Growing Up In Agape
Short
Version July 22, 2001
Jackson
Snyder
John 2:7ff
Jack Canfield
relates the story of a harried father trying to get his son out of bed.
Daddy uncovers him for the third time,
shakes him good, and scolds: "Johnny, you're late for school again. Get up
NOW and get going." Johnny cries, "O Daddy, just give me two good
reasons why I should even go to school today." Daddy replies:
"Johnny, the first reason is that you're forty-four years old. ... And the
second reason is that you're the principal."
Jesus wants
us to wake up and be independent agents, relying only upon Him! To fulfill our potential in Christ, we must
practice to make perfect, and become expert in living for light in a dark
world. We must go as far in as we are able in the faith, and be strong.
We must grow as far as we can go.
The Darkness
is Passing
1 John 2:7-8 {7} Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an
old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the
message you have heard. {8} Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is
seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is
already shining.
If we have
for a fact been born anew in the image of Jesus unto salvation, we should be 'a
work in progress' toward perfection in love:
(As) The darkness of sin is passing in our lives; (And) The light of
love is dispelling the darkness; We must continue on toward the light of
maturity; We must persevere on God's perfect way to our penultimate point in
destiny.
How much dark iniquity has been dispelled
in your life by the love-light of Godliness? How far have you come in seeking
first the Kingdom of Yahweh and his righteousness since you set out on your
journey in faith? How much love-light are you emanating outward into the world?
Have you 'come a long way, baby,' or are you just beginning to shine?
Some elders in Jesus' day had an
interesting way of measuring spiritual maturity, as described in the Dead Sea
Scrolls. They believed that the human spirit was made up of nine parts and,
that by objectively observing a person's life, they could measure how many of
these nine parts were of the light, and how many were of the darkness.
Three men are so judged in the Dead Sea
Scrolls. The first man has not come very far in his spiritual journey. He is
eight parts darkness to a single part light. A second has come a long way. He
is six parts light to three parts darkness. The last man has almost reached
perfection. He is eight parts light and one part darkness. If you were to score you own spiritual
maturity on a nine-point scale, where would you stand? Would you stand with the
first man, yet mostly unconverted or with the last man -- nearing perfection?
Or somewhere in the middle? I guess before we can measure ourselves, we would
need to know by what standard the Father uses to judge maturity.
Love is the
Gauge of Maturity
1 John 2:9-11 {9} Anyone who claims to be
in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. {10} Whoever loves
his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him
stumble. {11} But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around
in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has
blinded him.
The gauge of our maturity is our love for
one another within the family of God. The love John's speaking of bears little
resemblance to the world's love. Godly love, agape in the
original language, has no equivalent in English. It pretty much means "a
form of compassion which does not desire possession, but is eager to
help." Dwight Small defines agape
as
...not born of a lover's need, nor having
its source in the love object. Agape doesn't exist in order to get what it
wants but empties itself to give what the other needs. Agape lives in order to
die to self for the blessedness of caring for another, spending for another,
spending itself for the sake of the beloved.
C. S. Lewis
adds an important dimension to our definition of agape:
To love is to be vulnerable. Love
anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. The
only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers
of love is Hell.
So now we
get an idea of the road we must take to becoming mature in the Spirit. We must
take the Agape Road. Agape is tough love; sometimes it's judgmental, yet it is
always charitable. It's not a fond emotional feeling, but a love that works and
works hard. Such love is more important than spiritual power, biblical
knowledge, or super-servanthood. We can't go beyond childhood without it.
If you don't have agape, pray diligently
for it, and God will give it to you, because you must move onward in Christ -
from childhood, to youth, to adulthood, as John describes in the next section
of the text.
Stages of
Maturity
1 John 2:12-14 {12} I write to you, dear
children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. {13} I
write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I
write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to
you, dear children, because you have known the Father. {14} I write to you,
fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you,
young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you
have overcome the evil one.
John sets out three stages of maturity
in agape here: little children, youth, and adulthood. He tells us first that "little children" have received
the first helping of the light of God. They have received (1) forgiveness of
both iniquity and unloving acts through Jesus' name, thus they have learned
love to the extent that they too know how to forgive; (2) knowledge of the Father, because they know Jesus Christ, thus
they have compassion enough to tell their stories of Jesus' providence in their
lives to others in need. We might say
that "little children" are, in a spiritual sense, one part light out
of nine. And one little candle in a dark room may dispel an awful lot of
darkness. Jesus said that you must become like a child to enter the Kingdom of
God.
Second, John tells us that
"youth" have come into a greater portion of the light of God. They
have received (1) knowledge that the enemy of their souls is real, and they've
have won a few battles against that enemy, thus have gone forth on the kingdom
road to a measure of holiness and righteousness -- and all that they have
needed has been provided. (2) They've
proven themselves by abiding in the Word of God, thus they are learning to be
peacemakers, even while taking up weapons against their enemy the devil. We might say that "youth" are, in
a spiritual sense, six parts light out of nine. Much of the darkness has been
dispelled, yet there may be lust, covetousness, and pride still unexposed,
hiding in the remaining darkness.
John tells us that the most mature are the
"Fathers" who walk in the light continually. They've received
all that the children and the youth have, and long ago. In the meantime,
they've become consistent overcomers of iniquity and inequity. They have 'all
knowledge' - which is another way of saying that they know enough not to assume
that they know it all. Indeed to become spiritually mature means to become a
child again in deep trust of Jesus like the little girl trusted her father to
come when she couldn't manage the book alone.
