrived or will come soon. Some are concerned, some are frightened, some are being strong, some are angry, some have dissolved in tears. Most of you have experienced this in your own family at one time or another.

When we show up, a strange thing happens, though. Not through anything we do, but it is as though an embodied Hope walks through the door, for when people look to us, they remember the Loving God that we represent. We know it isn’t us, for we aren’t that special – it is not us that cheers someone up, it is simply the reminder that God and Christ love you that happens because you have seen and heard us speak so often of that love. In many cases, I have walked into a home, been introduced to family as “our preacher”, and even before I can say a word I’ve seen this effect happen with people whom I’ve never met before, so I know that it isn’t me. I am just a walking billboard that says, “God is here with you and there is hope!” It is an amazing, yet humbling experience.

And this is what keeps us going despite all the sadness we see, the tears that stain our shoulders, and the fact that we are recognized on sight by the triage nurse at the hospital. It is the amazing power of what simply remembering God’s love does for people. And all we have to do is to walk in the room and most people are reminded of that love. Oh, we say are few things, we listen to the stories, and we point people to some important parts of Christ’s ministry, but ultimately, we simply watch God’s love do its amazing work as people remember it.

And that is the amazing thing. There is tremendous power in simply remembering God’s love. Remind people of that love and watch the goodness happen.

God’s love is a different sort of love. It isn’t just that God’s love is far, far more intense than any emotion that we have ever felt, far deeper than the greatest love we have ever felt, far more compelling than our love for child or grandchild. God’s love is of a different sort. Let me explain.

In ancient Greek, the original language of the New Testament, there are four different words which we translate into English as “love”.

First, there is eros, the physical romantic love most commonly found between a man and a woman. This is the love that usually leads you to get married. Eros is possessive, you must HAVE the object of your love. It is a burning desire, and resembles hunger or thirst.

Second, there is phileo or brotherly love. This love is found between two good friends or two family members, a love where we have found someone we can count on, a reciprocating love – you help me and I help you, we work together and have fun together. Phileo is enjoying the companionship of a friend, even the love between a boy and his dog. Think of it as the appropriate love of two good friends for one another.

Third, there is storgi, or affection. This is the love of a grandparent for your grandchildren, or of a parent for a child. It is also the love of the child for the parent or grandparent. Storgi is the love that the Queen of England has for her Corgi dogs (Storgi for Corgi's - get it?) , or the love of a woman for the deer that walk into her yard every morning. Storgi is close to a feeling of loving familiarity for the person or object that we feel storgi for.

And so we have the three human loves – Eros, which is romantic love. Philios, which is brotherly love, and storgi, which is affection. Each of these loves has a payback – Eros provides us with sexuality, Philios provides us with partnerships and friends to barter work with, and storgi establishes bonds which help us in our old age.

But God showed us another type of love, a love-word which really came into the Greek language through the letters and Gospels of the New Testament. Before the New Testament, this word barely existed. But it dominates New Testament writings about love.

The word is agape.

Agape love is a self-sacrificing, freely given love which has action. Agape is not content to just speak words of love to the recipient – Agape does, just as Christ did not just tell us He loved us, but took action to show this. Agape love is love that has action, like a group of North Carolina women who repair roofs for free. Let us look at some examples of Christ’s agape love for us.

First, while many people felt pity for the poor and some people felt pity for those who were forced into sinful ways such as prostitution, collecting taxes for the occupying Romans, or were captured by the addiction of alcohol, Jesus did not simply say: Isn’t it sad about these people.

No, Jesus sat down with them and ate with them, and brought the poor into the homes of the men who had stolen money for the Romans and shared supper together with both of them. He ate with those who were alcoholics and did not condemn them. He allowed prostitutes at his table and treated them as human beings instead of animals.

There was a cost for this. There were “good people” who thought this was not proper conduct for a rabbi, it was not dignified enough, it was not what a real rabbi should do and so they gossiped about Jesus. Yet Jesus cared enough for these people who were on the outside of society to bring His company to them, to teach them, and to help them make friends with each other, for social friendships are part of what gives people hope and strength and the power to improve their situations.

Second, Jesus healed many people, and did not charge for this service. There were some doctors who had some basic grasp of basic medicines, but they always charged for their services. Jesus gave His agape love medical treatments free of charge and even went so far as to sometimes tell the recipients of particularly powerful miracles to keep quiet and not tell anyone how they were healed. In return for this, Jesus was overwhelmed with people needing care.

Jesus even healed people who were outside of all normal bounds in society once again at the cost of poor press and gossiping about Him. He healed the daughter of a Roman centurion, a man who led 100 men into battle and was there to occupy the lands around Jerusalem. He healed lepers even though leprosy was a contagious disease and touching a leper was forbidden because it made you “dirty”.

There was no direct payback for Jesus’ agape love through His healing ministries and His friendships He developed with the outcasts.

