Loving Deeper
- Chris de Vries
- Aug 21
- 5 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
What does love actually look like? We often think of love in terms of the beautiful, everyday things: a thoughtful message, a cup of coffee, a hug, noticing the small things, or simply making someone feel considered.
Those expressions matter. But love is not always easy, comfortable or effortless.
The sermon began with a story about a young child being disciplined by a parent. The point was not that discipline is pleasant, it often is not—but that sometimes love requires us to act in ways that are difficult because we genuinely care about the other person. Love is not only about what feels good in the moment. Sometimes it costs us something.
From there, the question became more personal:
What would you consider a beautiful, everyday expression of love?
Some answers from the congregation included consideration, a good-morning message, and what was described as “the art of noticing”, seeing the small things in another person’s life. These are simple things, but they reveal something important: love needs to become visible.
Fathered by God
In 1 John 5, we read that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been “fathered by God.” That is an extraordinary identity. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the One who came for us, died for us and rose for us—you can know that you are a child of God.
That is the first step. But John immediately takes us further. If we have been fathered by God, then our relationship with Him should become visible in the way we love others.
We cannot simply say: “I love God.” And leave it there. If God is our Father, then His children are also our brothers and sisters. That means the people around us, including the people with whom we disagree, cannot simply be dismissed or written off.
Loving the Difficult Neighbour
Jesus summarises the greatest commandments by telling us to love God with everything we are and to love our neighbour as ourselves. The word neighbour makes the command wonderfully uncomfortable.
It does not say:
Love only the people you like.
Love only people who agree with you.
Love only people from your church.
Love only people who share your culture, language or opinions.
It simply says:
Love your neighbour.
Sometimes your neighbour is easy to love. Sometimes your neighbour makes you want to build the wall between your properties a little higher. And yet Jesus still calls us to love.
That means Christianity cannot be reduced to affection for people who already think like us. Love becomes most challenging, and perhaps most meaningful, when we are called to extend it towards people we find difficult.
So What?
It is easy to hear a sermon about love, agree with it and then continue with life as usual. But the purpose of church is not simply to give us more information. The purpose is to equip us to live differently outside the church building. So the important question becomes: So what?
If we know that God is our Father and that we are called to love our neighbour, what difference does that make when we leave church? What changes on Monday? What changes in our relationships? What changes in the way we treat the person we disagree with? What changes in the way we speak to people?
The Bible invites us to do some “mental gymnastics.” It stretches us. It challenges comfortable assumptions. It forces us to think more deeply about what following Jesus actually means.
Does God Have Your Heart, or Your Life?
Christians often ask: “Have you given your heart to Jesus?” It is a good question. But it cannot be the final question. Faith cannot remain only in the heart or only in the mind. It must move through the whole person.
Following Jesus means allowing Him to transform the way we think, speak, behave and relate to others. The deeper question therefore becomes:
Does God have your life?
Not merely your Sunday.
Not merely your worship.
Not merely your beliefs.
Your life.
Everything we are ultimately comes from God. Therefore discipleship is about becoming increasingly transformed by Him in every part of who we are.
Children Should Resemble Their Father
One of the central ideas in 1 John is that if God is our Father, His children should begin to resemble Him. Children often resemble their parents physically. In the same way, those who have been fathered by God should increasingly resemble Him spiritually.
If God loves, we should learn to love. If God shows grace, our lives should increasingly show grace.
If Jesus is the One we follow, then discipleship means learning to imitate Him. We should not simply recognise God as someone familiar, someone we encountered once and vaguely remember.
We are invited to know Him deeply. And when we know Him deeply, that relationship begins to shape everything else about us. We begin to look like Him. Speak like Him. Act like Him.
And, most importantly in this passage:
Love like Him.
How Will the World Know?
Jesus gives His disciples a remarkably simple sign by which the world will recognise them:
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The strongest witness the Church can offer the world is not simply that we have the correct answers. It is that we radically love.
Churches can easily become divided over beliefs, culture, identity, ethics and differences of opinion. But the sermon challenged us to ask whether these divisions sometimes distract us from the central calling Christ has given His Church.
Jesus does not say:
Love the people who believe exactly what you believe.
Love people who belong to your cultural group.
Love those who share your language.
Love those who see the world exactly as you do.
He says:
Love your neighbour.
This does not mean that nothing matters or that Christians should abandon their convictions.
It means that whatever difficult situation we find ourselves in, the calling to love remains.
God’s love should shape the way we enter those conversations.
Love in a Divided World
The community John wrote to was experiencing division. People were separating from one another along different lines of belief, ethics and identity. That probably sounds familiar. We live in a deeply divided world. We divide ourselves politically, culturally, racially, socially and religiously. We very quickly decide who belongs on “our side” and who does not.
Into that reality, the message remains:
Love deeper.
That love is part of our witness. It is one of the clearest ways the world should be able to see that we belong to Jesus.
What Do You Hate?
The sermon ended with an uncomfortable question. Love and hate can sometimes exist in us at the same time. We are complicated people. There may be people, ideas, groups or situations toward which we carry deep anger or even hatred. But Scripture continually calls us towards love.
So perhaps we need to become honest enough before God to ask:
What do I hate?
And then:
How might God be moving me to love deeper?
That does not mean pretending differences do not exist. It means allowing the love of God to become stronger than our instinct to reject, avoid or hate. If God is our Father, then His love should increasingly become visible in His children.
The question is therefore not only whether we know God. It is whether the people around us can begin to recognise Him in us. And perhaps one of the clearest ways they will recognise Him is this:
We love deeper.
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