Taking a Chance on Love

 

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

—Romans 5:8

Did you every take a chance on love? What I mean by that question: Did you ever realize that loving someone involved a certain amount of risk?

What if he or she does not love me back? What if after a while of displaying my love toward another person that person decides to reject me and have little or nothing further to do with me? Or, what if I invest a great deal into building a relationship with someone I love and then find out that they really don’t care very much about me after all? These kinds of questions sit just below the surface of many relationships.

I confess to you that am a bit astonished at the number of people I have known who, after nearly 25 or 30 years of marriage, suddenly get a divorce. I am always shocked and surprised. I can’t help wondering: “What in the world went wrong? After all that time, all that commitment, all that shared experience, to just break apart?” I simply have a hard time processing it.

But, of course, people end their relationships for a variety of reasons. We can never really understand until we’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, so to speak. I am not inclined to judge what happens with the relationships in someone else’s life. After all, I certainly have enough failure with relationships in my own life.

For example, in my own 68 years of life, I have had a great deal of trouble maintaining certain individual relationships—starting from those days when I was a relatively small boy right up to the present time. Usually the relationship seems to stop rather suddenly. I am left with a great puzzlement. What did I do wrong? Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong?

I often wish I could simply ask, “Why have you stopped being my friend?” But, of course, in my extreme shyness, I never really have the courage to ask such a question. Truthfully, I suspect I have, indeed, done something wrong, or said something wrong. But, I’m never quite sure what I have done to cause the other person to walk away from the relationship.

Sometimes over the years, I have been told that I am too intense, or too full of expectations, or too needy, or too inquisitive, or a host of other undesirable qualities. I guess all of those accusations probably hold some degree of truth. And, ultimately, I have had to settle in my mind that I will not ever be someone who has a large number of real friends. Rather, I will have a few deep friendships—and that just has to be all right. And, it is.

Maybe some of you reading this have experiences similar to my own. Or, maybe you are someone whom everyone seems to like to be around, someone who brings joy into other people’s lives. And, you find that other people actively seek out spending time with you because, well, you’re just fun to be with.

However, I suspect that there are far more people who feel like I do. With a very few exceptions, we just can’t seem to build those lasting relationships with the people we admire and love.

Now, imagine how God must feel. (Yes, I do understand we really cannot know exactly how God feels about such things. After all, He is God and we most definitely are not.) But, just try to think about how He must feel after everything He has done for us to have us generally, at one time or another, turn our backs on Him and try to push His love away.

Remember, He sent His one and only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the horrific cross of Calvary. Jesus took our place. We were the ones who had sinned. We were born into this world inheriting the sin of Adam through our parents. Then, before long, we began sinning ourselves—asserting our own selfish wills. We absolutely deserved to die for our sins.

And yet, before the foundation of the earth, God chose us to belong to Himself. He sent Jesus to die in our place and rise from the dead to seal our life in heaven for all eternity.

But God didn’t stop there. God sent His Holy Spirit to dwell within the depth of our being—to comfort us, help us, guide us, protect us, enable us, and to love us.

The Apostle Paul described it this way in Romans 5:1-11:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Particularly notice verse 8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God took a chance on us. He took a chance on love. Of course, because He’s God, He knew the final outcome. So, you could argue He didn’t take much of a chance. But, when measured from our human standpoint, our see-through-a-glass-dimly point of view, God really did take a chance on love in loving us. And, sadly, we don’t hold up our end of the bargain very well, do we?

In our relationship with God through His Son, and in our relationship with each other, we more often than not fail to be the kind of "lovers" we should be. Even so, God keeps taking a chance on love toward us, hoping that we will mature and grow in grace and in the knowledge of His Son. All the while, the Holy Spirit keeps working to perfect God’s love within us.

My question for each of us this morning: If God is so willing to take a chance on love toward us, are we willing to take a chance on love toward each other?

A very popular big band song introduced in 1940 as part of the Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky—“Taking a Chance on Love” with lyrics by John La Touche and Ted Fetter and with music by Vernon Duke—has an interesting take on the idea that love involves a certain amount of risk. Here are the lyrics:

Here I go again
I hear those trumpets blow again
All aglow again
Taking a chance on love

Here I slide again
About to take that ride again
Starry eyed again
Taking a chance on love

I thought that cards were a frame-up
I never would try
But Now I’m taking the game up
And the ace of hearts is high

Things are mending now
I see a rainbow blending now
We’ll have a happy ending now
Taking a chance on love

(Instrumental Bridge)

Here I slip again
About to take that tip again
Got my grip again
Taking a chance on love

Now I prove again
That I can make life move again
In the grove again
Taking a chance on love

I walk around with a horseshoe
In clover I lie
And brother rabbit of course you
Better kiss your foot good-bye

On the ball again
I’m riding for a fall again
I’m gonna give my all again
Taking a chance on love

Let me be so bold as to suggest that you and I take a chance on love today. Okay?

Let’s take a chance on really loving God, and really loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, and really loving everyone God brings across our pathway this day.

Here’s an appropriate musical reminder that I hope you will enjoy:

 

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