In the sense that bold love involves love, we know intuitively that love involves a sacrifice of something. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son."

We know that love is sacrificial but what is the sacrifice? Think about what you normally do when someone significantly hurts you.

The natural tendency is to WITHDRAW from them, that is to no longer want to be either physically or emotionally engaged in relationship with them.

Many years ago, when my eldest daughter was about three, I hurt her in some small offense. She looked at me and said, "’Daddy, my heart has bricks in it and it’s a wall that you can’t get around." I think she very effectively described what I mean by the word, "withdraw".

Bold love is sacrificial in that it refuses to withdraw! Even though withdrawal seems so natural because it alleviates pain, it no longer puts you in the presence of the person who could harm you.

The second natural thing to do when you’re heart by someone is to lash out and ATTACK.

The natural tendency if someone hurts you is to hurt them back. Bold love is sacrificial because it refuses to attack in like kind. What are you to do? What does it mean to give good gifts, to give good food, to give drink to those who have done you harm? Think, what is it you most desire?

Every one of us longs for love. It’s a very simple but obvious point. All of us long to know that someone wants us and cares about us and has a heart that wants to move towards us and not withdraw. On the other hand, what our hearts deeply desire is to know that we worthy of respect, to know we are valuable and we matter. And to love another human being means to engage them, that is, to come to relationship with them.

If you recall Buck, as he sat on the couch and he was harmed dreadfully by his father, the natural tendency is to want to wall off and not engage. Or the natural tendency is to want to look at his father in the eye and say, "What is your problem?!! Will you get off my back!?!"

Bold love is sacrificial and it does not take the choice of "withdrawal" or "attack". But be very clear. I am not arguing that bold love is merely enduring the harm of others, becoming a scapegoat for their rage and their shame.

A passage that I didn’t understand well for many years was the notion that we were to offer our cheek to another, we are to offer a coat to those who ask. It sounds like you’re to be a "patsy" for whatever anyone desires. Well, we’re still back to the question," What does it mean to do good?"

Bold love is sacrificial. It refuses to move in the direction that would be natural, that is to "withdraw" or to "attack." But there is another second major element about Bold Love.

Bold love is surprising. In one sense, no one will really change the direction in their life unless they have their carpet pulled out from under them. And this is the phrase that’s very hard to comprehend in Romans 12:20-21 and this, "by feeding your enemy, by giving him drink, what you do is you pour burning coals on their heads.

A burning coals is a picture of:

Wrath – Psalm 140:10 talks about the Lord’s wrath as being like burning coals that are being put to the enemy’s head. It is a picture of pain; it is a picture of harm, a picture of wrath.

Life - If we comprehend the complexity of this metaphor, we’re also aware, however, that in that day, in the Bedouin culture, to give someone burning coals was to give them life itself. That is a picture of what will provide them with heat to be able to cook food, to be able to sustain life.

Now which is it? To put some coals on someone’s head by doing good? Is it a picture of wrath or a picture of kindness and mercy? It is a picture of both!

In one sense,

It is a picture of the cross itself where God poured out his wrath because of His hatred for sin; and

It offered the potential of reconciliation of relationship with Him by the forgiveness of sin.

So you have a picture of what it means to love and let me tell you, it is complex.

So you have a picture of wrath and a picture of mercy coming together.

That’s the surprising element of Bold Love. It is that it’s not weak and frail – "Go ahead! Hit me in the face if you want." Yet on the other hand, it isn’t a demand that you better change and you better change now.

Go back to the picture. What does it mean to turn the other cheek? It’s really saying the to the person who just hit you, "It didn’t work. Your effort to intimidate me, your efforts to shame me, harm me, didn’t work".

Think about what most people expect when they sin against you. What they really expect at some level is that you will surrender, and that you will give in because their force is too strong to fight or you’ll sin against them in the same way that they have sinned against you. Therefore, they’ll be able to excuse their own sin because you’re now sinning against them.