And then, of course, He demonstrated the ultimate act of agape love. Knowing what was to happen, He walked to Jerusalem, goaded the authorities into arresting Him, and was executed, a great sacrifice in front of God to pay for all of our crimes against God. Jesus spoke of His upcoming sacrifice:

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

The Apostle John was much affected by Jesus’ sacrifice. It changed John’s life completely. In his Gospel, John referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (egape). Many years later he wrote: 16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

The word John used for love was agape. “This is how we know what agape is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

John continues:

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

And so, with the teachings and example of Jesus, with this letter from John, the early Christians began to agape people not just with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. They built the first hospitals, they became known as peaceful, loving people. They worked together to save the world’s culture when Rome was sacked, with monks spending long days carefully copying old books by hand and making new copies for no direct benefit to themselves. Untold millions became priests and nuns and served God and other people in exchange for a life of poverty and no family. Many thousands of others left their homes and went in search of towns and villages who had never heard the Good News of Christ’s sacrifice and they became known as missionaries. As the hospitals grew, many Christians became doctors and nurses and worked for untold hours among misery and death.

And later on, as governments stopped supporting the churches, ordinary people gave of their own money to support the churches, to support the missionaries, to support the hospitals and missions and food pantries and children’s camps and all sorts of aid programs as ordinary Christians learned to agape love with actions, sacrificing a new set of clothing for themselves so that others might have clothes, sacrificing a meal for themselves so that others would have a least one good meal, sacrificing time in the service so that others could hear the Word of God, sacrificing, sacrificing, sacrificing – showing agape love to others.

And the world was changed.

All because one man chose to die a gruesome, horrible death so you did not have to die. We all feel we owe Him everything – but He would have done it even if you never felt that way. He only asks – if this has changed your life for the better, go and show agape love to others.

Once while Saundra and I were in Atlanta, we had severe money problems. That evening, we heard a noise at the front door and found two friends trying to slip an envelope filled with money between our screen door and the inner door. Caught in the act, they admitted that they had felt that God was asking them to give the money to us. It made a real difference that week – both the money and the fact that we now knew someone cared about us enough to do that for us.

Another time we had to move from our rented home to another because our landlord had sold the property. Saundra was very pregnant, and I was covered up in our ink business and had no spare cash to pay movers or time to move us. And then we heard from our youth leader that the youth needed a project and wondered if they could help us move? That Saturday, about 40 youth and parents showed up, packed us, moved us, and largely unpacked us in about 8 hours. It was wonderful!

And then there was the time one of the Chinese students we mentored asked me a question which had been bothering him for some time. In China, as you know, Christianity is growing fast, but in many urban areas Christian ideas are still largely unknown or misunderstood. And so the concept of agape is not very widespread in China.

My friend asked me, “Why do American Christians want to adopt Chinese baby girls, even those with disabilities?”

In his world, without agape, this made no sense at all. You see, in China daughters are usually considered liabilities, because they marry and leave the family. It is the son who takes care of mother and father when they grow old, and so the “one-child” rule in some areas lets you have a second child if the first child is a daughter. But two strikes and you are out. And with some families, when the first child is a daughter and the second child is also a daughter, she ends up being discovered by someone else in the park, particularly if she was born with disabilities, and the authorities take her to an orphanage. And so, for my friend, he could not understand why anyone would want to adopt a child who was obviously going to be a financial burden.

And so I was given the opportunity to explain agape love to him.

And so I ask you: How much agape love do you have? How much like Christ are you?

Do you pity those in our county who are old and sick, or do you show agape love in action to them by visiting them, talking with them, praying with them, reading a Bible with them, fixing them lunch, or cleaning their houses?

Do you pity those in our county who are poor, or do you show agape love in action by visiting them, teaching them, fixing their homes, inviting them over for lunch?

Do you shy away from those who look or speak differently from us, or do you greet them and welcome them into the community, learn who they are, help them adjust to a new place, introduce them to your friends, share a meal with them?

Do you complain about those neighbors who do not take care of their homes, or do you mow their lawns for them because they are working three jobs and don’t have time, do you paint their fences, help them fix their cars, bring your pickup over and help them take that old sofa to the dump?

Agape love – the self-sacrificing love that Christ showed us – has changed the world for a better place. What agape love will you show and do that will change the world and the people around you?

For you see, agape love is what comes from God. As John wrote: 19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them.

You see, when we see something in this world which needs to be set right and we do not act, our hearts will condemn us as the Holy Spirit speaks to us. But if we show agape love in these situations, we are following God’s commands and the Spirit lets us be at rest, secure in the knowledge that we have loved one another as Christ commanded us.

I read somewhere this week that Americans are the richest people on earth and are also those people who are least likely to see themselves as rich. Look at your riches – not only your bank accounts, but your appliances, your homes, your cars, your education, kitchen pantry, your land, your spare time, your knowledge, your skills, your wisdom, your standing in the community. What of those could you use to make life a little bit better for someone else?

Each of these riches has been a gift from God to you, a gift to you which you could give to another and tap into God’s power to create and change the world, the power for positive change which is agape love. What do you have to fear? God has blessed you many times in your life already. Won’t God bless you even more if you follow God’s will? Perhaps not financially – but perhaps in many, many other ways.