Serving - How to Deepen Your Love, Part 1

The overarching theme is “How to keep love alive.” And I’m going to talk about four biblical practices that great marriages have in common.

One book that if you haven’t read, it is so worth it and I’ll be talking a little bit more about it later, is The Five Languages of Love. And in the introduction, Gary Chapman talks about being on a plane and he sits next to a guy and one thing comes to another and he says, “Well, what do you do for a living?” He goes, “Well, I’m in marriage counseling and I do seminars and I write books on marriage.” He said, “Well, this is my lucky day!”

And he said, “I love it, like you’re in love, but does anyone ever keep love alive? I mean, is it possible? Do people just say, ‘I guess marriages are mostly empty,’ and you just grind it out?” He said, “Is there any way to keep love alive?” And, of course, Gary Chapman in his book talks about that in-love, euphoric, over-the-top dissipates. But the need to feel loved never goes away.

And you and I are living in a day and in a culture that basically says the in-love feeling is what marriage and relationship is all about and if you don’t have that all the time, you probably married the wrong person, or you, right? We fall in love, we fall out of love and so what you need to do is find the next person. Which then you look at the statistics and it doesn’t work and the next one after that doesn’t work. And it’s chaos.

And I want to go to maybe an unusual place. You can open your Bibles, I want to read a passage. It’s Ephesians chapter 5 and normally what we do is we talk all about, it talks about what a woman should do and be and then it talks about what a man should do and be. And then it has this little line at the end that says, “Oh, but this is really about the mystery of Christ and the Church.” Follow along. Ephesians 5. I’ll pick it up at verse 25.

“Husbands,” I mean, you talk about a hard assignment, “love your wives,” how? “just as Christ also loved the Church,” well, how did He do that? “and gave Himself up for her,” why? “so that He might sanctify her, set her apart, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the Word,” well, why? “that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.”

Parallel, “So, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the Church, because we are members of His body.”

And then he goes back and reaches into Genesis, that classic passage, “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” Look at verse 32. “This mystery is great, but I’m speaking with reference to Christ and the Church.”

In other words, there is this model of marriage that is a love relationship between Jesus and His Church. And then He kind of brings it back down to everyday life, “Nevertheless, each individual among you must also love his own wife, even as himself, and his wife must also see to it that she respects and honors her husband.”

And I was thinking and praying and asking God, Lord, what do You want to say to this group of people? And that passage kept going over and over and over. And what I realized is very rarely do we take how Jesus loves the Church and use that as our model for how we are to love one another in marriage.

And so, what I want you to do now is to open to John chapter 13.

And this is a time where the disciples are being told to go prepare the Last Supper. They don’t know it’s the Last Supper. It’s just Passover. They are Jewish boys. It’s a very important moment. They are going to reenact that moment where God delivered His own people and the blood was put on the doorpost and the lamb is going to be killed.

And all these things are going to happen, and Jesus has been telling them for some time now that the religious leaders are going to kill Him. And He sends them on ahead and now, imagine, the parallel is going to come. You can look at your notes and you can sort of look ahead.

But what I want you to get is the context and where Jesus was. He sends them on ahead and they get to this upper room and when they get to the upper room, we learn the commentary is from one of the other gospels, on the way there, what they were discussing. Does anybody remember? Who is the greatest?

I mean, after three years, and you’re going to hand over the ministry to save the world to a group of guys that have been with You, they have seen You raise people from the dead, they have seen You feed five thousand, four thousand, they have seen You walk on water, they have heard all Your sermons and all Your messages and You’ve got twenty-four hours with them and their big argument is, “We know He is leaving and so, who is going to be the top dog now? Who is going to get so many stars or stripes, right?”

And so, they walk in and I think the Lord created this little test for them. And when you would walk the dusty streets, everyone wore sandals. And when you would walk in a room, there would be a large jar and then probably the lowliest servant in the household would be there. And when you came in, they would wash your feet off and towel them dry.

So, all twelve of them walk in and no one humbles himself, because, “I’m better than that. This is about me.” It’s about, “I’m more important than that. That job is too lowly.” In other words, they’re here the last night and their passion and their focus is, “My needs, about me and my role and what I need and who ought to serve me.”

Is there a remote sense that any of us have felt that way in your marriage? So, let’s find out: how does He respond?