Verdell Davis writes about his spiritual journey,
and makes a statement that really expresses what it means to be spiritually
mature yet childishly naive at the same time:
Perhaps because I have asked so many
questions and sought so many answers, I have at least come to know enough about
God that when I doubt his love, I hold to his wisdom. When I can't understand
his justice, I cling to his mercies. When I wonder about his faithfulness, I
cherish his grace. When I fear his sovereignty, I bow to his holiness. And in
that my heart can rest.
We might say
that "fathers" are, in a spiritual sense, eight parts light out of
nine. Far along, yet not quite perfect in light. If we ever reach this state of
maturity in a lifetime, we do well. Even Wesley noted that he didn't reach
"perfection in love," nine parts light out of nine, until very late
in his eighty-five year life.
Serious
Pitfalls to Growth
1 John 2:15-17 {15} Do not love the world
or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him. {16} For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the
lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the
Father but from the world. {17} The world and its desires pass away, but the
man who does the will of God lives forever.
We are not
to love the world or its trappings. John makes it plain that if we love the
things of the world in the same sense that we love God and the brothers and
sisters, we are idolaters; God's love isn't in us -- we are no parts light out
of nine -- none at all. The truth is,
if we've even gone a little way in our quest for spiritual maturity, we find
ourselves miserable in this world, crying like Moses did, "I am a stranger
in a strange land." That is because we may be in the world for a
time, but we are no longer of the world.
So for us all, John lists the pitfalls
before us, for the children need a warning, the youth need an explanation, and
adults need a reminder: The darkness of
this world manifests in us, as the KJV puts it, in "the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eye, and the pride of life."
The Lust of the flesh: is like in
the old movie Lifeboat, men and women are drifting aimlessly on the ocean in a
lifeboat.
As the days pass under the scorching sun,
their fresh water gives out. They all grow deliriously thirsty. One night,
while the others are asleep, one man gulps down a stomach full of ocean water.
In the morning, he is dead. Of course,
ocean water is full of salt. In drinking it, a person dehydrates because the
kidneys demand extra water to flush out the salt. The more salt water someone
drinks, the thirstier he gets. Although the man had a belly full of water, he
died of thirst.
When we
lust, we become like this man. We thirst desperately for something that looks
like what we want. But lust is never satisfied -- it only demands more and
more, until it destroys us along with those we love.
The Lust of the eyes: is a second
pitfall -- it is covetousness. Someone has said, Half the world is unhappy because
it can't have the things that are making the other half unhappy. In our family, we have an unhappy little
saying we use especially when we order deserts in a restaurant: "It’s not
what I thought it was going to be.” The
secret of a happy life is not to get what you want but to live with what you've
got. Most of us spend our lives concentrating on what we don't have instead of
thanking Father for what we do have. Then we wake up, our life is over, and we
missed the beauty of the present. Think about it.
To succumb to the "lust of the
eyes" brings the same result as two emus that I heard about. They lived in
a lush pasture-field, but were separated by a fence. The emus were found dead
one scorching day, each with his head caught in the fence. Each had been
picking at tall weeds on the other's side.
The Pride of life: Pride is what caused the angels to fall from heaven. Pride is the worship of self. It's my pride that makes me dependent on the world and independent of Father. It's appealing to feel I am the master of my own ship; that I run my own life, I call my own shots; I go it alone. But that feeling is my basic dishonesty. I can't go it alone. I have to get help from other people, and I can't ultimately rely on myself. So, living independent of Father is self-delusion. I am pretending to be a god and not a man. My pride is the idolatrous worship of myself, and that is the national religion of the Dominion of Darkness. Pride comes before a fall; and the last fall is the greatest fall of all.
Look to the
Big Picture
Although there is temporary pleasure in
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, all such
worldly, dark ways will eventually pass away, and the children of the world
will pass away as well. But John tells us that those who (1) love the Father,
and (2) do his loving will, shall abide forever.
This might shock you, but I'm very far
from perfect. My wife knows all my imperfections because she lives with me
every day. But she'll also tell you that I'm trying hard to grow into
maturity and perfection. A tool we use to help us is to see the big picture
- that we're not just two people struggling with love and sin, but we're an
important part of a great and godly Kingdom of light. We have a future far
beyond anything we could ask or expect. And we try to see our lives now from
the perspective of the glorious future. All the effort and suffering and
deprivation and pain gained from the Gospel will be worth it when we come fully
into the great Kingdom.
The famous psychologist Viktor Frankl tells
us how he was able to overcome the severe misery of the concentration camps by
visualizing his future freedom. He writes:
Almost in tears from pain, I limped a few
kilometers with our long column of men from the camp to our work site. Very
cold, bitter winds struck us. I kept thinking of the endless little problems of
our miserable life. What would there be to eat tonight? If a piece of sausage
came as an extra ration, should I exchange it for a piece of bread? Should I
trade my last cigarette for a bowl of soup? How could I get a piece of wire to
replace the fragment that served as one of my shoelaces? I became disgusted at
the state of affairs that compelled me, daily and hourly, to think of only such
trivial things. I forced myself to turn to another subject.
Suddenly I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and
pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience on comfortable
upholstered seats. I was going to give a lecture on the psychology of the
concentration camp! By this method I
succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the
moment, and I observed them as if they were already past. The prisoner who had
lost faith in the future -- his future -- is doomed. (Man's
Search for Meaning: Experiences in the Concentration Camp)
You, friend,
are a prisoner of this world. Yet, at the same time, you are a slave to the
Lord Jesus. But you have a great future ahead of you if you will just grow up
in agape. See the big picture. Be an overcomer. Mature out. Keep your eyes on
the Kingdom. And if you do, you'll find yourself living life for the first
time, walking on paths of light, learning love and persecution, but
anticipating a future destiny beyond comprehension.
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Interview with Frankl at 90 http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9504/scully.html
Short Bio of Frankl http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/frankl.html