The Three Hardest Words in the World to Get Right by Leonard Sweet
"The Three Hardest Words in the World to Get Right" by Leonard Sweet explores the profound significance of the phrase "I love you" within the context of Christian life. Sweet argues that this phrase, while fundamental, often loses its depth due to cultural misinterpretations and the prevalence of selfish living in a postmodern society. He suggests that true love, as embodied in the teachings of Jesus Christ, requires a shift in identity, integrity, and community. The phrase encapsulates a biblical lifestyle rooted in a grand narrative of redemption, emphasizing that our identities should be shaped by Jesus rather than societal norms.
Sweet emphasizes that living out "I love you" involves embracing a new identity offered by the Presence of Jesus, which empowers individuals to act selflessly and authentically. He further examines the nature of love as three-dimensional—encompassing length, breadth, and depth—leading to a holistic understanding of relationships with God, one another, and creation. Ultimately, Sweet posits that achieving true community and living an abundant life hinges on understanding and embodying this transformative love. The exploration invites readers to reflect on the depth of their relationships and the impact of love in their lives and communities.
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The Three Hardest Words in the World to Get Right by Leonard Sweet
First published: Colorado Springs, Colo.: WaterBrook Press, 2006
Genre(s): Nonfiction
Subgenre(s): Critical analysis; philosophy
Core issue(s): Discipleship; Jesus Christ; love
Overview
In The Three Hardest Words in the World to Get Right, Leonard Sweet proposes that the phrase “I love you” is the hardest group of words in all of human language to live out. The phrase is fundamental to the Christian life, but its meaning and significance have become hidden by the regular and familiar way with which we use and misuse the words.
Sweet argues that the full power of the phrase “I love you” is being undermined by the culture in which we live. Postmodern society has embraced a lifestyle of selfishness, living purely for the pleasure and prosperity that life can provide right now. However, though it is called a lifestyle, selfishness is really only a meager attempt to survive life instead of fully living. Though society denies the value of a metanarrative, Sweet believes that we must again embrace a grand narrative as the necessary foundation on which the difficult phrase “I love you” is built.
The narrative to which Sweet points is the biblical story of redemption, proclaimed by Jesus Christ with the phrase “Your Kingdom come.” Sweet argues that the Kingdom is not an organization that we are to create on earth, but a reality, the Presence of Jesus, which is already in place and in which we are to join. When we join this narrative, we discover that the phrase “I love you” is the central concept of the Presence on earth, and each word represents an area of life where the Presence must make us new, thus enabling us to live a biblical lifestyle, an abundant, meaningful life.
“I” indicates the new identity that the Presence of Jesus brings. Humanity makes “I” the central component of daily living. The human tendency is to demand selfishly what we want, when we want it, often without regard for others. Some have responded to this tendency by attempting to demolish the self, to remake people into uniform, identical beings; however, the Presence creates a much different change. Instead of trying to make our own identities, we surrender our identities to Jesus, and he enables us to be our real selves. By giving up ourselves, we find ourselves. Then, instead of being created by or conformed to culture, we are free to interact with and find fellowship in community, especially a community made up of others who have also found this true identity in the Presence. We are free to give of ourselves and live out the power of the phrase “I love you” when we have been given a new identity.
In order to live out the word “love,” the Presence gives us a new integrity. To explain this concept, Sweet uses the Apostle Paul’s description of the love of Christ as architecture; it is three-dimensional. Length assures us that God will do whatever is necessary to reach the one he loves. God is love, and he loves us limitlessly, thus enabling us to respond to his love. Breadth reveals a love that reaches everywhere and everyone. It is intimate, and though such intimacy will break our hearts, in giving up control and embracing the pain of love, we discover that such surrender guarantees that no one is left outside his love. Depth of love penetrates to the core of our being to make us holy. Rather than emotional love, God’s love is willful, a choice to love us until, like a fire, his Presence has purified us completely. These three aspects combine to give us an integrity that allows us to live in response to God’s love for us, choosing to love as he does, because he has chosen to love us.
“You” is the creation, by the Presence, of a new intimacy. The combination of a new identity and a new integrity means we can reach out in a new way to the world around us. We were created for community, but it is not until we are renewed by the Presence that we can truly exist in community, purposely thinking less of ourselves and ministering more to others. This community, too, is threefold. We must have intimacy, a living relationship, with God himself. Such intimacy also requires caring for and reaching out to our neighbors and our world. Finally, this intimacy means caring for the created world with as much concern as we show for people in our community.
The final truth, Sweet contends, is that the grand narrative is true for every person in every culture in the world. However, it will not always appear in precisely the same manner everywhere. The Presence of Jesus makes us more individual, not more alike. Every human is a multifaceted personality. Differences of perspective and interests give us greater ability to understand truth and be more fully human. God speaks the same truth in every culture, but always in a language that culture can understand. The Presence is a cross-cultural reality, and we must embrace that reality, instead of trying to control it, so that the biblical lifestyle, depicted in the metaphor of the body of Christ, may be fully perfected, hastening the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Christian Themes
In the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ promised the world salvation and life to the fullest. In The Three Hardest Words in the World to Get Right, Sweet contends that such abundant life is missing from the culture as well as from the Church. Instead, most people are caught up in a mind-set that glorifies the present over the eternal. Spiritually adrift, we substitute selfish consumption and mindless entertainment for true meaning and security. Unfortunately, the Christian Church has not stepped forward to reverse this trend, retreating instead into the safety of traditional Christianity, where everyone looks and acts the same in church but lives identically to the world around them everywhere else.
Sweet is convinced, however, that such abundant life is actually attainable. In our postmodern society, what we are missing is the Who, the source of this life, and the How, the manner in which it is revealed. Sweet argues that the Who is Jesus Christ, the central character in the grand narrative of Christianity and the one who creates this promised life in us. The How is “I love you”—a three-word description of the biblical lifestyle that is based on a true identity, motivated by a true love, and results in a true community. Jesus Christ lived this life for us; secure in his identity, he loved others selflessly, by choice, and connected with people, without being controlled by them, and with culture, without being absorbed into it.
Not only did Jesus live this lifestyle for us; he intends to create it in our daily lives. As we develop a relationship with Jesus, his Presence radically changes us so that we can live as he did. He changes our “I” by giving us a new identity that is not based on who we are but is secure because of Who he is. He gives us a new integrity that enables us to “love” as he did, choosing to put others first and selflessly going as far as is necessary to reach everyone in the world who still needs this life. Finally, Jesus recalibrates our understanding of “you” so we can have true community, intimately relating to God, our fellow human beings, and our planet in a context of love and holiness. When all three are put together, Christians are enabled to live out the same abundant life that Jesus portrayed, a life best described by the phrase “I love you.”
Sources for Further Study
Allender, Dan B., and Tremper Longman. Bold Love. Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1992. Describes the power of forgiving love and the call to, like God, risk ourselves in order to love the people around us.
Carson, D. A. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2000. Attempts to delineate the common ideas and misconceptions about God’s love and reexamine them in light of the biblical texts.
Jacobsen, Douglas, and Rodney J. Sawatsky. Gracious Christianity: Living the Love We Profess. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2006. God’s love is a gracious love, and Christians must be characterized by these virtues in order to reach out to the unbelieving world.
MacArthur, John. The Love of God. Dallas, Tex.: Word, 1996. Discusses the biblical doctrine of the love of God and attempts to answer some specific questions about God’s love.