Manchester United would assume, legitimately, that he feels
exactly the same about his wife as he
does about his dog, as he does about
Manchester United.
But that would be a mistake.
Because if he noticed on one occasion that
his dog was left out in the rain,
he would of course send his wife out
to bring in the dog, because he had
to go and watch Manchester United on television.
So people who understand the English, when they
hear him say, I love my wife, I
love my dog, I love Manchester United, they
would immediately put that through a filter.
And they would say, what he means is,
he loves his wife like you love your
wife, and he loves his dog like you
love a dog, and he loves United the
way you love your football team.
Now, this being the case, when we use
the word love in so many different ways,
and we automatically filter the use of the
term love in different ways, this poses all
kinds of problems.
For instance, the Bible says God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son.
Now this is important, because the Scriptures make
it very clear that when we become followers
of Jesus, we are expected to love as
he loved.
Now when he says that God loved the
world, then, and I'm not being sacrilegious here,
I'm not just trying to be funny either,
what does it mean?
Does it mean he loved the world like
a man loves his wife, or like a
man loves his dog, or a man loves
his football team?
That's not altogether a stupid question, or a
series of stupid questions.
In fact, it's a matter of clear definition.
Now, you're not going to get very much
help from English in this, because there's a
paucity of words that we can use.
The New Testament, however, was written in Greek,
which is very, very helpful, particularly if you
know any Greek.
It does have problems if you don't know
any Greek.
Now, the Greeks, as we know, do have
emotions, and they do have a tendency to
express them, which is very, very fortunate, because
it means that their emotional vocabulary is rich.
And that is certainly the case as far
as their expressions of love are concerned.
Now, let me just identify some of these
words for you, in order that we might
differentiate between the different aspects of what we
guess at when we use the English word
love.
We guess as you mean love like you
love your wife, love like you love your
dog, love like you love your football team,
right?
You don't need to guess in Greek.
Now, one of the words, one of the
Greek words for love is eros.
Eros.
It is obviously the word from which we
get erotic, and it has to do with
the sexual dimension of love.
Now, this is clearly an important dimension of
love.
The Bible never uses eros, but it does
deal with erotic subjects.
Now, I don't mean erotic in a dirty
sense, in a scatological sense.
I mean erotic in a sexual sense.
The Bible is not at all reluctant to
call, to talk about sex.
There is a very good reason for this.
God invented it.
Many, many years ago, I used to go
into coffee bars in London.
They were used to me going in there,
and the owners liked me going in there
because I'd keep them there longer and they'd
buy more coffee.
So we had a rather good arrangement, and
I'd stand up on a table sometimes and
say, what would you like me to talk
about tonight?
I'd just talk for ten minutes, and they'd
shout out different things, but it was only
a matter of time until somebody from the
dim, dark recesses of the room would shout
sex.
Talk about sex, you see.
And they would do that to embarrass me
because they knew I was a Christian and
didn't believe in it.
So, sex.
Well, I would disabuse them of that misconception
immediately, and I'd say I'd be very, very
happy to talk to you about sex.
In fact, it's one of my favourite subjects.
In fact, if it were not for sex,
I would not be here.
Moreover, if it were not for sex, you
wouldn't be here either.
Looking around this room, there's an awful lot
of sex being going on somewhere.
So I'd say to them, so let's give
three cheers for sex.
No, we won't.
I was just wondering whether we should.
After they had very, very happily given three
cheers for sex, these young people, I would
say, now then, that's good.
But you must remember that the first person
who ever had a sexual thought was God.
The first person who ever had a sexual
thought was God.
He invented sex, so let's give Him three
cheers, which they were very, very happy to
do.
This was a new spiritual high for them.
It was a new approach to worship.
But it had a valid point, didn't it?
You see, it's just reorienting the whole position,
and the whole situation is this, that we
have made sex, we have made sex, in
many areas, something almost obsessive.
In other areas, we have made it a
means of selling stuff.
In other sense, we have made it outright,
downright sordid, and we need to look at
it entirely differently and see the actual fact.
In actual fact, sex is a gift of
God that is to be enused in the
way that God ordained it.
And seeing God invented it, it would seem
to me the obvious thing to do is
to figure out what He said about it.
And it's a bit like getting a car.
If you get a new car and you
drive it for a while, and then the
whole thing doesn't work, and you call the
guy you bought it from and you say,
this car's a lemon and you're a crook.
