True Love - Romans 12:9-21

It was long before “match,” “eharmony,” “christiansingles” “dot coms”; or apps like “tinder” and “Plenty of Fish.” Every generation has had its method or methods for determining the perfect match…all the way back to the times of the village matchmaker.  When I was in elementary, middle, and high school, we had a very scientific way of determining whether a person we were interested in would be our perfect match.  We knew exactly how to determine if it would be true love.  It was a simple mathematical test.  You would take each person’s full name and write them each on a piece of paper.  Then below the names you would make four columns.  The first would have the letters “T-R-U-E” in descending order.  The third would have the letters “L-O-V-E” in a similar fashion.  Then you would count up numbers of “T’s” in both names and write it down in the second column beside the “T,” the number of “R’s,” write it beside the “R,” and so on.  Then you would add the columns downward and total it up…the higher the number, the more likely it was to be genuine true love between the two of you.  For instance, Anita and I would have scored a 129 back in those days…we never did, though, since when I was in middle school, she was in high school (besides the fact that we actually didn’t know each other, living in two different counties, in two different school systems, and didn’t meet until we were both well into adulthood).
However, when Paul talks about real love, true love, genuine love, he is not talking about this romantic love…as much as we may enjoy romantic love, or friendship love, or even family love, none of them are the true love that Paul writes about here.  You see, as we have mentioned before, our English language is very limited when it comes to love.  We have the word “love” and that’s it.  We talk about love with family, friends, significant others, and even pizza and our cars with the same word.  The Greek, however, differs.  There is a different word for family love, for friendship or brotherly love, and for romantic love.  And none of those are the word that Paul uses when talking here about really loving someone…truly loving someone.  He uses the Greek word “agape.”  This is the same word Paul uses in his well known love chapter in 1st Corinthians and the same word that 1st John uses when the author writes, “God is love.”  It is divine love, Godly love; it is grace-filled, no strings attached, love.
So just who are we to love like this?  Who are these others that we are called to “really love”?  If we have a question about understanding anything about God or God’s Word the best place to look is Jesus.  So who does Jesus tell us we are supposed to love…supposed to really love?
Jesus tells us first that we are supposed to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.   Plain and simple, we are supposed to love God with everything and all that we are.  Our heart should be set on God.  Our thoughts should be set on God.  Our worship should be centered on God.  And our actions should be for the glory of God.  This is loving God with all that we are…this is loving God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.
Yet loving God is more than just some abstract love…our love of God is seen in very concrete ways.  Part of it is seen in our devotion to worship…part of it is seen in our obedience to His Word…but, as John’s letter puts it, “…if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?”
Our love of God is tied to our love of people.  So truly loving, with agape-type love, involves loving other people.  Who are these other people?
In the Gospel of John, Jesus looks at The Twelve, at those who walked with Him daily, and says, “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.  Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.”   So, let me stop us for just a moment.  Look to your left.  Look to your right.  Look on the in front of you.  Look behind you (unless you are on the last row, then just keep looking forward).  These are the folks that Jesus is saying for you to love.  Jesus tells us that we are to love the brothers and sisters that are taking this spiritual journey as disciples alongside.  Are y’all good with that?  Raise your hand if you are good with loving your brothers and sisters in Christ with this selfless, divine, grace-filled agape love.
It goes further than that though…Jesus tells us that we are to love more than just one another.  When talking about loving God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and that being the greatest of all commandments.  Jesus said that the second goes right along with it.  What is that second?  Jesus tells us that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Someone once asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”   Jesus then proceeded to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan…pointing out that our neighbors are not just those who live next door to us, but all that we come in contact with, even if they are completely different from us, even if they look, speak, or believe completely different than us.  These are those who Jesus tell us to love.  How many of us are ready to love our neighbors, anyone we come in contact with, with that selfless, divine, grace-filled, agape-love that Paul writes about?
That might be a little hardened than one another…but we can almost imagine ourselves being able to love those neighbors.  However, Jesus does not stop there with His command of who we are to love.  In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, “love your enemies!  Pray for those who persecute you!’”.  Jesus tells us that we are to not just love one another…not just love our neighbors…but we are also to love our enemies.  We are to love that guy who cut us off on the interstate while he was talking on his cellphone.  We are to love that woman with 25 items in the express line while we only have two.  We are to love that friend that stabbed us in the back, then twisted the knife.  We are to love that ex-spouse regardless of what they did to us.  We are to love that person who berated us because our political ideologies are different.  We are to love those whose plans undercut our very livelihood.  We are to love folks like Kim-Jong Un and Abu Baker al-Baghdadi.  These are among those that Jesus tells us to love.  How many of us are ready to love our enemies with that selfless, divine, grace-filled, agape-love with which God first loved us?  Yeah…I thought so…this is where it gets really really hard…for all of us.
So what does this love look like?  What does it mean to really love any of these…our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, our enemies?  What does it mean to love with a love that is more than just offering lip service to the word love?
Paul tells the Romans it looks something like this:
 Have genuine affection for one another
 Honor each other
 Be ready to help them
 Practice hospitality
 Bless those who persecute you
 Pray that God will bless those who hurt you
 Be happy with those who are happy
 Weep with those who are weeping
 Live in harmony
 Don’t be prideful
 Don’t think you know more than everyone else
 Treat everyone with honor
 Strive to live in peace
 Don’t seek revenge
 Feed and give drink to your enemy
How many of us are ready to love each other, our neighbors, and our enemies with that kind of love that Paul describes?  How many of us are ready to say we are truly ready to love like that?
Before we all jump in with our affirmations that we are already to love like God loves…let us consider Jesus' words about what true love looks like:
“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Love would probably lead us to lay down our life for our spouse.
Love would probably lead us to lay down our life for our children, our parents, or maybe one of our other relatives.
Love might lead us to lay down our life for a friend.
But what about that neighbor we really don’t know…
What about that enemy…
It’s going to be hard to have affection for them…
It’s going to be hard to honor them…
It’s going to be hard to be humble around them…
It’s going to be hard to live in peace with them…
It’s going to be hard to keep from seeking revenge on them…
It’s going to be hard to serve them by meeting their needs…
But now Jesus says that the greatest of all love…that agape kind of love…is about being willing to lay down one’s life…
Are we ready to die for someone we don’t really know?  Are we ready to die for that enemy we may know all to well?
Are we ready to have true love—agape love—for all?
May our prayer be:
Eternal Father, this love thing is hard. I always thought love was about those good happy feelings…you know, God…those warm fuzzies…that was love.  But then I read Your Word…and I realize love isn’t just about warm fuzzies for those folks I like.  Love…Your Love…is about caring for those that I don’t have warm fuzzies about…it is about caring for those who I don’t even know…it is about caring for those that I don’t even like.  Father, I can’t do it on my own.  I need You to put Your love inside me.  I need Your eyes…Your Spirit…Your heart.  I need to be able to see everyone with the same eyes that led You to the cross to die for us before we were born, before we surrendered ourselves to You…while we were still enemies trapped in the bondage of sin…Yet it was love that led you to lay down your life to free us.  May we so have the courage to lay down our lives in true love for all, that they might come to experience the wonderful power of Your presence in their lives.  It is in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that we pray…Amen.

Other Scripture references:  Mark 12:30, 1st John 4:20b. John 13:34, Luke 10:29, Matthew 5:43-44, John 15:13