When you don’t offer withdrawal or attack but then you begin to offer a picture of God’s character seen in the cross, in terms of that combination of wrath and mercy which we can now use the words, instead of wrath, use the worth strength and instead of mercy, let’s use the word tenderness.

As those two intertwine, what do you think it does to the person who receives what it did not anticipate? It surprises! Can you imagine what Charlie would have done if he had a son who did not back away? In that sense, he was almost saying to Charlie, "Come on, go ahead. You can hurt me more." But what if instead he had a son who could look at his father in the eye, then again, there could have been many things that could have been said.

The major point I am making is this – if you don’t withdraw and stay engaged, if you don’t attack but in some way you offer tenderness or mercy, now what you’re offering, no matter almost what you say – will be on target to give that person a taste of real love or real bold love. That’s the surprising quality about bold love in that it undermines the expectations of the one sinning against you.

You’ve just seen Buck interact with his father, or what could be better said, "not interact" with his father. What would you do?

Again the natural thing to do is withdraw or attack. Think about what the cost is for Buck to interact with his father. It could mean the absolute disruption of their relationship to a point where that relationship might dissolve, to the point where his father might refuse any of the benefits that may come to him, in terms of financial or other benefits that have been part of that family. Buck might be kicked out, if he is in fact to deal with his father.

Why wouldn’t he? What’s the natural reality within us that would keep us from dealing with people who do us harm? There are many factors.

You know that if you interact with another human being at a level of their would which implies both what they are, that is full of cancer, and as well as what they could be in terms of that awareness that they could be different human beings – that means you can’t live with the pretense that all things are well. Our natural desire is to want to pull the carpet over the conflicts of life and sort of push the dirt underneath rather than face it directly. We’re committed to denial. It’s an obvious potion but let me stress it.

We’re committed to making reality as pleasant as it can be – and to enter into bold love means the loss of naivete. It means the loss of someone looking at life as a pleasant matter of simply getting together, and yes you have conflict, but they’re not that big of a deal. If in fact what I’m saying is true, then we’re compelled to face the fact we must be involved in a war where there are losses, where there is pain, where there is significant suffering.

There is another side. Many of us want to keep our joy at a minimum as well. That may surprise you but I believe many of us endure with certain flatness of life where we don’t want much pain nor do we want that much joy. What the product of really boldly loving is change the other person. If there is one guarantee I can give, it is this. If you truly love another human, they cannot remain the same. They will either: Harden and there will be great sorrow, or they will change and that change will bring about a dynamic of pleasure for you and that other, at those times is overwhelming.

Therefore if what you want is life lived in the minimum, in the pleasant, in that flat range. Bold love will not be something you will be willing to enter because the loss is just too significant. But think of what the loss for Buck would be if he doesn’t choose to love. What the loss will be to you if you don’t’ choose to love in the that direction as well.

Two major points. Buck will struggle with his integrity, He knows his wife is being harmed. He knows he is being harmed. At some core level, he knows that his father is equally being harmed by being permitted to continue in the path that he is going. When you don’t engage in the war, being the person you can be you will lose a deep sense of integrity.

You will lose passion. If you want to love, you must love with purpose. This Paul said, "that I love to see those whom I’m engaged with "perfect n Christ". And he further said, "I do so with the energy of Christ working strongly within me." That’s passion!

If you want joy, there’s no path taken other than offering your soul for the sake of others so that they may become more like Jesus Christ. If you want purpose and if you want passion, then you must enter in. and if Buck doesn’t enter in, he’ll lose both – a sense of integrity and purpose. A real sense of passion and joy hat’s available to him.

That’s the price that is too great. What will it mean for him to interact will be clearer in Session 5.

At this point, simply say that the cost to love is ‘to open the door to war itself and the disruption of our lives as we love others". The cost if we choose not to, is really the loss of any real sense of purpose and passion in living out the gospel in this life.