He probably would not appreciate that, and he
might well come and see you and go
to the passenger side of the car, open
the glove compartment, take out a shiny little
book that is still in its plastic wrap,
open it up and show you that in
actual fact there's an owner's manual, and you
haven't even bothered to read it.
And if you had read it, you'd have
done certain precautionary things and the car would
have run smoothly.
So don't call him a crook and don't
call the car a lemon, call yourself dumb.
Now, there's no question about it, that people
are getting in all kinds of messes purely
on the basis of sex.
Purely on the basis of sex.
And a lot of people, when they've got
it in a real fix, they blame God,
you see, they blame God, or they say,
oh, this doesn't work, or this is a
mess, or, you know, you're a crook and
this is a lemon, and God says, no,
you're dumb, you're stupid.
If you'd read the instructions, you would not
be in the mess you're in.
And so, what does God say about Eros?
What God says about Eros is this, I
invented it, it's a beautiful thing, and easily
abused.
And if it is not abused, it becomes
something that can be enriching in the confines
of, and here's the term again, monogamous, heterosexual,
faithful marriage.
Very straightforward, that's what God has said.
In the beginning of creation, God created them
male and female.
Now, having said all that in praise of
Eros, in praise of sexual love, as God
ordained it, we have to admit that when
it says God so loved the world, it
does not mean that God had erotic thoughts
about the world, which is something of a
relief.
And I'll tell you why.
Because the difficulty with Eros love, which God
ordained, but the difficulty with it is this,
the tendency of Eros love is to look
at the beloved one with a desire to
derive pleasure from that one.
That is the tendency.
It does have a selfish dimension to it,
and therefore it needs something to balance it,
it needs something to control it.
Otherwise it can very readily become abusive.
But that is one dimension of love as
the Greeks understood it and as the Bible
clearly talks about it, even though the word
is not used.
Alright, here's another word.
The second word is Philia.
P-H-I-L-I-A.
Philia.
It's the word from which we get Philadelphia.
Philadelphia simply comes from two Greek words, Philia
and Adelphos.
Philia means love, and Adelphos means brother.
Hence the city of Brotherly.
Now, Philia is different from Eros.
Philia is sort of friendship love, and you'll
find it quite often in the Bible.
Philia.
Philia love is a mutualistic kind of love.
Let me give an example of it.
Boy meets girl.
Boy and girl get to know each other.
One day, the boy says to the girl,
I like you.
And she says, I like you.
He, emboldened by that positive response, says, I
like you a lot.
And she says, I like you a lot.
He, ecstatic at that response, says, I love
you.
And she says, what?
And he says, nothing.
Go on.
What did you say?
I love you.
Now, you notice what's happening.
I like you generates a response, I like
you, which generates a response, I like you
more, which generates a response, I like you
more, which generates a response, I love you,
which generates a response, I love you.
What's happening?
This is mutualistic.
One is generating the other.
You see?
It is also escalating.
It is an escalating mutualistic experience.
This is like plucking a rose, isn't it?
You know, trying to understand it, and you
destroy the thing.
Philea.
Now, let's go back to this young couple
and see how they are doing.
Oh, I love you so much, I can't
do without you.
I love you so much, I could never
live without you.
So, they get married.
And they live happily ever after.
For six weeks.
Now, as Jill said this morning, opposites attract
until they irritate.
Now, we look six weeks down the road.
Breakfast time.
Toast every morning for breakfast, I don't mind.
Burnt toast occasionally for breakfast is understandable.
Nothing but burnt toast every morning for the
first six weeks of our marriage is 42
times too often.
I've had it with burnt toast.
Your mother had you for 23 years, and
the best that she could do was teach
you how to burn perfectly good bread.
What was your mother thinking about?
You leave my mother out of this.
Your mother belongs right in the middle of
this.
It's her fault that you are as inept
as you are.
You talk about my mother like that, I'm
going to talk about your mother exactly how
I wish.
And when I see her, you won't need
to see her, because if you talk like
that about my mother, I'm going back to
my mother.
Well, I think that probably would not be
a bad idea, and maybe you could learn
how to do toast without burning it.
Door slams, and away she goes.
Now, we've got a problem here.
Let's analyze the problem.
The problem is simply philia.
That's all.
You see, philia is mutualistic and escalating.
I like you, I like you, I love
you more than I can say, I love
you so much I can't do without you,
I love you so much I can't do
without you.
