Spiritual Maturity 7: Motivated By Love, Not Fear: Proverbs 10:9-12; I John 4: 7-20
Growing up, I often heard the phrase, “That’ll put the fear of God in him (or her).” Now, at times this was relayed as being a fear built on respect. But I couldn’t help noticing that all too often the motivator was not a healthy respect, but an actual and real fear which was created and cultivated in people. I remember in one church service we sang the old hymn, “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” Then we sang, “When nothing else could help, love lifted me!” Then the sermon topic for the day was how God’s wrath burned mightily against the Israelites, and God opened a fiery pit in the earth and swallowed up the unfaithful ones in the desert. And all I could think was love better get to liftin’ me a bit faster.
Too many of us grew up with our primary motivation being an unhealthy fear, of life, of people, and of God. There’s no hope in that. There’s no joy to be found. It’s a faith based on what we call coercive control in legal circles, and the coercion being control by force or fear or threat of violence. Do this or be smote down by God. Our final mark of spiritual maturity by T.B. Matson is motivation out of love rather than fear. Love is affirming. Love is expansive, and love is courageous.
Love is affirming. Many of us live with small fears in our lives, or perhaps even big ones. We speak to our fears when we ask, “what if?” For example: “What if I fail? What if they die? What if these people don’t like me? What if I say or do something not socially acceptable or proper in this situation?” Hear this when I say it—that there is no doubt-filled “what if” question which comes from love. They are all based on fear. Perhaps we can even speak to the biggest one in our society, “What will people think?” I John 4:9 says, “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”
In Romans 3 we hear even more strongly that God did not send the Son into the world for condemnation, but so that we may have life, eternal life, and life with God as creator, redeemer, and sustainer. Never judgmental, God’s love is meant to be affirming and a daily reminder that we are redeemed children of God. Think of all the people who come here for church for a moment. How many of them would not be in church if we didn’t practice this affirming, caring, love which God has commanded us over and over again to show. Perfect love casts out fear. When we claim our faith in God, this love assures us that God claims us as beloved children.
Love is also expansive. Many have argued against this idea using Matthew 7:14, “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” I heard a pastor friend take this idea up once. He said, “Narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way, but we must also remember ‘wide is the welcome unto this gate.’” I John makes this point clear in verse 8, “But anyone who does not know love does not know God, for God is love.” One commentary pointed something important. Jesus commands us to love in the gospels. But here, we are told to love not as a rule but because this is the very nature of God. Our love results from our faith, and we cannot truly love as God loves us until we have faith.
We are then told to love one another. Verse 20 winds up by saying, essentially, if anyone has any malice or hate in their heart, their faith is a lie, for you cannot claim to love God yet hate other people. God is love. And God is love for those whom we don’t like, for those whom society doesn’t like, for those who have lived in evil—that love of God is still present and working to draw them out of that dark place where they live. God’s love is expansive, powerful, and never stops calling to us until the last breath of air is breathed. As Proverbs says, “love makes up for all offenses.” God is love, and that love lifts us from our place of sin, into a place of relationship. You cannot hate someone into faith. You cannot lecture them into belief. You cannot shut them out, punish them, or compel them into submission. The only thing which truly redeems and saves a person is this holy love coming from God unto us, for God is love, and in that love is hope and redemption.
Finally, love is courageous. There are a few verses in the Bible which can give us chills. I John 4: 18 is one of them: “Perfect love expels [or casts out] all fear.” Emmet Till was a 14-year-old African American child in Mississippi. In 1955, he was accused of whistling at a white woman in a grocery store. Shortly thereafter, her husband and his half-brother kidnapped and brutally murdered this child. His mother was asked if she hated or harbored bitterness towards the men who killed her son. She answered, “It certainly would be unnatural not to [hate them], yet I'd have to say I'm unnatural. The Lord gave me shield; I don't know how to describe it myself. I did not wish them dead. I did not wish them in jail. If I had to, I could take their four little children—they each had two—and I could raise those children as ifthey were my own and I could have loved them. I believe the Lord meant what he said and try to live according to the way I've been taught.” Love is courageous, and perfect love casts out all fear, and hatred, and anger.
The commentary followed this story with these words, “The church's love is progressively shaped by Christ and distilled of all corrupting…[fear], bitterness, and cynicism. As this happens, we may come to realize that, finally, we do not interpret 1 John. It interprets us.” We are changed, somehow, not only into God’s children, but hopefully into God’s character of love, forgiveness, mercy, and hope.
As the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, says, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” Love is affirming of each one of us with all our faults and failures turned into the redemptive hope God gives. Love is expansive calling all of humanity to this faith which transforms here and gives eternal hope to come. Love is courageous, for as the hymn says, “When nothing else could help, love lifted me.” And so, it has. And so, it shall. Amen.
Worship: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/619802999115975