We are beginning a series tonight called Purple. The title comes from the old, old College Church youth group rule for retreats:
"Blue is good. Pink is cool. Don't make purple!"
It of course refers to the necessity for girls to stay out of guys' cabins and guys to stay out of girls' cabins. It's a good rule. But "purple" — if you define it as relationship between girls and guys — is a good thing. So we are doing a series on love, sex, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're going to learn how to make purple according to the gospel.
I kind of wonder what exactly those people are saying when they sing songs about love. Probably they mean lots of different things, all of which they title with that same word: "love." But we're going to look today at what the Bible describes — at least in one place — as "true love." It's a passage in Ephesians 5 that is talking to husbands and wives, but it gives us an important glimpse into what real love between human beings — if it is really real — should be all about according to the gospel. Take a moment and read Ephesians 5:25-30:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
Verse 25 points out that Jesus Christ loved his people so much that he "gave himself up for them." He died on a cross for the people he loved.
Contrast this idea of true love (death and sacrifice), with the ideas our world usually associates with love: feelings, romance, physical attraction, hanging out. True love is not so much about those things as it is about sacrifice and death.
Now, some of you here might think you are in love. This idea that we are discussing (true love being about death) makes sense to you. If you love someone, you feel like you would die for that person. But let me tell you something that will really frighten you. Marriage, a relationship between a man and a woman, is going to not be very much like what your imagination contains regarding that person you think you're in love with right now. Marriage — and true love in marriage — is actually going to look a lot more like your relationship with your brother or sister right now. I'm not trying to be gross. But it is the day–to–day having to love another person that you get up with, share a bathroom with, ride in a car with to the store, that actually most closely resembles the reality of marriage in which we are called to love another sinful human being. The only way to love a person like that is if you have DIED. Not only are willing to give your life for them in a moment of heroism, but you need to be willing to die every day to self as you serve them, love them, and treat them with patience and kindness. True love is about death — dying to self and continually sacrificing selfish desires for the good of another person.
Look at 5:27 of Ephesians: Jesus gave himself for his people "so that he might present the church to himself in splendor." Jesus died for you and me — washed us clean from our sins by his blood — so that he might one day present us to himself when he stands to judge the world. Jesus' love for us is, through his substitutionary death on the cross, all about preparing us to stand before him and be accepted because of his righteousness. The end goal of Jesus love for us is to "present the church to himself."
Let's apply this to human love, for true human love has the best in mind for another person, and is therefore in line with the love of Jesus. The end goal of true human love is to present another person to Jesus! True human love has as its deepest motivation a future hand–off. It looks forward to the moment when one person hands off the other to Jesus.
Let me put it a different way. Deepest, truest, human love — love that is eternally valuable and in line with what God tells us in the Bible — is all about helping another person get ready to meet Jesus. This is loving another human being in the most eternal and deep way possible; it is loving their heart and soul even more than their physical life and body.
I want you young women to think about this point for a moment. Some of you are in a dating relationship (I'll have more to say about that later!), and some of you are not. But imagine that you are. The young man that you're involved with becomes more and more "pushy" physically, wanting to push the physical boundaries further and further. Now, what is the lie that so many young women believe that causes many of them to give in to that kind of pressure? It's this lie: "He loves me!" And it's this sense that, since a deep love is motivating what the guy is doing, that causes many young women to give in. According to what we've been looking at from Ephesians, does any guy who acts that way toward you before marriage really love you with true love? Absolutely not! What is real love? Real love is consciously thinking about handing you off to Jesus! True love is helping you live in a way that prepares you to meet your judge, king, and Savior. Whatever is motivating a young man to push physical boundaries in a high school dating relationship, it's certainly not true love!
Young men, I have a question for you, too. What kind of young women are you attracted to? Are you attracted to the kind of young woman who is capable of what the Bible defines as true love? That is, are you learning to identify women who you are sure will help you get ready to meet Jesus one day? I know that you are probably 5-10 years from marriage, but you should begin now training yourselves to not be attracted by the wrong things. You should be training yourselves to be attracted to women who are capable of real, biblical, eternal true love.
Look at verses 25, 29, and 30, and note the common theme. All of our relational human love is to be modeled after Jesus Christ himself. "As Christ loved" is the common refrain.
Let me put it this way: True Love comes from Jesus. True Love is founded on Jesus. And True Love ultimately leads to… Jesus.
If you want to be capable of true love, then love Jesus, follow him, and serve him with all of your heart. The only way that you will ever be able to love another person with true, deep, and eternal love is by loving Jesus fully as your Lord and Savior and giving yourself to Him. How would you prepare someone else to meet someone you don't know and love yourself?
If you want to be loved by someone with true love, then you need find a lover of Jesus Christ. If you want to have your heart and soul loved in the deepest way by another person — and I think we all do — then you need to find someone who loves Jesus even more than they love you. That will be the person who loves you with true love, because that will be a person who helps you get ready for a marriage that will begin at the end of the world, and continue through all eternity in endless wonder, beauty, and joy. It's the marriage between Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of all, and the people who know him.