Which is absolutely wonderful, and it goes on
and on and on up into the stratosphere,
but because it's mutualistic, if one person de
-escalates, the other one might.
And then the other, then the other, then
the other, then the other, then the other.
I have conducted, I have no idea, dozens,
scores, perhaps even hundreds of weddings.
Never, ever have I conducted a wedding for
a couple who did not profess to love
each other.
But sadly, many, far too many of those
weddings degenerated into marriages that finished up in
the divorce courts, with unbelievable heartache, and devastation,
and bitterness, and acrimony.
A young man said to me not long
ago, a young man whose parents are divorced,
he said, how in the world can two
people who loved each other hate each other
so much?
How does it happen?
I'll tell you how it happens.
It's because their love never got beyond eros
and philea.
It isn't that they didn't love each other,
they did, but their love never got beyond
eros and philea.
What does that mean?
What it means is this, that eros love
is the sexual dimension of love which God
ordained, but a marriage that is built on
sexual attraction, and sexual attraction alone can very,
very soon get into regions of been there,
done that.
And it is looking for new fields to
conquer, new excitements to enjoy, new challenges to
embrace, a new hunt to participate in, a
new conquest to enjoy.
It happens all the time.
They loved each other, it was just eros,
and there was nothing to hold it.
And eros, you see, has a fundamental selfish
edge to it.
The simple fact of the matter is this,
as far as eros is concerned, physical attraction
can deteriorate.
As men are concerned, many of them begin
to suffer from a strange illness called chest
of drawers syndrome.
It's when their chest slips into their drawers.
I like that, don't worry about it, I
just thought I'd throw it in.
Incidentally, you can always tell a fellow who's
on the level, he's got the bubble in
the middle.
There's no hurry, we've got a few more
minutes.
So, here we've got the problem.
Why do marriages that start out with two
people loving each other so much, finish up
dissatisfied and disintegrating?
Very often, because their love never got further
than eros.
Or, their love never got further than philea,
which is mutualistic.
Mutualistic love can go either way, because it
reacts to the attitude of the other person.
Now, the Bible, when it says that God
so loved the world, and we should love
as God loved, did not use the word
philea.
It didn't use the word eros.
It uses another word, the verb agapao, the
noun agape, or agape, depending on which syllable
you put the emphasis.
Agape.
This is an entirely different thing.
Now, let me define it for you, because
this is the key.
This is what we're talking about.
Agape love is not a feeling, it's a
decision.
Agape love is no feeling, it's a decision.
It is a decision to be primarily concerned
with the well-being of the beloved one.
Are you with me?
I'm going to go over this again, because
it's so important.
Agape love is not a feeling, it's a
decision.
It is a decision to be primarily concerned
with the well-being of the beloved one,
listen, regardless of condition, irrespective of reaction.
Now, that's a pretty heavy definition.
Agape love is not a feeling, it's a
decision.
It is a decision to be primarily concerned
with the well-being of the beloved one,
regardless of condition, irrespective of reaction.
Now, you see the difference there between philia
and agape?
Because philia is mutualistic, it has a very
high regard for condition, and it has a
very high regard for reaction.
I will love you if, or I used
to love you until, I loved you but
you did this.
Because you did this, I'm going to do
that.
Now you can see where we get into
trouble.
You see, what is needed to hold eros
and philia in place, it's a transcendent kind
of love.
It's a kind of love that chooses to
commit to the well-being of the beloved,
even though the beloved one may disappoint and
fail.
And this is the love that God has
extended to humanity.
God so loved the world.
Now, when we talk about love, the tendency
is to think that to love is to
like a lot.
To like someone a lot.
Well, if that was the case, let's insert
in this famous verse, John 3.16, instead
of love, let's insert like a lot.
Alright?
God liked the world such a lot.
Now where do we go with it?
God liked the world such a lot that
he said, oh, I do like it.
And he turned to his son, and the
Holy Ghost, and he said, what do you
think?
Oh, and they said, we like it too.
And so, in glorious unity, the Trinity looked
at the world that they had made and
said, we like it a lot, let's make
a lot more like it.
That would make sense.
But in actual fact, they disliked it intensely.
In fact, the Scriptures tell us quite categorically
that it grieved God in his heart that
he had made men, because of what men
had done to his world.
So what is this love of God?
Oh, it's not liking a lot.
In actual fact, this love of God is
a commitment to the well-being of that
which he dislikes intensely.
