Nothing is more important as love and family. Nothing is as difficult as loving another human being. Everyone has countless events that eventually lead to a sense of division or heartache in relationship to another human being.

The other day my wife came into my study as I was working. She asked if I could help her in the laundry room. I was involved in my project and I didn’t want to be stopped. She was involved in another project and she needed my help in order to complete it and we were at loggerheads with one another. She walked away feeling very disappointed I felt irritated.

Those are the kinds of events that keep couples from being able to enjoy one another in a way God intended. God intended for husband and wife, for friends, for those who work with one another to reflect something of His character, something of His existence and His goodness in the way we relate to one another. The problem is, we have a cancer within us. The reality is we have sin within us that blocks us from being able to love the way that God intended.

This series is intended to help you think through what it means to love with the character of God. What it means to live out his holiness, what it means to live out his mercy with one another. In order to think that through, we’re going to have to think through what it means to live with courage because love is not easy. It is not natural.

It is not the kind of thing that just happens as a normal course of interaction. If we really want to love with God’s kind of love, we must really have a greater idea of the real dilemma of what we are up against.

BOLD LOVE:

1. deals with the cancer within us that blocks us from being able to love the way God intended; and
2. It also draws forth the reality of who God is within us so we can live out His character in relationships with one another.

Our intention is to think through what blocks us from being able to love.

In the situation I just described a while ago. I had a cancer within me, the cancer being sin, the commitment to finding life on my own. My wife interrupted my work. At one level, my work was far more important than her or anything to do with God Himself. Bold love opens the door to not only facing that reality, but drawing forth the kind of person we could be.

In that situation, my wife wanted me to go into the laundry room to deal with a problem. The problem was that a nightgown had wrapped itself around the central post or swizzle stick that sends things around and gets them clean. My wife knows me from the standpoint that she takes a great risk on whenever she asks for help on anything mechanical. My attitude whenever anything breaks down in my home is – I pray for it. If it doesn’t work as a consequence of praying for it, then it’s very obvious that God intended for us not to own it.

She took the risk and asked for help. From her standpoint, she wasn’t asking for something mechanical. She was just asking me to unwrap a nightgown. She said it’s no problem, it’s no big deal. What I heard her say when she said that was, "it wasn’t a big deal, any fool, any idiot, the most incompetent man in the world could fix this!" Now I don’t think she was really saying this but nevertheless that’s what I heard. When I got into the laundry room, I was already angry, irritated and I was panicked because I knew I was going to fail in another mechanical activity. I began pulling the clothes out. As she watched me, I began throwing the clothes out, muttering to myself about "Why do I have to be interrupted? Why can’t you take care of one thing? One thing in the universe couldn’t you handle?" By the time I started pulling on the nightgown it already had an anaconda grip and I just tightened it. It got tighter and tighter and it got harder and harder to get out. She walked away. She came back a moment later and I was furious. I began to blame her for things that were unconscionable. She looked at me and she boldly loved me.

What I am about to say is a bit odd. She looked at me and said, "I’m sure you’ll find some way to gain release of the captive." What she didn’t do was to attack me which was the natural thing to do, when someone gets angry, get angry back. On the other side, she didn’t withdraw. My rage did not cause her to withdraw or attack and my sense of defeat didn’t cause her to rescue me.

She loved me and even though it took a few more minutes to figure out that it’s not hard to get a nightgown out. You just pull the swizzle stick up and unwrap it! After I figured it out, I felt so good, sort of a masculine confidence that was part of it but far more it was the fact that my wife loved me well in terms of "boldly loving me."

What we’re doing in this series is giving you a few handles in thinking through what it means to interact with another human being with the character of God, with His holiness, with His mercy, with his courage that sees love as more than simply "getting along" with another human.

Our desire is to live with one another where we disrupt the reality of the cancer within us and draw forth the goodness of God that exists because the Holy Spirit indwells us.

We’re going to give you an opportunity to watch a family that is in a great deal of conflict. Many will view it as a very dysfunctional family. There’s a great deal of cancer, a great deal of sin that is affecting the relationships in this family. And yet, if you would see them in your church on a Sunday morning, they would appear to be a very normal, happy family.

Many of you will find the interactions to be very severe. Others will view it quite tame compared to what you’ve experienced as you’ve dealt with those realities in your life.

Our desire is to give you a chance to see the raw reality of life and then to talk about it in terms of where did they not love well? What would have to happen for each of them to have a heart to be able to love the way that God intends?

And then there are clues. We won’t give you a lot of steps or a lot of techniques or a lot of here’s a list of do’s and don’ts.

