Ross Stackhouse - October 19, 2025
Because of This Love, Finale: What Will We Stretch Out Our Hands to Do?
On the one hand, Jesus’s last moments on Earth offer us a gift that we didn’t do anything to create or bring about; it’s only a love–a grace–that we can receive deep into our souls and be transformed by. On the other hand, Jesus’s last moments give us a glimpse of the choices we can make–for good or for evil–with the love Jesus shows us. One of his followers chooses to help get Jesus secretly arrested. Another follower reaches for his sword and cuts off the ear of one of the guards who comes to apprehend Jesus. Jesus forbids it. He says that those who live by the sword also die by it. Jesus refuses to win the world back with any violence. So, when Jesus left the Earth, he made us all heirs of his impossibly wonderful grace. If we receive it–once and everyday–we will be changed from the inside out to become like him. He also left us with a question for us to ponder always: With the life and love you’ve been given, will you heal others or will you hurt others?
From Series: "Because of This Love"
1 Peter 4:8 tells its readers "to keep this intense love among you." That adjective–translated here to “intense”–occurs only here. The verb that shares the same root means “to stretch” such as when Jesus stretches out his hand to heal. This is the love we’re trying to recall and recover in this series. From the beginning and even before the beginning, God’s character has been purely that of love and goodness. God’s drive to create life–from the big bang to the consciousness of humankind crowned with glory and grandeur (Psalm 8)–was out of an intense love and desire to extend love, power and glory to created things. But a hallmark feature of the world in which we live and our existence in it is that it is so easy to miss or forget God’s intense love. In this coming weeks, our goal is to reach into our souls, our experiences, our Scriptures, into God’s heart as revealed in Jesus to recover what we’ve lost: this love that covers practically everything (Eugene Peterson’s translation of 1 Peter 4:8).