Now we're getting somewhere.
The love of God is a commitment to
the well-being of that which he dislikes
intensely, regardless of its condition, irrespective of its
reaction.
Because remember when Jesus came, he came unto
his own, remember?
What kind of a reception did he get?
And his own received him not.
So he said, alright, if that's how you
want to be, I'm out of here.
I didn't want to come here in the
first place.
I got a very nice place up there
in glory.
But he didn't.
You see, because he wasn't operating on the
basis of Eros, and he wasn't operating on
the basis of Phileah, he was operating on
the basis of Agape, which means he'd made
a decision to be primarily concerned with the
well-being of a world that he disliked
intensely, regardless of its condition, irrespective of its
reaction.
Now you say, what in the world does
this have to do with me and my
marriage?
Everything.
Because you see, marriage needs more than Eros,
and marriage needs more than Phileah.
It needs a dash of Agape love.
Commitment.
Commitment to the well-being of the other
person.
You say, where in the world am I
supposed to get that kind of love from?
I'm glad you asked.
Now, let me give you a little insight
onto this.
Where am I to get that kind of
love?
It does not come naturally.
I am an intrinsically selfish person.
I'm a human being of the male species.
So I am intrinsically and innately selfish.
What am I going to do to get
this kind of love?
Well, let me give you two quotes from
Scripture.
One is, the fruit of the Spirit is
love.
Agape is the word there.
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
But, here's another quote.
Jesus said, a new commandment I give you,
that you love.
Agape.
Oh, what another.
Now I want you to remember those two
quotes.
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
A new commandment I give you, that you
love one another.
So here's the question.
Is agape love the result of obedience?
Or is agape love the result of the
work of the Holy Spirit?
That's a huge question.
Is agape love the result of obedience?
Is agape love the result of the work
of the Holy Spirit?
And the answer is, yes.
Yes.
It's not either, or.
It's both.
Not either, or.
It's both, and.
Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but
human beings are wired up differently.
Let me give you a picture of two
kinds of ways people are wired up.
There are those who are very organized, very
meticulous, very detail-oriented.
They love day timers.
They love lists of things to do.
They love all the recent gadgets that are
available to them, in order that they might
live efficient lives.
Efficiency is a big word for them.
They start out the day with a list
of things to do, and through the course
of the day, you can see them rushing
past you with their eyes on the middle
distance, and you can hear a clicking sound
as they go past.
Check, check, check.
Tick, tick, tick.
And they are running on schedule.
That's one kind of person.
That's a caricature, but I think you get
the idea.
Then there's another kind of person.
They are relaxed.
They are laid back.
Their favorite expression is, uh, no sweat.
She'll be right, mate.
No hurry.
Take it easy.
Take time to smell the roses.
Won't matter in a hundred years.
Sort of approach.
Now, the first kind of people get ulcers
and heart attacks, and have a short, efficient,
busy life.
The others kind of last a bit longer.
You wouldn't notice it, because they're not doing
much, but they're just, uh, they're relaxing, and
there are still lots of roses to smell.
Now, this of course is a caricature.
Now, if it is true that in general
terms we are wired up differently, it is
also true that the way we are wired
up temperamentally will make certain aspects of spiritual
truth appealing to us, and certain aspects not
at all appealing to us.
So if I am tightly wound, and I
have lists of things to do, and check,
check, check, and tick, tick, tick, and I
hear that the fruit, and I hear another
commandment, I give you that you love one
another, I add that commandment to the list
I've already got, and I say, oh boy,
I'm going to have to tackle this one.
And so this is what I'm going to
do.
I'm going to add to all the other
commandments that I'm trying to fulfill this one
if it kills me.
And wife, look out.
I, in sheer obedience, am going to love
you, and you are going to enjoy it.
Well, this may be somewhat problematic.
On the other hand, there are the people
who are laid back, and they love the
expression, the fruit of the spirit is love.
And they see themselves flourishing like an orange
tree.
Now you never saw an orange tree with
a day timer, with a list of things
to do.
You never heard an orange tree say check,
check, check, tick, tick, tick.
All it did was stand there and enjoy
the sunshine, and the fruit just came.
Now, people who are laid back, like the
orange trees, they love the fruit of the
spirit.
In fact, they will trust God by his
spirit to do what he specifically told them
to do.
So what are we to do?
This is what we need to do.
We need to look at our own personality
type.
What is it?
Wound tight or laid back?
