© 2024 Evan D. Garner
Audio of this sermon is available here. Video can be seen here.
Have you heard about the five love languages—the five different ways that people typically give and receive love? There’s words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Barry Chapman, a Baptist minister and counselor, introduced the concept in his 1992 book, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. As the theory goes, all of us can demonstrate our love through any of the five languages, but each of us has a preferred way—the expression we return to, the one that comes most naturally for us. What’s your love language—words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch?
When Elizabeth and I were going through premarital counseling and the priest who was preparing us for marriage introduced the concept to us, it was revelatory for me. It won’t surprise any of you that words of affirmation is my love language. Words are, after all, my stock and trade. But what really blew my socks off was the idea that the way I tend to show love might not be the way that the person I love prefers to receive it. (I know, right?) I might be pouring my heart out in a near-constant stream of kind and affectionate words only to have them fall upon a deaf heart. It turns out that for Elizabeth, a profound introvert, my words were not always a channel for love but more often a barrier to it. Her love language is quality time, which means that, if I can ever learn to keep my mouth shut long enough for both of us to enjoy being together, our marriage has a fighting chance.
In our second reading, John wants us to know that words of affirmation won’t cut it. “Little children,” he writes, “let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Maybe he was more of an “acts of service” sort of apostle. John writes to the early church to remind them that being a Christian means more than saying they believe in Jesus. It also means acting like it. “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” That’s not a metaphor or a hypothetical question. John means every word. How can God’s love abide in us if we have the earthly means to help someone in need and won’t do it?
This is what love looks like, John writes—that Jesus laid down his life for us. That’s what love is. That’s how God loves us—enough to die for us. And those of us who abide in that love, dwell in that love, and are defined by that love must love one another in the same way. We, too, must lay down our lives for one another. If we won’t, we have no right to call ourselves Christians.
But that’s a tall order. Even the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, acknowledges that “rarely will anyone die [even] for a righteous person” (5:7). While sacrificing your life for your child or spouse may be an instinctive gesture of love, who among us would give up their life for someone we don’t know all that well or don’t like very much—an acquaintance from church or an annoying neighbor down the street? But that’s how God loves us. Jesus did not lay down his life only for the people who loved him the best. He surrendered to the cross for the religious leaders and Roman soldiers who put him there. And, if we want to call ourselves Christians, we must love one another just like that.
But, actually, that isn’t right. That’s not true. That’s confusing John’s description of the Christian life for a prescription for it. It’s like putting flour, sugar, butter, and eggs in our shopping cart and expecting the cashier to compliment us on our delicious cake. We don’t become Christians when we love one another enough to die for their sake. We learn to love one another like that when we belong to Jesus. He’s the one who shows us what love is. He’s the one who teaches us how to love each other.
In this letter, John has some harsh words for those who say that they are Christians but don’t act like it, but John never says that acting like a Christian will make you one. Instead, he reiterates over and over that God’s love comes first and that those who abide in that love will always show it in the way they love one another. How we treat other people is a diagnosis for our faith. How we love one another is a reflection of our love for God. Our focus, therefore, should not be on treating the symptoms but on curing the disease.
If someone comes up to you in the parking lot and asks you for money, they might be scamming you. There are plenty of people in this world who trade in deception. But, if you belong to Jesus, the money in your pocket doesn’t belong to you. It always belongs to someone in need. “How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” It doesn’t. And those in whom God’s love abides know that. So, if you’re having a hard time surrendering what’s in your pocket to someone who needs it—if you’re having a hard time laying down your life for the sake of other people—that might be a sign that it’s time for you to get back in touch with how much God loves you. That’s because, when you know that God loves you enough to die for you, you cannot help but love other people like that.
When we give our hearts to God, to the one who loves us like that, God takes our hearts and shapes them until they know what it means to love others in the same way. Loving God and loving our neighbor—even the annoying neighbor—always go together. That’s what John means when he writes, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us.” Let the perfectly circular nature of that statement sink in: God’s commandment is that we should believe in the name of Jesus and love one another, just as God commanded us.
Also notice that the commandment is singular even though it comes with two realities—believing and loving. The first necessitates the second. Believing in God always means loving our neighbor. It is an unavoidable consequence—so much so that, as John writes, its absence is conclusive evidence of a missing antecedent. If we don’t love one another, it means we’ve forgotten what it means to believe in God, no matter what we say, because God’s love cannot be limited to word and speech. It is always manifest in truth and action.
Don’t we know this to be true in our lives? When you love someone so much that it consumes you—that you lose yourself in them—it doesn’t matter what your love language is and whether you “speak” the same love language as your partner. When you love someone like that and they love you back, the translation always gets through. When you fall into the deep end and immerse yourself completely in the love that you share with someone else, that love cannot be stoppered up, crimped shut, or tied off. Such love cannot be denied. It captivates you and changes you in ways that show you how to love them perfectly and sacrificially for their sake instead of your own. Then, that perfect love flows through you and into the life of the one you love until it flows back to you again.
That’s the way God loves you. And when you know it—when you know how much God loves you—when you recognize that God’s love is the very source of your life and is everything that gives your life meaning—you cannot help but allow that love to flow through you and back to God. And what does it mean to love God if not to love one another? How can God’s love abide in us if that love does not also pour from our hearts into the hearts of those around us? It can’t. When God’s love comes to us, it cannot find a dead end. God’s love always leads us into abundant life.
“We know love by this—that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” It is good news that God loves us enough to die for us, but that’s not all. God’s love for us is so strong that it has the power to transform us into people who would die for one another. And you don’t need words to understand love like that.
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