John chapter 13, pick it up at verse 1. “Now before the Feast of the Passover,” don’t miss this, “Jesus knowing that His hour had come and that He would depart out of this world to His Father, and having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

In other words, this is going to be one of His greatest acts of love. “During the supper, the devil had already come into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that He, the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from the Father and He was going back to God, got up from supper, laid aside His garments; taking a towel, He wrapped it around,” or, “girded Himself. He poured water into a basin, and He began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel, with which He was girded around His waist.

“Then He came to Simon Peter and he said, ‘Lord, do You wash my feet?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.’ Peter said to Him, ‘Never shall You wash my feet!’ And Jesus answered, ‘If I do not wash your feet, you have no part with Me.’ And then Simon Peter said, ‘Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.’ For He knew the one betraying Him; and for this reason He said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

“So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garment, reclined at the table again, He said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Teacher and the Lord, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.”

And then we get this moment. “Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you're blessed if you do them.”

Let me skip over, because He is now going to talk about His going and Judas is going to get up. And at the end of this Supper, if you skip all the way to verse 34, He says to them, 33 for context, “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; as I said to the Jews, now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also should love one another.”

How did He just love them? He served them. Who deserved to be the head and who chose to be the servant. Who should have been offended and who chose to humble Himself? Who knew, was secure enough to know where He came from and where He was going and didn’t have to have their approval? And so, being secure and knowing His role, He could love them and He is going to love them to the end. And now, what He says to them, “This new commandment, I don’t want you just to love, I want you to love each other the way I loved you.”

Now look at verse 35 in your Bible; notice the impact. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples,” why? “by how you love one another, because you love one another the way I love you.”

That’s the teaching of Jesus. His motive, what was His motive in serving them? Love. His action: He washes their feet. Did you notice that just because you love someone, it doesn’t always work? That some of them accepted it readily and some of them couldn’t accept it. Why couldn’t Peter accept it? Some people are very uncomfortable receiving. Some people from family of origins believe down deep in their heart, almost below the conscious level, I am unworthy. I am unlovable. And when you seek to love them and care for them and speak words of life, it’s like BBs off of a tank.

Here’s a hard time in marriage: when you’re trying your very, very best, right? And you’re thinking you’re really loving the other person and you’re trying really hard and it gets worse instead of better.

That’s when you have these really scary moments like, “I don’t think this can ever work. I don’t think this can ever work.” And I want you to know there is hope and it can. And we are going to learn from this passage, the beginning, of how to restore your passion.

The principles out of this passage to identify to deepen your love, number one, is love is not a feeling. Jot that down. Love is not a feeling. Romantic, emotional feelings are good. Just don’t confuse them with love. Definition of love, I’ve kind of just taken what the Scriptures teach and packaged it together: love is giving another person what they need the most, when they deserve it the least, at great personal cost. I’ll say that again, because I have to remember it a lot. Love is giving another person what they need the most, when they deserve it the least, at great personal cost.

And if you would just pause for a moment and think in your mind, What happened at the cross? What did God the Son do? He gave us what we needed the most – forgiveness – when we deserved it the least. We were His enemies. We were hostile to Him. At great personal cost.

And what did the Father do? He gave the Son. And that’s our model. And, by the way, it’s the supernatural power of God in us to do that. I can’t do that on my own and you can’t do that on your own.

Notice also, love is serving. If you redefine love in your marriage, it’s putting the needs of your mate above your own. You might jot down Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. Paul is talking about what it really looks like to love and he says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, consider others more important than yourself. Do not look only on your own interests but also on the interests of others.”

Third principle here is that love must be received. Ask yourself, sometimes when you’re hurt and you’re resentful of your mate and they try and do something kind, what do you do? You want to make them pay, right? I’m not going to receive it right now.

They try and be a little affectionate or they say something kind, “Eh, I’m not ready to make up right now.” I’m going to twist it, twist that old knife. I read the passage: the two become one. There’s no such thing as a winner and a loser. It’s either win-win or lose-lose.

Every interaction, every conversation, every fight, every disagreement, every big issue – it’s either a win-win or it’s a lose-lose. You can feel better for fifteen minutes like, “I got my way!” Or, “She better do that!” Or, “He is finally.” And guess what, now, when resentment or hurt or woundedness happens in one person because the other thinks they “won,” I’ll tell you what, you’re just sowing seeds of discord. Believe me, it’ll pop up later.