Recognize that our personality type will make one
aspect of truth very appealing to us.
Acknowledge that that will tend to come rather
naturally into our thinking, listen, and concentrate on
the other one.
So the ones who are wound tight, guess
what?
They could begin to understand, I don't have
it in myself, however much I screw up
my courage, however much I grit my teeth
and clench my fists, I don't have it
in myself, no matter how obedient I've decided
I'm going to be to love my wife
the way I'm supposed to do it.
I don't have it, but God would never
call me to do it if he didn't
equip me for it.
And somewhere or another, I need to learn
what it is to depend on the spirit
to empower me to be what I'm not
and do what I can't.
And I begin to mix obedience to the
word and dependence on the spirit.
Conversely, if I am one of those laid
back people who is trusting God to do
by his spirit what he told me to
do, what I need to do is factor
in some little obedience things.
Like doing things he told me to do
when I don't want to do them.
So what do I do?
I identify that the fruit of the spirit
is the basis of the enabling, and obedience
to the word is that which puts the
power in gear, like the clutch on a
car.
I look at my own personality type, I
identify what it is, I recognize the kind
of theological aspects that appeal to me, and
I concentrate on the other one.
Alright, it's a bit complicated, it's afternoon, just
after lunch, the worst possible time to talk
to a group of people.
Here's an illustration and then I'll let you
go.
I don't know where we're going, because the
women won't even be into their second hanky
yet.
One day my car would not start.
It was in the dead of a Wisconsin
winter.
I looked under the hood and I didn't
see a thing I recognized.
I looked rather hopelessly at this thing for
a few minutes and then decided to call
my friend, Donnie Couchman.
I called Donnie, I said, Donnie, my car
won't start.
He said, it's either the spark or the
fuel.
I said, well, thank you for telling me
that, Donnie, but would you come around and
start it for me?
He said, OK, but it's either your spark
or the fuel.
I said, well, I don't even know what
that means, so would you come around?
So he came around.
I heard him come in, he drove a
dune buggy in the middle of a Wisconsin
winter.
He's weird.
A close friend of mine.
I hear him coming half a mile away,
so just before he arrived, I went out
again as if I've been there all the
time.
Peering intelligently under the hood.
He jumped out, he said, here, hold this.
So he gave me a big screwdriver.
So I held it rather like the Statue
of Liberty.
He said, not there.
And he pressed my arm down deep inside
the oily, dirty recesses of this car engine.
And he said, press hard and hold it
firmly there.
And then he got inside the car, and
I had some kind of ecstatic experience.
It started, this is an illustration you can't
use with women.
It started with my hands, and it worked
its way rapidly up my arm and to
my head.
And I'll swear, there were tongues of fire
on my head.
And I began to dance.
And I began to utter sounds I'd never
uttered before.
And I thought, this is amazing.
Tongues of fire, I'm speaking a language I'd
never learnt, and I'm dancing.
I'm having the experience that half my church
say I need, and the other half say
they'll leave if I have it.
And it stopped as soon as it started.
And my friend Donnie got out the car
and he said, it's your fuel.
I said, what?
It's your fuel.
I said, what are you talking about?
He said, your car won't start, it's your
fuel.
Your tank's empty.
I said, how did you find that out?
He said, if it won't start, it's either
the spark or the fuel.
I said, I know you've said that.
He said, it's not the spark.
I said, how do you know that?
And he said, didn't you feel it?
You see, because an internal combustion engine will
not operate just on spark, and it won't
operate just on fuel.
Now I know you mechanics here are going
to say, no, it needs oxygen as well.
Don't mess with my illustration.
What you need is the spark that will
ignite the vapor of the fuel.
It's not either or, it's both and.
That which ignites the incredibly powerful thing called
agape love in the human heart is not
just the spirit, and it's not just obedience.
It's an explosive mix of both.
Are you with me?
And Jesus said, and you command what I
give you, love one another.
Like that.
And he never gives us a command without
empowering us to obey.
So there's part of the answer to the
question, what is this thing called love?
Let's pray.
Lord, I want to thank you for this
great group of men on a Saturday afternoon
who want to think about their marriages and
their wives and their love lives.
And I pray that that which we have
spoken about will find a warm, receptive place
in their minds and in their hearts.
Will seep down into their wills.
They'll mix it with faith and render obedience
to it.
And their lives will be enriched.
And their relationships ennobled as a result.
In Jesus' name.