We will give you some categories to think through on what it means to love the way my wife loved me. She gave me the opportunity to know that I am respected. She also draw forth the reality of what was inside me without sinning against me, therefore leaving me in a position of having to deal with that cancer, that sin within me.

In the drama you're about to see, you will meet Buck and Terry. They’re 26 yeas old and married. They’re dealing with Buck’s mother and father. Buck’s father by the name of Charlie is a very wicked man. He does a great deal of damage; not just in his language but also in the way he deals with relationships. He has put Buck’s wife in a terrible position and Buck is now compelled to deal with his father if he is going to boldly love.

Whatever you may think or feel with regard to what you have just watched, I don’t think many would differ with me that Buck is in a war. He’s between his wife and his father. Buck’s a nice guy. He really means well. He wants to love. He wants to offer a picture of God’s character but he’s in a very severe bind. Because if he deals with his father who is a very cruel man, he is going to have major World War III on his hands. Yet on the other hand, if he does not deal with his father, he will have compromised his relationship with his wife. Buck is in a situation where he wants to get along with people. He likes to let conflicts go by the wayside, but he can’t!

What he is going to do? The fact is Buck is in a severe war. All of us are in some form of war in relationships with one another. As long as we really believe that we are sinful people living in a sinful world, having to deal with sinful human beings then every single human being is in a war of some kind. Buck is in some kind of external war. The external war can be put in this way: Buck is in a position where he must ask the question, "What am I to do with sinful people?"

Every one of us is in a position where we have to deal with people who hurt us; who put us in compromising situations. And the question that the external war requires us to face is this:

• How do we handle it?
• What does it mean to love? To forgive?
• What does it mean to forgive a man like Charlie that most of us would

• What does it mean to offer Charlie a taste of the character of God?

That’s the external war we’re dealing with. However, the is also in an internal war. That internal war can be put this way.

• What am I to do with my own heart? I know I’m hurt. I know I’m angry. I know I have emotions inside me that are inconsistent with the Word of God. inconsistent with the person I desire to be.

How do I live out the Gospel? – External

How do I "want’ to live out the Gospel? – Internal

Buck is an external and internal war. And it’s a war where he must begin to think through. What am I to do with my father? Do I confront him? Do I simply march in and say, "Don’t you ever do that again to my wife and if you do…!" Is that love? Or should Buck take a much more "kind" approach and say, "Dad, what were you doing?" And ask questions, try and elicit data about what happened from his father’s standpoint. Does he confront? Does he ask questions? Does he share his feelings? Dad, I’m really hurt by what you did."

Those are tough questions but now we’re dealing with the external war. The question of "Am I willing to engage with someone who I know will hurt me?" What will I do with all that I feel in the context of that kind of personal pain? Now we’re in the internal war.

Bottomline. Both the internal and the external really relate to the question of whether we see God to be good.

Buck couldn’t help but be in a position where he is saying, "Where are you, God? What am I supposed to do? Why won’t your change my father? Why can’t someone or something come about to alter the way this man is dealing with me and certainly with my wife and my own mother?"

Buck’s in a tough position… I feel for Buck. As I watched the vignette, the drama, there was a part of me that made me want to turn my eyes from what he has to deal with.

That’s the problem for most of us. We are very accustomed to turning our eyes.

There are three different approaches to war:

1. BE A REFUGEE – that is to flee. To flee somehow, by escaping the pain and agony of living in a fallen world that we live in. a refugee is a person who has no place, no home, no hope, no sustenance, no ability to handle the world around. And therefore, in one sense, they’re victims who are harmed again and again. I want you to hear me clearly when I say this. Bold love does not mean opening the door to that kind of flight of being a refugee of being a victim that is harmed again and again.

But if you are not a refugee, another alternative is to:

2. BE A CYNIC – that is an observer, kind of like a CNN watcher of the war who can flip the channels when things get a little bit tough cause you really don’t care that much at all. At least a refugee is in pain but a cynic, an observer, has detached himself so effectively, he is not willing to suffer the realities of living an a fallen world. That has nothing to with the kind of commitment to live out the gospel.

If you are not a refugee, and you are not an observant there’s anther.

3. BE WARRIOR- that is a person who thoughtfully, wisely with a deep heart of commitment is willing to engage for the good purpose of seeing others change as well as one’s self being changed in the process of love. The question is: what is Buck to do with his wife and father?

In our next session, we are going to begin to reflect on what it means to boldly love in a fallen world where you know you’re going to be hurt but where there’s a prospect of the kind of passion and purpose of joy that comes only by living out the Gospel.