And so, well then how do you, how do you do this? Did you notice even that love is unconditional? You might jot that down.

So then what are the practical implications? Practical implication number one is that love is a choice. It’s not insincere to do actions and say words of kindness and serve and help your mate when you don’t feel like it.

Have you ever heard that one? “Well, I really would, but I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I mean, I don’t want to, I don’t want to say something nice if I really don’t mean it. Or, I don’t want to do something nice if I don’t really mean it.” Love is a choice. Don’t confuse that with giving the person their way all the time. But serving and loving and caring – it’s a choice.

Second implication is love meets the needs of the one loved. Jesus could have come in and just not even noticed that their feet were dirty. So you’ve got to love people in a way that makes sense to them. You have to observe: what are the needs? What is going on in their life?

That was my biggest, biggest challenge in our marriage was I was loving my wife in ways that it was like, I spoke German and she spoke French. And I was trying hard and she was trying hard and we were just completely missing each other. And it was so frustrating.

Another implication is love requires extreme humility and security. Did you notice? This is God the Son humbling Himself, bending down, washing feet.

The tool for transformation I want to give you is we are going to learn the five languages of love.

And I’m going to tell you, it’ll be the beginning of a new day.

I’ll give you the picture of this is how this works. So, my kind of, one of my love languages are words that affirm and another love language of mine is physical touch. So, and I probably after that is quality time and by God’s grace, that’s quality time is probably her number two and my number two.

And so, early in our marriage I think I’m loving my wife and so, I’m telling her, “You look beautiful. I love you.” Verbal. “I care for you. You’re wonderful.” And, by the way, she doesn’t say that to me. I’m an extrovert, she’s an introvert, she doesn’t say a lot. There are times we get in the car and we’re driving for thirty minutes – I grew up in a family where you didn’t take turns, you just interrupted one another.

She came and visited my family and it was like, “These people are crazy.” She didn’t get a word in edgewise.

Well, we are a verbal family. Hers, you could hear a pin drop at supper. And so we are driving in the car for, like, thirty minutes. And so, being the man and having bizarre thoughts, I think, I wonder how long, I’m not going to say anything, and see how long it takes her to say something to me. So, okay.

It’s ten minutes, twenty-two minutes, and we are getting ready to be where we are supposed to be. And she was looking out the window and…

And in the nick of time, she says this, and I’ll never forget it. She turns to me and she goes, “Isn’t it wonderful just to be with the person that you love and not have to say a word? On this drive, I have just looked at the hills and the animals and it has been so beautiful.” And I’m thinking, I’m so glad I didn’t say something on that one.

And so, I would say things like that and it meant nothing.

And on another occasion I thought, I’m working really hard, and I wasn’t real detail oriented to say the least. And we are in seminary and so, I go and get some flowers for her. I played a lot of pickup basketball and I would lose track of time and I kept coming home late and we’d always argue about it.

And I was trying to make up for it. So I bring these flowers or something and she, “What?” She takes them like that. She goes, “What are you doing?” So I, “You don’t like flowers?” “Chip, we only have ten dollars in our checking account. How much did those cost?” “Uh, just a little bit more than ten dollars.”

So, here’s what I want you to get. I’m trying to express my love in ways that are not communicating, alright?

And so, on her side, we’re in marriage counseling. Okay? We’re trying.

So she cooks these great meals and the house is always beautiful and she takes care of everything. Because one of her love languages is acts of service. So she is saying, “I love you” with a great meal. I’m saying, “You know what? I’ll eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Hug me like this and say, “You are awesome, Chip. And you’re handsome and I think you’re brilliant and you look so sexy tonight.” There’s my love language, right? And, oh, the house looks really clean. It is a wonderful meal. Okay. And so, she’s feeling like I’m rejecting her love. Now, guys, I’m going to skip ahead, alright? Because there are some real breakthroughs.

As I learned to love her in a way that made sense to her, and she learned what my love language was. And then what happens is you kind of get enough gas in the emotional tank to work on those things that some of them take a long time. There are fundamentals and skills and you have to practice and practice and practice and then you put it all together. It’s a process.