October 31, 2010
Dear friends in Christ.
This morning I’d like to begin with a question. It’s a question that most of you have probably never been asked. It’s a question that many of you may not be ready to answer. It’s a question that some of you may not even be certain of how to answer. Yet it is a question that I submit to you for your consideration as we begin this morning, and my question is this: “What is your love language?” What is your love language? In other words, how is it that you express love to your spouse, or your children? How is it that you feel loved or receive love from your spouse, or your children? For most people, this is a question that they have never considered. For most people, this is a concept that they have never explored. Though each of us naturally expresses our love in a specific way, when it comes to feeling loved, or receiving love, our spouse and even our children might be used to receiving love in a different way than we are used to expressing it. It is because of this that Dr. Gary Chapman wrote his New York Times Best Selling book entitled, The Five Love Languages. In his book—which I began using in my pre-marriage classes about 4 years ago, and which I recommend to everyone—Dr. Chapman clearly tells readers that “We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.” [Chapman, Gary. The Five Love Languages. (13) Chicago: Northfield Publishing (2004).] In fact, Dr. Chapman’s conclusion, after 30 years of marriage counseling is that there are basically five emotional love languages—five ways that people speak and understand emotional love. These five ways, according to Dr. Chapman, are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.
However, the problem is that it sometimes happens in a marital relationship that two people who love each other have difficulty showing it. They have difficulty showing their love to each other simply because they are speaking completely different love languages. For example, I am good friends with a couple who struggled with this very thing. Though the husband regularly showed his love to his wife with acts of service, such as keeping the yard beautifully mowed, raked, and the driveway shoveled, as well as by keeping the car clean and well serviced, all she really wanted was a little quality time with her husband where the two of them could sit and talk over coffee, or even just five minutes on the sofa without the kids around. (No, this is not Laura and me, this is an actual couple I know.) They struggled with showing love and feeling love until they finally understood their spouse’s primary love language. Though they have yet to perfectly master this concept, since they learned it they have grown closer to each other, they are better at sharing their love and receiving it, and their relationship has greatly improved because of it.
Thus, Dr. Chapman’s words that we must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love, continue to ring true, even in our lives. But even though we may need to take some time to learn our spouse’s primary love language, the Lord our God is already an expert at speaking to us with our primary love language! Even before we were born, the Lord knew exactly how he needed to communicate his love to us, and to this day he continues to communicate his love to us in the very way that we need to hear it. In fact, let’s take a look, together, at our lesson for today and see just how the Lord our God continues to do this. Turn with me, if you would, to 1 John 3:1-2. Now, as your turning to 1 John 3:1-2, let me give you a little back ground. The year was somewhere between 85 and 95 AD, we really don’t know for sure. But we do know that when John wrote this letter, he was the only Apostle who was still alive. He was the only Apostle who was not murdered for his faith, but died a natural death at a good, old age. Now, as the First Century was coming to a close, John wrote this letter to assure the second and third generation of Christians of the great love that the Lord had lavished upon them. Take a look at what John writes in 1 John 3, “1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1–2, NIV)
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Could there be any greater Words of Affirmation for us, anywhere in the Bible! How great is the Love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! We are the children of God because God the Father has lavished his love on us! Though we had been his enemies! God made us his friends! Though we were born as spiritual orphans, not knowing the Lord God our true Father, he showered his love upon us by making us his children. In fact, here is a passage you may want to write down and look up later. Galatians 3:26-29: “26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:26–29, NIV) Or how about this one! Ephesians 2:4-7: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4–7, NIV)
What greater Words of Affirmation could there be for us to hear today that the words that John gives us when he says in 1 John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” This is what the Lord our God made us! This is the gift that the Lord our God bestowed upon us! For it is through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior that we have Received the Gift of the forgiveness of sins! No longer do we need to fear punishment for our sins, or eternal suffering because we cannot please God by our actions, because Jesus has blessed us with the gift of the forgiveness of sins. We have Received the Gift of Adoption, through which we have become children of our heaven Father. We have received the gifts of Salvation and Eternal life, all because the Father has lavished his great love upon us. Look with me, once again, at the two beautiful verses of our lesson today. In fact, if you have your Bibles open, read it with me: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1–2, NIV)
Nearly 1000 years before Christ was even born, King David spoke about these gifts in Psalm 16:11. In fact, if you go home and read the whole Psalm you will see that with these Words King David was prophesying about the coming Savior. In fact, Peter even quoted these words in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:24 and following: But it was in Psalm 16:11 where David said, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16:11, NIV) Paul spoke about the gift of the Spirit that we received in Romans 8:15-17: “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:15–17, NIV) And again in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! In his great love for us, our Savior did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28) Jesus himself told us that God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son that whoever should believe in him would not perish, but would have eternal life. (John 3:16) Even John tells us in the very next chapter, in 1 John 4:9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:9–10, NIV)
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Though the world in which we live does not know us or even understand the love in which we live, we understand that it is because they did not know him when he walked the earth, and they still do not know him today. Though this can be a very difficult thing for us to deal with as we walk through this life, our Savior continues to shower his love on us through the Quality Time that he spends with us day after day. For every time we lift our hearts and voices in prayer to the Lord, the Lord Jesus sits beside us and quietly listens to everything that we have to say. Each time we sit down to read and study his Word, our Lord Jesus communicates with us, speaking to us through those pages, even as he conveys his great love to us. Each time we gather in worship, we spend our time in quality communication with the Lord our God and Jesus Christ our Savior. For it is here in worship that we speak to him with our hymns, in our prayers and through our praises as we worship him; and it is here that he communicates with us through the lessons and even the message of our sermon. Each time we gather here we spend Quality Time with the Lord our God who continually lavishes his love upon us.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Though we have not had the blessing of physically seeing and touching our Savior as the Apostles did, that is not to say that we have not felt the Physical Touch of our Savior’s love. For each time that we come forward to celebrate the feast of the Lord’s Supper, we feel the physical touch of our Savior’s great love for us. Each time that wafer touches our tongue, and we ingest that bread together with our Savior’s body, we are clearly reminded of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross. Each time we taste the wine, knowing that we are absorbing Jesus’ blood together with the wine; we feel our Savior’s forgiving hand holding our hearts and washing them clean, once again, from every spot and stain of our sins!
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” How great is the love our Father has lavished upon us that he continually communicates his love to us in each one of the five love languages that Dr. Gary Chapman has identified through his 30 years of marital counseling! Our God knows exactly what our primary love language is, and he lavishes his love upon us through it, but have we taken the time to learn what our God’s primary love language is? Have we taken the time to learn his primary love language so that we might communicate our love for him in it? If you had to guess, what might you say God’s primary love language is? Would you say Words of Affirmation? Would you say Quality Time? Would you say Receiving Gifts? Would you say Acts of Service? Would you say Physical Touch?
Though in reality you could argue that when it comes to God all five of the love languages work together hand in hand, I would argue that God’s primary love language is Quality Time, and his secondary love language is Acts of Service. I would argue this from what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37–40, NIV) Loving the Lord requires that we put him first in our lives; that we spend quality time with him in reading and studying the Word, meditating on it, praying about it, and gathering to worship him. Loving our neighbor suggests that we allow the Lord’s love for us to flow through our lives as we show our love for our neighbor in the things that we do for them. Though you may not agree with me on this what is truly important for us today is that we grow in the love that our Lord has lavished upon us. As we have learned today: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
