Hopefully you have read the first two parts of this series. This post won’t make tons of sense by itself. In reality, I wasn’t planning on a third part, but once it got about 3 times the number of views as any other post in the history of my writing, I figured there was some more to dive into. Also, God has a way of using life to keep walking us deeper, and lessons that I thought I learned a few months ago have been farther fleshed out as of late. So here goes nothing…
Love Stinks because it requires us to hurt for other people.
And i don’t know about you guys, but I feel like I hurt enough for all on my own. I’m not crazy about voluntarily walking into the pain of others. Seems unpleasant, and tiring. Seeing that my first post touched on this a bit already, I want to focus less on the work of general work ofloving others biblically, and more on the painful parts of friendship. The more God teaches me, the more I see 3 huge arenas where we are biblically called to hurt for others in the name of God and the name of love.
1. We are called to hurt for those who do not know Christ as Savior.
I don’t care what your ordo-salutis is or what your doctrine of evangelism looks like. If any of your theology (1) leaves the work of evangelism to your own skill/ability, or (2) fails to fuel you in your passion and desire to “preach the Gospel to every creature under heaven,“then either it is unbiblical or you have misunderstood it. Walking into a closer relationship with Christ will always lead us to hating sin more deeply, and more deeply wanting and laboring to see people saved from their sin by the work of God. If you are callous to people that currently have no relationship with God, then you need to pray. You need to read the word. You need to ask that God do a true work in your heart that you would bring severe compassion that motivates you diligently share the Gospel with others.
For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If One died for all, then all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised. — 2 Cor. 5:14-15
2. We are called to hurt for our brother’s and sister’s sins.
Not hurt as if we can somehow hurt enough or hurt in a way that removes their sin or absolves them of guilt. But hurt in the spirit of the beatitudes. Hurt in the spirit of mourning over sin and evil everywhere, and especially when a friend is struggling or walking headlong into it. “[Love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
The verse is clear, love does not, in any way, rejoice when evil is done. Even if the sin seems small, even if we think people had it coming. If you want to be a good friend, stop being casual about sin in your friends life. Even if they ask you too. Especially if they ask you too.
That doesn’t mean you beat them over the head with the law, but you remind them that sin kills, that it hurts their father, that it is the reason Christ suffered, that they have been set free, and that God is waiting for them to repent and walk in the truth. In Psalm 31, David goes as far to say that his bones are literally weak because of His grief over sin. Let’s pray for that perspective, a godly perspective of sin. So if your friend is caught in it, pray. And pray till they come back in repentance. And pray that you would feel for them. Don’t pray like a pharisee (“God, I thank you that I am not a big sinner like my friend Joe”), but pray like someone who knows they are a sinner too (“Father, ___ has no idea the pain he is heaping on himself. Father, open his eyes, let him see his sin and hate it and return to you. Let me love him well and be encourage him to righteousness all along the way”).
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” — Galatians 6:1-2
There are almost infinitely more ways to go with this lesson, but I’ll finish with this.
3. Friendship hurts for their friends tragedies.
Read Romans 12 if you want a deeper exploration of Christian love, but for right now:
“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” — Romans 12:15
Have you done that lately? When tragedy happens to your friend, do you just send them a text or do you go to them? Do you call them, even if things could turn into a sob-fest you don’t have time for? Do you pray that God would let you feel some of their burden, so that you can support them well? Do you actually mourn? And mourning is not focusing on having the right words to say or the platitudes that may make someone feel better for a few moments.
Now, we don’t mourn as though we are without hope. In death, we mourn but remember that Christ has conquered death. In cancer, we mourn but we remember that God has the miraculous power to save. In anything, we mourn but we remember that we have a Father who claimed us and our salvation from the foundation of the world, whose sovereign love can not be removed from us. (Romans 8, 1 Peter 1, Ephesians 1)
“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” — Rom. 12:12
I think that’s all for now. Who knows, there might be a part 4 hanging around somewhere in the future. Please share this post, or any of them, however you see fit, please let people know where you got it from though, because that’s what cool people do.
DavidAppelt.com 